This week has gone so quickly, that I can’t believe it’s time for another weekly update post already! Let’s hope I can remember what I did!
I made several food items. The picture is of a fruit tart. I made 2 of them, one for us, and one for the teens on Tuesday night. They were well-received in both places.
I cooked broccoli soup with a mixture of frozen garden broccoli from last summer and some frozen mixed veggies that weren’t looking too good anymore. It came out great, and I felt virtuous using up those veggies in a way that made them taste good.
We ate a lot of the ham I got for $1.29/lb last week, and froze the rest. I also made broth from the bone, and will cook with it tomorrow or Monday. Rob BBQ’d chicken. We are still working on the pulled pork I made last week, as well. It seems that food lasts much longer around here than it used to when more kids were around, eating more. I will freeze some of that, too.
I helped with another brunch for the teens’ mission trip. This time it was a Mexican-themed meal with breakfast burritos. I took fruit, cheese, and tortillas. I was especially happy to sign up for the tortillas, since I got them on super sale for 49c/package last week.
I made homemade popsicles several times from apple juice and from leftover peach juice from home-canned peaches. Some of those even had the last peach in the jar in them, in chunks. It’s been quite warm and those get eaten as soon as they get frozen and then I make more right away!
I exercised twice at the YMCA, and took several walks.
The senior pictures (not this one, clearly) got chosen, edited, and sent in to Walgreens, where the graduation announcements/party invitations got printed. Now, to send them out. My husband found a coupon code for Mother’s Day for the pictures, and we saved a bundle. Since we were buying them regardless, I was delighted to get a discount.
I signed up for the Ibotta app. I’m going to try it out and see if it is worth the time it takes, or not. At this point, I have 1/2 of the amount of points loaded onto it to get the free $10 they offer you to try it. (If you are as clueless as I was, it’s an app that you load coupons onto before you go grocery shopping, then take pictures of your receipt and send them in, and they basically give you a few cents of rebate money for each offer you redeem). I did not buy items I did not want, and have $5 in rebates already. There were things like 25c off of bananas, 25c off of anything, and 75c off of Udi’s gluten-free bread and so forth. My plan is to finish up the other $5 this next week, to get the free $10, then decide if it’s worth it or not. You can cash it out when you reach $20, which I will do next week, if all goes as planned. If you want to try as well, my code is: dxkbnkp. (When you sign up, you can enter that referral code, you will get $10 and I will get $5). I’m also just fine if you don’t want to mess with it—I sure stayed on the fence for a long time before I signed up:).
We worked in the garden several times. Rob finished tilling. Patsy and I both did some planting and watering. The red mulch in the background is an experiment. It is supposed to improve production of tomatoes. So, I certainly won’t need more yield on my cherry tomatoes, they are so prolific, so I’m trying it on the regular ones. Green mulch is supposed to help cucumbers and melons. I hope to try some of that, too, especially on the melons I am starting. I hope to do a garden update post later in the week and go into a little more detail.
Hopefully, this week won’t get away from me like the last one did!!! No promises, though. I only have 2 more weeks to get those girls to finish up all their schoolwork before I need to turn it in. I’ve been really pushing it the last couple of weeks, and I think we might just make it. Now, the correcting–not my favorite, but necessary:). I will be very glad when this project is over for the year–I’m ready to put more time into the house and garden for a while.
Sounds like you had a busy week, Becky! But you seem to be on top of everything, as usual. 🙂
It was super busy, and, truthfully, I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the extra things I need to do for Ja’Ana’s graduation and the other things that are going on. But, I will get through it, and maybe things will slow down a bit after all that:).
Funny that I loaded the ibotta app last week, too. There were supposed to be some freebies at WalMart which I tried to do but the app would not open at the store. Grrrr…… Now I am just thinking it will way too much trouble because I don’t have a clue what to do with the whole thing. I will try to use it again once we are home from the lake and decide.
Happy Mother’s Day! My birthday was yesterday so a whole weekend of celebrating here. We went to a fantastic Beatles concert last night and had so much fun. Then of course we couldn’t go to sleep because we were so wound up!
The mulch colors sound like an interesting experiment. Can’t wait to see how it works!
Happy birthday! I’m glad you had a great time.
I don’t know yet about the Ibotta app, either. I’ll give it a little time.
I hope it’s nice weather and you are relaxing at the lake. It’s beautiful weather here today.
Ibotta is worth it but it ebbs and flows with offers. I’ve gotten as much as $46 in a month and as little as just a few dollars that would roll over to another month. It’s worth it in the lib run but you won’t get rich quick! I would be tempted to use it as a savings lesson for a teen wanting to help out, just to save you time 😉
That’s great to know. Thanks!
Ja’Ana is beautiful. Congratulations on her graduation.
I am trying the red mulch with my tomatoes this year, too.
I find Ibotta is worth it. Some stores (like Joann’s) give good rebates with it.
You can let us know how the red mulch works for you!
I’m glad you are getting good results with the Ibotta. I thought it would be worth a try, anyway.
Lovely pics!
Thank you.
I love Ibotta. Started using it last summer. It will take a little time to get used to it but then you will love it. I saved $15 last week from it. Your garden is much farther along then our. We still are clod at night so I can’t plant most things outside yet.
I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s day. My list is here:https://mcoia.blogspot.com/2018/05/my-frugal-list-week-of-may-6-2018.html
I’m glad to hear you like it. I’m assuming they will change the grocery coupons soon–there are a couple of things I might re-buy (like 25c off on anything:) ) but, lots of it I would not.
I just finished planting what I want to plant, and Rob got the sprinklers set up and we did our first watering with a sprinkler. Whew. It’s been getting pretty time-consuming watering with a watering can!
Those tarts look amazing and so delicious! I love the picture of your gorgeous Ja’Ana and Jake! Was the second one you share of just her alone the one you went with? Parsy is so cute watering in the garden. I’m curious to see how the mulch experiment works. I have had production problems with my cucumbers in the past and it this helps, I’m all for it! Be blessed!
Debbie,
I could not choose. Her invitations have 6 pictures on them, and we had 8 x 10’s and 5 x 7’s, and little pictures made up of several different ones. We let her choose some of the poses, and Rob and I each chose a couple, as well.
So far, the tomatoes are looking absolutely wonderful, considering they’ve only been in for a week. I still need to get the green mulch down around the cucumbers. But, even if I never get that done, I’m extremely committed to putting it down for the melons. They just won’t grow well here on a normal year. Last summer was so unusually hot, that I got 5 watermelons. So, I’m hoping that with this mulch, I will get some this year. The problem is, I am starting them in the greenhouse, and they are not coming up very well. More time, hopefully, will cure that!