Today, for our family Sunday lunch, my sister asked me to make Caprice salad.  I’ve never made it before, but I get to the house first.  As I was leaving church, she said, “just slice up some tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil and put it on a plate.”  I love how it looks.  I couldn’t help snapping a picture.  I put some salt and pepper on top, but have a suspicion that it should have some Italian dressing or something on top.  Thankfully, she will be home soon and can instruct me!

We are having soup and salad bar for lunch today.  I made us each a huge pot of chicken-rice soup this week.  At our house, we’ve had it 3-4 times.  I think they did the same.  Today, we are going to finish up both pots.  It is very yummy and economical.  She boiled last Sunday’s chicken to get her broth, and I used some I had previously frozen for mine. Our meals have at last slipped into the pattern I like–the pattern where I cook each day, or we eat leftovers, but where we are not living on a diet of fast food as we were for a time this past summer while we were in transition.  I still don’t have my freezers at my house, just the little one over the fridge, so Rob keeps doing “meat/frozen veggie” runs for me and we keep refilling it.  I am going to make a menu plan for the first time in a long time this week–it will help so much since I am spending several hours per day homeschooling Ja’Ana, helping Patsy with homework, and have started a new part-time job.

We started doing DD service work for my nephew.  Now that he is back to school, and my sister and brother-in-law are back into the swing of things with their jobs, they need Personal Support Workers to help care for him.  We also do a few hours for my niece, but most of the time needed is for our nephew.   This is a part-time job that involves helping him practice some skills, such as hygiene, safety in crossing parking lots, proper social interaction, and other goals.  I am doing the most hours, because Rob is still hunting for a full-time job.  (Last count, he has applied for over 50, has had 6 interviews, and still…..no job!  We’ve been told over and over that the way to get into this school system is to become a substitute, and so he has signed up for that and is waiting for the training day.  He wants to work in a special needs classroom as he has a lot of experience with children with special needs.  People are being very encouraging to him, so that’s good.)

He is also madly working on any and all projects around our new house, such as building new canning cupboards, since he anticipates his time will become scarce once he gets a job.  We are also spending lots and lots of time with all 3 cousins–might as well get to enjoy them all, instead of only one.  Fun!  I’m happy that we will have a little money coming in.  It will stretch the savings we have a little longer, which is a good thing!  I am still adjusting to the schedule, but this week will be easier since it won’t be new anymore.  I cannot imagine how hard it would be to take on this task for a totally new family–I’m glad we all know and love each other already!

I weeded my little fall garden and we got a good, steady rain.  Those little plants look so much happier.

We are officially living in our house now:)  It’s been a wild week.  We have been working on the house daily, and having the plumbers and electricians work on it, too.  Finally, on Thursday night, we had enough beds up, and the new electrical panel in so it was safe to sleep there, and so we did!

My food storage is set up.  I found–ummm-probably about 50-75 pounds of various dry beans among other things!  So, I promptly made chili for the crew that was bringing more furniture and boxes down on Saturday.  Rob got some hot dogs and we served chili dogs and fruit to the crew for lunch.

We are so grateful to the large group of friends and family who showed up to help.  I’m super excited–the piano is in!  Both Ja’Ana and I have spent quite a bit of time playing–it’s been a long summer without it:)  I know piano movers are very expensive, so we were grateful for all the strong arms.

My little lettuce, onions, spinach, snow peas, beets, carrots and chard all came up.  It took a lot of watering in the heat, but they are starting to grow now. I think since the first is usually around mid-late October, I have a great chance of getting some food.  The Walla Walla onions should winter over, as should some of the other things.  There are a LOT of weeds in the dirt, so I spent some time hoeing yesterday.

I’ve been able to grab lots of ingredients that were in bins since May and work on using them up.  I will keep most of the canning in the shop, and carry more in when I need to.  I’ve been able to use quite a few jars of home-canned things up this week, which makes me happy since it was in boxes all summer.

I am a little late posting this because we have been so busy saving money:)

We have been working early and late to empty the storage unit.  You have to pay for the whole month even if we only stay one day into September, so I am happy to report, it is empty as of noon today.  We piled most of the boxes in the shop.

I found a few tomatoes on the bush at the new house.  We have been eating down there a lot, as we work, and they have come in handy.

My aunt found my crock pot in her garage, so I was able to make some broth with the carcass of a chicken Rob had barbecued.  I froze the broth today, along with a baggie of bits so I can make soup soon.

