It’s hard to believe that summer is winding down! I’m enjoying my flowers very much. Patsy took this picture of one of our dahlias. She planted three last summer, and they all survived over the winter and are beautifully blooming again.

We worked quite a few hours with the kids last week. There were some extra appointments/work/etc. that caused their parents to be a bit more busy than normal. One afternoon, the kids decorated cut-out cookies. I pre-baked them in the shape of a train, and they put frosting and sprinkles on them. I made the dough from scratch, used sprinkles I had, made the frosting and got some red icing from the clearance rack. They had a blast. We had them for extra time on Friday, and this helped fill in the time with a fun activity.

Jake enjoyed the party for the end of the summer reading program at the library. There were crafts, games, a fire truck, and best of all…snow cones! He chose his free book as well.

He loved this game. He got to stomp on a pedal and it blasted the foam rocket up into the air.

Each child was given a little card and they could do 10 activities at the party. He did 9 and was done, so we went home and had lunch. It was just right for him, and really solidified the fact that he had completed the program.

Patsy plugged away on school, in-between activities. My goal is that we have a few weeks done by September 1, so we can have more time at Christmas and be done early. She’s doing great so far:)

On Saturday, my sister whisked us, the kids, and some friends off an a big adventure. I’m going to save the pictures of our trip for another day, because there is so much to tell, but I promise to get busy posting it very soon. One thing about my sister is that when she plans and orchestrates a trip, the agenda is full, to say the least! We had a blast, but when you see what we did in only 4 days and 3 nights, you will see why it needs a post of its own.

Right now, I’m winding down for a good night’s sleep since I need to be at Jake’s house bright and early in the morning for our next day of adventure together! I’ll be honest, I think we are going to keep it very quiet tomorrow. I envision lots of reading aloud, game playing and a bowl of noodles and a bagel for the boy. We will both be ready for that, I’m sure.

On Tuesday, our church had a huge event for National Neighborhood Night Out. Michaela, and our young friend, loved the fire truck. There was a classic car show and Michaela was especially interested in that, as well. So was Jake. Rob and I took the kids because they really wanted to attend! We took friends for the kids because it’s just more fun for everyone:)

There were bounce houses, a puppet show, hot dogs and chips, a dunk tank, many other games, unlimited snow cones (Go Jake!–he more than ate his share), and many, many other super fun things to do. We were blessed to be able to attend and the kids and their friends had a ball. It was fun to see so many of the neighborhood families turn out, as well.

Patsy was away at camp. I tried to come up with some fun for Jake so he wouldn’t miss her so much. On Wednesday, Rob took him to the $1 movies. They watched a cartoon about Penguins, then went to the library to turn in the final form for summer reading.

On Thursday, these kids, plus Jake and 2 more, all joined up at the Gilbert House Childrens’ Museum. My friend and I ran herd on all 8 of them, fed them a picnic lunch, and had a great day. We were able to use her pass, and my OMSI one ( reciprocal ), so admission was free for all 10 of us. Patsy and her friends returned home from camp that afternoon. Friday, we grocery shopped and then just chilled. She was SO tired.

Her camp involved camping in a field for several nights, and spending the days river rafting down the Deschutes River, plus the usual Bible studies, meals, group sings, etc. that are the norm at church camp. It was another wonderful opportunity for her.

I cooked up a lot of pink beans. They took a while, since they have been around a long time, but they turned out nicely. I’m going to make more frozen burritos and freeze some for quick meals for Patsy especially, as she loves, loves, loves them. My garden has been producing like crazy, so I’ve been picking and preserving that.

I used the rest of the container of beans to make refried beans. I need some for an upcoming event, and then will freeze the rest. This huge pot will be gone in an amazingly short period of time, and then I’ll make more from the traditional pinto beans. They all work!

These white carnations were in a bouquet I received last week. The rest of the flowers went bad, so I just got some zinnias from the garden and revived the bouquet. I love it! On my birthday, I was spoiled rotten by my sisters, nice, nephew and Mom taking me out for breakfast, then Rob took me for a drive to the coast. We just drove along, stopping where we wished and eating odds and ends when we wanted to. It was relaxing. After that, a friend dropped by with goodies….what more can I say? It was a great birthday.

