Hey yall! It’s Wednesday and it’s been a long week! lol. I wanted to finish up Frugal Fanny Week with my last recap.

Saturday—We didn’t end up going to the birthday party. JL has just been..off. Whiny, crying, clingy. Not sure what’s going on but there don’t appear to be any teeth coming in. I’ve thought ear infection but there’s just a really low grade fever that’s very infrequent. So, I’m watching him. At any rate, we decided not to take the boys. So, we stayed at home and PLANTED THE GARDEN!!! You read that right. PLANTED THE GARDEN!!! I’m thrilled! It’s in. We have 3 things left to add. Pole beans, some bush limas and a couple of cucumber plants. I will eventually add pumpkins but I think it’s a little early yet for those.

Back to Frugal Fanny. I cooked burgers Saturday night. No sausage to add to the venison so we added diced up bacon and the burgers were yummy. Venison needs a little fat added to it to make it stick together. We usually add sausage but the bacon and an egg worked pretty good. I also made homemade fries. Here’s a question: why on earth did my oil foam up the entire time I was frying them? Anyone? It was a huge pain. The fries also never got crispy crisp. They were good but not as crispy as normal. It was strange. We went to Home Depot with Hunter and did buy a few plants for the garden. Jalapenos, green peppers, basil and thyme. Minus buying a few cucumbers, we’ll be done.

Sunday, we had my family reunion which I had forgotten about. So, Sunday morning I scrambled and threw together a peach cobbler and tea to take. I had frozen peaches last summer so it was all homemade and it turned out yummy. Other than buying the paper, we did well.

Frugal Fanny Week was good for me. It forced me to be a little creative several times during the week instead of taking the easy way out and running to the store. I also got creative on gifts. I still have to ship the birthday gift. But the baby gift? Here’s how that went down. I had to pick up a prescription for JL. So, that was $11 which I paid for with my FSA. No out of pocket. I had a coupon for a $25 gift card with a new prescription so I got it. Then I bought 2 packs of diapers (one for JL and one for the gift) for 8.99. I had 2, 1.50 off coupons. And $10 in ECBs. So, in the end, I spent about $6 on the gift card and have $19 left. No out of pocket!

Another example of creativity…I wanted more than diapers for a gift obviously. I had bought a yard of fleece from the scrap bin a while ago for about 1.50. I had also bought a fat quarter of this cute baby fabric back at Christmas. So, I took the fleece and split it in half and then took the cute fabric and cut two “E” letters out of it. I sewed those together (a front and back to the letter so that you couldn’t see the hem through one layer) and then sewed the letter to the fleece. Add the back side of the fleece and I knotted the sides. It turned out way better than I ever dreamed it would! I shouldn’t be but I’m proud of it! I hope she liked it. I couldn’t go to the shower because of the family reunion so I dropped it off Sunday morning at church.

I’m glad I did this! I hope to do it again in another month or two. I think it needs to be a regular thing for us. Just to keep us in check and to remind us that we don’t need to depend on stores for every single thing. There are plenty of things we can do and make ourselves.

I’ll post pictures of the blanket tomorrow. Hunter’s got my camera in his truck to take pictures off a job he’s working on. I’ll post pictures of that too. He’s done such a beautiful job.

Off to get the boys up and to the sitter so I can go to work. Poor Hunter had to go in early because they’re getting 18 pallets of sod to lay. He’ll be exhausted tonight. Poor guy. I dread it for him.

Have a great Wednesday!
C-re

A good day! We had a yummy supper of BBQ chicken in the oven, rice (WAY over salted becaus I dropped the salt thing in there), home canned green beans and homemade bread. Hunter was late but he did till the garden last night for me.

I did go to Wally World for the gift card and I behaved quite well. I spent $1.98 on a 6 pack of flowers to finish out the hanging basket we planted for JP’s preschool teacher (last day was today–Friday). I also bought 5 bottles of Kraft BBQ—yep and I spent 1.98. I had $1 off coupons and they were 0.98 each! So, FREE!

