Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

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.

You ever have one of those days where you don't feel like you accomplished anything, but you actually did a fair amount of stuff when you start thinking about it? Yeah, it was one of those days.

I spent the morning canning and now have an additional 10 pint jars of tomato sauce on my shelves (total of 17 canned, but we ate one already, so 16 on the shelves). I have the apples picked for making and canning a batch of applesauce tomorrow. My only cost will be for the sugar and cinnamon and that will be negligible. Apple sauce requires very little sugar and just a touch of cinnamon.

I picked a gallon of blueberries. I reorganized and inventoried one of the freezers. I read for an hour, took the kids to the library, picked up DD's new glasses, made three meals, and wrote for an hour. Why does a day like this feel like I did nothing at all? Clearly I wasn't as lazy as I feel I was.

Tomorrow I am setting up the September budget spreadsheet and finishing transferring everything from the checkbook into the August budget spreadsheet and will be updating the HSA spreadsheet with all of the medical payments made in the last two weeks. I'll also be balancing the checkbook.

I may or may not get another batch of tomato sauce going in the crockpots, too. We'll see how I feel after making apple sauce. I am thinking about buying some local Asian pears (easier to peel) to make pear sauce with, too, since DS is allergic to apples. I wish he wasn't allergic as I have all the free apples I can use.

At least pears are in season though, so buying them to process right now is inexpensive. Pear sauce can be used in any recipe that uses apple sauce to replace fat, too, with identical results. Apple sauce and pear sauce only take about 4 hours in the crockpot to make so I could do one in each crock and still be able to process both batches in one day. If I can find a really good deal on pears, I may can some wedges as well. DS really likes pears.

I need to go through the book lists WAVA has tomorrow. Right now I'm leaning towards My Side of the Mountain for one of the required 7nth grade reading books, but not sure about the other one yet. It's a long list. I am so mentally unprepared to homeschool DS this year. Fortunately they are running so far behind in the enrollment process, we likely won't be starting until mid-September. We'll make it up during one of the weeks off at Christmas and during the incessant days off that the public school system gives, but we tend to ignore.

I do wish things had turned out so that he would have been happy in public school this year, but with his concussion still not fully healed it's really not the right place for him. I still have to take back the viola he checked out over the summer and talk to his music teacher about if she knows of anyone who gives lessons, since most only teach violin. (I do have a viola he can use. He wasn't big enough last year, but has grown into it). If not, he'll take piano lessons instead.

Bit of a rant, sorry. On August 1st my city enacted a plastic bag ban, where you either need to bring your own bags to the stores or pay 5 cents for a paper bag. At first I thought it was just for the grocery stores. This pretty much did not concern me as I have been using reusable canvas or burlap bags for some time.

I also use reusable produce bags when I remember to grab them.



The stores still have plastic bags for produce, meat products, bulk bin items, and bakery or deli items, and they sell things like garbage bags and ziptop bags, so it's not a full on ban.

The thing that I did not realize at first was that it was for all stores in the city, including department and clothing stores. Now this I did find to be inconvenient when we were shopping for back to school clothes and school supplies. Most department stores have rules about bringing bags in. So do most mall stores. They are so worried about shop lifting they don't like you to bring any bags in. So if you have a cart that's not bad, but if you're hitting up a bunch of the regular stores and buying any amount of small things it starts to get difficult. And I don't like going back to my car after every purchase.

I do not like being forced into buying a bag, even if it's "only" 5 cents. You know my thoughts on "it's only" thinking. I don't like being nickled and dimed. It's the principle of the thing. I have a lot of mixed feelings here, because even though I don't much like plastic bags and will use totes when I can, I was always careful to reuse plastic bags when I got them. The big ones (which I rarely ever had, mostly at Christmas time) went in place of my kitchen trash bags and the small ones went as liners for garbage in the bathrooms or bedrooms. Now I have to buy them for the small cans and I'm frugal enough to resent buying new plastic as opposed to reusing plastic. At least this is making my actually recyle my toilet paper tubes and put the hair from the hairbrush in the compost bin. I am making every inch of my plastic bags count now.

It is a major hassle to come out of a store with a big pile of clothes and no bags. It is a major hassle to come out of a store with three pairs of shoes and no bag. It is a really, really major hassle to come out of a store with a year's supply of school supplies and no bags. I did put them in my reusable totes once I got them to the car, but I was frustrated with it. I mean, what happens when it is pouring down rain in another month and I need to make some purchases of things I don't want getting wet?

I think that I will end up buying less things in my city because of this. I am not an impulse shopper anyway, but I will rethink every purchase because of the inconvenience factor. This is a good thing as it will cut down on spending. I will likely do future larger shopping trips in the next county when we are down there for other reasons, which will mean thinking things through a bit more because I won't want to waste trips.

If this bag ban is making me buy more outside of my county, I wonder what it is doing to other shoppers. My county is highly retail oriented since shooting itself in the tax base and driving out the living wage industrial jobs about a decade back. It is a border county so it relies a lot on Canadians coming across and shopping here. But if I were doing that, I'd take the extra 30 minutes to go to the next county which also has a lot of retail. I think we're going to see a drop in the county's sales because of this. Even though intuitively it makes more sense to pay for the paper bags (at the stores that even have them, many do not) then to pay for the gas, the inconvenience factor and the "must pay for it" factor on the bags will cause a stubborn resistance.

I am trying to get over this stubborness, because I do know it is better for the environment. I just really don't like being told what to do. I came to my use of reusable totes at the grocery store on my own. I'd like the choice to do that otherwise. Or else the big stores need to get over their fears of shop lifting and let me bring my totes in. I guess my feelings on this are a...mixed bag. *snorts*

I don't have a lot of energy this week. Part of it is that I've been battling some kind of stomach bug off and on since coming back from vacation and part of it is putting food up for the winter. Today I made a very cost-effective lunch for my family that took me all of ten minutes, which is about what my brain could handle. Serves 4 (3 ladelfuls per bowl, DS had two bowls). You do need 3 hands for this or a way to prop the fork up later.



