One of the highlights of this week was visiting the library, where a model train club had set up a large track and a couple of small ones for the viewing pleasure of anyone who came, all for free.  Michaela loves trains.  When she was little, she often would watch a video called “Trains Across America” that Rob got at a garage sale and has been very focused on trains for all of her life.  She had a blast! The retired gentlemen were very patient and eager to answer all of her many, many questions.  Some let her even carefully touch certain trains, and more than one of them was trying to work out a way that she could have her own set-up.  I simply said it was up to her parents:)

They set up a couple of smaller sets, too.  There were a few interactive train sets.  Jake and Michaela loved them!

The kids’ big sister, Caitlyn, met Ja’Ana and I at the library and we all enjoyed the exhibit.    Jake and Michaela had to be pried away after almost 2 hours.  Caitlyn had already ran out and added money to her meter, and mine was running out, so we finally went back to my house.  I am not sure how long the kids could have stayed, maybe forever, but Caitlyn was going to take Michaela to her horse riding and so Jake hung at our house while they did that.

Another day, I took them to the library after school.  I keep their library books in my car, or at my house and they enjoy them when they are riding around or visiting me.  That way, they don’t get mixed up with books at their house.  Rob took Patsy to the library on a different night.

I picked and froze more raspberries this week.  I cut off most of my basil and turned it into a simple pesto.  Mine has basil, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic and a small amount of Parmesan cheese.  I froze it in ice cube trays, popped the cubes out, and froze the cubes in a bag.  If the bushes grow more, I’ll make more, but this amount makes me very happy.  I use it in salad dressing and on pasta.  I also occasionally spread it on bread for sandwiches.  It’s nice on chicken, too, and is very economical since I don’t use any nuts in it, and only a small amount of cheese.

This week, we emptied quite a few jars of home-canned goodness.  It’s nice to start using what I worked so hard on.  I have been bringing a few jars of fruit at a time into the kitchen and chilling them in the fridge to make the fruit more tempting.  I also had some cottage cheese and it goes nicely with peaches or pears, so some got used that way, too.

I have not gone grocery shopping in October, yet.  One reason is that I stocked up so well in September that I haven’t needed anything, yet.  The other reason is that I caught a cold, and was not in the mood to shop.  Since I’ve budgeted $50/week, plus a small Costco run, I will now have $100 to spend this week.  What I generally do in a case like this (well stocked up, don’t really need much) is just keep the money in an envelope and wait until I see a basic ingredient that is on sale for a very good price (like butter for $2 or cheese for $5 for 2 lbs) and then stock up on a bunch of it.  That way I am always using ingredients I bought for the lowest possible price and my food is getting used and rotated.  I will also need a few things, like milk, in a few days.  Since I’m not the only one who doesn’t feel tip-top, no one is eating much, so things are holding out longer than usual and there’s always applesauce…..

Someone accidentally spilled something in the fridge, and I discovered it.  What I thought was going to be a quick wipe-up turned out to be a big fridge cleaning.  The silver lining is that I was able to get it organized and cleaned.  Now I know what’s in there and will use the odds and ends up, got rid of quite a few questionable items, and have no more odd odor and dried-on ??? on the bottom.   I was ruthless and did not even entertain the idea of keeping a few things that had been in there for a long time.  I finally made the lasagna I wanted to make, so that will be in there once it cools enough.  There is some rice and orange chicken from the other day, even though we ate it again last night.  So, one of my next jobs will be deciding on a couple more things to cook for the week ahead, since that will only take care of tonight and tomorrow.  Once I do cook them, there will be plenty of space in the fridge to put them!  That’s always a good feeling for me:)

Is there anything lurking in your fridge that needs to go?  Or any meals you want to put in there for the week ahead?

I picked a bouquet from the garden and yard.  Even though things are starting to wind down around here, with the advent of fall, there are still nice flowers to be had.  They seem to be perking up a bit since it started raining.

I did a bit of late-night canning.  Thankfully, the covered porch has a really good light!  I am hoping to finish up what I want to can soon, so we can thoroughly clean this area up.  It’s on the “targeted” list!

