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.

I brought Jake and Michaela home on Thursday after school.  Michaela left on Saturday at 12:30 to go to horses with her big sister and spend the rest of the weekend with her.  Jake stayed until Sunday afternoon.  Friday was a whirlwind of commotion as there was much to do, and the kids had school, which involved a lot of driving back and forth.  On Saturday, Michaela went off with her sister to do horses and Rob took the other kids, while I stayed home to work on the garden.

Ja’Ana played Pooh Sticks with Jake from a bridge at a park they went to.  She got several hours of work on Friday, as well.

I cashed in a large handful of Safeway Monopoly tickets, and got many free items, including aspirin, gravy mix, tomato sauce, French bread, sour cream, bagels,  yogurt, and water.  One reason I’m getting so many free things is because they are now handing out large handfuls of tickets every time I go there, even if all I’m getting is mostly free stuff.  So, I will stop in frequently until after Tuesday, when the game is over.  I want to redeem all the free item coupons I have, and they keep giving me more. Patsy and Jake spent a long time opening the tickets, and Patsy is keeping track on her game board.  Rob told her that if she won the million dollars, he would take her to Disneyland, so she keeps trying.  The store did some substituting when they were out of things, and I have a small handful of coupons to redeem after today’s run.

Rob took Ja’Ana’s senior pictures, and got about 200 shots for me to choose from, plus shots of the other kids as well.

He got some great shots.  I haven’t chosen, yet.  I can’t.  He had to replace a lens on his good camera, which he did by purchasing a refurbished one on-line.  That saved him a great deal of money.   He also saved us a bundle by taking the pictures himself.  We will get invitations done at Walgreens for her graduation party, as we did with Lovana’s graduation.

They had a lot of fun.  He cheerfully drove from park to park with a van load of kids, apparently stopped at 3 fast food places to get each one of them their preferred snack, after the crew downed the entire small cooler of snacks he took with them.  Of course, the kids had to play on each set of equipment, throw rocks and sticks into every creek and river, and so forth.  But, through it all, he got lots of great pictures.

There is some editing that needs to go on, but there are so many great ones, it will be difficult to choose, for sure!

In the meanwhile, I worked in the garden.  Rob did some tilling before he left. I worked out in the garden for several hours.  It’s looking better all the time, and some things are just planted, and some are already growing well.  We had a heavy thunderstorm during the night, so the things I planted yesterday got well watered in.

The week to come does not look boring.  I don’t like to be bored, so I should be happy.  It was nice to sit down in church this morning and re-charge my batteries. That’s a good thing:).  I’ve spent time with my niece and/or nephew 6 out of past 7 days, and will again tomorrow and Tuesday.   My house looks like a train wreck, and that’s after putting in 2 hours cleaning this afternoon.  I’m not done at all.  Just tired and sitting down and done for today.  I can, however, walk across the floor, Rob has clean socks for tomorrow, and clean dishes to eat breakfast from.  We have a few appointments this week, as usual, and a bunch of schoolwork to finish, as the end of school deadline is very close.  Things need to be handed in so Ja’Ana can get her diploma, so the kids have to finish so I can correct it and score it.  I will rest this evening, and hit it again in the morning.   Tomorrow is a new day, a busy and full one, just as I like it.

This week ended up being a bit busier than I thought it was going to be.

One thing I did was help my sister with a brunch she was giving at her house.  She and my brother-in-law are leading a team on a mission trip this next summer, and this brunch was to inform people about it and give them a chance to visit with the team, so they can pray and support the team more effectively.  She did a lot of the cooking, and I made several items as well.

One was chocolate-dipped strawberries.  I used dipping chocolate I got on the Whoo-Hoo (reduced) rack after the holidays, white chocolate chips from holiday sales and on-sale strawberries.

It ended up being a lovely spread of food, and there was a wonderful turn-out and a large part of it was consumed! We had no idea of how many were coming, so I’m glad there was enough, but not way, way too much.  We have some leftovers, but not too many.  Whew!