Egg Flower (or Drop) Soup

1 quart (4 cups) of chicken broth
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
5 eggs
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp white pepper (or black if you don't have white, it's just for aesthetics)
1 tsp corn starch (optional, for thickening, it didn't seem to make a difference to me so I will leave it out next time)

In a bowl take 1/4 cup of chicken broth. Mix in corn starch. Set aside.

Mix eggs well. You want them very runny. Set aside with the fork you used to mix them.

In a pot combine chicken broth, scallions, ground ginger, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Boil for one minute.

Have someone hold a fork over the pot or somehow prop it over the boiling broth. While stirring with one hand slowly pour the egg through the fork. Do not stop stirring while you pour. This creates the ribbon effect. Otherwise you will just end up with blobby eggs in the soup. Stir hard for one minute after you are done adding the egg, then add the broth/corn starch mixture and allow to boil for one more minute while stirring gently. Taste and adjust salt and pepper to taste (I added a bit more salt. This is by nature a blandish soup so salt is necessary.). Soup is done.

This soup probably cost me about 25 cents. That is because the green onions came from my garden, the eggs came from Mom's chickens (free), and the broth is stock that I made previously (and froze) from leftover chicken carcasses and vegetable peelings that I had saved in my freezer. But even if paying for it, it wouldn't have been too expensive and is a nice, high protein lunch.

One variation on this is to add peas and carrots. I didn't have any, but a cup or so would have been a good addition while adding about 50 cents to the cost of the soup. Just use the canned kind and boil for a couple minutes longer before adding the egg.

Pricing it out:

$0.39 for 1 bunch of green onions (farmstand price)
$0.85 for five eggs (based on a $2 dozen)
$1.99 for 1 quart of chicken broth
$0.15 for salt, pepper, ginger, corn starch (which is likely on hand anyway)
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$3.38 for four servings or 84 and 1/2 cents per serving.

Of course if you make your own practically free broth from leftover chicken carcasses and vegetable scraps and peelings you save from other meals, you will bring this down to $1.39 or almost .35 per serving. Not bad and surprisingly filling (from the egg).

I sent for another $5 gift card to Amazon from Swagbucks today, so that should show up in a week. I have gotten $25 worth of free gift cards this month. This is the first month I've managed to do that in. Not bad for 10 minutes worth of effort in a day (if that).

I've qualified for a couple of the good surveys at ACOP this month. Will probably have a decent cash out next month.

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I have two crockpots full of tomato puree cooking down into sauce. I have decided I don't care that it takes longer, it's hands off and that makes it easier for me. The whole house smells like tomato sauce.

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I just found out that my mother invited two of my nephews up to stay next week. Starting on the first day of school. There has been the whole long summer to do this and she invites them up the first week of school? And the first week of homeschool for DS? Sometimes I don't think she thinks things through. My nephews are supposed to be homeschooled, but my sister is...lazy about it. Oh, they do get educated, but not on any kind of a schedule. This is just going to make things ten times harder for us. Oh, well, it's not like I can do anything about it. This is part and parcel of living in someone else's home.

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I hope our house sells fast and we come out of it with a good down payment. I really want to not be subject to Mom's whims. I feel like the dang thing is never going to get on the market, though. They were supposed to paint the outside of the house last weekend and the inside this. For whatever reason it didn't happen and now they are planning to paint it this weekend. The weather is supposed to be good for it, but I'm not sure about how much longer.

And for some reason or other they seem to want to paint the outside first. Even if it rains. This is not a good plan in my mind. *sighs* Since they are fitting us in around other people there is not much I can do about that either.

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We have close to $800 worth of eyeglasses to pay off in the next 3 months (same as cash, fortunately). If it isn't one thing it's another. Our vision insurance only covers glasses every 2 years instead of the industry standard of every year for lenses and every 18 months for frames. They do cover one eye doctor visit per year though.

Unfortunately both kids' prescriptions have changed so much that there was no way of putting it off for another year. Fortunately DH and I are not having any problems with ours and can wait another year. Personally I think insurance companies should take into account changes in the prescription and if there is a valid change, then pay for it or some of it, regardless of how long it has been. Just wanting different frames sooner is not valid, but the eyes changing enough to make a major difference is medical and should be covered no matter what.

Next payday I will finally finish paying the dentist for DH's crowns. Yesterday I made another $500 payment to DS's doctor. That leaves us owing them two more payments, or a total of $1000 left. Ugh. But no interest. I think I'm putting half of next year's tax return straight into the HSA next March.

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I borrowed $300 from the freezer fund which will be replaced over the course of next month (I hope). I needed to buy school clothes and supplies before school actually started and with all the extra medical I've had to pay from DS's head injury this summer, I couldn't budget enough for it. It was either that or take it out of the emergency fund, which I couldn't justify. That is okay, though.

Fortunately DS didn't need much because he's homeschooling, but he did need fall appropriate clothing as he has grown way, way too much since last fall to fit into anything he had. And DD had to have non-marking sole shoes for PE separate from her regular shoes. She has PE all year though and at least her feet have stopped growing. She should be fine except for snow boots (which can wait a few months) and she can always use mine if she has to. DS will need them if we have a bad winter, though. And DH said something about needing new work boots soon. It never ends.

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We got 3 duck eggs today. We were pretty sure we had 2 males and 2 females, but now it's looking like 3 females, with Patches being the one male. Because ducks don't lay more than one egg a day.

One of the ducks laid a doozy of an egg today. In the photo here it shows 3 duck eggs of normal size and the extra large one.



The small duck eggs are still bigger than large chicken eggs. I should have put one in the bowl for comparison, but didn't. You can see the mottling on the shell. It really makes them look more dirty than anything, but this is with them clean. We are getting 2 duck eggs about every other day and 6 to 8 chicken eggs every day.

