Frugal Friday

“Spare and have is better than spend and crave. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Anyone who really knows us knows that we love a good bargain. On pretty much any Saturday morning you can find us at a garage or rummage sale. We’ve gotten some awesome deals on some great stuff and our daughters have an ample supply of beautiful clothes that we paid next to nothing for. Plus, I have several little treasured items that I found digging through someone else’s junk!

Recently, I signed up for the 23-Day Frugal Living Challenge. Today was the first day of the challenge. I’ve been reading through the forum and blog posts looking for tips and ideas on how to be more frugal.

I’m happy to say that a lot of the tips that I’ve read are things that we already practice. Some of these include: Buying used rather than new (this includes clothing, household items, appliances, etc.); using coupons; cooking from scratch; making your meals instead of dining out; planning your meals and buying bulk; running errands at one time to save on gas; putting on a sweater instead of turning on the heat; etc..

I’ve also come across some ideas that I want to put into action and some homemade recipes I want to give a try. I’m going to make Homemade Probiotic Deodorant, Homemade Lip Balm, and Homemade Teeth Whitener.

I’m also planning to try one of the many bread recipes I’ve come across. My family loves very thinly sliced wheat bread and I’m tired of paying more for a normal sized loaf, that’s just sliced thinner. Hey, Sara Lee! It’s the same size loaf!!

What are your ideas and tips? What do you do to save money and resources?

Handmade Christmas Gifts (Part Deux)

I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. ~ Leo F. Buscaglia

This year, I had all these ideas and lists for handmade Christmas presents. Scarves, lanterns, jewelry, etc. You know that saying about the best laid plans? It’s true.

I started collecting the supplies a few months before Christmas and began working on projects whenever I had a free moment. Let me just say I don’t get a lot of those.

I started on the scarves first. I saw a picture of this scarf in a sewing book a couple of years ago and always wanted to make one, but never had. This would be the year! I worked a little here and a little there and I ended up making three scarves. One for my mom, one for my mom-in-law and one for Z Man’s girlfriend.

I think they turned out really cute and I’m in the process of making more. The girls want me to make them each one and I’m also making one for myself. I really like making them and I’m planning to make more after I finish these three.

In the end, I didn’t end up making any other gifts this year. But, at least I have ideas for birthdays, Mother’s Day… and there’s always next Christmas! I’m just glad I had time to make those three scarves. I hope the recipients like them as much as I do.

Below are a couple of photos of two of them. The pic of the red scarf was a quickie (sorry for the dark pic) and I completely forgot to take a picture of the other one, but it was a white fleece scarf with the green/brown leaves. 

Green scarf w/ green/brown leaves (for my mom)

Same green scarf

Red scarf w/ Fall foliage for my mom-in-law

Mike also made a couple of gifts this year. He made two beautiful wooden trivets. Of course, I didn’t get any pictures….

Getting settled and changing some things

Change in all things is sweet. ~ Aristotle

We’re mostly settled and have changed and/or fixed some things since we moved in to our new home. We haven’t made any huge changes yet, but we’re planning them. The longer we live here, the more we understand what we want in the long run. We are not the “call the contractor” kind of people. Mike is the contractor! No really, he’s a licensed general contractor. He’s licensed to do it all, but custom finish work and furniture is his forte. He is an artist with wood. I can’t wait to see what he creates for the house. Pretty much everything that has been or will be done to this house will be completed with our own hands. Probably Mike’s more than mine, but I don’t mind getting my hands dirty either. I’m always willing to help. Things may take a little longer to get done, because we only have so much free time (and money), but we’ll know they were done right and for the right price.

One of the first things we did was trim all the trees and clear brush from the entire property. We had to do this to make the insurance company happy, but we were very happy when it was all done. The yard looked so good! We have lots of very tall trees. Our house and yard get a ton of shade. It took a lot of tine just moving the cut branches across the yard. We got help from our son with this project and it still took a couple of weeks to complete.

