Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

I feel like I have been sick with one thing after another since we came back from our mini-vacation to the Tacoma zoo a few weeks back. First it was food poisoning or a stomach virus that lasted for three weeks, then a head cold, then I was just getting better from that and came down with a sinus infection. Now in the middle of being treated for a sinus infection I've got this tremendous ear ache. I sent DH to the pharmacy to pick up some ear drops for me because it was hurting so bad. I think my eustation tube is blocked. I've tried to pop it to no avail.

Anyway DH got me Hylands homeopathic drops and they have eased the pain a great deal. I really like Hylands as a brand. We used their flavorless teething gel and teething tablets for our kids when they were little (and the gel I've used a couple of times myself when I bit my tongue, it's good stuff). I am able to eat now without it hurting so bad I want to give up food.

It's been a hard week to get through between that and homeschooling. I don't know what WAVA has done between now and when DD took 7nth grade through them, but the work seems a lot more advanced and to take a lot longer for DS to get through. Where DD would be done with her work in 3 to 4 hours, DS is taking more than the allotted 6 to get through it. The math is really difficult. I've been going through it with him. Well, it's not hard for him, it's just that there is so much of it and so much explanation. Last year at the middle school his homework was usually 5 or 6 problems and with WAVA there are 20 problems on top of the stuff he does online. I do not think this is the change from regular public school to online public homeschool.

The same thing is going on in literature. At the public school it's reading one chapter a day and answering a few questions. In the online school it's reading 4 chapters a day, answering several discussion questions, answering several multiple choice questions, and writing an essay question answer daily. I actually think he does more in the course of one day's assignment than he did for one week's worth of work before. This feels like high school level work to me and not middle school.

He's perfectly capable of it, don't get me wrong, but we haven't even gotten all of the books yet. We are only doing literature, math, science, art, and history. We haven't even gotten vocabulary or grammar yet. We're already clocking about 7 hours. Add in another 40 minutes of work...I just hope it eases up a bit. Otherwise I'm jumping ship and designing my own curriculum.

DH leaves on Monday, too, which means it will all fall on me. I really hope I will not go nuts. I really need to get well so I don't feel so overwhelmed by it all.

It was nice to hit the weekend and not have to do any school work. I had a chance to catch up on all the blogs I've missed this week. I had planned to go to the farmer's market to get tomatoes today and start more sauce going, but I'm not sure I have the energy. I might just send DH by himself. I don't think I should wait another week, because the weather has swung and there may not be tomatoes by then.

We have this really ancient apple tree in the backyard. It has Bramley apples on it, which are probably the sourest apples I've ever tasted. These are cooking apples, not eating apples. They do make a good applesauce, but you definitely have to adjust to taste. I thought I'd walk you through my process today, since making applesauce is one of the easiest things to make. You don't even have to can it if you think you can eat it up fast enough. But it's one of the simplest things to can, too.

Pick your apples (or pick them up if they are windfalls). For this batch I did as many as would fit in my eight quart crockpot, 14. Wash them well, particularly if you don't know where they came from. Peel them and cut them into pieces, cutting out the core. I end up with about six pieces. You can use one of those apple cutters that cores, but I've found that on oddly-shaped apples, or ones as large as Bramleys that it doesn't work well. It's faster just to cut them. Set aside your cores and peels. You should have a pretty large bowlful like this:

Fill the crock with your cut apples as you go. They'll discolor pretty fast but that doesn't matter as the cinnamon will make them brown anyway.

For sour apples start with a cup of sugar. You can adjust this later to taste if you need more. Sweet apples generally don't need sugar added at all.

Add the cinnamon. I use a TBSP.

I don't mix it around at this point, I just put the lid on and set it for four hours on low. After 2 hours I mix it up. The apples will be softening and it is easier to stir.

After 4 hours take a potato masher and mash the apples into sauce.

It'll be thick and goopy. Taste it and see if you need to add more sugar. We did to these super sour apples and ended up adding another 1 1/3 cups for a total of 2 and 2/3 cups. If there are still some hard apple pieces that can't get to mash you can let it go another hour or two until they do mash. If they all mash and you want it to be less chunky you can give it a quick spin in the blender. I just usually stir it after mashing it to get it to a better consistency.

Make sure your jars are hot and your lids and rings have been boiled for 10 minutes. Put sauce into jars making sure to run a knife through each jar to get rid of air bubbles. You want to have an inch of headspace from the top of the jar. Wipe the rim well to make sure there is no residue on it. Place on lids and tighten rings. Place in your boiling water bath canner and lower the rack down. Put on lid. Process for 15 minutes for half-pints or pints. Remove from the canner and place onto a towel on your counter and leave them alone for 24 hours. They will seal (usually in the first 30 minutes but it can take a big longer), sometimes even when you're taking them out.

I got 9 half-pint jars out of 14 apples. Your outcome will vary based on the size of your apples and the number. I've got 16 half-pints on the shelves now and 4 in the fridge. My shelves are looking nice.

I'll be making pear sauce later this week using the same method.

Now there are things you can do with that bowl of peels and cores. Making apple jelly comes to mind:

In my quest to find foods locally or produce them myself, I've been wondering about things like spices. Most spices are fairly easy to grow, some a bit harder, and a few you really wonder about. The one that I've been thinking about the most is salt. I know you can evaporate and re-evaporate salt water, but my access to salt water is around the port. Not exactly the cleanest place in the world to get salt. So I looked around to see if we didn't have naturally occurring salt flats around here. We don't.

So then I started wondering about other sources off and on, but it wasn't really percolating in my mind too much. However, yesterday while DS and I were doing literature, we're reading My Side of the Mountain, the boy in it talked about using hickory limbs to make salt. So I did some research and it seems there are two methods of using hickory to make salt. In one you burn the limbs and use the ashes for salt and in the other you boil the roots and the salt crystalizes on the side of your bowl. I think I'd definitely prefer the second method.

It's not like I'm going to stop buying salt, but I do want to see if I can make it. Of course we don't have a hickory tree, but I am going to start looking around for one and see if I can't get a bit of root or branches to try it with. It seems like a nice exercise in frugality.