Although it has been pleasant during the day, our temps are around to 67 to 70 degrees during the day with a breeze, and about 61 to 63 at night. I'm not so sure what my tomatoes are going to do with that kind of weather. I found 3 volunteer tomato plants in a place where I'm not sure tomato plants have ever been planted, but when you have escape chickens and cheeky squirrels running about the place, things grow where nature plants them sometimes. Two of them have green tomatoes on them and they are not the same variety.

A stupid slug ate my bell pepper that was almost fully red. I hope it got major heartburn. I mean, seriously, a slug in August? No fair. I am finally getting flowers on some of the slicing cucumber plants. Still no sign of actual broccoli heads on the broccoli plants though they are full and lush plants. At least it is a cold weather crop so going into cooler weather is not a bad thing for it. I think they may have been some of the longer maturing varities. I didn't pay attention when I planted them and obviously I should have.

The green beans from the first planting that I had thought were done, surprised me by producing a bit more and there are some flowers on it still. I left the plants in because they are good at fixing nitrogen in the soil and got a surprise second harvest.

Today I noticed some blackberries ripening. The blackberries seemed to have been done two weeks ago or so, but maybe there are two varieties in there. The birds planted them so we don't know. It's only on one end, so there won't be much, but a few for fresh eating. And the raspberries are putting out again. I didn't realize it, but Mom says they produce twice. A big crop in July and then a smaller crop of much bigger berries, but not so plentiful, in late August/September. Huh. I knew they had strawberries that produced two crops in the summer (even if they call them everbearing, it's more like two crops, really), but not raspberries. I doubt I will pick them, though. The kids will for fresh eating.

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I made a very large chicken today for lunch. 5.65 pounds. After we ate some I pulled all the remaining meat off the bones and threw the carcass in the freezer with another one from before for future stock. We will get several lunches off this bird this week. I ran across this blog post today of how to get 22 meals (well, servings) off one organic chicken spending a total of $49 (which includes the cost of the chicken). An interesting read and gave me some new thoughts. I'm good at stretching a chicken, but this certainly gave me some ideas. It's here if anyone is interested:

http://www.squawkfox.com/2011/01/31/1-chicken-22-meals-49-bu....

We haven't made it down to the farm yet this month and it's probably going to be a couple more weeks before I do make it there. I am trying to use up every bit of what we do have in the freezer as well as use up some other things, like bags of rice that are cooked but frozen and some veggies I overbought. Also trying to keep up with the food coming from the garden, so the menues will reflect that this week. I need to bake bread tomorrow. DH goes back to Alaska tomorrow.

Monday--
Spaghetti with homemade sauce (I have a bunch of tomatoes, an onion an some garlic to use up, not to mention fresh basil)
Homemade garlic bread
Meatballs (half beef, half pork)
Melon
Birthday cake

Tuesday--
Beef and broccoli stir-fry (will be throwing in fresh green beans and yellow zucchini as well as the broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and celery that need using up in the fridge)
Brown rice
Melon

Wednesday--
Lamb de Provence (sounds fancy doesn't it? It's ground lamb patties mixed with herbes de provence)
Fresh green beans (boiled with a slice of bacon)
Fresh bread with homemade jelly
Peanut butter cookies made with duck eggs

Thursday--
Fried chicken
Fried potatoes
Cole slaw
Berries

Friday--
Homemade pizza with Canadian bacon, pepperoni, red bell pepper, onion
Cole slaw

Saturday--
Bacon cheeseburgers on homemade buns
Homemade French Fries
Cole slaw

Sunday--
Beef pot roast (last one in the freezer)
Corn on the cob
Salad
Drop biscuits with homemade jam

Alternate dinner in case of laziness--Tacos.

Lunches will come off the roast chicken I made today and a meatloaf I will make when it runs out (we have a lot of eggs to use up this week!) and veggies from the garden.

Breakfasts will be eggs of some sort (probably omelettes with Canadian bacon, green onions, bell pepper, and cheese) and then kohlrabi or cucumber on the side. DS will likely have pancakes as well (he makes his own now).

I mean, we're not ready to buy and we're not going to buy right now, but that doesn't stop us from looking and this one would fit our needs in more ways than I expected.

First off it's nearly 3000 square feet with a separate living area MIL apartment set up. And it's on .62 acres, and partially fenced. So it would be perfect for raising and butchering rabbits or chickens in the city without freaking out the neighbors and still have space for a large garden and maybe a hoophouse. It has a creek bordering the property, but nowhere near the house, so no fear of flooding, and we could fish in season.

It has the right number of bathrooms. It has a small wood lot for the fire. It has the right number of bedrooms. It has a huge kitchen. It has space enough to not feel closed in and a place for me to write. It has a good garage. It is in the right school districts. It has a hot tub! (Not a necessity, but nice). And best yet is the asking price of $225,000.

So what's wrong with it? It's ugly. I mean...UGLY. It was built in 1951 and looks every inch of it. Heavy dark wood panelling in a couple of rooms. Heavy brickwork in a couple of places. And an aluminum roof. Yet the potential is huge. Most of it is cosmetic. There is almost always sheetrock under panelling. And bricks can be painted. And we could have a little farm in the city. It's a big enough lot we could raise miniture goats for milk if we wanted to (we don't, but we could!).

It is ugly enough that it may set there for a good long while. Maybe even until we are ready. But even if not, this house shows it is possible to find what we are looking for. I want to drive by it in person just to see if it is really as ugly as it looks. They don't show a full outside shot in the photos.

I went out to harvest a few things and check up on a few others, and ended up walking an entire loop around the property.

The tomatoes are starting to come a little faster and the green beans remain steady.