I took Michaela to her Horses of Hope afternoon.  She gets to ride, and gets to help around the arena.  Her dad or sister usually take her, but today they were busy, so I went.  I have many talents.  Taking care of horses is not one of them.  I was very appreciative that they respected my feelings and let me pet a horse if I felt like it, and did not require me to do anything else:).  So, I just took pictures, and admired Michaela’s skills. Michaela was delighted to show me around, introduce me to the different horses, and have me walk along with her as she took her horse ride.  Because the horse she rode is new to the facility, there were 3 workers who assisted her, one on each side, and one in front.  They are using her and a few other seasoned riders to help train the new horse to be a good therapy horse.  I thought that was really nice of them to say and she was so proud to show off her skills to me!

Rob hung out with Jake and Patsy today.  Between the two of us, we logged in quite a few extra hours with Jake this week.  He was sick on Thursday, so I spent the entire day over there with him.  Have homeschool….will travel:). So, I took the books and Ja’Ana, and we did school over there that day.

I had tickets to Peter Pan up at the Northwest Children’s Theater in Portland for Friday.  When I found out that Rob, Jake and Patsy did not have school Friday, we were able to get them tickets, too.  It is so nice that they let the homeschoolers purchase tickets to the school matinees for a very reduced price.  Rob got to spend time and visit with a friend he has not seen for a while, who also attended the play with his daughter.  He had such a good time and it was especially rewarding to take Jake to his first play up there.  He loved it.

I decided to shop at Safeway for the fruit and other things I needed this week. The produce is so nice at our Safeway, and I needed a bunch of fruit for the brunch.  When I casually mentioned to the cashier how much my daughter is enjoying playing the Monopoly game, she said it was almost over and gave us some extra tickets.  We ended up winning 4 cans of tomato sauce, which Rob picked up today.  He also got 12 apple juices, because they were only 77c/ 64 oz. bottle.  We were delighted to stock up at that price!  He only got a few more tickets today,  but we still won a few more things.  There were some tickets from another day that did not get redeemed today, so we will pick these items up tomorrow after church.  I didn’t know Patsy had a little stash on the fridge under a magnet, but I’m glad to have found them before the game was over.

We keep eating home-frozen beans, and other goodies from our freezer, cupboards, and pantry.  I am pleased with how one of the freezers is starting to look—there is some wiggle room in there now.  I’m going to keep focusing on that project.

This week, it was nice to receive some very useful items from people.

My mom saved some pots for me to use in the greenhouse.  I have been hardening off plants, and was able to give her the flowers I grew for her from the seeds my sister brought her from England.  She kindly left enough for me to plant around here, too.  It was amazing how many flower plants we got from that little packet.

While in D.C., my aunt noticed 2 things.  1) My travel-sized bottles of shampoo leaked (thankfully they were in a ziplock bag) and 2) My phone ran out of charge before we were done with our daily sightseeing.  So, she had some extra silicon bottles she gave me, and a portable charger she did not need, and she gave it to me as well.   Those are going to come in very handy.

One of my sisters gave me a lovely flower, which I have been enjoying, and will enjoy some more once I get the table cleaned off again!  Right now, it’s hidden behind the pile of stuff that has migrated to the table after this wild weekend!!  Between the brunch and the boy who ended up spending 2 nights….Wow, just wow!  I have a pretty big mess:). I expect tomorrow afternoon after church will be the time to do a bit of tidying up.  My sister has a meeting, so I will be coming right home after church for once, eating leftovers, and then I’ll have some time to clean, I hope.

I got 1/2 of my strawberry bed cleaned up.  The plants I cleaned around are the new ones I planted last spring, and this end are very old plants that were here when I moved in.  The new ones are thriving, the old ones, not so much, which is normal when strawberries get too old.  I plan to put some bags of dirt around the berry plants and some bone meal and fertilizer, and will likely transplant runners from the new berries down to this end where there are huge gaps.  But, first, it needs to dry out again after the recent rain so I can get out there again.  It’s quite a bit of work, as the grass is trying to take over.

We are having to work outside in small bits of time we can carve out between work, homeschool and the rainy weather.  Sometimes I feel frustrated because I can’t finish up jobs I start in one session, but I keep reminding myself that breaking it into 2 days still gets it done!  Little by little:)  Patsy and I mowed the lawn again, this time lowering the blades after our first “mow” last week. Rob tilled a little bit in the garden.  It needs another time through on another day.  I have little seedlings up from a few weeks ago when I got into the garden for a short while.  I always enjoy seeing that!