I have broccoli! I know that is a silly thing to be excited about, but I really did not think it was ever going to produce heads and what do you know, it did. Or at least two of them have and I think the others can�t be too far behind them. They have been taunting me for ages with big, lush leaves and were well past the 90 days it should have taken. Maybe the weird weather in July messed with it or something, but at least it looks like I am going to have a harvest.

I need to make some space in the freezer for some of it just in case each plant does actually produce. I planted an awful lot of it and I�d like to have some in the freezer for December to June when it�s expensive. It�s super cheap right now, even the organic, because it�s in season summer to late fall, but once the price jacks up it will be nice to have some frozen the day it was picked broccoli for meals.

When I was out watering tonight, I spied 3 cucumbers growing, 2 slicers and 1 pickling. The 4th plant is a pickling cucumber that has never even flowered. It was nice to see some cukes because I adore them and there is nothing like them freshly picked. I�ve only gotten 1 cuke so far this summer so I was really happy to see them.

I�ve got some red tomatoes that need a couple more days on the vine and I picked another kohlrabi

today. I also filled the harvest basket with Italian prunes and picked a few more handfuls of green beans. This green bean teepee has the little plants that could, I tell you. It will be ready to pick again in two days.

I�ve had enough produce picked this week that I haven�t had to buy anything from the grocery store except milk and pure maple syrup. And my mom gave us some lovely sweet corn that was delicious.

I am gearing up to do another major tomato sauce canning session this weekend. I am hoping to buy enough to finish our sauce needs for the year, but that may take another weekend as well.

I�ve nearly filled two big shelves with home canned food this summer and I hope to still do green beans, of which I�d like to have 52 quarts, total. That might not be possible, but it sure would be nice not to have to worry about our major low carb vegetable for a whole year. Canned green beans have gotten quite expensive in the store, to the point where it�s much cheaper to buy them fresh in season and do it myself. And it would sure make my future grocery budgets that much lower.

I�d also like to do corn, but I can still get corn for .79 a can from Trader Joe�s and it�s a BPA free can liners so it�s pretty low on the agenda. Plus, I haven�t been able to source organic corn. Not that corn is on my list of things that should be organic. I just prefer them to be not GMO, and that can be pretty hard outside of places like TJ�s or food co-ops. One of these years I�ll start growing some heirloom Bantam corn, but that�s also pretty low on my list of priorities. I have potatoes for the starch gap so as much as we like corn, it�s such a space hog and needy feeder that so far it�s not been worth it to grow much of it.

We built a new duck den today. Mom and I recycled the box springs that broke (right after the warranty was up) from the new mattress set DH and I bought in January. We were able to expand their habitat quite a bit and they seem happier having more space. There were Bungie cords and zip ties involved, because we are women and don�t believe in �man tools� like drills and screws unless we have to use them, but so far it seems very serviceable. And I�ve never met a raccoon that can undo a zip tie, while I have seen the results of one that managed to unscrew a screw. Part of the fence still needs repair, but hopefully that will come soon.

Mom managed to do a face plant at the end of the day, tripping over a windfall apple. She seems to be doing okay, though, but I imagine she�s going to be one big bruise in the morning. This is one of the reasons I am going to worry about her when we move out. She takes a lot of tumbles. She seems no worse for wear afterwards, but one of these days she�s going to break something. Well, once we�re going all I can do is make sure I check up on her every day so that I know she�s not laying out there helpless. And eldest sister might just move back in when we move out. She�s 11 years older than me, on her own, and she gets lonely. I would feel better if she did come stay with Mom. Mom�s 73 now and she needs someone around, but I have two other sisters and I can�t do it all myself forever.

DS has finished all of his placement testing and he's been able to do all the introductory lessons that teach you how to get around the WAVA system and the live interface that he needs to use for an hour a week with the actual teacher. Mostly it was like before, but they have changed a few things since the last time he was homeschooled. He has also been able to start on history and math since those textbooks are available online. And the first art lesson was as well as the first science lesson, so we are at least able to get his hours in and do some work.

His books should arrive on Monday. They were shipped yesterday and it says 4-5 business days. Whether or not it actually will show up on time remains to be seen, but we are hopeful. I still think it would have been less work to make my own curriculum, and more fun, too, but he wanted to do this and it is free so we'll try it for at least the semester.

I still kind of feel like homeschooling him is going to be the death of me. He can just be so difficult to get to do anything when he decides he's not capable, even if he really is capable. He is brilliantly intelligent, with a genius level IQ, and probably the smartest person in our family, but he has always learned differently than the standard methods teach things, so he gets it in his head he is stupid because he can't always learn from that method of teaching. And he's impatient so doesn't always want to wait for me to find the method he needs. But once I do and once he gets it, there is no stopping him. There is just so much frustration in getting over that hump.

It is more stress than I really want to deal with, but I don't really have a choice. It's either homeschool or put him back into the middle school where he was assaulted, given a brain injury, and they didn't do a darn thing to help him, or put him into the middle school with a major drug problem, or put him into the midle school with a power-tripping principal that by all accounts is worse than the one we had to deal with, or put him into the one that would be 40 minutes of driving every day, which my leg still cannot handle. No thank you.

Remember that itty bitty spider plant start my chiropractor gave me a few months ago?

Well, now it looks like this:

Not bad for free. Not bad at all. I am going to have to transplant it into a bigger pot soon. I am trying to find a ceramic one amongst all of my mother's old pots. I don't like cheap plastic in the house or terra cotta inside, either. If she doesn't have one I will look at Goodwill. I don't want to buy a new one if I don't have to. I think my free plant should have a free or second hand pot to grow up in.

Here is today's harvest basket:

There are about 30 Italian prunes, enough green beans for a meal, 2 tomatoes that were on dead vines so I went ahead and picked them to finish ripening inside, the last bell pepper because it looked like something was trying to eat it, and a kohlrabi. Still no sign of broccoli on the big, lush broccoli plants. I'm still hoping.

It was cold this morning, 45 degrees, but we had a high of 82 at 4 p.m. There are more tomatoes ripening. I am hopeful tonight won't fall below 50 as it is 8:30 and only at 60. If it gets too far below 50 too many nights the tomatoes will be done. The squashes are doing well, the zucchini is slowly producing and I've still only gotten one cucumber from four plants.