Believe it or not, we still have blueberries, but they are finally winding down. Did you know chickens can jump vertically? There is nothing funnier than a chicken trying to reach blueberries three feet up in the air. I think we have another week and they'll be gone, so I better hustle and get the last of them picked.



Two types of apples are ready to be picked. I think I will make a big batch of apple sauce this week and can it. I have also read about canning sliced apples so I might attempt to do that as well.

The Italian prunes are turning purple. I think maybe another week and they will start to be ripe. The tree is so loaded with fruit. After last year with barely a fruit to be seen this will be a very nice harvest. I will dry some and can some, but most will be consumed fresh and in large quantities.



Patches loves the little pond. I swear ducks are the filthiest things though. We spray that pond out every morning and fill it with fresh water. It doesn't stay clean long!



He loves you to spray the pond with water. You can see the water literally rolling off the duck's back here. I can totally see where that expression comes from.



The two female ducks and the other male duck do not like to be sprayed, but they love to grub in the mud. We keep the whole section muddy for them. The chickens enjoy grubbing in the mud as well. I am not sure how Ecru manages to stay so white when she is constantly in the mud scratching.



Silver and Patricia love playing in the mud, too.



Queen is feeling better today but she is not up for the mud and was hiding out in the coop. I gave her a few blueberries.

My bell peppers are starting to turn color.



And I think we have the fattest squirrels around. They know there is plenty of fruit and chicken feed to eat. Between that and the neighbor's hazelnuts, they will be well set this fall.

One of the things about raising livestock is that despite your best efforts, you can get pretty attached. You wouldn't think you'd come to adore a chicken as much as a cat or dog, but it happens. I may not be particularly fond of some of the girls, but I like them all. Queen just happens to be my favorite chicken.



She is sweet and affectionate and curious and interested in everything you do. She gets into places where you don't want her to be and she was the first one to ever hop the fence. She likes to hide her eggs and gets quite annoyed at you when you find her secret stashes. She rules the roost and is a regular busy body and she has not been herself at all the last few days.

She had been lethargic and laying down more and more and we were really afraid she might go the way of Navi, who died eggbound. Well, after a nice warm bath and the massaging of an area you don't particularly want to massage on a chicken, she seems to be doing much better. She was alert and she very eagerly ate the canteloupe rind and seeds (her favorite) that were offered to her. She'll get two warm baths a day for the next couple of days just to be on the safe side.

Hopefully she will still be chipper come morning. She's one of the original flock, one of two survivors of every racoon massacre we've had. I think it would hit DS pretty hard if she went. Probably even DD (a duck girl) who usually only tolerates most of the chickens who barely tolerate her in return, but likes Queen, would be sad for a few days.

I've rolled off most of the chicken deaths in the past. Oh, they made me feel sick inside, but I wasn't particularly fond of any of them at the time. Queen's been around for a couple of years now though and we've bonded. I've tried hard not to get close to an animal since my cat died when I was 26. Somehow that silly chicken has managed to work her way into my heart though.

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In other livestock news, I can now get within six feet of all the ducks without them having a major freakout. I'd like to be able to walk among them, but I don't know if it'll ever happen. We didn't handle this batch as much as babies and it shows.

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DH and I are considering getting meat birds if we get a large enough lot when we move. Considering how much organic chickens cost these days, the good ones anyway, it would be quite a cost savings. We won't have layers, we'd leave that to Mom. We'd just do broilers. We'd do a chicken tractor and probably just do one ten week raising per summer of 50 birds (or 75 if Mom wanted some), so we wouldn't be tied down year round and still be able to go on vacations. DH thinks he'd be able to do the butchering. I'd be fine once they were dead, but I don't think I have it in me to do the deed, as close as I've gotten with layers.

Either that or meat rabbits. I'm going to get a butchered rabbit from a nearby farm so we can try the meat and see if we like it. Butchering rabbits is faster and easier than chickens and if the meat were similar enough, it might win out over chicken. And we could take the doe and buck over to a temporary hutch at the in-laws to be cared for if we went on vacation. We would plan it so there would be no kits or pregnancy at that time.

I am still a little hesitant, because, well, it's killing your own animals for food. At the same time, it's raising them in a way that you know is humane, feeding them organically, and giving them the best possible life before reaching the table. And you can investigate any farm as much as you want, but when you do it yourself, you KNOW how they lived. It might be a tough transition. But I know I can't raise a steer or a pig. I would totally get attached in the amount of time it takes to grow one to butchering size. With broilers or rabbits it'd not take that long and the chances of getting attached would be much smaller.

And then there are the kids. They would know from the start that only the doe and the buck would be long term animals. But you just don't know if they'd try to attach themselves to the kits. So...I don't know.

It's so much easier to get my meat in neat little packages from a farm that does all the dirty work for me. But...but, but, but, but. Should it be easy? Should that disconnect be allowed? We do want to be self-sufficient as much as we can. It'll be a hard step to take, but I think once we do, we will be okay with it. And we will respect and honor our meat animals for their gift to us. Or I'll do it once and run screaming from it and have to live with making other choices.

Ceejay74 posted a link to an article on kids' allowances today found here:

http://shine.yahoo.com/work-money/survey-kids-65-month-allow... and after reading it, I have to say, it annoyed me that it drew some of the conclusions it did. It was assuming that children get their allowances on top of their parents buying everything else for them as well. Umm...in what universe? "Some experts say." What experts? They don't even say who says it. Hand-wavy journalism, I see you.

In the real world, the one I live in, parents don't buy their children everything else they want because parents live on a budget. In fact most parents won't even let children by everything they want with their own money. As in my family, children are expected to save up their money to get what they want and what they want still must be on the parental approval list.

They are assuming children do chores for about one hour a week to earn their allowances, though "some" parents require up to six.

