Saving Sunday

[Nancy]

Thinking of how I've saved...
Shop at home I had yarn stashed and have been working on getting it knit up.
To the last one or two prayer shawls now, it's taking me 6 mo.!

My sis & I were talking about this last week 17 yr. old can eat a lot.
So when they want to use gas in the can it's good to tell them that they need to be replacing that.

I've been doing easy no cook meals at home for me it's just smarter bc of how I have restrictions on food.
Like the deli beef or turkey with cream cheese wraps better than take about and less spendy.
Save time effort energy and fuel costs.

Grands can eat you out of house and home it's a good idea to have them bring food with them.
To have them help cook they can learn too. And only one time a week eating out.

I'm thinking about my summer retreat sewing is OMM .
I have to work on getting the fabric stash out of here next.

They kept raising the cable rates so I cut back to basic cable and got a year long loyal customer discount that helped.

It's cool here today so I"m considering baking bread. I used to have a bread machine when I was watching grands, found a 2nd one
had them make bread and they took home mini loaves with them their dad was so impressed and it's a great memory we all have now!
We pretended it was a cooking show! LOL!

See my journey thread for what I wished I would have saved.
Mixed up some bread dough it's raising now, baking in the oven.

[Lady Maverick]

Good morning

Nancy - Thank you for the start today. Saving is always a way to improve our life IMHO. It could involve saving money, time, energy, memories, etc.

I had another teenage antics filled night. Thankfully they are mostly making good decisions but the high energy and always doing things is real. DS17 had GF16 plus 2 other teenage friends with him last night. I was up at 3:30am sitting in our living room after they woke me up wanting to talk. Reminding myself this phase of life won't last forever.

[Twins' Mom]

Was it urgent LadyM? I'd suggest they respect my sleep schedule but OTOH you want to know what's going on too.

Thanks for starting us Nancy.

I am feeling overtired, overdone today. The fresh air and long drive and sunshine was nice, but somehow I was exhausted. The evening was a lovely group of people, there was an extra with J and S, and B and S had also invited our rabbi and his wife, who are moving away this month. It was past ten when we were home, and I stayed up just reading for some solitude.

Ddog had an exciting walk - we turned a corner and there was a deer, who bounded into the scrub/kudzu/woody tangle area. I let her go because she was pulling hard, and thought she would stop before plunging in herself, but she did and got stuck because her leash was tangled. A sweet neighbor on the playground with his little dd helped get her out for me.

We are going to a reception this afternoon at temple for the rabbi and family. Dh said he would have left today on his trip (instead of waiting until tomorrow a.m.) if he had known we'd see them last night. Although - we didn't see the teen last night. And we might be going to temple this Friday night also, which will be his last weekend with us.

I really need a quiet day today.

[Lady Maverick]

Was it urgent LadyM?

Yes. DS17 was asking permission to go rescue another friend. That friend has spent the evening with a different group that were excessively drinking (and driving). The friend was in a bad situation, so he exited that vehicle at a rest stop and didn't want to be part of that group anymore. The friend called DS17 to come get him (about 25 miles away) and bring him home. I gave permission to do it.
in moments like this, I always remember what a counselor told me a decade ago when I was struggling with DS17 and his alphabet diagnosis (ocd, adhd, dss, tourettes, etc). She said - the good news is....he seeks to control things so it is highly unlikely that he will drink or do drugs because they will lessen his awareness/control and he won't like that. That prediction has proven to be true (so far). Also DS17 always want to be the driver. He knows he is a good driver (so far) and wants to be the one controlling the vehicle.
Of course, there are some not-so-positive effects of that same need to control certain aspects of his life.

14 eggs have been hard boiled and made into deviled eggs.

DH is struggling with operating the battery mower. He can't remember the sequence to start it. I watched him through the kitchen window this morning as he tried over and over to start the mower. Dozens of times. He doesn't get upset but he just keeps trying over and over. I grabbed a 3x5" card and wrote the two step sequence on it -
Press the orange button
hold the bottom bar
I took that 3x5" card to DH so he could read it and keep it in his pocket for the next time he need to start it. He was able to continue to mow until both batteries were out of power. He came in the house proud of his accomplishment and the enjoyed looking at the newly cut grass.

[CathyS]

Hi everybody!

Dh finished the "Happy, happy, happy" book (Bio of Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty) yesterday. I started reading it after supper and continued to read it until I was done just before 3 a.m.