We figured out where the ducks were getting out and patched the hole in the fence. Thankfully it is not them flying out or the gate, though the gate still needs to be replaced with something more substantial. We got 11 chicken eggs and 2 duck eggs today. They are really trucking along well.

DD has a severe enough sinus infection that the doctor put her on antibiotics for three weeks. Now if I can just get her P.E. teacher to quite defying me on the orders to keep her inside and not make her go outside during 1st period this week when it's 45. They are supposed to be doing basketball and volleyball only, inside the gym only, but this guy got it in his head to go off syllabus and make them play softball. She has too many health problems for outdoor P.E. I am so tired of school employees not listening to us. It was bad enough when their errors caused my son to be badly injured last June, but if they give my daughter pneumonia on top of it I am done with them and she can homeschool, too.

Oh, and Snafu asked for an update the other day on DS. Although he has healed from the majority of the symptoms from his brain injury, he still has balance problems and some minor focus problems. He cannot yet balance on a bicycle. And he's still jumpy as heck if someone comes up behind him unexpectedly like the boy who attacked him did. But homeschool is going on pretty well now that WAVA finally got its act together and we could actually start it. He's really enjoying it so far.

Since I can't sleep, I figured I might as post the week's meal planning.

Monday--

Pizza (this was supposed to be Sunday, but we ended up having homemade bacon burgers with thick slices of onion instead, so good) with pepperoni, ham, red bell peppers, and yellow onions.

Cole slaw

Tuesday--

Roast chicken

Baked potatoes

Green beans

Watermelon

Wednesday--

Tacos

Italian prunes

Thursday--

Loaded baked potato soup

Fresh baked bread with butter and homemade jam

Green beans

Friday--

Bacon cheeseburgers

Homemade French fries

Salad

watermelon

Saturday--

Braided chili loaf

Galia Melon

Coleslaw

Sunday--

Pot roast

Mashed potatoes and gravy

Green beans

Whatever leftover fruit there is

The ducks have finally figured out how to get out of the enclosure. I think they have been taking lessons from Pipsqueak (who thinks she is a duck). They are learning to fly a bit. They aren't very good at it yet, and they may be a bit too heavy to get much height anyway.

I have had to chase them back where they belong a couple of times. If they just stay in the yard it is okay, but if they wander much further they might run up against some dogs. I'm not sure how they are getting out. If they are squeezing through the gate or if they are flying. No one has actually seen them do their Houidini act.

The chickens get out all the time, but they don't wander far. The older ones have trained the younger ones where to stay and also they keep a wary eye out for the neighbor dogs. And they can get back in on their own, but the ducks can't seem to figure out how to get back in, only out. It means keeping the windows open and my ears open, too. Hopefully I can convince Mom to raise the chicken wire higher on the fence and to fix the gate before the weather turns cold.

I have several tomatoes ripening right now and the raspberries are still plugging along. One blueberry bush is finally done. The other has a paltry amount still on it. I should have several kohlrabi ready in a couple more days. Today I picked enough green beans for dinner and there are more sizing up. I also picked enough Italian prunes for dinner. The are ripening a little slower with this 68 to 72 degree weather than they were with the higher temps so I may not be able to can any for a week yet. Of course we are fresh eating a few every day.

Tomorrow I am going to pick apples and make some more apple sauce and can it. I have enough jars to do ten 8 ouncers, so I will do 12 apples. I am doing a different variety this time that is not so tart. DH will be around when it's time to adjust the sugar content to what he likes, but he was really happy with the last batch. He could definitely tell it was made with different apples, but he has liked both so far.

All of my diced tomato pints sealed. I have still not had a canning lid fail to seal, so I guess all tha attention to making sure the rims are clean has paid off. I have them all up on my shelves now. I love looking at my canning stash. All the pretty colors make me happy.

Next Saturday I want to buy more tomatoes for making sauce and maybe some pears, too. DS still wants me to make pear sauce. We are going to go out this week and check on the progress on the house and I will check our tree out there and see if the pears are any good. The tree has not been watered all summer so they may just be wooden. But it does rain more up there so it's possible they got enough water that way. I will also check on the apple tree, though if I remember right it is usually ripe at the first of October.

I just checked my blog stats and so far in half the month I've had as many hits as I usually get in a whole month. In a usual month I get between 40,000 and 45,000 hits, unless I get sick or go on a trip and don't post for a few days. Today I'm just at over 42,000. So who are all you new folks coming by to read me? Or to plow through the archives in a week or two. Introduce yourselves and stay a spell. And I'm curious where you're coming from...

Because really, if you're going to do the raw pack method you're going to get that. As long as you bubble your jars, no worries. And who wants to make it any harder than you have to by doing the hot pack method when it's 75 degrees out. Oh, yeah, guess what I did today?

I spent most of the afternoon and evening turning this:

...into this:

And I feel an extraordinary amount of satisfaction from it. That's a pretty good number of jars for five hours of work. 21 pints. My goal for the summer was 24 pints of diced tomatoes. I don't know if I'll do more diced or not. I'd need about four more pounds to do that. 3 more pints is probably not worth the effort of getting out the canner and going through the whole process. I think 21 is probably close enough to call it good.

I do need to do a lot more sauce though. I spent $57.25 on organic tomatoes at the farmer's market today and then threw in at least a pint's worth of my own tomatoes. Not bad for a year's supply.

I ended up with 2 pounds of waste just in skins and cores, but the chickens will be happy to eat that with their breakfast tomorrow. I was careful to keep any green bits out, which was probably an additional 2 ounces of waste. That's really not too bad starting with 28 pounds (only 1 of which was mine).

This was my first trip to this farmer's market. It was nice, but not enough shade when the sun is so blaringly hot. It was more blinding than anything. I found a couple of new small, local, organic farms that I will be patronizing in the future.

I made a $300 error in my checkbook. I transposed a number. I found it today when I went to check my bank account to see the amount of the paycheck. Unfortunately the error meant that a couple of checks that went through yesterday weren't backed and the credit union did our privilege pay (overdraft protection good for 10 days to be paid back) twice, which is $13 plus a $2 fee for transferring .69 out of our savings account because if there is any money in the savings account they transfer it first, even if it is a stupid amount that won't cover anything. That is one thing I really hate. Anyway, so that's $28 of fees.