In September, Mike completely re-plumbed and re-wired the well filtering system in our pump house. When we first moved in the filtering system was being by-passed and the water was full of sediment and was VERY hard. In fact, we had the water tested by the State Of Nevada Water Lab and they sent us a report and then we received a follow-up by the State of Nevada! They wanted to make sure we knew just how hard the water was. We used bottled water until my sweet and very handy hubby got everything up and running correctly.

He also installed an under the counter R/O system for our drinking water. Things are much, much better now! I also learned that you can put a half a cup of white vinegar in the dishwasher to help with hard water film on your dishes. It works great. Luckily, I don’t have to use it anymore. Which reminds me… We also installed a new GE Profile dishwasher. It’s a nice one with the hidden controls and it’s all stainless steel inside. The existing dishwasher did not work and was completely stained and clogged inside from the hard, sediment heavy water. I heart my new dishwasher!

We installed some new, but vintage looking light fixtures around the house. We are planning to return the house to it’s former (vintage) style. The previous owners/tenants had installed some god awful light fixtures. Sometimes, I look at something that was changed and wonder “what the hell were they thinking? Why would they do that?”! Anyway, there are still a couple of ceiling fans that need to be replaced, not because they don’t work, they just don’t work very well (squeak, squeak, squeak…) and they’re very ugly. We live in the old west and ceiling fans are a necessity here. Especially for someone like me, who feels that the only time the A/C should be used is when there’s a possibility that you could DIE otherwise!

We’ve torn out the ugly blue carpet and uncovered the original hardwood floors in the master bedroom, girls room, hallway and living room. We plan to refinish the floors, but they’re in pretty good shape and we’re happy for the time being. We plan to remove the remaining UBC (ugly blue carpet) in the family room and install matching hardwood floors. That room is a newer addition and is just carpet over plywood sub-floor. After we install the new floor, we plan to finish all the floors at the same time. 

Original Hardwood Floors!

Family Room

We tore out the ugly dark 70’s fake paneling that lined the hallway. Underneath we found the original lath and plaster walls. There is some cracking, peeling and chipping under there. For a split second, it looked like there was black mold on the wall underneath. Then we realized that whoever put up this lovely paneling cut it too short and improvised with black spray paint in the seam. Nice! Even with the exposed damage, it looks better than the dark fake wood paneling. We’re planning to install new beadboard paneling throughout the entire hallway. I can’t wait.

Hallway Before

Hallway After

We installed a new (and very girly) ceiling fan in the girls room. Their room (including most of the walls/trim/outlet covers and the ceiling was/is painted an ugly brown/gold/baby poop color which we plan to paint over soon. The remainder of their room is covered in the same paneling as the hallway. For the time being, I’m going to prime and paint the paneling instead of removing it and having to tear out all of the original lath and plaster (which I’m sure is in terrible shape like the hallway). Then it will be painted white and the walls will be painted pink (of course!). We (well, Mike) will also be installing a whole wall of shelving, so we can finally unpack the 10+ boxes of books and toys still sitting against the wall.

Girls Room - Before

The hallway bathroom needs a ton of work. We aren’t even using it right now. It has several different colors of tile in it. It has 1950’s pink and black wall tile, a couple colors of lavenderish tan tile on the shower walls and (when I tore out the disgusting carpet taped down on the bathroom floor) I found a very old (possibly original?) green tile on the floor! I wish the floor tile was salvageable because it looks like it used to be a really pretty color, but it’s beyond saving. I’s too bad because the green tile looks really good next to the hallway hardwood. We’re planning to tear this bathroom out completely and start over. We bought an awesome claw foot tub with the shower enclosure and all the hardware on Craigslist (a great deal for $300) and we bought a new granite counter top with double sinks at a garage sale for $15! We also need to buy a new dual flush toilet. The toilet currently in this bathroom was manufactured in 1932 (3 years before the house was built) and uses so much water when flushed that you can practically hear the water table being lowered! It will be awesome when the bathroom is all remodeled.