There was enough chicken to make chicken salad for lunch.  I had planned to grab a can of tuna off of the shelves, as my food storage has been slowy making its way onto the garage shelves, but realized there was no can opener yet!  So, thank goodness for the remaining chicken.  The soup will be a little less meaty, but no one cares:)

My aunt was given more pears, apples and potatoes than she could eat from a friend, so she shared.  We have been eating pears with our lunches for the last 2 days–yum!

My sister is watching Patsy, so Rob and I are off to a date, for the first time in a long time!  Because of where we are in our lives, the first thing we are going to do is unload boxes into the van from his mother’s garage…..but then, probably out to dinner!

I can’t put anything into the main house until the floors are done.  They start that tomorrow.  But, the kitchen, laundry room, and garage are not affected, and the shop is available, also.  So, we are going to keep getting our things from wherever they are and putting them in there.  I have already emptied several boxes into the kitchen and garage and will continue to do so as things surface.  We are busy, but I’m pretty excited to get to move to this phase!

I got 3 cups of blueberries off the 2 bushes at my new house.  They are nearing the end of their crop, but I loved getting what I did.

We did 2 days of work on the new house, in preparation for refinishing the hardwood floors.  By the front door, there were 2 layers.  Layer #1 came up easily.  Layer #2—Yikes!  They had glued linoleum to the hardwood, probably in the 60’s (?)  The heat gun was useless.  The tool (above) that we borrowed worked the best.  We had to use several blades.  That white glue is very hard to remove without gouging the actual floor.  We are still not quite finished, but will finish that soon.  The work we did ourselves saved us a bundle.

I made pico de gallo from peppers, cilantro, onion and tomatoes from the garden.  I was also able to make a lot of meals at home this week, and was able to take food down to Salem when we were working on the new house.

I was able to weed a bit, and harvest a lot from the garden.  I was also able to help out with my sister’s u-pick peach business a couple of days.  It’s fun and I enjoy doing it and it helps them out during their busy time.  When they are really busy, sometimes I get to cook for everyone–super fun!  I love cooking for a crowd.

I’ve recently realized that you can buy a large cup of ice for 25c at McDonald’s.   I often take a child in and use the facilities when we are out and about, and always buy a small item, figuring that that is only fair.  I love eating a cup of ice when I’m hot, so have been getting that for my “treat.”  (I just can’t make or store much ice in the camper and it’s much better for me than the other options)  And, don’t worry, the company will never go out of business because of us–my children love those french fries way too much!  It is much less expensive to buy one large fry and have them share than 3 small ones when we do make that choice.

Here’s hoping your week went well, also…

We got quite a bit of entertainment out of a 99c box of cherry tomatoes one evening.  I joked that this was Rob’s mug shot:)  The kids were in stitches over his “eyeballs.”

I did not do this post last week because we were without internet for the entire week while we cooked at high school camp.

Before we disappeared into the hills, we bought quite a few things at Grocery Outlet.  The tomatoes were one of them.  I took quite a few snacks, drinks, and a few other foods.  They were very reasonable because I was not picky as to what kind I bought, as long as it was inexpensive.   The kids , us and J’s friends who were campers took care of the drinks.  The granola bars, etc., were used by the cousins and friends.  The Lucky Charms I got for 99c per box were enjoyed by Jake and Michaela (niece and nephew) on mornings they did not get up in time.  There were a few occasions where I needed to get some food at the camper for myself, a niece or nephew, or my aunt, but for the most part, our entire family ate with the camp.  I had taken fruits and vegetables, but have most of them left because there was plenty of that kind of thing served.  The food was excellent (I helped finish it up, but the lady who did the planning was amazing and had much of it prepared ahead of time.)  Rob grilled.  So, we did not consume our usual amount of grocery money last week.  We used it up Saturday and Sunday, though when we got back.  It was nice to have extra to eat out, guilt-free, and nice to restock our groceries in the camper.

The night we returned  to home base I stir-fried vegetables with 2 pieces of chicken and cooked rice for a quick meal.

We had our usual family Sunday dinner today.  We ate some leftovers from camp as well as some chicken we bought, along with garden beans.

We enjoyed the lake and wild flowers.  I got to go on a boat ride, the first I’ve had in years.