I feel like an idiot, but I'm trying not to be too hard on myself. Here I was thinking I had $92 in that account and I have been so on top of things. I am always so careful about balancing the checkbook and checking the account every other day. I know it's just an accident, but for crying out loud, my degree was in accounting, I know to check for transposed numbers. Thing was, I still couldn't figure it out. DH had to find the error for me. *sighs*

Well, it's sorted now and the checkbook has been rebalanced and life goes on. This is one of the few times I regret not having my EF at the same credit union as my checking, where they could have just transferred the money with the $2 fee. If I need to I'll take the money out of the vacation fund and the laptop fund. We still might be able to squeak by without, but since I am buying those tomatoes tomorrow it might be a little harder to just get by.

I'll try to get a budget post up tomorrow. I feel better when I do that, and not let it slip like I did for several months this year.

Does anyone have a tried and true recipe for making chicken and dumpling soup? I want one that is completely from scratch, no "cream of something" soups, no prepared biscuit mix, no bouillion cubes or stock starter. It can either be starting with homemade stock (I have some in the freezer) or starting with chicken and making the stock. I just want something good and flavorful with no fake food ingredients. Something that could have been made a century ago on your average farm.

The woman who does the therapy on my leg was in a car accident this week. Not horribly serious, but she was rearended and it still hurt a lot. She was hoping to be good enough to come today, but she had to cancel. I feel really bad for her. She has come to be a great friend to me over the last couple of years and I credit her methods for allowing me to walk almost normally again. I really hope she will be okay.

Because she cancelled, the $90 that I normally pay for each 1.5 hour session won't be used. I budget this amount weekly, but in skipping a week of therapy I obviously won't be needing it for it's original purpose. I am debating what to do with it.

I could use it towards buying organic tomatoes for canning. I'd be able to purchase more than I planned on Saturday. Or I could put it in the freezer fund and be that much closer to buying a chest freezer. Either one of these things is an investment in the future food needs of my family, albeit one in a more long term manner than the other.

I should probably aim towards the tomatoes because we won't be buying a beef until June or July of next year and there is plenty of time to get the freezer fund up to snuff. At the same time, it sure would be nice to have the freezer purchased well before we need it. But the tomatoes won't be around for much longer and it really does save a good amount to buy them in season. Argh. This shouldn't be a difficult decision.

DH is home now and I totally caved on the no eating out thing. It was early dismissal at the high school and it already felt like a long day when we picked DD up at 11:15. After running a few errands we ended up getting pizza out. So NorthGeorgiaGal, you are not alone in not only eating out, but choosing pizza! We must totally be on the same wavelength. I don't feel as bad about it as I might. It's been about 4 weeks for me of no eating out and I plan to go the rest of the month without doing it again. I had to rearrange some money, and I'll pay it back on Friday. Progress, not perfection, right?

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WAVA finally has taken its head out of its backside and we should be able to get into the system within 24 hours. I'll believe it when I see it. If all goes well we could be doing lessons as early as Friday, but I am still not holding my breath.

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I harvested a pint of green beans, 2 strawberries, 4 blackberries, a handful raspberries, a half pint of blueberries and a half gallon bag of Italian prunes from the garden today. And there were 2 duck eggs and 9 chicken eggs.

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I've been looking for ways of using beef heart, liver, and tongue for when we buy our beef. It seems silly to me to pay for an entire beef and then leave several pounds behind just because we've never eaten organ meat. I was thinking we could just have it ground and I could mix it with ground beef and pork to make sausages. But then it occurred to me that even if we don't like it, the chickens are omnivores and can eat any meat but chicken and they would eat the ground beef organs happily, so it wouldn't go to waste.

I am also planning to get the fat for rendering so we have it for cooking and maybe for soap and candle making, too. But at least for cooking. It would be nice not to have to buy cooking oil anymore, although I'd still have olive oil for some things.

I'm still trying to track down a farm that will sell a whole hog. Most places seem to just do $300 boxes of pork. I'd like a whole one or at least a half, and the fat to render into lard. That's still quite a ways off, even further off than the beef, so hopefully one will turn up by the time I need it.

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This Saturday I hope to make it to the farmer's market so that I can buy the rest of the organic tomatoes I need to finish off our diced tomato needs for the year. I need 25 pounds of tomatoes to do 24 pints of diced. If I can get those put up next week then I'll see about making more sauce. The greater value for me though is in putting up diced ones.

I still have a ton of green tomatoes, but I just don't think I will have enough of them ripe before the first frost hits. Anything is possible, but it's just been a weird year for growing tomatoes. We've had the heat, but...I don't know. And now nights are around 50 and if they drop much lower than that we won't see a lot of these making it to red, at least not on the vine. It's too bad June was constant rainfall. I think that is half the problem. Still if we don't frost until mid to late October I might get enough to put up. We'll see.

We seem to be getting into a good groove with homeschooling. It makes me hopeful that when we get our actual curriculum that things will go smoothly.

I think I am finally over the stomach virus that has plagued me off and on for the last month. At least I hope so. It's been exhausting.

DH comes home tonight at midnight. It'll be nice to have him here. Maybe he can figure out something for us to do for science while we are waiting on the curriculum to arrive.

DH was approached about a possible job promotion. Not officially or anything. More if the guy they offered it to doesn't take it, if he'd be interested in it. And then it would have to be run through channels to see if all the higher ups would approve. It's not something I'm holding my breath over. It would mean a gross raise of $3850, probably closer to $2850 after taxes or about $275 a month in take home pay. The extra would certainly be nice, but as slow moving as things usually go it could be a year or two down the road anyway.

Chances are that the guy they offered it to is going to take it anyway. But again, the idea that they would consider him for this position at all without him even applying for it and think he could do it, is good. It means they have faith in his abilities to take the next step up. We'll have to wait and see if anything comes of it, but as I said, I'm not holding my breath.

I think I am through the worst of the caffeine withdrawal although I did have to take a nap today after DS and I finished with homeschooling to deal with the headache and tiredness.

I forgot to post my menu plan for the week yesterday, so here it is.