I had wanted to try plum sauce this year, and I love how pretty it looks in the jar.  It used the last of the Italian prunes, and has hot peppers in it, but they didn’t give much of a “kick” to it, so I added some red pepper flakes.  It still isn’t very spicy, but is good.  It’s more like a barbeque sauce than a jam, and Rob plans to use it for that.  If we like it, we will make more next year.

I bought 2 chickens for 88c/lb.  I roasted them both, then Rob made a huge kettle of broth from the bones.  In the end, for around $10, we got several quart-sized bags of frozen chicken meat, 7 quarts of broth and 6 pints.  I canned the broth.  I do freeze broth as well, but sometimes, I like the convenience of canned broth and the fact that it is shelf-stable, so I always have some on hand.  I also have pretty full freezers at this point, with all the fruit, meat, and reduced-priced bread I have them stuffed with.

I took the 1-2 cups of raspberries and strawberries (mixed) that I picked on Friday and thickened them up into a sauce, using sugar, white grape juice and cornstarch.  Then, I made a recipe for some cake-like bars I used to make, converting them to gluten-free.  They were perfect for my contribution to family Sunday dinner.

I poured the thickened berry sauce on top of the cake-like batter and baked.  After it was done, I made some cinnamon-spiced buttercream frosting and thinned it out with milk until it was the right consistency to drizzle onto the cooled bars.  They turned out great!

Rob stopped by a cannery that is in our area.  He found slightly dented cans of various items, with no labels, for $2.50 per case.  For smaller cans, there were 24 in a case, and the large cans (pumpkin), were 12 to a case.  So, the cans were around 10c or 20c a can, according to size.  He got a few cases, some for us, and some to share.  I was especially happy to get the pumpkin since I grew neither pumpkin or squash successfully this year, and he bought himself pickled beets.  Even though I made a few jars, he can eat them every day, if they are available, and has downed 2 cans already.  I made a pumpkin pie, pumpkin custard, and pumpkin cookies–all from the one can I opened.  It held about 3 cups of pumpkin.

I picked purple beans, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, snow peas, raspberries, a few strawberries, and zucchini this week from the garden.

I cooked too much food:)  I had to freeze some of it.  This week, I will be working on using some of those frozen meals, and other items I have stuffed in every corner of the freezers, such as the 59c/loaf bread I got a while back.

I enjoyed this gorgeous cloudscape one evening as I was heading home from work.  The late-day rays of light were glorifying the edges of the clouds.  That’s about all the sun we saw all week!  Thankfully, we got a good week of solid, soaking rain, just what we needed to soak everything well, including the forest, where so many fires are raging.  They aren’t all out, yet, but the firefighters are making progress now.  I can’t even imagine how much money rain saves!  Even more than money, I am hopeful that lives and the forests will be saved.

Our week was filled with normal, everyday activities like school, work and church.  There was just a lot to do, as we were trying to do some extra cleaning on some evenings. We ate a lot of chicken, since I cooked a little too much last weekend.  It was nice to have meals to just warm up.  I did add in a meatloaf and one night, we just had sandwiches, as we were super busy that evening.  On another, it was chili dogs with canned chili and warmed up turkey dogs.  It is always cheaper to make my own chili, but it is always cheaper to open a can then to go out to dinner.  So, once in a while,  I do that.

The big girls enjoyed a good tickle-fest with their little friend, Danait, who was “fixing” them up with her doctor kit when we went to visit this week.  We accomplished some important errands, and had a good visit. Of course this always includes the wonderful coffee Harnet makes.  She roasts the beans on the spot, grinds them, and makes the coffee.  I am not a coffee drinker, but what she makes is so good, I always enjoy having some.  It sure perks me up, no matter how tired I am:)  We were also treated with more genuine Eritrean food–red lentils cooked with peppers and tomatoes, beef stew with vegetables and spicy peppers, yellow rice, and injera bread for the girls.  Ja’Ana really likes that injera bread.