Today, we had to go up to JP’s preschool party. I’d already bought my contribution for their buckets and my portion of the gift card for Ms. Wendy. I went and set up a new computer for my dad as well. Then it was home, nap time, and I have been working my butt off raking the garden. I am planting today (tonight) and in the morning before we leave for a birthday party. Seriously, it’s like 90 degrees so I’m chilling under the ceiling fan cooling down. Hot, hot, hot. The kids were getting really red faced and they refuse to come in to the shade without me.

Hunter just called and he wants to use our Outback gift card tonight! WOOHOO! I need to run to CVS to get some diapers for the baby shower I mentioned earlier in the week. But, if it works out, I’ll have a $25 gift card to use for a new prescription so zero cash. Either way, I have to have a gift so this has to happen.

Oh and I found out our family reunion is Sunday. Oh boy. Guess I need to think up something to take. At least it’ll be at the park.

Ok a Day 4 recap.

It went well! Only 0.75 on a drink so pretty good I think.

We had yummy grilled pork chops for supper along with mashed sweet potatoes, baked beans and homemade bread. The boys ate SO WELL! I was impressed.

Then we tried to have some family time and watch Lilo and Stitch (we’d never seen it). Do you know how many times they say “stupid” in that movie? Umm, we cut it off.

I’m working from home today which makes me happy. The sun has finally come out and I picked up seeds from my dad for the garden. They’ve basically sold out of most of their plants darn it. I really wanted actual plants for the squash and zucchini but that ain’t happening now. I’m going to try to grab some tomatoes when I pick the boys up from the sitter today. We may try to get it in tonight as more rain is forecasted for the weekend…sigh. It’s a good thing though, the rain. I’m not complaining. I’m NOT.

Seeds: cucumber, squash, zucchini, okra, bush beans, bush brown limas, did I get cantaloupes? We have a hand full of peppers here already so I just need the tomatoes.

Ok, lunch is over. Budgets are calling my name. Wish me luck tonight. I have to go pick up a gift card for JP’s Sunday School teacher from all the parents. Walmart. DADADADUM. His last day of preschool is tomorrow which means my Fridays to quickly run errands with 1 kid are g-o-n-e. Oh boy.

C-re

Ok, so I had to go to Wally World this morning. BUT, I was good. A $3 thing of brake fluid (light stayed on all the way in so Hunter said “I don’t care about your stupid No Spend week, get brake fluid”). Yes Suh.

I also bought the birthday gift I mentioned last night because tomorrow is the last day that I’m near a Big Wally World near where I work. Our little one leaves a lot to be desired…and makes for interesting entertainment. ) A small 1 gallon aquarium, a bag of rocks and 2 little fake plants per her mama’s suggestion. I think I’m done. I’ll have the boys color a cute card for her and we’ve got plenty of wrapping paraphenalia. Maybe I’ll make a cute bow for her. I’ve got someone else waiting on bows from me too. Need to get around to that, don’t I?

I made some “buns” last night. I say “buns” because they’re huge rolls! lol. I’ll try to get a picture. I also baked a loaf of bread and the rest of the dough went to rolls for later this week. Slight swap in the meal planning…manwiches tonight. I forgot to set out meat and we’re out of sausage. So, I need to go by my friend’s and pick up some sausage this week for burgers on Sunday. That’ll work. I can start with frozen ground tonight for the manwhiches with no problems. And hopefully clean up our wreck of a kitchen. I hate doing dishes. I love cooking, I hate clean up. I had kids for this reason and I can’t wait until I can delegate that task…just kidding! (maybe).

I caught JL on video last night singing DDDIIEGGGOOOOO…pretty cute for a 22 month old! And I got JP singing Jason Aldeen’s She’s Country and then Sweet Home Alabama. Hilarious. I need to figure out how to share that because it is priceless.


Ok, children have disappeared from sight and it’s quiet. Must run.

C-re