Hallway Bath - Before

Hall Bath floor tile next to hardwood floor (ignore the tape residue please)

The claw foot tub we bought)

I’ve been addicted to Pinterest for the last several months. I’ve had so many ideas for the house running through my mind and I love being able to find examples of ideas and pin them to my boards. AWESOME! I can’t wait to get it all done!

I hope your new year is starting out well!

I’m linking up to:

We bought the farm!

Well, it’s more of a ranch than a farm. 😉

Since my last post on this blog (exactly a year ago today), we moved back to Nevada and bought a house! Yay! I can’t even tell you how happy it makes me to be able to say that, so let me just say it again. We bought a house! We moved in July.

Not only that, but we bought a house on an acre of land with a big barn, corrals, a pump house (we have our own well), a potting shed, a dog run and a huge 4-car garage (that is now Mike’s shop). It’s so unreal. Sometimes I drive up to the house and it hits me again and I’m so happy!

We had been thinking of moving back for quite a while. Before moving to the SF Bay area for 2 years, we had lived in Northern Nevada for over 9 years. We didn’t think we would miss this area, but it turns out that every time we returned for a visit, it felt like we were returning home. Our 20 year-old son lives in Reno and we still have lots of friends in the Reno/Tahoe/Truckee area, so we visited a bunch. Plus, the cost of living in the SF Bay area was just unbelievable. We moved there because that’s where the work was, but there was no way we could ever (or would want to) buy a house there. We rented a small house with a great view, but I think our view now (of the beautiful Sierras) rivals the old bay view. The schools there were good, but the overcrowding was getting to be a real issue. The schools here are just as good and in some ways, better. I do miss my bay area friends though. They are moms I met through school or the neighborhood and my former co-workers. Luckily, I still chat with them on the phone, via email and on Facebook.

Anyway… we started the process of looking at houses (online) at the beginning of the year. We decided to go ahead with serious looking at the end of March. We spent the month of May driving up on weekends to look at houses. We looked at a lot of houses. Every one of them was a foreclosure. It wasn’t because we only wanted to look at foreclosures, but because that’s what there was. We did have some other houses on our to-see list, but they were short sales and those were taking 6-18 months to close and we did not have that kind of time.

The house we bought, was the last house we looked at. It had been on our list, but we hadn’t made it out to look at it. We only had so much time on the weekends to actually tour houses and this one kept getting moved down on our list. Why you ask? Well, we did most of our preliminary house research online. In the listing photos, the living room/kitchen area views made it look like a mobile home. The previous owners had removed the original walls and doorway that separated the living room from the kitchen/dining area. The end result makes those rooms more “open”, but it also makes it look more like a trailer. When we finally saw the house, we saw that the photos looked different then the real thing. We loved the house and immediately made an offer. We’re planning to put some character back into that area with a half-wall bookcase and wood trim separating those rooms. Something that fits with the original style of the house.

Our house is over 70 years old. It was a two bedroom, one bath house. The previous owners added on a big family room (with pellet stove), a large full bathroom, the huge garage, and 3 separate wood decks in 2005. The house has almost all of the original interior doors and hardware. We love the ball hinges and the crystal door knobs! We also uncovered the beautiful original hardwood floors when we tore out the carpet in the bedrooms, living room and hallway! We are planning to take out the very ugly blue sculpted carpet in the family room, when we have it in the budget to put in new flooring. Because it’s not original, the family room has only plywood sub-floor under that “taste specific” carpet! We want to take out all the tile in the kitchen, hallway and mudroom also. We’re pretty sure the original hardwood still runs under the tile. That’s on our long term plan.