This dresser/desk had only 2 knobs.  Harnet could not get the drawers open without a great deal of trouble.   It was so hard to open them that she was not able to use the drawers except for seldem-used items.  She thought she would have to go to Goodwill and get a new one, not knowing it was possible to simply replace the knobs.  Rob got new knobs for very little, and provided me with the proper screwdrivers and instructions on how to fasten them on.  I, with a little help from Danait, removed the 2 remaining knobs, and put the new knobs on.  Harnet is so, so happy with how it looks, and so am I.  She was absolutely delighted to not have to purchase another one, and kept saying it was just like having a new one.  I agree.  The knobs make it much prettier than it was before.

The garden perked up from the rain.  The zucchini and peppers look much better, although still not great.  I used 1 of my 5 gallon bags of carrots this week.  I targeted the smallest ones, peeled them and cut them into carrot sticks.  Some were pretty tiny so I didn’t have to cut them much.  I sauted them in a little butter, salt, pepper and a tiny bit of brown sugar.  I made carrot sticks with the rest.

I picked more lettuce, snow peas, cucumbers, zucchini, cherry and pear tomatoes, broccoli and purple beans.  I got 3 quarts of raspberries to freeze.  The garden is winding down, but I picked enough to both eat, and share this week.

Ja’Ana had a friend over to spend the night Friday night.  Patsy had an all-night party at church and Lovana was gone as well, with friends.  So, the 2 girls wanted to go roller skating,  There is a place that J’s friend knew about that is a basketball court most days, but they have skating on Friday nights for only $5.  They had a blast.

I am nearing the end of my project of re-stocking my pantry.  I recently read a post by another blogger about various ways people did pantry challenges.  Apparently, some people let their pantries go down to almost empty before they re-stock them.  I do it differently.  If I used absolutely everything up, I cannot imagine how much it would cost to replace it all, and I would no longer have a stockpile. I use up the oldest items that have been hanging around for a while, ends of packages that were opened at some point, things that are close to expiring, vegetables from the garden, freezer, etc.  I force myself to be creative with those targeted items and use them instead of new groceries, but I always re-stock things I run out of as soon as I can.  I like to buy things at the lowest prices possible, so have been doing a lot of buying on sale the last 3 weeks, going from store to store to get the best prices, and visiting specialty stores for items that can be bought no where else (such as some gluten-free items and the sunthenine-melatonin tablets Patsy takes before bed to help her sleep).  I also sent Rob to Costco, which I do every couple of months and he got the things I get there, such as Ziplock bags, t.p., and some other things.   I was able to get up to Bob’s Red Mill on Saturday, and got some things there.  Their bulk bins are reasonable for the 1-1 gluten-free flour (almost $1/lb cheaper than in a package around here), but it is quite far from my house, so I only go if I am going to be in the area for another reason.  There are still a few items left to get, such as more coffee and butter, but I’m waiting until I find some for a good price.  Then, I’ll be good to go for a while again without spending so much time and money at the store.

It has become almost comical how almost daily someone is letting me know we are out of another item.  Toilet paper, razors, deodorant, 1-1 gluten free flour, pasta, sugar, mayo, dish soap, laundry soap, and lots more are now back in stock, at least for now.  I wonder what they will tell me I need tomorrow:) Months like this make me glad I have a nice stockpile.  Without it, I would be buying all of these things PLUS our daily groceries.

I enjoyed it so much when this happy little girl’s mama dressed her up for me in her full African regalia.  She was so proud to show me, and I loved it, too!  A while back her mama had asked me to mend a small tear in the scarf, which I gladly took home to work on, and she wanted me to see how the whole outfit looked, when I returned the mended scarf this week.

My aunt emailed me with the information that Grocery Outlet was selling 5 dozen medium-sized eggs for $2.99.  I hustled right down there and got them.  I know that in other parts of the country eggs have been super low-priced, but 99c/dozen is about the lowest we have seen in this part of the country, so I was delighted for 60c/dozen.  They weren’t even as small as I expected–pretty good size for medium.

