We got our first big bowl of food out of the garden this week! Woohoo! Since it is a lot of effort to keep up the garden, we make sure not to waste anything we grow. We harvested several eggplant, two zucchini, one summer squash, a cucumber, purple beans and two small tomatoes (not shown). [...]
Why do I spend so much time trying to save us money? Well, we have other expenses and goals that require our resources. For example, my graduate school tuition is due next month. And we purchased uniforms for Miss Petrie this month. I believe these expenses are worth saving for and will pay us back [...]
Our outdoor loveseat was looking so worn and tired after spending two years outside. The bottom cushion had torn and every time someone sat on it, the tear would spread. I priced out new cushions, but I didn’t want to spend $60 on two cushions. I hit the fabric store and got some clearance indoor/outdoor [...]
Here is our garden on Sunday afternoon, July 22. Here is the garden in mid-June. I love how the garden explodes in just a few weeks. We’ve harvested lots of eggplant and chiles. But now we are getting summer squash and zucchini. We bought two varieties of beans (pole and bush) and they are both [...]
Did you know if you microwave Ivory soap it turns into a big cloud of soap? It does and it is awesome. But after you do it three times, you have tons of flaky soap that you don’t want to waste, right?! The girls each had a bowl of soap with red food coloring [...]
I had two bags of cherries languishing in my fridge and I was starting to worry that they were going to get chucked into the compost before I could make use of them. Cherries are expensive here in New Mexico! So last night I decided to make dried cherries in the oven. Ugh. I overcooked [...]
The girls love popcorn. I add in small marshmallows, jelly beans, dried fruit, nuts and other fun bits to the popcorn to make “princess popcorn”. It’s a very popular treat at our house. I learned an awesome trick for making microwave popcorn. You put 1/3 cup white popcorn kernels into a paper sack, fold the [...]
I really work hard to make choices that use what we have and if we spend money, use that money wisely. Here are some frugal choices I made last week. I shopped for groceries at 3 places to stretch our budget: the sales at the regular grocery store, the produce market and the bakery outlet. [...]
While pining for a sweet, chilly treat one afternoon, I decided to try making frozen yogurt using ingredients I had in the kitchen. We have a KitchenAid mixer with an ice cream maker attachment. We haven’t used the ice cream attachment very much and I think part of the reason is that the recipes for [...]
We have our first harvest of the season! The next three months we will enjoy the fresh food on a daily basis. While looking at our garden jungle… we found this little guy. He is just adorable. Although he is part of the harvest, we do not plan to eat him. We do, however, plan [...]