I pulled up any beets that had any size to them and made several jars of pickled beets. I canned green beans, and most of my bushes are done. I’m ok with that. I’ve got quite a few jars now, and need to move on to other projects. I will likely freeze any odds and ends that still grow on the one remaining very short row as there won’t be enough to fill a canner.

Zucchini anyone? I’m running out of people willing to take it…….It’s like Bubba in Forest Gump, but with zucchini…..zucchini pickles, zucchini bread, zucchini relish, baked zucchini………….. All joking aside, it’s a huge blessing that the garden is doing so well.

We’ve been discussing a big change for Patsy for a long time now, and have finally come to a decision. She has asked to be homeschooled and we have decided to give it a year and see how it goes. So, I’ve been going through curriculum I already own, ordering used books to fill in the rest, and a few new ones when I couldn’t get them used. Everything is here now, and I’ve spent literally hours organizing it, laying out the plan, and we’ve actually done a little school already, since she is excited. After all, anything done while in a good mood is still done when cold season strikes and all she feels like is laying around….I like to plan my own schedule anyway and get done earlier than the schools around here do. I’m planning quite a few field trips for her, as that is something she has missed out on. They just don’t do many in the public schools around here anymore. Of course, there is a huge pile of books waiting for her as well!

I went through all my remaining school supplies and didn’t need anything except some tape and a couple of mechanical pencils. So, I passed up all the super good sales this time.

I got a lot of groceries this week, and shopped the loss leaders. There was butter for $1.99/lb, lunchmeat for $1.99/package, milk for 99c/1/2 gallon, tortillas for 99c/package, and many more. It took a lot of thinking, but I got a lot of groceries for my money.

How did your week go? Were you able to stay thrifty, even though you were busy?

We spent a day enjoying OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). The submarine tour was especially interesting to our crew, as we had never been on that before. Between a friend who had a reciprocal pass and my sister’s membership, Patsy and I were able to tag along.

My sister bought us all tickets to see the Science of Pixar exhibit at OMSI. The kids loved it because it showed how so many of their favorite characters were engineered and had hands-on activities for them to do.

It was a beautiful day. I enjoyed the river and the bridges. I don’t go to Portland very often, and I am seldom in a place where I can just gaze at this sight.

I worked like crazy before and after OMSI, because the peaches were going, going…..and soon would be rotten…….I did get 17 jars of jam made, froze some, and Rob froze the rest while Patsy and I were gone. I was so glad that I got to them before they went bad. Peach jam is one of our absolute favorite kinds. I will use the frozen ones for smoothies. I will can another kind later in the summer.

During the summer, Michaela usually only hangs around with Rob for one day a week, Thursday. He takes her to Horses of Hope first, then to volunteer at 50 +, and then brings her here for a bit, then home. We have declared Thursday to be “wash the dog day” because she so longs to wash dogs:). So, once again, she and Patsy gave the dog a good bath, making Michaela happy, and saving us money at the same time.

We returned lots of bottles and cans, most of which were given to us, to put in our vacation fund. To make it stretch even further, we put the money on the Bottle Drop account, removed that amount of money from my grocery envelope and put the cash into the vacation fund, and then use the Bottle Drop 20% extra feature at the grocery store to get a few more groceries each time. If you don’t have Bottle Drop where you live, this may not make sense, but basically if you leave the money on your card and use it at a participating store, you get 20% extra store credit.

In the garden, things continue to ripen, and a few new seeds have sprouted. These are green onions. I hope to have a row next to the edge that will overwinter as they did a couple of years ago. These seeds were saved from those green onions, so I’m not out anything if it doesn’t work. I have baby lettuce, a few green beans, and a few more pickling cucumbers coming up for fall eating.

I have been picking cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, beets, broccoli side shoots, and herbs.

Patsy needed shorts. Rob found some jeans at a thrift store for $1 in her size. I took 2 pairs of them and cut them off. One I hemmed, and the other I just sewed around so she could fray them up to the sewed line.

It’s a busy time of year!