I laughed at this. One hour of chores for $15 a week? No, I don't think so. Now, my daughter does earn $15 a week in allowance, a recent raise from $12, but she is 16. My son, who is 12, earns $10 a week. For their money they:

Take out the garbage (including to and from the curb on garbage day) (DD)
Take out the compost (DS)
Take out the recycling (including to and from the curb on recycling days)
Set the table (Both)
Clear the table (and wash it) (Both)
Load and unload the dishwasher (Both)
Scrub pots and pans (DD)
Clean off the surface of the stove when it gets messy (DD)
Clean out the refrigerator and scrub it or at least help (DD)
Clean the tub and shower stall (DS)
Clean the toilet (DS)
Clean the sink (DD)
Water the garden (DS)
Help with weeding (Both)
Sweep and vacuum floors (DD)
Keep rooms neat (Both)
Fold towels (DD)
Help with washing and drying clothes (Both)
Help harvest food from the garden (Both)
Help with canning (both)
Cooking meals at least once a week (DD)
Helping with meals a few times a week (Both)
Help with making bread or rolls (DS)
Makes all cakes, cookies, or other goodies (DD)
Cleans out the inside of the van (Both, their portions)
Helps with washing the van (Both)

In addition they both do chores for their grandmother (DS does yard work, mostly mowing and DD does housework) for an additional $5 a week. And DS collects aluminum cans from neighbors and in the park to earn additional money.

I seldom buy my children things other than nice clothing and a book or two. We do buy them events or experiences, like a trip to the zoo or the King Tut exhibit. On vacation they get a souvenir or two, but it's usually a t-shirt or sweatshirt or something practical like a book mark or necklace.

But for stuff? They've saved up for almost every big purchase they've wanted. If it's near their birthdays or Christmas I might go in halfsies with them as long as it doesn't go over their allotted amount.

I don't give my children music CD's or let them download whatever they want on my dime. They can pay for those themsevles and I have approval of artist. I might download a book if the whole family will read it. I don't pay for them to go to the movies unless it is a family thing. We go to the movies maybe once a year. We went to The Hunger Games together. It was a family outing. They don't go to see movies with their friends, but that has to do with approving content. If I approved content and they wanted to go then they'd certainly use their own allowances to pay for it.

Is it really that common for parents to buy them all this stuff above and beyond allowances? It wasn't when I was growing up and we were firmly in the working middle class. And I don't know any parents that do it now. Most of the parents I know can't even afford to give their kids allowances at all despite being firmly in the working middle class. They must not be getting their info from the middle or lower classes.

I don't think I'd have a different opinion if we weren't working so hard to get out of medical debt and had a ton of disposable income. I just don't see the point in giving children everything they want. I don't get everything I want even when we do have the money for it. I do see the point in having them earn it and save up for it. Maybe this is because I worked all through my childhood, every summer picking berries, and then when I was old enough, baby-sitting, and then regular jobs.

I do agree with the article that parents should talk to their kids about saving and about money. Do people really not do this in this day and age? I mean, I hear my kids' friends saying things like, we'll have to go to the park because we can't afford bowling or the movies. Or things like "My mom is broke this week because we bought school clothes, let's just go up to the lake." So it's clear they understand there is no money at the moment. And I hear them talking about saving up for stuff, too. I don't know.

Sometimes I think it's me with the disconnect, but most of the time I think it is the writer's of these articles using outdated information from when the economy was booming. But even then, I still didn't give my kids what they wanted. In fact back then they didn't even get allowances at all.

So, a couple of days ago I blended up a bunch of tomatoes in the blender and dumped them into two crockpots to cook down into sauce. I've made tomato sauce before the traditional way several years back with Mom helping me to can it, but I wanted to try this new method that didn't involve blanching and peeling and chopping and cooking them down on a hot stove for several hours, hoping it would save time and make things easier.



Well...it does save time, but it took 24 hours for the sauce to cook down enough in the crockpots, so while it saves hands on time, I think it would be less irritating and more productive to just cook it down on the stove. Maybe. And the texture was a little weird so I went ahead and cooked it down into paste, which took another 12 hours.

I ended up with 7 pints of paste.



Most paste comes in six ounce cans and you can get 12 cans of organic tomato paste in a pack for $7 at our local Costco. That equals out to a little over 18 and a half six ounce portions for $10.65. It works out to about .57 per serving. The Costco cans work out to .58 a serving. So it's kind of a wash, especially considering I had to add 1 tbsp of lemon juice to each pint to make sure it was acidic enough to water bath can, but I am buying the tomatoes locally which makes me happier with the end result. Plus the flavor can't be beat. If I end up having enough in my own garden to can later on then of course it will be much cheaper.

I am going to try again by running tomatoes through a food mill, letting them sit overnight in the fridge, sucking the pale fluid that rises to the top off with a turkey baster in the morning, and then cooking them down in the crockpot and see if that changes the consistency a little. If not I will make more tomato paste and then try again with the stove-top method which I know works. But before I do that I am going to can diced tomatoes. I will blanch and peel those, though. I am going to get some yellow and orange ones for fun.

Also I can can the pale juice that is sucked off with the baster and use it as soup base later on or to boil pasta in. I will probably only end up with a pint of it or so per batch, but that is okay and I won't be wasting it. Normally that's the part that gets boiled away.

So, it's a work in progress, but I am learning as I go and as long as I end up with usable food in the end, I am happy with whatever results I get.

DH called the insurance agent and he said landlord's insurance would cost $953 a year on our place. I was figuring about $100 a month and this is more like $80 a month. That would mean the amount to keep the house as a rental would be $142 a month and not $162 a month. Or $147 if we had to pay it monthly instead of in one lump.

He has also talked to his uncle who is both a realtor and a landlord of several places and he is going to get back to DH on what rentals should be going for in that area (he has an associate who has rentals in the area) and whether or not $1000 a month would be close to that.