It seems that I have had to go to the store way too often this month.  Last month, when I challenged myself to use things up, I guess I did a really good job! Every time I turn around, someone is letting me know that another thing is gone!   A lot of what I’ve needed to get has been non-food items, such as hair products, razors, deodorant, dish and laundry soap, school supplies, etc.  So, I’ve tried to use downloaded coupons, paper coupons, sales, etc. as much as possible.  I’ve also re-stocked the food items I was out of and continued canning and using produce from the garden and what was gifted to me from my sister’s garden.  I remembered to download my Friday Freebie yesterday from Fred Meyers, and also picked up more Tillamook cheese from there–at $4.99/2 lb loaf.  This week,  I have purchased 2 cheddar and 2 pepper jack bricks.  I grabbed 2 cauliflowers from the reduced produce rack, for $1/head.  I had a coupon for $4/off 3 Enjoy Life products.  I found some gf cookies on the reduced rack for $2.07/box.  I bought 3 of them, bringing my total, after coupon, to $2.21 for 3 boxes of gf cookies.  I grabbed several bread items from the reduced rack for 59c/loaf, 99c/bag of bagels, English muffins and hot dog buns for 59c–I got so many that every empty corner of the freezers are now full of bread items!  I found 1/2 gallons of milk for 87c, And so on. I’ve worked pretty hard at getting my pantry in order, and just have a few more things to round up and I will be done for a while again.

Fall is definitely on its way.  I’ve seen a few trees beginning to change colors around here.  This picture is from last fall, when we took the kids to Bonneville Dam and Multnomah Falls, up the Columbia River Gorge.  Our first soaking rain of the year is predicted for tonight and it is supposed to rain for a few days.  I’m ready.  The smoke was pretty bad yesterday from all the wildfires that still burn in the forests of Oregon. I’m delighted to think that there may be some relief once the rains come, and am also glad many of the historic sites in the gorge were saved from burning.   All week, we scurried around like crazy doing all we could to prepare, and spent many hours yesterday on fall chores.

Every day for the past couple of weeks, I’ve had each girl pull one bucket of weeds from the yard.  I’ve been pretty easy on them in letting them choose any size bucket, and sometimes they choose the littlest bucket you have ever seen, but the yard is starting to look way better!  Rob and I mowed the lawn one evening after work, and we’ve been clipping off branches that are in the way, or need pruning.  We’ve been trying to fill the yard debris bin each week.

Patsy and I worked on the garden and went to the store.  I am planning a garden update post for later in the week, so I won’t spend much time on that now, but one thing she did was pull and wash all the carrots.  She snapped off the tops and put them in Ziplocks.   They are now in the camper fridge with many other items, like eggs and cheese, and will keep a long time.  It’s not large, but it sure helps since we still only have the 1 fridge.

Rob and the older girls went for the remaining wood that was up at my sister’s place.  There was some cutting and splitting to do this week, so it took them most of the morning for 1 load, but we all worked to get it stacked once they returned, and that job is done for now.  Once that was done, Rob and Lovana took our old broken refrigerator and a bunch of recyclables to the dump.  It has been bothering him for quite a while, since it was sitting out there by the shop, and he wanted to get it gone while it way dry!   He had to pay $25 to get rid of the fridge, but the rest was free.  How nice to have that stuff all gone–a whole van full.  It’s amazing how many things you find that need cleaning up after so long without rain.  We’ve had a couple of small showers of rain, but no soaking rain all summer.

Are you ready for fall?  I am not finished, but sure feel like I made some progress around here this week.  Rob and I set ourselves a goal to do at least one thing each evening after work towards getting things cleaned up before the rain, and we are happy with our progress. Let it pour!!!