I am posting this picture of raspberries for Marybeth of Making Cents of it All blog. She has some raspberries at her house that look very, very different. Around here, in the Pacific Northwest, we have 2 main kinds of these berries. We have the June-bearing, which these are, and the ever-bearing. They look similar. Hers have a fuzzy wrapper. I was astounded! I’m still picking berries from my bushes, although they are starting to wind down.

I was able to work in the garden some more. I pulled spent snow peas, added steer manure, and replanted lettuce. I have several more little projects out there to do and areas to replant when they open up.

I took Jake to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream as his prize from the chart he does over at my house. When he fills it doing chores and activities, he gets a prize. Later in the week, I sent Rob to Fred Meyers when they ran a super deal on ice cream for $1/carton and had him pick up the 5 allowed and a box of cones. Patsy and Jake feasted on ice cream cones several times for a fraction of the price it would have cost me to take them to the ice cream shop.

Michaela and Patsy gave the dog a bath, saving at least $40 for a grooming fee.

I froze raspberries from our bushes, blueberries from my mom, 11 or 12 baggies of broccoli from the garden, and canned a total of 12 quarts and 20 pints of green beans from the garden. One morning, when I was up super early to preserve food, I was surprised to see a hot air balloon sailing through the sky nearby!

I did two things this week that cost absolutely nothing, but gave me great joy. First, I went to a wedding reception for a young lady that used to play with my girls years ago. I got to see some old friends that I have not seen for quite a while.

Second, I got to hold this sweet 6-day-old bundle on Friday. I also got to attend her baby dedication today at church. Babies are so precious and I never get over the miracle that they are!

We attended the Farmer’s Market again this week with friends. Again, Patsy received the $2 coupon kids get for tasting an item–blueberries were the item this week—no hardship for her. Our friend’s 7 kids got their tickets as well. My sister brought Jake, as well, and he ate a blueberry and got his $2 coupon as well. We were amazed he ate one! I didn’t see that coming:). It was really fun, and we even saw a lady dressed as “Ima Blueberry” who handed out recipes and things. The kids were tickled with her. They picked the perfect woman for the job–she really hammed it up. They loved it. After all, it’s not every day you see a lady in a round, blue costume talking like she was a blueberry:)

I’ve got so many zinnias blooming now. These are all from 25c baggies of seeds Rob bought at a garage sale and volunteers. Jake’s case worker was coming to see him. He told me he wanted to take the man some flowers. When I asked where he thought he would get some, he said, “From your garden, auntie” like it was the most obvious thing. It was all his idea, and the caseworker said it was the first bouquet he had every received from a little kid on his caseload. I love how you can cut and cut these and they just make more blooms when you do!

I’m enjoying my flowers, that are blooming like crazy right now. This is a poppy I grew from seed and put into a flowerbed. I also have dahlias that rebloomed from last year’s bulbs, zinnias, nasturtiums, and more.

I planted quite a few seeds here and there, and some made it, but some were eaten by slugs…..Still, I’m happy with the ones that made it.

My mom came and took Patsy and I out to lunch on Tuesday. She brought all these blueberries, which I froze. We had a great time. During the school year, she visits more frequently, since she is down in my area more often. We have to plan for it more during the summer, so it was nice to get it on the calendar.

Lovana went back to Hawaii at the end of the week. Ja’Ana went with her for a little while. But, all week, there was extra cooking, laundry, etc. and lots of extra commotion as people came and went. It was fun!

I worked in the garden several times, and we ate lettuce, snow peas, and berries frequently. I was able to pull lots of food from the freezers and pantry to cook along with the garden produce.

This week will be busy, as Jake and Michaela are back from their vacation and I’ll be working with them a lot. I need to rack up some extra hours, since they’ve been gone. I’ve got a lot of kid-friendly activities planned and I’m loaded up with Ramen noodles, mini-bagels, and lemonade for later in the week, but today, I’m going to help Jake unpack from his vacation and clean his room–not super fun for him, but a good skill to work on. Once we clean for a while, we will do some fun stuff, like read. I’m ready to get back to routine, and I’ll bet he is, too:)

After several months of looking, we finally got a dog this week. We had several criteria to meet. 1) It needed to be a gentle dog to be a companion for Rob since he is stretched out in pain for some time each day in the back room. 2)I needed to be able to handle the dog as I would be the main dog-walker. 3). We needed to be able to afford the rehoming/rescue fees.