We went out to see the place on Monday night and it sure looks different. They still haven't repaired or painted the house though. What has been done is to tear down the shed and take down the fences and get most of the landscaping under control. They have taken off the bad guttering and drain pipes and the roof of the porch. They are pressure-washing today with the hope of painting the outside of the house on Saturday and Sunday. And then the following weekend painting the inside of the house. Things can be very subject to change since they are working on it mostly on weekends with a few evenings, fitting it around their day jobs.

Today DH and FIL are emptying out what is left in the good shed, or at least they are supposed to be doing that. DH made a comment about only making one run today and I am not sure one run will empty it out. Since most of what is in there is big, bulky, but lightweight, it will likely take two runs. I wanted it to be done today, but who knows now if that will actually happen. Hopefully they can just fit it all on. They won't be bringing in the lawn mower or weed eater since those will need to stay. And if we do end up renting we will probably leave those there anyway, for the tennant who would be coming from an apartment to use and does not have any.

I am not going to make up my mind on what we are going to do with trying to sell or just renting until after all the repairs are made and the painting is done and the carpets are cleaned. At that point DH and I will make the decision. Possible renter is expecting us to try to sell it first, but if it doesn't sell wants to move in. And that's with seeing it how it is right now.

It would be nice to have the extra income renting would give us, but it would mean not having a down payment from selling it when we go to buy our next house. Yes, we can save it up, but I'd probably just work on paying off the mortgage first because I don't want to have that debt there when we go to apply for a new mortgage on a new house. Mortgage is currently at $16,432.02, so if we plowed all of the rental income into paying off the mortgage along with our regular payment it would be gone in about a year and a half or so. But we'd still be starting from scratch. *sighs* Well, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. No use thinking on any decisions until the house is done.

I've started my first batch of homemade tomato sauce going. DH and I cored and cut up 10 pounds of paste tomatoes tonight. They got pulverized in the blender and then poured into two crockpots (an eight quart and a six quart). I will be cooking them on low all night. They should be reduced by half in the morning which should give us about 5 quarts of tomato sauce. We didn't fill them up to the top as I didn't have enough tomatoes. Next time I will get 15 pounds as that should give us 7 quarts and 7 quarts is a canner load.

Right now the puree is bright pink even though the tomatoes were bright red. It will cook down to red though. I remember that from the past.

We went to the farm stand that carries only Washington state produce and quite a bit of it is local from Everson and organic. The tomatoes were from Eastern Washington. It is too soon to get large amounts of local tomatoes but in a couple weeks I can. Meanwhile I am happy to support any of my state's farmers.

I really liked the farm stand. The guy working it was offering samples of the fruit. He gave DH and DS big chunks of watermelon to try and offered peaches and nectarines as well. DD and I didn't try anything as we are both on an eating plan that only allows high carbs once a day. But I did buy some nectarines and had one with my dinner and it was excellent. And the boys thought the watermelon was amazing.

I will go back and buy more tomatoes tomorrow. They had some orange ones and some yellow ones as well and I think it might be fun to make some sauce in those colors or at the very least some diced tomatoes.

The paste tomatoes were well-priced so I think this is where I will get most of my sauce tomatoes, except what I am growing. It's still not quite as cheap as if I was buying the S&W organic canned sauce or diced tomatoes but until there is no BPA in their cans, this is the better way to go. I still consider it economical, though. Plus nothing beats fresh, home canned. And it is cheaper than the Muir Glen ones so it's worth it.

I'll post photos tomorrow of the finished product.

Last week when we had temps in the high 80's and low 90's the garden put on a huge amount of growth. Today that growth culminated in a pretty decent harvest.



I picked my first yellow zucchini, my first cucumber, 4 tomatoes, my first bunch of bunching onions (not shown), a quart of blueberries (not shown) and enough green beans from my second sowing for two people to eat.

The tomatoes will go in my spaghetti sauce tomorrow, and I'll save the green beans for later in the week because there will be more to pick in two days and then there will be enough for everyone at one meal. The zucchini I will eat with my lunch tomorrow and the cucumber I ate for breakfast with eggs from our chickens. Delicious. Even though it is a pickling cucumber it still tasted great eaten raw. And really, how do you pickle one cucumber?

The ducks have started laying eggs! I don't have a picture of those yet, but they look like longer chicken eggs that are kind of grey and mottled. They are really good, too.

I love the fact that today's breakfast was completely homegrown. You can't get more local than a zero mile foodshed! Not that that is practical for most days, at least not yet, but it was still very satisfactory.

DH and I are going to check out the new farm stand that proclaims to have both local and organic produce today. I am hoping for organic, local tomatoes, as I will not have enough to put up for my needs for the year. I'd like to start with about 25 pounds of tomatoes to make into sauce and go from there. I have a feeling I will have to do that a few times, but I don't want to overwhelm myself by doing it all in one go.

I am definitely going to triple my tomato plants next year. I really want to be able to grow them all on my own eventually since it is really hard to find tomatoes that are not canned with BPA in the liner. Since DS reacts badly to BPA it's not worth going through another year eating something we know will hurt him. We use tomato sauce at least once a week so it's one of the first things that is getting my focus.

It might cost a little more to buy and can them myself, but it gives me a bit more peace of mind. If I didn't need them to be organic I could do it for cheaper. I still might, just depends on what I find.

Here's my menu plan for the week. We didn't have pot roast today because I forgot to thaw it out and put it in, hence it will be on tomorrow's menu.

Monday--
Beef pot roast
Corn on the cob
Coleslaw
Cantaloupe

Tuesday--
Bacon cheeseburgers
Homemade fries
Leftover coleslaw
Berries

Wednesday--
Spaghetti
Meatballs
Garlic toast
Salad

Thursday--
Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches
Homemade fries
Leftover coleslaw
Berries

Friday--
Homemade Pizza
Salad
Berries

Saturday--
Tacos
Nectarines

Sunday--
Roast chicken
Baked potatoes
Green beans
Nectarines

The actual day of our zoo trip was a balmy 92 degrees F. We slathered on enough sunscreen to keep Banana Boat in business. DD is one of those porcelain complected, hazel-eyed blondes who would not look at all out of place in Iceland and I have enough redhead in me that I will burn pretty easily without the stuff.