The previous owners also remodeled the kitchen a few years ago. The oak cabinets are nice, at least the bones of the cabinets are. They’re pretty well made cabinets (for mass production), have good slides, slide-out shelves and a corner lazy susan. The doors aren’t our style, but we’re going to replace those (I happen to know an awesome craftsman). We’ve already discussed removing all of the cabinets and reworking them into a better layout. We can even reuse the solid surface counter tops. When the previous owners remodeled the kitchen, they closed up one of the entrances to the hallway. They closed it up and put the refrigerator in it’s place! According to our neighbor (who has lived in her house for 30 years), there used to be an archway into the hallway (like the one in the entrance to the master bedroom). We want to regain access to the bedrooms from the other side of the house and, hopefully, uncover the arch. We have tons of ideas and plan to stay in this house forever.

The view from our house

The view from the highway

I’m so glad to be blogging again. I’ll be posting more soon. Thanks for reading this!

Happy New Year!!

Handmade Christmas

I mentioned a while back that we were making some of the Christmas gifts this year and we did. I love the feeling of giving something that is handmade and from the heart. Here’s a little sampling…

This is the beanbag chair that I made as a gift for the girls. It’s over-sized, so they can both lay on it and read or watch a movie. It’s made of no-pill fleece, so it’s warm and comfy. It’s stuffed with shredded natural foam. I didn’t want to use polystyrene pellets (yuck!) and luckily there’s a foam cushion/mattress company right in SF where you can buy shredded foam (which saves all of those scraps from going into a landfill). I basically had to make two of them, since you make one out of muslin for the liner as well.

I’m extra proud of myself because this was the first thing I’ve made since sewing class in high school (I made a button-down shirt in 11th grade). Plus, I printed a partial pattern that I found online and had to enlarge it to the right size. I’m patting myself on the back now.

I had some extra fleece leftover, so I’m planning to make them matching pillow cases for their beds. I also want make something out of the scraps.

The kids made gifts for Mike & I. Z Man came up with the idea and the girls helped him put them together. They’re battery powered USB chargers made from an Altoid tin. You can charge your iPod or cell phone with them. They’re really cool! It’s such a great idea.

iPod/cell phone charger

The girls made gifts for each other. They both decided to make little teddy bears out of felt. They sewed and stuffed the bears themselves. Princess E wanted to make Princess A a panda bear. Princess A wanted to make Princess E a brown bear with pink stitching and “lipstick” lips. Princess A loves lip gloss!

Panda bear teddy made by "E" for "A" and named "Shauna"

Teddy bear made by "A" for "E" and named "Claire"

The girls also made ornaments for family, friends and teachers using glass balls, seed beads, glitter and glue. I forgot to take pictures before we gave them all away, but we kept one and here it is:

These were made for their grandparents (images courtesy my mom-in-laws blog):

They also made these ornaments over the winter break:

Mike was also going to make gifts for some of us, but he ended up getting too swamped with work on the job site (that’s a good thing!). He didn’t have time to work on any gifts. I think he’s planning to make those items when work slows down some (hopefully, not too much). But, I did get this awesome sweater that I absolutely LOVE!

Not homemade, but awesome!!

I realized after all the presents were open that (as an unexpected bonus) we did not have to deal with all the packaging that traditional gifts bring. Toys that are twist-tied, zip-tied, stapled, and taped inside the box. I’m pretty sure I can find a better use of an hour than spending it fighting to release a toy from its elaborate bondage. I refuse to go back to that.

I hope you had a happy holiday season and that the coming year is everything you want it to be.

Happy New Year!

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” ~ T.S. Eliot

© Planetpowers, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given toPlanetpowers with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

I’m going to eat the boy. I’m going to eat the dog.

The girls made a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve from a kit we bought at Trader Joe’s (of course!). They had fun putting it together and decorating it with icing, candies, powdered sugar “snow” and a little marzipan family.

Immediately after they put the last touch on the house, they asked if they could eat it. I told them to hold off at least until their dad returned home (he was out-of-town) and got to see it.

A few hours later Mike walked in the door and they ran to him… “Hi Daddy! We missed you! Look at our gingerbread house! Isn’t it cool?” Mike agreed that it looked great.

The next words out of the girl’s mouths (I swear) were:
“I’m going to eat the boy” (“E”) and “I’m going to eat the dog!”. (“A”)….. and they did.