It has been an insane journey. After all the media hype about how many dogs need homes, we were shocked at how hard some places made it to adopt the dogs they had.

One place wanted us to promise to never change the address and phone number on their dogs’ microchips. Really? What if the dog ran away and they couldn’t reach us, the new owners? That didn’t make sense to us.

One person on Craig’s list wanted a $900 rehoming fee. Really? What was it? A SOLID GOLDEN retriever?

We understand that the rescue places put money into the dogs. We understand they often spay or neuter them, and get them veterinarian care when they need it. We planned to spend some money, but so many places wanted several hundred. When a dog was cheap or free, it went so quickly we couldn’t even get out to see it before it was gone. We began to make this a matter of prayer–that we could find the right dog for us.

One night, Rob searched the local county dog control/pound’s website to see what they had available right now. (He also searched several others, as he has been doing regularly). They had a couple of options available that looked good, so he ran over there on Tuesday while I was up visiting a friend to take a closer look. They were easy to work with, brought out several dogs for him to meet, accepted his application and approved him on the spot, and he brought home a dog that same day! He was so surprised that he had found the right one, and it was so easy, that he had to leave the pound and come back after he purchased some dog food! This dog was only $20. Yes, $20. She is older, very sweet and quiet, but we think she was slated for the happy hunting grounds in the sky pretty soon if she had not been adopted, and they really wanted to get her to a good home. She is a Boxer mix. We think mixed with Pit Bull, to look at her, but who knows what else. She seems to have had some training in the past, but I’m already working with her each day to learn more things. Her name is Safari, and I think we are going to be very happy with her.

We bought a large crate and she happily went into it while we were gone to church this morning. I’ve been walking her for 1-2 miles each day, broken up in shorter walks. She has not had an accident in the house and seems to be letting us know she wants out. She hasn’t been barking or chewing things. She’s been gentle with Rob, not jumping on him or pulling him over as he is unsteady. I’m not sure what they told her at the pound, but she clearly took the adage, “be a good girl for them” to heart. I’m hoping she will keep up these good behaviors. So far, I’m delighted.

We received a free vet check-up when we adopted the dog, so we will go to that on Tuesday.

I did do some other things this week to stay frugal. I cooked a lot from scratch. We were going with some friends to a potluck at the day camp where 4 of our friend’s kids attended this week. I volunteered to make the potluck food, and took plenty. I did berry-peach crisp, brownie bars, zucchini bread and taco salad, which I assembled right before we ate. I made lots of salad this week, as our lettuce is prolific right now. I made Mexican-flavored pork, using home-canned salsa verde. I’ve used or shared almost all of the pea pods from the first crop. I’m making vegetarian taco lentils to take to a friend tomorrow, and for us to eat. Rob loves them.

Speaking of Rob, he goes to the doctor for a weight check-in tomorrow. We are pretty sure he is more than 10 pounds down since last month. He’s been working so hard, and staying within the 1000 calorie/day limit the doctor set for him. It should be a fun weigh-in.

I worked in the garden several times.

Patsy gets to go swimming at an aquatic center for free with her youth group tonight after evening church. She’s excited.

Rob scored big-time at a garage sale. They were selling absolutely everything. He bought unopened peanut butter for 25c and a can of Costco chicken for 25c. He got lots of spices for 25c each. The only thing I threw away was the baking powder–it was so expired I didn’t think it would rise any more. The large container of pepper alone……several dollars worth.

We read library books and watched library movies and I took Jake to a mid-week show as part of the summer reading program. I took Michaela to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese–she had fun with her friends. Rob took her shopping for a gift, and the stuffed animal she chose for her friends was under $10, and the girl seemed happy with it. The summer will involve more activities with Jake, as well as a few extra hours now and then, as Jake doesn’t have school. There is plenty to do that is not expensive, but still fun, as well as the chores, reading, etc. I have him do daily.

Well, I’m off to check those lentils. I hope your week goes well, and that you have a great 4th of July!