Monday--

Pot roast (got moved from Sunday due to too many leftovers needing to be eaten)

Corn on the cob

Green beans

Italian prunes

Tuesday--

Roast chicken

Baked potatoes

Green Beans

Melon

Wednesday--

Beef and vegetable stir-fry

Italian prunes

Thursday--

Spaghetti

Meatballs

Garlic bread

Salad

Friday--

Meatball sandwiches

Cole slaw

Melon

Saturday--

Bacon cheeseburgers

Homemade French fries

Cole slaw

Italian prunes

Sunday--

Homemade Pizza

Cole slaw

Melon

I cleaned the change out of my purse today and added $2.66 to the coin jar. Eventual destination is the freezer fund.

I wrote out a fairly long post yesterday, but as often happens when the formatting has been changed on the blogs, it got eaten when I hit post. I know it'll settle down again once all the bugs get worked out, but it's still frustrating to lose a post into cyberspace after not losing one for so long. I got complacent and didn't hit copy/save first.

As I recall I mentioned paying two more bills since I had the money left in the account, the phone bill for the old house of $44.87, and the internet bill for this house of $70.56. Usually these would come out of the next payday, but I figured if I let it sitting there I'd find some way to fritter it away between now and Friday.

I remember being quite annoyed at how full the envelopes from Comcast were. Three extra pages in each one just for their cable listing offerings. I don't get cable, I don't care to get cable and I don't need to see my bills stuffed full with the extra paper. Plus each envelope also had a full page on their Eco-billing. So ironic, Comcast. 4 unnecessary pages per envelope and you want me to think you care about saving paper? I don't think so. I'd go paperless with them, except their website crashes every time I go to use it. They won't combine the two bills in one envelope either since one is for the old house and one is for here, even though both are sent here for payment, which would actually save some paper.

I got the bill for the glasses. It cost $813.23. It is 90 days same as cash. We will pay $213.23 this month and $300 each for the next two months. The dental I finished paying off this month, so the $300 that had been going there will now be going to the glasses starting next month. Once the glasses are paid off I can then look into getting my teeth fixed.

I have enough in checking to cover my appointment on Thursday and $20 bucks left in my wallet for milk and crackers, the only two things on the grocery list I'll need before payday Friday. I am running it this close to deliberately. For one reason, if I don't have the cash to eat out, I won't be tempted, and if I don't have the cash to buy soda, I won't be tempted there either. Or as tempted. I am starting day 3 no soda and I think I am through the worst of the caffeine withdrawal.

Now that the stomach virus has finally settled down and gone away *knocks on wood* I am starting back on controlled carb eating. I feel better with more protein and lower carb veggies making up the bulk of my diet and I get sick far less often when I eat that way and have more energy. I basically have felt sick for the last month so I need the boost of eating better to get me back on track. And I've got some lovely veggies from the garden that need eating.

Speaking of eating I still need to sit down and make a menu plan, but since we didn't end up eating pot roast yesterday, that's on the agenda for supper tonight.

After doing my grocery shopping today, in which I spent $45.96, I had enough money left in the checking account to pay a couple more bills, so I went ahead and paid the phone bill for the old house, $44.87, and the internet bill of $70.56. There is enough left for my medical appointment on Thursday, and I have $20 in my wallet for milk which I will need to buy on Wednesday when DH comes home and possibly crackers.

I recieved the bill for the glasses today, $815.23. It is 90 days same as cash. I will pay $215.23 this month and $300 for the next two months. Fortunately starting in October I will not have quite so much money tied up with medical. I paid off the dental on Friday so that will free up that $300 a month for the glasses. I only have 2 more payments to make on DS's forward neck posture treatment, so the final payment will be made in October. In November, that $500 a month will go back to paying down the credit card. Maybe we'll finally see some progress then. Right now we are just pretty much standing still.

DH is supposed to be checking into orthodontia for me to see if this insurance covers it or not. I'm thinking about getting Invisalign for myself if it's not too expensive. I've got a gap between my front teeth that didn't used to be there. The dentist thinks I'm tongue thrusting at night and it's causing it. Anyway, I don't like it. But it's a vanity, so if insurance won't cover it or if it costs too much it'll have to wait until the credit card debt is gone.

--------------

I noticed both of the billing statements for my phone bill and internet bill were ridiculously fat. There was no logical reason for them to be so fat. They should both be a single page, since the phone bill is a plain line for the security system and has no special add ons or long distance service, and of course the internet is pretty straightforward.

No, the reason it was stuffed so full was because both of them had 3 pages of what Xfinity offers for cable. Umm...I don't have cable. I don't want cable. I don't need that info. Plus each bill had a full page devoted to *drum roll please* eco-billing to save paper. Yeah, right. Way to go on that one, Comcast. And I'd totally do online billing if their website didn't crash every time I tried it. And I don't believe they really care about it that much, either, because if they did, they'd let me get one bill even if the phone line is at a different address than the internet service. They are both still sent to one address to be paid.

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Caffeine withdrawal is no fun, but I am making it through day 2 of no soda. Go me.

I barely bought any produce this week. The garden is doing pretty well. It has paid for itself about six times over now. All I bought this week was lettuce and melon.

Today was the first day I had ripe Italian prunes. Another couple of days and there will be a lot more ripe. They are all purple now, just not completely and they are softening nicely. They are beautifully golden on the inside and very juicy. I think these are probably the best of the plums/prunes varieties out there. Definitely time for me to start washing jars in preparation for canning.

The everbearing strawberries continue to chug along. They may not produce much right now, but what they do are very sweet.

I am getting several tomatoes a week, but no really big flush ever happened. Considering how much heat we had this summer, it surprises me. We still may, fall is still a bit off and it's looking like we may have an Indian Summer anyway.

My bunching onions continue to do great and have supplied all my green onion needs for the last few weeks. I usually use two bunches a week, so that's pretty good.

The green beans have produced enough for 3 meals a week for the last few weeks, so that's nice, too. But again, surprisingly, no big flush. I am thinking that maybe the spot I gardened in was just not rich enough in the soil department despite Mom's reassurances. There will be some major ammending next year as I am composting quite a bit right now and the chicken manure will have had plenty of time to mellow but give good results.