I have several appointments this week, again.  We continue going to doctors/dentists/eye appointments/therapy, etc. for ourselves and the children.  Because Rob’s job is on a year-to-year basis (he only has a 1-school year contract each year), there is always a possibility that he won’t have insurance during the summer if they don’t promise him a job in the fall.  In that case, he would have to apply again in the fall for another position.  This can happen if the dynamics change in the classroom in any way, such as if a child that he work with moves or changes schools.    In any case, it won’t hurt to get these things done anyway!

I hope your week went well.

This week was all about getting back to normal after our wonderful, but exhausting, trip to Washington D.C.

Traveling is not inexpensive.  But,even  with the high costs of food, travel, Ubers, etc., we did manage to save money in some areas.

We cooked in our rented townhouse a lot, and ate out only when we were out and about sightseeing.  Because eating out is expensive at any time, we saved hundreds of dollars that way.

We had many, many tours and visited Smithsonian museums that were free.  There were a couple of places we went that cost money–Mt. Vernon and Museum of the Bible, but almost everything else we saw had no admission cost.

There was food left in the fridge and cupboards that was left by previous guests of this VRBO townhouse we had rented.  There was a note stating that we were to eat all we wanted.  So we ate a lot of it.

We used public transportation and did not rent a car, saving on car rental and parking.  We used public transportation.

We ordered groceries in from Safeway and used a Promo Code to get free delivery.

Once home, I went shopping and spent $200 in groceries.  I had over $100 left from last month, and used the rest from the new grocery envelope.  I had not been shopping for a week or so before the trip, and I was gone for 11 days.  It was time.

On Saturday, we went to the beach with our friends Harnet and Danait.  Because both of the older girls were working, we were able to take the smaller car, saving gas.  It was sunny, but quite cold, with a wind that could cut right through any coat.  So, we briefly went down to the beach, where Danait wanted to pick up all the rocks (millions) and throw them in the small stream or ocean.  She finally decided to chase birds:). It was adorable.

I packed a picnic.  I had purchased portable food such as Go-Gurt, made potato salad, packed lunchmeat and cheese and bread for those who wanted it, and took along some fruits and veggies that my sister brought down on Friday.  We were fortunate enough to find a picnic table that was sheltered from the wind, and had a very fun time.

We went over to the Mark Hatfield Marine Science Center and enjoyed the exhibits. They have just re-done many of them, and we enjoyed seeing both the old familiar ones, and the new ones. The Center is by donation only, and we did donate, but it was not expensive.

We stopped off to see the sea lions on the dock at Newport.

After that, we drove to a couple of view points along the coast to admire the waves and the gorgeous blue sky and ocean in the comfort of the car and ended up at Dairy Queen for some ice cream.  No surprise there:)

At the rest stop on the way back, Danait loved the field of English daisies and dandelions.  She and I ran around the grassy patch, then she picked a flower for every person she could remember the name of–quite a few flowers.  Then, she handed them out to those of us in the car and went back for more.

It was a good day.  Even our patient driver was tired!  But, we all had a wonderful time.

How did your week go?

Happy Easter!  We had a wonderful day, full of family and food.  We got up super early and went to the 6:30 sunrise service.  It was a great service, and I loved being there, even though I felt like I needed toothpicks to hold my eyes open:)

My decor was simple.  Rob bought me some flowers, and I put them on the tables.   Some tables had candles, some just had flowers. He also grabbed a couple of plastic tablecloths, which I used on 2 tables and used a cloth one on the other table.  I put more pansies on the table outside, as the weather looked like it would be nice and some people might choose to eat out there.  Contrary to the promises made by the weather apps yesterday, it rained!  We enjoyed ourselves despite the rain, and also celebrated both Ron and Lovana’s birthdays.  We also enjoyed the company of one of my cousins who I have not seen for a long time.  That was very special to hear about all she has been doing in her mission work in Nicaragua.