My sister gave me some apples and pears.  I picked veggies from the garden.  My sister and I also weeded a bunch last evening, while we visited.  She canned about 60 more jars of beans while I was gone!  That makes around 150 quarts off those bushes so far, between the ones she did and her mother-in-law did.

I read “A Girl of the Limberlost.”  Patsy is trying to read it and ran into a few things she did not quite understand, so I read it and am discussing it as we go along.  It’s an old favorite, but I had not read it for years, so enjoyed it once again.

Tomorrow we get back to real life!  We have a plumber coming to look over the house we are hoping to buy.  Wednesday, we have an electrician coming.  After those 2 inspections, we should know a whole lot more.  I’m excited!

Last week was busy and fun.  We traded kids out one day and left Ja’Ana with the cousins and brought Michaela home with us for 1 night.  On the way home, we stopped at historic Butteville store and enjoyed some ice cream.  Michaela and Patsy enjoyed playing checkers on the checkerboard that the store set up on the table.  They played for quite a while.

Patsy pulled up some unwanted plants in the garden to earn money for camp, and Michaela enjoyed watching her dramatically hit the ground with the plants, huff and puff, and put on quite a show.  So, Patsy got some attention, Michaela was entertained, and I got those plants pulled!  Win, win, win!!

Then they played Yahtzee for several rounds and cheerfully  ate up the odds and ends of my hamburger buns with peanut butter spread on them.  (No jam for Michaela–she doesn’t like it-Patsy will always eat double–she loves it).  The girls had a frugal, fun evening!

The next day, Rob swapped the girls back when he took Patsy to catch the bus for church camp.  Things went well until Wednesday…….

On Wednesday, I was just lallygagging around.  I had 1 thing planned for the day–lunch with 2 of my friends.  So, I let myself sleep in a bit.  But then…the phone rang.  It was the youth leader at camp and there was a problem.  I could hear Patsy dramatically carrying on in the background and many adult voices.  The leader informs me that Patsy’s front tooth is gone and all she has left is her braces and the chain and bracket where a tooth should be.  He’s never seen anything like it.  He can’t figure out where the tooth went.  As far as he knew, she went to bed with a tooth…..now there is no tooth….and so forth.

I have a vision of Patsy with 2 front teeth gone, since I knew that we had been working on getting the other one to come down for a year and a half, with oral surgery, orthodontics, etc.  I was feeling pretty worried, when it suddenly clicked.  He did not know that the other tooth had never been there.  With her sobbing “my tooth broke off” and things like that, he was assuming that her tooth had broken somehow in the night.  I quickly set him straight, saying  “it’s ok.” and things like that.  He put her on the phone, and I found out that, indeed, it was the bracket that had broken off and there was a small white thing attached to it, which she was convinced was part of the tooth (that is still up in her gums).

So, after a call to the ortho, we quickly started out for camp.  We had never been there, but are signed up to volunteer there next week for high school camp.  We went to camp, picked her up, used the interim time to do a little laundry, had an appointment at the ortho, had a meeting about camp, and then took her back.  It is a distance away, so we were gone for about 12+ hours.  They removed the dangling chain, assured us all it was just bonding material, no teeth were broken and put her back together.  We will still need to address the situation later, but for now, it’s fine.  Nothing is broken, except some hardware in her mouth.  Whew!!!  So, this was the NOT frugal day.  We used lots of gas and ate out twice, since we just jumped in the car and took off as quickly as we could.  The main thing is that she’s all right!  I will say that the counselors and leaders deserve high praise.  They handled it well.

We went house hunting again Friday.   This time, I knew I was leaving and packed a nice picnic lunch.  After viewing 5 houses and picking Patsy up from the church parking lot (back from camp), we went to a place called Sunset Park in Keizer, Oregon, and ate our packed lunch.  I’m not sure if you can see the hawk soaring over the Willamette, but there were several that we enjoyed watching.  Rob and Lovana saw a bald eagle, too.

These potatoes are from the garden.  I made potato salad for our family Sunday dinner today.  Rob b-b-qued chicken, and we had salad from garden lettuce.  My aunt brought rolls and ice cream.  It was great and so awesome to have so much of it come from things we’ve grown.  The chickens will run out before long, and we have no way to grow more, but we are enjoying them until that happens.

I cooked many, many meals at home this week, other than that one day.  I used so much garden produce.  It’s really helping with the grocery budget.