I'm still not sure what's going on with the broccoli. Huge, lush leaves, but it never made heads. It looks healthy, it's gotten enough water, and all I can think of is that heat wave in July just really screwed with it.

The Hubbard squash is chugging along. So is the kohlrabi. I have one pepper left that is turning red. The lettuce isn't sure what it's doing. The potatoes are ready to dig at any time now. Just a matter of getting out there and doing it.

There were 2 duck eggs and 8 chicken eggs today so all seems well on that front. All in all, though I could be happier with some things, there's been enough food produced to make it worthwhile. And I know what to change for next year.

Today was our trip down to Skagit River Ranch to buy our organic, sustainably and humanely raised protein. Originally we were going down every four weeks, but it's spread out to about every six weeks now as we realized the amount of meat we were buying was lasting that long or a bit longer. Today I spent $290 there. For that amount I got 4 2.5 pound beef chuck roasts, 1 4.5 pound chicken, 18 pork chops (each pack of two chops averages 1.2 pounds), 3 packages of bacon, 4 1 lb packages of hamburger and 2 1 lb packages of ground pork.

I still have some bacon, hamburger, sausages, stir-fry beef, a chicken and a couple of steaks from previous trips, so it will definitely be a good six weeks before we go down again, I think. I think I probably could have waited another two weeks, but the kids and I just really needed to get out of the house today and away from the misbehaving nephews for a decent amount of time. Thankfully they go back home tomorrow.

I have decided we will likely not get a turkey from them this year. The smallest they are figuring on having is the 15 to 20 pounds range and I don't like to buy a turkey more than 12 pounds and that's hard enough to get used up even with my various recipes for soup, enchiladas, cacciatore, quesadillas, subs, turkey TV-style dinners, etc. And at $7.85 pound we're talking $118 for the minumum weight. I can get a good, organic, turkey locally for $50, so I can't justify the cost out of our current budget. Beef maybe, but turkey, no. No one likes it enough for that kind of cost and we are trying to do this sustainable thing without breaking the budget completely.

One of the things I am considering is maybe getting a larger turkey and asking the butcher to cut it in half and wrap each half and then maybe making one for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas. It would be a way of not having so many leftovers all in one go and seems like perhaps a more economical solution than buying two 12 pound birds, since the meat to bone ratio is better on a larger bird. Either that or maybe we'll just have duck for Christmas. No, not one of our ducks! But a $20 organic duck would leave us with very little in the way of leftovers, plus provide a carcass for soup that will reasonably fit in the crockpot.

We have a duck in the freezer that we should try before the holiday and make sure we like it. Wouldn't want to ruin the holiday with a meat no one will enjoy. Another solution might just be two large chickens with all the trimmings. I'll have to think on it.

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I am making the attempt to get myself back off the soda. Even if the cola I am drinking does not have high fructose corn syrup in it, that doesn't make it good for me. I've felt tired ever since I started it up again. And it does get to be an expensive habit at 2 cans a day. So today is day one. So far I still really, really want it.

I am starting to feel like my old self again today. What's more, the nephews seem to have had an attitude adjustment and are behaving better today, which makes my attitude far better as well. DS and I got through our homeschooling by eleven. I am thinking of buying a science program to hold us over until WAVA gets its act together, but I don't know if I want to have the expense. I am thinking I might be able to put something together from the library. Maybe pick something I know a lot about like coral reefs and make up a unit study on it.

After that I worked on the budget, paid bills, and entered everything into the spreadsheets. Here's what went out of today's payday:

$300.00 to pay back the Freezer Fund

_375.86 mortgage

__46.00 allowances for two weeks

_757.82 car payment (plus extra principal)

_300.00 dental (finally paid off crowns)

__10.59 medical DS

_100.00 propane fund

_100.00 property tax fund

_100.00 Mac Book fund

_100.00 vacation fund

__17.00 HoA dues fund

_300.00 Cash for sustainably raised meat purchase

_587.39 Fashion Bug (in full)

_100.00 Chase (no interest)

__64.30 BoA MC (in full)

__41.16 ADT security system monitoring

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3300.12 money out

I've got a couple hundred dollars left in checking after this. It is earmarked for groceries.

Fashion Bug was a one time purchase of back to school clothes for my daughter and clothes for me. I haven't been shopping since I lost the 50 pounds so I ended up buying a few things while we were there. I paid this in full. The only reason I used the card was for the discount.

BoA MC was used because DH accidentally forgot the credit card he uses for day to day purchases one day and only had this one in his wallet. Normally there is no balance on this card. This was paid in full.

Chase is no interest for 18 months and we transferred a good chunk of what was on the BoA Visa onto it with the plan of paying off the BoA Visa while taking advantage of the Chase intro rate.

I went ahead and fully paid back the freezer fund from the money I borrowed from it last month to pay for medical, I think it was.

I took out $300 for our trip to the sustainable, organic farm tomorrow. I will be buying our month's supply of beef and pork. Any money left over will go into the freezer fund.

I am still really wiped out today. I am not sure why as I feel like I got enough sleep, but I just feel like a zombie.

My nephews are driving me crazy. Well, the younger one is the worst. He's being extremely disrespectful to my daughter. He also brought some video games with him that are rated M and are basically those games where you just murder people, including hookers and drug dealers. I told my son he couldn't be up there with them while they were playing those games. I am shocked that my sister is letting her kids even play those games considering how conservative she is about things.

My nephews also decided it would be fun to go lay down in the middle of the street after dark last night. It was still early, just dark. My son's no longer allowed to go outside with them unless my daughter or an adult is there. My son was pretty much freaking out when they did this last night, but he didn't tell me last night. He told me today. I kind of thought my twelve-year-old would be safe with them since they are 15 and 18, but clearly he is not.

I knew that my mother was going to invite them down and then basically ignore what they were doing and all this was going to fall on me to take care of them and my kids to entertain them. It's what she always does. I really did not want them here during the first week of school as it would make things really hard on us. I told her she should have invited them in the summer and when DH was home to help, but of course that would have inconvenienced my sister (who is supposed to be homeschooling the youngest right now). And heaven forbid we ever inconvenience my sister.