Happy Holidays!

© Planetpowers, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given toPlanetpowers with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Let them be who they are.

I came across a blog post recently that made me proud to be a mom (well, a fairly open minded one) and sad about the reaction of the other parents involved.

The writer’s son had decided that for Halloween he wanted to dress up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo. She bought the costume and on Halloween he wore it to school (he attends a church preschool). Well, to say that she had a bad experience with some of the other children’s parents is an understatement.

“If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to ‘make’ him gay then you are an idiot. Firstly, what a ridiculous concept. Secondly, if my son is gay, OK. I will love him no less. Thirdly, I am not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja so back off.”

“If my daughter had dressed as Batman, no one would have thought twice about it. No one.”

I applaud this mom for standing up for her child and letting him choose his costume. There were plenty of girls dressed as Batman & Spiderman (not Bat Girl or Spider Girl), Tim Lincecum & Brian Wilson (Giants’ players), etc. at our school’s Halloween parade. Once again for those of you who aren’t paying attention – you can’t ‘make’ someone gay. People are born the way they are. Gay or straight or somewhere in between. Girls dress like boys; boys dress like girls; boys like dolls; some boys wear eyeliner; some girls like cars (me included!). You are who you are and you should never be ashamed of yourself. You should never be made to feel ashamed of yourself.

My oldest daughter chose a Hot Wheels birthday cake for her birthday. Then she chose the frosting colors: pink & purple. She likes what she likes. My younger daughter would have the pinkest, frilliest, girliest looking cake she could find. That’s who she is.

It’s appalling to read some of the parents reactions to this little boy’s Halloween costume. Those parents need to learn a lesson from their children. Most children are accepting and non-judgemental, at least until their parents or older children (who have already been influenced by the adults in their lives) change their outlook.

You know what my girls said? They both thought it was a great costume and the younger one has decided that she wants to wear that Daphne costume next year. I’m proud of them. They didn’t see “a boy wearing a girls costume”. They saw a kid wearing an awesome costume!

Interesting update: I finished this post and then had to leave to pick-up the girls from school. As we were walking out of school, these two older girls (4th graders maybe?) walked up behind us and I heard them making comments about my older daughter’s ‘Lightning McQueen – Cars’ umbrella. My girls were chatting away in front of me and didn’t hear any of it, but I did. They said “What’s with THAT girl? Isn’t that a BOYS umbrella?”

 

I put on pants.

 

Princess A loves dressing up. She would wear a ball gown and tiara every day if she could. She wants to be a fashion designer when she grows up. She’s really creative and bold. She likes to put together outfits and come up with new combinations.

On Saturday it was cold, rainy and windy all day. We had a fire burning from the time we got up until we went to bed that night. In the afternoon, we decided to make a trip to the public library. Everyone wanted new books and we wanted to check out the new library in town.

Both girls were wearing “around the house” clothes. Nothing warm enough for going outside on a cold day. Princess A was wearing her favorite dress. It’s a handmade, Hawaiian dress with a halter top and an open back. It’s really cute, but not exactly warm. I told them that we were leaving soon and asked them to get changed and “put on pants”. A few minutes later, they came out of their room and said that they were ready to go.

Princess E had put on pants, a long sleeve t-shirt, furry boots and her hat. All black. She likes all black. Okay, I can deal with all black.

Then, Princess A walks out and I start to say something… but she says “I put on pants”. She’s right. She did put on pants…. under the same dress and then put a shirt over the top of dress. Oh, and don’t forget the tiara!

She was the most creatively dressed kid at the library.

Have a great (short) work week!

© Planetpowers, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Planetpowers with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship” – Benjamin Franklin

As you may have noticed, the economy is not so great right now.

Recently, we’ve been taking a closer look at where our money goes every month. We’d already made some changes in the way we shop for groceries and started saving more money there. Then we decided that there were a few more easy changes that we could make to save some dough.