The cake looked great.  It turned out terrible!  I had experimented with some egg replacer and a gluten-free mix, and it didn’t turn out well.  You win some, and you lose some.  Thankfully, we had 2 kinds of cookies and an apple crisp and no one went hungry or missed out on dessert.  Besides all that, my aunt brought her usual basket of candy-filled eggs and Jake and Patsy found them after Alissa hid them.  Then, as is tradition, they insisted hiding them for Alissa to find.  Everyone got a little baggie of candy, even the adults!

We had mixed grill.  Rob grilled a ham in a pan on the bbq, basically because I tried it in both crock pots and couldn’t get it in either.  Boy did it turn out great.  He also did some shrimp skewers and some teriyaki chicken.  I made easy choices so people ate according to their allergies and needs.  They included apple-celery-walnut salad, veggie tray and dip, sunflower seed romesco dip for crackers, and a fruit plate.  I also put out pickles today, that I had canned last summer.

I love what we gave Ron for his birthday! It was a “May you never be hungry again” kit.  There are days when he comes in from work, starving, because he didn’t take the time for lunch, or didn’t have any cash on him at the moment.  We divided a handful of 1’s and 5’s between several envelopes, and then Rob wrote funny locations on the outside such as “put this in your socks, put this in your visor, for your pocket, glovebox, with your toothbrush” and so forth.  It was not costly, but added some fun to the day.

I spent several hours over the last couple of days cooking, cleaning and organizing myself for the dinner itself.  Thankfully, I was able to get a few other activities done as well.

I hardened off cabbage, broccoli, artichokes and onions.

I used the tiny tiller to till up 2 small parts of the garden and got cabbage, broccoli and artichokes planted.  Patsy and I also planted seeds.  We planted carrots, beets, several kinds of lettuce, snow peas, and spinach.  We also planted some potatoes.

I found some overwintered cilantro, and tilled around it.  I also saved 1 tiny volunteer lettuce, and some beets that had lived all winter.  I actually picked about 1 cup of tiny beets and 1 small artichoke.  The peas I planted are starting to poke up out of the soil, always a cheering sight.

Rob decided to have a garage sale.  He had some old items from our previous property that had been cluttering up my brother-in-law’s barn.  He filled the van a couple of times in the past few weeks, and hauled the items down here.  Lots of it was still in the van, so he was eager to get it out.  I grabbed a few items here and there from the house and shop as I found things I could live without, and Lovana cleaned out some clothing.  Rob put a Craig’s List add up, and hung some signs Friday morning.  I had an appointment, so left him to it!  When I got back, almost all of his stuff was gone, and the garage sale was slim pickins’ indeed. Most of the junky household stuff and clothing did not sell, but a little of it did.  I made him  some lunch and he kept selling, but by 3:30, the horde had diminished to a tiny trickle, mostly because the good items were gone and people started slowing, looking, and just driving on. He even sold a large item he was trying to sell at the same time.  He packed up the remaining items, which consisted of a few boxes and items, and donated them.  In the end, he made around $200, plus the cost of the other large item he sold.  Garage sales are always a lot of work, but it was worth it this time!  It’s also nice to know that all of that stuff is no longer cluttering up the place.

Our taxes are finished and filed.  Rob always organizes that process and we pay our accountant to do it.  We’ve had this accountant for a few years now, and they always find something that saves us, or gets us, money that we did not know about.  This year was no exception.  We will be getting a refund (whew!) from Federal, and need to pay State (boo).  Thankfully, the refund is the larger one!  (double whew!). It’s not as big of a refund as we have had in the past, but since I don’t have to pay, I’m delighted.

I was able to go shopping for clothing for myself.  I had gift cards and birthday money from my last birthday and Christmas.  I needed a few things for our upcoming trip to Washington D.C.  Ja’Ana and I will be traveling with my sister, 2 nieces and my aunt as a homeschool trip for the 2 girls.  They are studying government this year, and my sister got the idea for this trip.  So, she’s taking us on a big adventure and we leave next Saturday!  I’ve been trying to find the time to go to shopping, and finally made it.  I was able to hit really good sales at Macy’s and got several things I needed.  I had a specific list, including a light jacket, prayed before I went, and found everything I needed for a price I could afford.