Our first stop was the polar bears. I was feeling pretty sorry for them, considering this sort of heat is not in their native habitat, but then again, they did have a nice, cold pond to swim in.



They have three males at the Point Definace Zoo and no females. They seem to get along pretty well, but they did keep to different areas of the enclosure. The biggest one was 9 feet tall when it reared up. You don't really realize the size of these animals when they are just laying on a rock.



Or how big they are until they lick the window in front of you because that's where the meat they were being fed bounced off!



The muskox was hanging out in the shade trying to get away from the heat. With that fur coat, I think she had the right idea.



I was definitely jealous of the seals and their cool waters.



And the penguins! Heavily shaded and they had plenty of water to swim in.



The elephant was giving herself a bath in lots of nice, cold water.



The anoa decided that being inside was the best way to escape from the heat.



As did these two:



The leopard seemed quite happy though to bask in the sunshine.



And the budgies also seemed to love the heat. The kids got seed sticks to feed them for $1 each. The birds land right on the stick or on you and eat the seeds.



The landscaping was also lovely. I'd love to have this flower in my garden.



And I actually do have these ones, just not blooming right now.



I haven't uploaded the aquarium photos yet, but here's my son being eaten by a shark that also, apparently swallowed a hardwood wall.



It was a great zoo all in all, though I think the Greater Vancouver Zoo in B.C., Canada remains my favorite.

We are back from our short vacation to Tacoma. It was incredibly hot while we were there, in the low 90's each day. It was close to that here at home, but we really took a doozy of a time to go.

Still it was very nice to get away from home for a bit and to relax in a pool each night. The zoo was very nice, much better than Woodland Park Zoo. I have some lovely pictures some of which I will post when I am not so exhausted, but here is one.



I didn't actually ride one of the camels as my knee was acting up fiercely by the time we got to the camels (about 2 hours in)and I didn't think I could climb up the stairs to get on, but the kids and DH both did.

We stayed on budget for vacation which was something I was a little worried about. I took an extra $100 just in case, but I came back home with it.

There was a really great diner across from our hotel. We have lucked out quite a bit in finding excellent diners when we've been on vacation. We tend to shy away from the big chain restaurants most of the time if we can help it. This place, Elmer's, reminded me of the place in Port Angeles called Joshua's that we ate at several times on our summer trip last year. Elmer's is a very small chain, local to the PNW, but feels very homey and the food was incredibly good and locally sourced.

The kids got their school wardrobes (well, I guess for DS it was just getting clothes because he's outgrown everything since he's homeschooling this year) taken care of as well. Although DD still needs a pair of gym shoes for PE and a pair of everyday tennis shoes. And both kids need socks. DS's jeans will need to be altered as they are far too long, but we found ones that fit him well otherwise, which we couldn't even come close to doing last year. He's grown a lot in the last year.

I really hate the years between boyhood and teenage boyhood for finding clothes. If you are not a super skinny tall beanpole there is nothing for you in trousers between the XL 20 boys and the size 32 mens waist with a 29 inch inseam. That's 5 missing sizes. DS lived in sweat pants last year, but he hated it. There are tons of tween clothes for girls and you can at least make do with skirts for a few years if you have to. The choices for boys are extremely limited. A business taking advantage of that clothing gap would clean up. I am not the only mother of a boy I've heard complaining of this.

Still, with homeschooling he can get through the fall, winter, and spring on two good pairs of jeans and the hated sweat pants. He wears shorts in the house all the time anyway.

...or you know, I did more jam canning. I did one batch of apricots (the last!) and 1 batch of blackberry. I ended up with 3.5 pints of apricot (gave Mom the half pint) and 10 half pints of blackberry, 1 full pint of blackberry (which I gave to Mom) and then had about half of a half-pint that went straight into the fridge.

I am done with jam for the year. My stash does not quite take up the whole shelf, but it's plenty for our needs and with enough to give some away at Christmas. I will also be giving the chiropractor a jar of the blackberry next time I go in for letting us pick there.

New stash pic:



Hmm...I think I need to clean that one shelf wall.

I have strawberry, apricot, grape, blueberry, raspberry and blackberry jams and jellies. Plus mustard. I'd say that's a pretty good condiment stash.

As for the mustard, when I finish off this batch I am going to add cayenne pepper to the recipe. It is good as is, but I want a little more kick. Not too much though, so I will probably only add 1/8 tsp. I left it out thinking it would be fine. And it is. But I want it a little better than fine. Then if it's still not quite kicky enough, I'll add 1/4 tsp to the batch after that. Also, I think it needs a bit more in the way of liquid. It's a little thick so doesn't spread as well. Probably I'll just up the water and the vinegar by a few TBSP each.

Today the garden produced one very bright red paste tomato and a kohlrabi that were both ready for picking. When we get back from Tacoma on Friday I think we will have a few more ripe tomatoes. And if I don't feel dead on Saturday I will go to the Farmer's Market and see where the local organic tomato crop is at, because I just won't have enough for my sauce needs with what I grew myself.

I want to have 52 quarts of tomato sauce and 24 pints of diced tomatoes. I know 25 pounds of tomatoes equals a pint of diced. I'm not sure how much I will need for the sauce, though. Fortunately I won't have to buy it all at once and I can see how much whatever I do buy makes. I'm estimating I will probably need 75 pounds of tomatoes for 52 quarts of sauce and I will probably only be able to provide 25 pounds from my own garden. Next year I will plant a lot more plants.

I will also need a bunch of lemon juice, 2 tbsp per quart and one per pint so I can raise the acidity enough to water bath can it. One day I will have a lean-to green house attached to my home and it will grow a lemon tree. Hopefully.