Well, I'm not taking up the slack this time. I am too tired and sick to deal with them so basically my kids and I are staying in our wing of the house and leaving them to their own devices. When they came down here whining about being hungry I told them to go tell their grandmother as she's in charge of them, not me. Or to *gasp* make their own food. They're certainly old enough. And Mom bought them enough junk food to feed an army, including a bunch of stuff that my son likes but is allergic to.

I will be so glad when they go home. It's times like this that I hate living here. Most of the time I'm okay with it, but right now it's all just making me so irritable. I am so glad that our house will be done in about two more weekends and then we can put the thing on the market and hopefully it will sell and we can buy a new house and get the heck out of here.

Adjusting to the new school schedule hit me hard today and I was ready to go to sleep at 5:30. *yawns* Hopefully DS won't give me any grief about going to bed tonight. He's been yawning for the last few hours. I've got a few financial tasks I need to do, but am too tired to do today. I'm afraid I'd screw up entering stuff into the spreadsheets.

I spent $90 on medical today. I was tempted again to get takeout, but really wanting to meet this challenge of no takeout in September is helping me to overcome that temptation. So far I am 5 for 5 on cooking at home this month.

I made the lasagna today and an extra one for the freezer. I have found that the hassle of making lasagna means I should always make a double batch because it's just so much work that only making one is not worth it.

WAVA is still not on top of things. I may end up saying screw it and putting together my own curriculum after all if they don't get their collective heads out of their collective backsides. We've faxed them everything they claim they needed and gotten confirmation of these things and then they turn around and claim they never got them, even with copies of the confirmation letters sitting in our hands. And you can't get through to them on the phone. It's an hour wait on hold and of course they keep school hours so just try getting ahold of them at any other time of day and you can't. So annoying. If DS didn't like the K-12 program so much I'd not even bother at this point.

/whine

I ended up swapping tomorrow's dinner with today's since my nephews got invited out to my eldest neice's house for dinner. So I'll finish making the lasagne tomorrow. I did chop up all the onions and the garlic for it so that will be one less thing to do tomorrow. So tonight is pizza instead. Doesn't it look scrumptious?

It's been a while since I've costed out a meal so I thought I'd do that with the pizza. This is the same size as an XL specialty pizza from Round Table Pizza which costs $28.17.

$5.99 for nitrate free Canadian Bacon

$0.99 for 1/8 pound of pepperoni

$0.50 worth of leftover homemade spaghetti sauce

$0.00 for a quarter of a red bell pepper from the garden

$0.10 three slices of an onion, cut into strips

$2.00 worth of mozzarella cheese

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$9.58 total

Salad is free from the garden

Homemade garlic toast is 15 cents.

Milk is $1.50

The total of the meal is $11.23 or a savings of $16.94 for just the takeout pizza with no salad or drinks. And there will be half a pizza leftover for DS's lunches this week. Pretty good, methinks.

DD had a great time at school today and has lots of friends in her classes and she likes all of her teachers, including the one who is supposed to be an "old hag" according to many students, but DD thought was really sweet. Of course, DD can get along with just about any adult on the planet. Or child for that matter. DD needed a graphing calculator for Algebra 2 and she'll need it next year for pre-Calculus, too. We picked that up after school. It cost $56. Her photo package will be $38.

The first day of homeschool went well with DS. Not that we can do the official stuff because WAVA still hasn't finished the enrollment process or sent us the password. So I'm just doing some general stuff that I've found online and that I'm putting together myself.

I've set spelling words for the week. This is something that will be beyond WAVA anyway, since they don't do spelling at this age. So he did write out all of his spelling words three times and then we went through and defined any he didn't know. We also looked up photos of gazelles so he would know what one looked like since it was one of his words. And so were Connecticut and Argentina so we talked about where those were located and found them on the map.

After spelling we did a math review of prime and composite numbers that I found on IXL. DS got all but one right which is great. Then he did two pages of cursive handwriting practice.

When he had finished that we read the first chapter of Little House in the Big Woods for history/literature. The first chapter covers things like preserving foods for the winter, how they smoked their meat and fish including how they built the smoker, how they braided onions and strung peppers and hung them in the attic, how they dried and set aside both cooking herbs and medicinal herbs.

It talked about how they butchered the pig, but had to wait until it was cold enough out for the meat to stay frozen through the winter. It talked about rendering lard and how they used every part of the pig including the bladder to make a balloon for the kids to play with and how Mary had a real rag doll, but Laura's doll was made out of a corncob (although I think it was really made out of corn husks).

It discussed how Pa went hunting, but sometimes he didn't get anything and that was why when he did get deer or something else big, they would preserve most of it for the winter. It also talked about bringing in the big squashes and pumpkins to keep in the attic and root vegetables to keep in the cellar.

Anyway, I found a UNIT study online for some of the things you can do along with the Little House book including making a cornhusk doll and making your own butter from cream so we might do those things as part of our study if WAVA doesn't get on the ball and send us our password soon. I also found a word search and word unscramble that went along with it, as well as vocabulary lessons based on the book. Like what is a trundle bed, etc.

I'm looking around for some easy science to do, but not terribly concerned with it as it will be easy enough to catch up on. We will start the beginner piano book tomorrow. I'd say the first day went really well.

DD starts school tomorrow. It's so hard to believe she is a junior now! Where does the time go? She is really excited to see her friends. She probably only saw her best friend twice this summer, although they are constantly attached at the fingertips (texting, IMing) and she spent one day at the mall with five or six of them. We've had such a full summer between swimming, gardening, visiting family, getting the house ready for sale, and day trips, that schedules just never seemed to line up.

I'm not sure what we'll be doing for DS's homeschooling as WAVA is so behind on processing stuff that even though they've had all the necessary information for quite some time they haven't issued us our password for getting into the system, and they certainly haven't mailed out the consumable books. I did manage to get a list of the required 7nth grade reading books he has to read 2 of, so if nothing else he can start reading My Side of the Mountain.

I can also print out some standard 7nth grade refresher math work sheets for him to do. And I can find a spelling lesson and have him practice his cursive. Last year in 6th grade at the middle school they did not do spelling at all or have the kids even using cursive. I know it is becoming obsolete but I still think it should be taught. I mean how are people going to be able to read old letters or old documents in the museums if they don't know how to read and write cursive? Not a very interesting curriculum to start with, but what are you going to do? I hope WAVA gets it's act together fast this week. They are really such a good program, but it doesn't work so well when you can't get access to it.