Now, I’m off to make those Deviled Eggs for our Family Sunday Dinner!  (I used an old picture since I have not made them yet!!)  The eggs are boiled and cold, and I’ll be done in a jiffy.  We are celebrating my aunt’s birthday today, and I wanted to make her Deviled Eggs, since she likes them and was so kind as to tip me off about the great sale on eggs:)  I’ll pack the food in a cooler, and take it to church with us, since we will be over at my sister’s house today.  Her kitchen remodel is finally done and they have been able to come in out of the garage and finally cook after a summer of using a hot plate and microwave!  It’s beautiful.  I’m excited for them!

We continued getting ready for winter this week.  We took 2 trips up to my sister’s farm, where we had a big pile of wood, and brought it home and stacked it.  We used the van, as we sold the trailer this summer.

We looked into renting a U-Haul, but decided it would be more tedious, but much less expensive to use the van.  Rob removed all but one bench seat, and put a large tarp down, and it worked just fine.  There is a little more wood up there, and we plan to get it next week.

I made salsa, and canned it.  I got 14 jars, a mixture between pints and 1/2 pints.

While up at the farm, my sister gave me prunes, peaches, peppers, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and corn.  Yum!  I used some of those things, plus what I had from my garden to make the salsa.  I will can the tomatoes in a few days, along with some from my garden.

We are about to cut the last watermelon.  I also picked raspberries, a few strawberries,  cantaloupe, snow peas, and beans from my garden.  I’ve been freezing the berries as I get them.

I also pulled the first carrots.

I made some recipes from the current Cooking Light Magazine.  I made Sweet Potato-Red Lentil Curry in the crock pot, and Basil Chicken.  They were both good and used things I had on hand.  I think the Basil Chicken will become a family favorite, for sure. The curry was good, too, but it was more of a soup than anything, the way we did it:)   I also made a simple beef stew in the crock pot another day, and we ate leftovers, corn dogs, tacos, and hot dogs other times.

Rob started back to work this week, and I started my regular schedule of getting my niece and nephew off the bus 3 days per week, and started back into homeschool with the 2 girls, Ja’Ana, my daughter, and Alissa, my niece.  We are using the library more this year for school, so we went there this week, as well.  Patsy also started school.

Rob gets the extra hour of work again this year, and needs to ride the little yellow school bus with a child who needs assistance. That extra bit of time was really helpful last year when the paycheck came each month, so we were glad to hear that he could do that again.   Last year, Rob parked the van in a certain parking lot.   He had permission.   This year he was informed by a very unkind, grumpy woman that if he dared to park there again, she WOULD have him towed, and so on and so forth.   So, the bus dispatcher decided that they would now pick him up AT OUR DOOR!  Isn’t that awesome?  Now he will use no gas at all unless that particular child is sick and he has to drive to work.  It was pretty funny to watch him get on the bus Friday morning:)

We did the “deal” at Fred Meyers this week several times, and even took my friend Harnet and little Danait there so they could do it, too.  Harnet confessed she did not really understand how it worked, and I confessed it had taken me a while to figure it out, too.  What you did this week was buy items in increments of 5, and then they would be 99c each. They included 4 lb bags of sugar, 1/2 gallons of milk, Life cereal, Goldfish crackers, granola bars, 18 eggs, and some bread. There may have been more choices, but I was interested in those things.  You could do it however many times you wanted, as long as it was in multiples of 5.  I ended up with 4-1/2 doz. eggs, 4 gallons of milk, 32 pounds of sugar, several boxes of cereal and several bags of crackers, 1 loaf of bread and 1 box of granola bars.  I was especially pleased at the sugar for 25c/lb.  I usually feel happy if it’s 40c/lb.  This is even less expensive per pound than buying a large bag at Cash and Carry.   I was getting very low after all the canning I’ve been doing. Harnet got 2 milks, eggs, bread, and sugar.  She was pleased as well, as those were things she needed, and all 5 for under $5.

I had to buy some odd items as well, this week, such as curry paste, a box of tea, etc., but I found it all, and everyone was well fed.  We did not go out to eat, but were flexible with when we ate, and sometimes what we ate.  I’m sure we will settle into a schedule quickly, but this week felt a little choppy.

The big girls wore her out!  She loves every minute she spends with them.  So sweet:)

How did your week go?