I slept until just before 9 this morning. I gave the cats their treats at some point after 6 a.m. and they got their catnip at 9.

Dh and I had our coffee and hot tea. Then he said "Let's go get those bean plants." so off we went. He got 2 bean plants and I got a 4 pack of regular green peas. Then we stopped at a place where they normally have plants at reduced prices. The cheapest they had today was $10, so I only got one, but it already had the filler and spiller plants. Nice red geraniums this year. I'm going to take out the "grass" in the middle. I don't like it and I don't want it in there, Dh asked if they had any white begonias, but they didn't have white so he said not to get him anything. We planted the 6 veggie plants as soon as we got home. We also did a thorough watering while we were out there.

Saving... my goodness this has been a roller coaster of a year for gas and grocery prices. We are trying to not eat out as much. If we do, I tend to get the daily special if they have one.

[Lady Maverick]

Duck Dynasty

i haven't taken the time to read their book, watch their shows or listen to their podcasts much, but I do hold them in high regard. DS17 has watched & listened to them for years. Most nights their shows are playing nonstop on his TV while he sleeps.

Pulled pork taco was my choice of food for meal. It took about a minute to prepare. DH chose a medley of other ready-to-eat dishes for his meal. I do love when the refrigerator is well stocked with options. Life is much easier when deciding what to cook isn't on my must-do-right-now list

Tricked You pepper plant is proving to be true to its name. I've never raised this pepper before but it is one that I hope to raise again. It looks just like a jalapeno pepper but has the spice level of a bell pepper. I still cringe when I take that first bite into the Tricked You pepper because the visual appearance gives expectation that it is going to be HOT.

A big pot of my favorite soup is simmering. This time it has 6 sources of protein along with 7 kinds of vegetables. My weird ingredient this time was watermelon. What happens if you add 200g of watermelon to a pot of soup? Logic tells me that watermelon is mostly water with a sweet flavor. I expect the chopped-up pieces of watermelon to dissolve and disappear. My willingness to try something different ....aka weird meter.... might be a different level than most cooks.

[Nancy]

We've walked.
I had peanut butter San with home made bread no jam yum!
Soup will be later for me at some point.
Did some deck time got a pic. of my 1st holly hock again it has more blooms open today this one is white.
I do not have to stake mine, they do well here reseed they live 2 yrs. but with reseeding they are plentiful.

Finished a prayer shawl this afternoon.
Got the next one cast on.

[Lady Maverick]

holly hock

They are such a showy flower. Are they difficult to grow? Are you posting the picture on your utube channel?
The daylilies are in full bloom here. They are pretty for a few days and then gone.

Soup has been packaged into 15 servings. Custom recipe created in cronometer to track it. Each serving has 168 calories with 18g protein so it meets the formula I try to achieve (grams of protein multiplied by 10 is less than the calories)

Afternoon drinks obtained and being enjoyed.

Potato salad made. The extra baked potatoes cooked on Thursday made it super easy to assemble the ingredients.

[Kittykatt]

Lady M, I grow hollyhocks too, and they're quite easy. I order those with single flowers rather than the frilly double flowers,.as they are more weather resistant. The tall varieties need staking,.and their leaves can get rust (just cut / pull off the.affected leaves) . When the.seedheads ripen, I just scatter the .seed where.I want them to grow the.dollowing year, and that's it. One thing that did make.me think, if you get very strong winds, the smaller varieties might be.a better choice?

[Twins' Mom]

I like hollyhocks too. Such a sweet old fashioned flower.

The reception at temple was an extravaganza - they had a program of people speaking, an improv group (that includes rabbi and son) a short recorded film from several in community and the wife's coworkers. Lots of food, cake, punch. Streets nearby were lined with cars when we arrived and there were a lot of people from the greater community there. We like this Rabbi but it seems like a good time for him to move on. He's very disorganized apparently and quite flippant and full of wisecracks. Sometimes doesn't go over well. I'm glad we went.

It's raining nonstop. I came home and took a nap, even tho I slept in this morning. Cozy with rain and dark outside and the dog sleeping. Dh took her for a walk just now in the rain - I really appreciate him doing it.

I think we're just going to find what we want for our supper in the refrigerator. We have leftovers from Thur night out and from lunch yesterday.

Dh is leaving early in the morning. I only have a workout scheduled for tomorrow. Need to figure out my to do list for tomorrow. I can't let this time slip away from me.