I need to cook up the food for DD's breakfasts and lunches for the week. She eats low carb at those meals as part of her pre-diabetes diet so I do stuff up beforehand because DD and mornings don't mix so well when it comes to cooking. Better for us to do stuff up the day before so she can just heat and eat or pack to take when she's groggy.

She'll be taking sausages and cabbage shreds this week for lunches and for breakfasts she'll be eating a low carb meatloaf (no breadcrumbs) and cucumber slices for breakfasts so that needs to be cooked up before dinner tonight. Or chopped up and sliced in the cases of the cabbage and cucumbers. While I'm cutting and slicing I'll also cut up the broccoli and cauliflower for this week's stir-fry. The carrots and celery can wait until the day as they don't hold as well cut up.

I've got some spreadsheet updating to do tomorrow. Because of the long weekend none of the first of the month autopays go through until tomorrow morning. Then I can update the checkbook.

DD will need her photo money and her ASB and yearbook money this week. ASB and yearbook is $90 together, I think. Not sure on the photo money, but last year it was around $24 for the package we bought. We use the photos as Christmas presents. I'm going to have to arrange something for DS this year since he's homeschooled. Maybe WalMart or Sears. Unless the mall has a photo place again. They come and go so much over the years.

I need to do a little grocery shopping today, maybe spend $30 and then I shouldn't need to spend any money until Friday, which is payday.

Okay, so I've figured out the meal planning for the week. It would be too difficult to work around my nephews, so I'll be making easier, less expensive food than usual as my mother can get very, very lazy about cooking when she invites them here and then they end up making puppy dog eyes at me because they'd much rather have my real cooking than another can of chili and tuna fish or toasted cheese sandwiches.

I can't afford to feed them our nicer cuts of meat from the farm, teenage boys eat too much, especially these two. If I wasn't up to my ears in medical, dental, and vision that had to paid right now and wasn't budgeting our food money so closely I could have managed, but right now I can't. I can spare some hamburger and chicken from the farm as long as there are plenty of starches along with them for the boys to fill up on.

Mom did ask me to make a big pan of lasagne which we'll have for dinner one night and then the boys can eat it for a couple lunches, and she even paid for most of the ingredients for a change, but everything else will probably come out of my pocket. They love my spaghetti. They love my pizza. They don't arrive until Tuesday so I am holding off on my pizza making until later in the week. I am over the craving anyway.

I will be making a lot of bread this week. Double batches each time for certain, because we will need rolls and I'm sure they will still eat a lot of PB&J and tuna fish sandwiches, because they are pretty much constantly eating when they visit.

Monday--

Salmon

Green beans

Fried potatoes

Galia melon

Tuesday--

Lasagne

Homemade garlic bread

Salad

Watermelon

Wednesday--

Pizza with pepperoni, ham, red bell peppers and onions

Salad

Thursday--

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Leftover homemade garlic bread

Cole slaw

Friday--

Chicken and vegetables stir-fry

Egg fried rice

Apples (pear for DS)

Saturday--

Cheeseburgers

Homemade french fries

Cole slaw

Berries

Sunday--

Fried Chicken

Mashed potatoes and gravy

Green Beans

Drop biscuits with homemade jam

It's Day 2 of the September No Eating Out Challenge and I spent a grand total of 2 hours arguing with myself (off and on) about ordering a pizza. *sighs* I did not do it, and I have a roast in the crockpot for dinner and had chili for lunch (even though I really wanted pizza). I have decided that pizza is on the agenda for tomorrow. I will go ahead and make the dough tonight though so all I have to do tomorrow is roll it out. Well, I say roll. I really just push it out with my hands.

Anyway...the applesauce I made yesterday turned out well, though I did end up having to add some more sugar because those apples were really tart still with only a half cup. I ended using a total of 1.5 cups altogether. More than I wanted to use, but far less than what goes into jam. And I don't think anyone wants to eat sour applesauce, so it was the best thing to do. Next time I make it I will do it with different apples than the ones from that tree.

I ended up with 8 half pints. I thought I'd get at least 10. You just never know until it goes in the jars though. Everything processed just fine. I have yet to have a jar not seal properly for me. I have now filled one entire shelf with home canned food, stacked three jars deep. I'll probably start another batch of tomatoes cooking down tomorrow, since I am using one of the crocks for tonight's dinner. I want to make up some mustard this week, too, something slightly spicier than the last batch.

I need to sit down and figure out my meal plan for this week. School starts for DD on Tuesday so I have to plan her school lunches as well. All I know for sure is that tomorrow is pizza.

I don't know what is up with this virus. One day I'm up, the next day I'm down. It's starting to get annoying. Yesterday I took the day off, didn't do anything but make meals. I put off just about everything I could.

Today I still feel out of it, but not nearly so yucky. I did peel up twelve windfall apples, cut them up, and throw them in the crockpot with 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 TBSP of cinnamon. Set it on low and after four hours I'll mash it with a potato masher and then can it. Easy peasy in comparison to most canning projects.

The nice thing about using windfalls is that you are using up apples that are bruised and wouldn't be used for straight eating and wouldn't be able to be stored for later. It's the ultimate in frugality, I think, to take something most people wouldn't even look at twice and make it into something nourishing to feed the family.

Even if you are like me and have huge textural issues with applesauce, you can put it into cakes, brownies, or cookies, and not have to deal with the texture. You will be cutting some of the fat and increasing the flavor. And apple muffins are really delicious.

I reckon this batch will net me 10 to 11 half-pints of apple sauce. Cost to me is about 25 cents for the sugar and cinnamon. Not bad. As for the cost of it in the store, I'm not sure. I think the last time I looked you could buy a quart of regular applesauce for $1.99. I don't know about organic applesauce. Probably twice that. So it's not the huge cost savings that growing organic berries and making jam gives you. But it's still 25 cents of ingredients versus $5 for non-organic and $10 for organic for the same amount. So for me, I chalk this batch up to saving $9.75 and I know exactly what went into it. That's peace of mind.