Thriving In My Thrifty Week-Mar.13, 2022

It’s been a week of soup, again! Besides keeping my grocery budget down, it’s just plain good food for this time of year. After some very cold, sunny days, we are in a period of rain, rain, rain!

We finished the beef-vegetable soup, and I made both chicken with rice noodles and potato soup. I may have actually made a little too much soup:). We had tacos a few times, made with home-made, frozen re-fried beans and hamburger. We made a very small pork roast with salsa verde on it. Rob’s mom gave us 4 or 5 avocados when he stopped in to visit her, so we had those several times as they ripened. I also made a ground turkey stroganoff with noodles, which was enjoyed several times. I don’t eat a lot of noodles, but they sure go down well when the baby comes over and I enjoy a few with him when I make them. I shopped a week and a half ago, and it’s working out fine–we are into the second week and have plenty of choices left. Of course, I used, and will use, lots of frozen and canned food from my pantry.

I skipped the Azure Standard order this month, as I had plenty, but instead sent Rob down to Costco for a few bulk items. The girls also went to Costco and gave me some bits and pieces of veggies that came in such large quantities they didn’t feel they would eat them all. Nice! I had Rob grab a chicken, as I often do, and we ate and froze chicken, boiled the bones and made broth, and froze most of it for another soup-making session later on. $5 for an already cooked chicken is such a bargain.

I was delighted to get outside a couple of times. We pulled a few weeds, planted a couple clumps of red tulips someone left for free beside the road, and got the tiny tiller out and roughed up the big flowerbed out front. After the amount of rain we just received, I know that’s the last flowerbed work I will be able to do for a while, until it dries out again. The lawn was mowed as well, so things look better around here.

Rob used some money he was given for his birthday to pick up some jumbo bags of dahlias at Costco. We also have quite a few bulbs he dug up last fall, both from some we had planted in the corner of the garden and some a friend gave us last summer. We have a couple of areas we plan to fill with dahlias. It’s too early to plant them yet. The hope is that once they are established, and mulched, they will be less work than the gazillions of zinnias I planted last summer! I wasn’t able to hand-weed them enough, so they got pretty weedy by the end of the summer. Gorgeous, but a bit of a mess.

It was a week of visitors. I had Jake (my nephew) all week. For you new readers, we work with him and his sister for our job, and spend some auntie and uncle time, as well. His mom was working 12 hour days, multiple days. His dad was working a lot, as well. So he just spent the days and nights all week. His sister came one day, only, as she is enrolled in a program most days. We had the grand-babies a few days. By Friday, I was delighted to hear that my mom was coming over. She played games, held Mac, and helped eat up some of that never-ending soup while we visited. It was good to break up the fun with a new person. This is her trying to play Clue with Patsy and Jake while keeping Malcolm busy with lots of odds and ends in a basket–no wonder I can multi-task well:). I come by it naturally!

Rob took Jake to the library one day, Michaela to Bottle Drop to recycle her family’s cans and bottles, Jake out for errands and donuts and Michaela to Costco for a hot dog and her Horses of Hope lesson. I stayed home with Patsy and did school, school, school, babysat and did school with Jake. I also read aloud to him for hours, as he loves that. Right now, we are reading Trixie Belden, book 1, yet again. He loves that book. It’s a good thing that I enjoy it, too, as this has to be our 3rd or 4th time through.

You can imagine that I loved having the company I got, and I was ready for a little visiting! All those errands and activities kept the kids busy, and that helps me keep sane.

I am happy to report that Patsy is almost finished with school. Tomorrow should do it, except for a couple of very small things. Now she will be able to have a few days to do a few things she needs and wants to do to finish preparing for going off to camp to work a week from Tuesday. It’s been 7 days a week, often many hours per day, of contact school for a few weeks, ever since we found out they wanted her early to help with outdoor schools, so it will be SO good to be done with that huge project!

My niece, Alissa, came over one day just to hang out. If you are a new reader, this is the niece that I homeschooled for several years, so I miss her a lot now that she’s grown up and working. Another evening, another couple of nieces dropped by and of course, I loved seeing them, as well. I’ve just had a great “auntie” week.

We took the babies and Jake to the park. We take as many walks as we can, whenever the weather allows us to. Even when it’s raining, we take umbrellas and go. It’s only when it’s very cold or the rain is driving sideways that we stay in with the kids the whole time.

It was a great, but super busy week. My life goes that way–I’m busier in spurts, and I’ll admit I got somewhat tired this week. It turned out to be a lot, but filled with such precious people and memories. This next week will be lighter. That’s good because I have one daughter I’d like to spoil a bit before she takes off to camp…..

10 thoughts on “Thriving In My Thrifty Week-Mar.13, 2022”

  1. That baby is such a treat! I love seeing pictures of him!

    We picked up a chicken at Sam’s and had 6 meals for the two of us. I don’t know about Costco but Sam’s chicken sizes vary quite a bit so we always look for the biggest one. This one was an extra 12 ounces!

    We are heading into warmer Southern weather so I think we are done with soup for the season. A pot of soup can really get to be too much real quick for just two!

    1. We do the same thing! Some are bigger. I find I end up freezing both broth and chicken pieces these days as we don’t eat the entire chicken fast enough, so it goes a long way around here, too.

  2. You are always so busy and so cheerful about it all, too! I enjoyed seeing that photo of Malcolm with his great grandmother. 🙂

    1. It’s been sweet how he’s been getting to know her lately and asked to get up on her lap for the first time on his own. Precious memories

    1. Alissa works at the same camp Patsy just got hired on at. This was not a coincidence:). She has worked there for a couple of years now, and has chosen to join their internship program during the winter. They have classes in basic camp stuff, plus Bible classes, and those students stay there and take their classes during the week all winter, as well as work at the camp during the spring and fall outdoor schools and the summer camping programs. She stays there most of the time, but often spends her weekends at her home, as the camp is only about 30-45 minutes from where we all live. She has worked her way up to Director of Adventure Camp Women Counsellors (or some such title, but basically she helps lead the women counsellors for the overnight camps and plans lots of activities and also helps train the new counsellors coming in). Patsy is on Day Camp, and is a basic Outdoor School class teacher right now, and will be a counsellor for the Day Camp kids during the summer, once the regular program begins. During the spring, they will see groups of kids move in and out, 2 groups per week, and will be focusing on teaching classes that meet the educational requirements of their grades, with no Bible of any kind, as these are the public schools that attend. EXCEPT, the Christian schools, and with those they can add the Biblical focus. During the summer, it is a Christian-focused camp and they run both a day camp experience for churches to attend, and overnight camps for those who sign up. They also run a horse camp with a whole different staff and area, and when they run overnight camps, they are in a separate area and run a different program at the same time as Day Camp is going on. So, there could be 3 seperate camps with 3 separate teams leading them going on at the same time, all at the same camp. It’s pretty big and they have areas for each one. I believe some of the Adventure Camps actually go to adventurous places part or all of the time, too.

      1. WOW! Sounds like an awesome place to work! Everyone visiting is having a good time which makes the job more enjoyable. I worked at church camps when I was young. It was fun but also very hard work.
        Jeannie

        1. Right now, they are doing outdoor schools. New kids come in every couple of days, some for only one day–whatever the school wants. I’m glad they can work there.

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