I spent $45.21 at the grocery store today. It was a totally unnecessary expense, too. *sighs* My resistance was down and I did not want to cook. Not the best time to go into a store. With kids.

I've been a little bit down on what I see as our lack of progress this year on getting the debt gone. I did a reckoning at the beginning of the year of what we'd paid off last year, so I thought I'd sit down and add up the numbers and see what we've really paid off this year so far. This doesn't include the car loan because I don't have the beginning numbers for the year and can't go look it up because it's no longer owned by the same bank it was at the beginning of the year.

Anyway:

$20228.79 Credit Card Balance at start of year
-14135.56 Balance Now
------------
$_6093.23 Amount Paid Off for Good

$18544.28 Mortgage Owed at start of year
-16432.02 Balance Now
--------------
$__2112.26 Amount Paid Off for Good

$87,000 0% Loan from Mom at start of year
-81,000 Balance Now
---------------
$__6000 Amount Paid off for Good

So I have actually paid off $14,205.49 so far this year not including the car loan (which I think is around $3000 to $3500 paid off this year). I guess we are making better progress than I thought. Still doesn't stop me from wanting it gone yesterday, but makes me feel a little less like we've accomplished nothing this year. And there are still 4.5 months to go.

For the last week or so we have been getting about 5 eggs a day, but today we had 8! We had to give away our first dozen in a long time. It's fun to have a rainbow of colors like this:



We spent about a half an hour picking blackberries outside our chiropractor's office. They don't spray. We got 1 gallon (me) and a half gallon (the 2 kids together).



Although I think it should have been more. They were whining about the tiniest scratches with no bleeding. Well, mostly it was DD. That's part and parcel with picking blackberries and they were sticking to the outsides while I was going in more where the real thorns were and drawing blood. They should have got as least as much as I did with two of them picking. DD is just not an outdoor worker. Maybe I'll just have DS help me next time and DD can stay home and clean the house. She's much more an indoor worker.

I am going to make jam from this, plus the one pint we got from the last of our own berries. Hopefully tomorrow morning, but maybe not until we get back from Tacoma. It's in the freezer. If I decide to make it in the morning it can be easily thawed out in the microwave.

I will probably go and pick some more next week when DH is home and the red ones will have turned black. He and I can get a lot more done in the same amount of time. I'd like to do a third batch of blackberry jam and also have some frozen for smoothies.

Right now in the store for non-sprayed blackberries it costs $13 for 4 pints. I much prefer my 13 pints for free (plus a little blood and sweat) price!

If I feel up to it tonight I will pick some more blueberries from the back yard, too. I think they are starting to wind down now and I'd like to not lose what is left from laziness!

On the non-harvest side of things I mended the pocket on my favorite pair of shorts. It was ripping away from the side seam and making a hole, so I hand sewed it closed. I used a blanket stitch to prevent unravelling. It's tighter than a running stitch, which would likely just come undone soon.



I also picked up two prescriptions and spent $27.68 for them. There was no other spending today.

I received my two $5 gift cards from swagbucks today and dumped them in my Amazon account, only to find the last two were missing. Turns out when DS ordered his Kindle book he clicked the wrong thing and it used the gift cards instead of taking the money out of my checking account. (He paid me for the book). So my balance is only $10, not the $20 I was expecting it to be. I told DS that I had to do all Kindle book stuff from now on. Not that it will be much anyway, most of what we get for the Kindle will be free.

I am less than 100 points away from getting another Amazon card. I've been doing a lot of searching this week looking for homesteading blogs and using their search bar to do it and I've been getting some big point amounts for it. I've also had the SBTV going while I read blogs, which I've done a lot of this week. It adds up. I might actually be able to get 5 $5 gift cards this month. $25 a month would sure be a nice take for something that doesn't take much time.

ThriftyRay asked for my bread recipe. I actually have two depending on whether I am making one loaf of bread or two.



One Loaf Recipe

1 cup warm water
1 T yeast
1 t salt
1 T honey (or sugar)
1 T extra virgin olive oil (or canola)
2 C white flour
1 C whole wheat flour

Mix together. I do it in a bread machine on manual or dough setting. I let it rise in there and then it is kneaded and then I take it out and put it in a large loaf pan and let it rise until it is about an inch or two over the bread pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. Remove from pan and place on wire rack to cool. Brush top with melted butter while still warm.

Two Loaf Recipe

2 C Warm Water
1 T yeast
1 1/2 t salt
2 T honey (or sugar)
2 1/2 T extra virgin olive oil (or canola)
3 C white flour
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour

Mix together in bread machine. Let rise and let machine knead then divide dough in half (I never get this quite even so one loaf is always a little bigger than the other, but they both turn out fine) and place in two loaf pans to rise. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. Remove from pans and place on a wire rack to cool. Brush tops with melted butter while still warm.

You can use all white flour and no whole wheat flour for either recipe, but if you try to substitute more whole wheat flour than what I've got above it will be too dense to rise properly.

The cost works out to about 50 cents a loaf these days.

This will be an off week since we will be in Tacoma Wednesday through Friday, so I am just posting menu plans for the other days of the week.

Monday--
Bacon cheeseburgers
Homemade French fries
Cole slaw
Leftover fruit

Tuesday--
Cornish game hens
Steamed potatoes
Cole slaw
Berries

Wednesday through Friday in Tacoma (eating out and sandwiches)

Saturday--
Fair food (Northwest Washington Fair)
Probably corn dogs or fried fish for me and DS and sliced beef sandwiches for DH (BBW) and DD (plain), corn on the cob, fully loaded funnel cake, strawberry lemonade, Dutch doughnuts, onion rings or squirrely fries, ice cream, sno-cones, and cotton candy (oh, I'll be so sick! LOL)

Sunday--
Korean food (daughter's birthday celebration, since her father wasn't home for her actual birthday)