My sister and I canned 35 quarts of green beans during 2 pleasant mornings.  Rob and I spent quite a bit of time helping sell peaches at the u-pick stand Monday and Tuesday.  We enjoyed quite a few peaches, and wild blackberries.

I “Shopped” in our storage Conex.  I pulled out items worth at least $40 to use in the next 2 weeks.  I also shopped at the store, and bought things that we absolutely needed or were a great deal.

Rob earned some money this week and used some of it to stock up at Grocery Outlet on items that we will use, and are a great deal.  So, that was extra, above and beyond our usual grocery budget.  So, that was nice.  There are just a few things that we consistently buy there and there are always “surprises” so we do have to be careful to only buy a few of those each time.  You never know what they will have from time to time, but they usually have inexpensive drinks for lunches, lunchmeat that is close to its pull date, but still good, etc.

Rob taught Ja’Ana how to replace the inner tube in her bike tire.  We’ve been giving the bikes a real workout lately on all our camping trips and she ran over something.  We spent 4 nights at Champoeg State Park.  It’s near my sister’s, so were able to do our regular things, while enjoying the park in between activities.

July the 5th is BOTH of our mothers’ birthdays!  So, on the 4th, we had a double birthday party.

Rob barbecued, my sister made lemon meringue pies for everyone (mine has no crust–it was great!), we used lots of garden produce, and we had a great time while celebrating the 4th of July, plus birthdays.

We drove past this flower seed field one evening.  It was so beautiful!

We are enjoying lots of baby kitties right now.   We need to tame some of them down because we have people who would like to have them.

We are eating peaches like crazy.  I helped sell u-pick peaches Saturday, and will do so on Monday and Tuesday, as well as help can beans.  I made peach upside down cake, gluten free bread from a mix, sweet and sour pork, chicken soup, coleslaw, lots of sandwiches and salads, Rob b-b-qued burgers, steak, chicken and the last of the trout for the 4th and other meals.  We are eating lots of lettuce, zucchini, onions, carrots, green onions, and just started getting beans from the garden.  We will can a load in the morning.  Wild blackberries are also ripe on the bushes here on the property.

We did quite a bit of work in the garden this evening.  We pulled out old lettuce, spinach and the broccoli plants, which turned out to be a very strange variety that was very odd and did not taste good.  We were so happy that it wasn’t the tomatoes that failed!  Usually, I carefully choose all of the varieties from seed catalogs and grow my own starts.  This year I was at the mercy of the stores for starts because of the move.  If broccoli was my greatest casualty, I’m relieved.

Patsy and I went with my sister to pick blueberries.  They were so delicious, only $1.25/lb, and are all gone now:)

I picked wild blackberries and made a crisp to take over to our friends’ house when we went for dinner.

I made pinto beans in the crock pot, lots of salads from garden lettuce, sandwiches, packed lunches, enchiladas, omelets from eggs we got for 88c/dozen, and numerous quesidillas.  I am trying to keep meals simple.  We got invited to my sister’s one morning for pancakes, a friend’s for dinner, a potluck for the last night of J’s camp where she was a junior counsellor (I took watermelon, cheese slices and crackers), and my aunt took us out for lunch after church today.

We did not get the house we bid on last week, and in fact got outbid by $15,000 (over the asking price).  So, you could say we saved $15,000:(  I spent 4-6 hours looking on the computer, have sent the real estate agent a list of properties we would like to see, and will go at it again this coming week.

Patsy and I went for a bike ride at Champoeg State Park.  I am happy to report I did not fall off of the bike, or have any other catastrophes.  (I would pretend I am teasing, but have done some crazy stuff on (off) of a bike in the past, so am trying to build myself up again after several years of not riding since we all have talents and that’s not one of mine!!!!)  We rode over 5 miles.  We packed a lunch, and got ice cream at the historic store that was the 1/2 way point of the ride.  We also played a game of checkers they had on the table while we ate our ice cream.  Cute and quaint.

I visited with a friend while Patsy and her daughter swam at a local pool.

We worked in the garden.  We are still eating the same vegetables–snow peas, lettuce, beets, carrots, cilantro, basil, spinich, and the zucchini is just starting.  I am also looking forward to green beans soon.

We got library books, movies and borrowed 2 movies from a friend.  We watched one movie tonight.  It was called “The Finest Hours” and was about a Coast Guard rescue.  It had a little bad language, but kept us riveted to our seats as the men battled the stormy sea.