After eating dinner, we went over the plans we have made.  My aunt has done a lot of work figuring out what tours we can go on.  We were accepted for a tour of the White House, along with several others she had requested for us. It’s going to be pretty exciting, and the girls will be receiving 1/2 of a school credit for the trip, once they do some write-ups when we get back.  This will be a busy week for me!

I don’t know where my kitchen towels are.  I mean, there are a few left in the drawer, but where are the rest?  Nobody knows.  And, when questioned, no one, and I mean NO ONE took them or has them.  So, I can only conclude that they grew legs and walked away.  Or something:).  But, God knew they were gone.  My sweet aunt noticed last Sunday that there was a problem, and picked up a few more for me from a sale she saw.  Then, when visiting my sister, she asked if I wanted the embroidered ones–her daughter was cleaning cupboards  for her, and they discovered she had too many and wasn’t able to use them all.  She didn’t even know I was running low.  I said yes in a hurry.  So, after I run them through the wash, I will have a drawer full again.  It was so sweet of both of them:). I just hope THESE don’t grow legs……

I’m soaking beans for refried beans.  We are going to make dinner for the college age group at church on Tuesday night, and we will do tacos.  This will be our first time cooking for them, so we will know more after Tuesday about what works well and what doesn’t.  They do provide us with a budget, so we aren’t going to provide much from our pantry, but I want to make the beans myself.  We like them so much better.  I will make a big batch, and have some for us, and some for them.  Because we both have to work that day, everything will be made and chopped ahead of time, and all we will need to do is keep warm food warm in a Crock Pot, cold food cold in a cooler, and set things out when we get there.  We’ve been told there is paperware there.

I’m trying to use fruits, meats and vegetables from our freezers and cupboards.  Tonight, I sautéed some frozen green beans in butter, and added garlic.  Yum!  We ate some of the 10c/can  pickled beets Rob bought last fall.  I made a casserole from frozen broccoli, rice, tomato sauce, and turkey kielbasa sausage, and chicken-rice soup.

I made some turkey meatloaf.  There is still ground turkey from the turkeys Rob raised at  our old place.  It’s time to target it and actively use it up before it gets freezer burned.  I will be sorry when it is gone, but there’s not use letting it go bad.  It turned out great.  I also made potato salad, and am going to make coleslaw from the cabbage I picked from the garden for Family Sunday Dinner tomorrow.

I spent some time today organizing out in the canning cupboard, which is in the shop; putting away the empty jars in the right places, getting out new jars to bring into the garage for the week ahead, etc.  It does take some time, but I use things more if I have a good supply within reach. So, most weekends, I bring a jar or two of each thing into the garage and have it handy for daily meal preparation and take the empties out.

I also grabbed a couple of handfuls of frozen items from the freezers and brought them in.  I found a loaf of bread–yea!  I thought I was out of that bargain bread I got a while back, but there it was:). There again, I use things more if I physically look in there with the intention of bringing some in–I often find items I’ve forgotten about.

What I did not find time for today was shopping, except for a gallon of milk, a bunch of celery, and 1 head of garlic.  I just got those from the store that is about 1 block from my house.  I have some good coupons, but didn’t use them today.  So, $5.16 was my weekend shopping total so far.

I got a few more plants transplanted today.  There are quite a few more to do, but I keep working on it when I have time.

Rob took Patsy fishing today.  He had been told about a pond that isn’t too far from our home, and so they went today.  They did not catch fish, but they did get some bites.  Maybe another day…..

Our van had a bad flat tire.  We took it to Les Schwab Tires and they fixed it for free, as they do when you buy your tires there.  We had to wait for a while, but it’s fixed!

Patsy counted 106 buds on the daffodils she planted out front.  This is the 2nd year for them.  Last year, we only got a few blooms, but she has high hopes this year that those 106 buds will bloom, and is very excited.  The bulbs were free from my sister’s yard.  We have several tiny, yellow ones blooming now, and some pale ones as well.  We recently had snow, so things slowed down a bit, but before that, we were having an early spring.  So confusing.  Thank goodness daffodils are hardy!

These 2 enjoyed their trip to the park very much.  Such joy!  Auntie Rosalie took them:)

How did your week go?