First, I realized that I pay $9.00 a month (after insurance) to Walgreens for a prescription medication that I’ve been taking. Instead, I transferred my prescription to the Target pharmacy and pay $10.00 for 3 entire months of the same medication. That saves me $17.00 every 3 months or $68.00 a year!

Next, we decided to do some research and see if there was a better option for TV service than DirecTV. We have been paying $80.00 a month and wanted a cheaper option. Mike spent some time online exploring all of our choices. After lots (and lots) of surfing the web, we decided to cancel DirecTV and use Hulu Plus instead ($9.99 a month). When Mike called to cancel our service, he was asked why he was canceling the service. He told them that we were doing it to save some money. The representative told him that they could give us up to six months of free service, including movie channels (which we did not have anyway). Mike told them that he wasn’t interested. The funny thing is that people are having a really rough time financially right now, and DirecTV is charging more than ever before. Apparently though , if you call to cancel your service, they can give you a break. Gee, thanks… for nothing. So, we’ve been using Hulu Plus for about a week and we love it! Shows on demand and the newest episode is available as soon as it airs. Plus, you can watch old episodes any time you get the urge. The first thing we watched was the first episode (the pilot) of ‘Psych’. The kids love that show and it was fun to go back and watch the pilot again. Oh, and a few days after we signed up for Hulu Plus, it went down to $7.99 a month, so they’re giving us a $2.00 credit for next month! This change saves us $72.01 a month! That’s $864.12 a year!

Next on the chopping block – the home phone. I almost had it shut-off. We don’t use it very much and it was costing us $43.87  a month with the call waiting/caller ID/unlimited long distance package we had. We had the long distance package because (until last month) our mobile phones were Nevada numbers and that was a long distance call from our current home in California . So, we played with the idea of adding another cell to our plan and using it as a home phone. That’s $10.00 a month. I was slightly worried about 911 calls, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to go that route. I called the home phone company and changed our plan the cheapest available. It is now $8.87 a month. This plan includes 5 1/2 hours of outgoing calls and unlimited incoming calls. This plan fits us really well because we usually only talk on the home phone when someone calls us. This saves us $35.00 a month or $420.00 a year!

That’s a grand total of $1352.12 a year in savings! This saving money thing rocks! Plus, it’s addictive… Let’s see…. what else can we cut?

If I don’t post again before Thursday… Happy Turkey Day!

Linkng to:

Our Anniversary

Last Sunday was our 23rd wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. In some ways, it seems like it went by really fast. We’ve been through fun times and, definitely, some rough times, but I always knew that no matter what happened, we would work it out together. I hope our girls are lucky enough to marry someone like their father!

To celebrate our anniversary, we went to dinner at a local New Orleans style Bistro  called “CreoLa”. It was delicious!

We started with drinks and an appetizer. I had the “Pommerita” (A pomegranate Margarita) and Mike had a Mint Julep (of course!). The appetizer was squash blossoms stuffed with crab & ricotta cheese and drizzled with a smoked tomato beurre blanc sauce. I’ve been reading “The Elements of Cooking” by Michael Ruhlman, so I actually knew what a beurre blanc sauce was!

Next course – salads: Mike had a Crawfish Hush Puppy Caesar Salad and I had the “House Salad” which was romaine, toasted pecans and mandarin oranges, tossed in a poppy seed vinaigrette. Yummy!

For entrees, Mike chose “Shrimp CreoLa” (sautéed jumbo shrimp atop shrimp and crawfish stuffing, laced with a smoked tomato beurre blanc. Served with rice and vegetables) and I had the “Taste of New Orleans” which is flash fried soft shell crab and Crawfish Etouffee. I LOVE soft shell crab! I haven’t found it on a menu in years, and was so happy to see it here. It was worth the wait!

We ended the meal with Café au Lait and desserts. I ordered the “Beignets & More” (Cafe du Monde style beignets with fresh fruit and whipped cream) and Mike had the Bread Pudding with a white chocolate Frangelico sauce. Mmmm!

Everything was SO good! I can’t wait to go again.