This past week, I had that horrible cold/thing everyone has been getting around here.  On Friday, Patsy didn’t feel well, either.  We went to the library and got some movies for her to watch.  We also made great use of the free tissues we were given last fall.  You may notice the box is very crushed, but they still work fine.  She’s pretty well done with it.  I, however, am still coughing a lot after 12 days of this.  Hmmmm…..Maybe I should watch more movies????   The Road to Avonlea dvd’s  are a tv show that was made years ago, using the setting of the Anne of Green Gables stories.  She enjoyed them, and Gilligan is always a favorite around here.

Patsy and I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up our old Toyota Camry. My nephew, Steven, just put it back into working order.  He put a new door on it.  The old one had been crunched a while back and you could only get in by leaning across the passenger seat and reaching over and opening it from the inside.  That got to be quite inconvenient.  Then, the axle needed replacing, and finally, it’s battery went dead one too many times.  We didn’t run it for several months.  When Steven offered to fix it, we were very grateful.  It has been a great car for us, and still runs!  We would love for one of the older girls to learn to drive and use it.  J isn’t quite old enough, but Lovana is, and J soon will be.

It has almost 300,000 miles on it, and where I say it looks better, I’m not sure it will ever look super good ever again.   It’s as clean as we can get it without shampooing it.  We vacuumed it out at a do-it-yourself station at a car wash.  We used $3 in quarters.  I took some disinfectant wipes with us and we wiped and wiped.  There was even some mold growing in places, so we got that, too.  I was very grateful to have it, since our van was being fixed and I wanted to go somewhere!

A good friend fixed the van.  He did it for free, as he does for us, and we are thankful.  The shifting lever in the column was not shifting properly and would not go into “park” correctly, sometimes causing the van to start rolling backwards when we thought it was parked.  It only took a couple of times for us to put that on the top of the list!!!

We went to the whale-watching center at Depoe Bay.  We didn’t see any whales, but had a good trip to the beach.  The center is free and they have lots of information and viewing stations to look out for whales.

We went camping for a few more days, went to the zoo, the mall, the library, and the beach during spring break, mostly while getting out of the house so they could show it.  It was nice to do something different than sort, pre-pack, clean and scrub, etc.  So far, there have been 31 families/couples/people through the house.  It’s been on the market for a little over a week.  We don’t have an offer, yet, but feel encouraged with all of the interest.  I know this will all pay off in the end.  We tried to use coupons, get deals, share food, used gift cards, and whatever else we could do to save money during all of this running around, but it was still somewhat expensive.  Camping was actually the most economical, since we took our food with us, and got to stay there are cook it, for the most part, during the 2nd little part of the camping trip when we went back up there.

We looked at and photographed wildflowers wherever we went.

While cleaning, I was able to find a couple of home-school books that I will use for Ja’Ana now. She had finished up a couple of things a few weeks ago. She hasn’t been doing very much school lately, with all of the other things we have been doing, but I wrote out a pretty hefty 2-week schedule for her, so she can get back on track and caught up. I also had time to work with her on math during the first part of camping, before she went on her mission trip.  So, she’s set, and no money out for new things right now.

I weeded my herb raised bed.  It is right by the house, and is handy to use when cooking.  I might as well enjoy it while I still have it, and everything I make a little nicer can only help with selling the house.

Although I keep saying it, the main way I saved money this week was through the generosity of family and friends who came over to my house and worked for free this past weekend.  I figure there were 45-50 people that passed through our house over the long weekend, and helped do many, many chores.  One of the biggest jobs they did was the landscaping.  It was very weed-filled, completely rainy and muddy when they worked on it, and it still came out looking great.  I will have to say the realtor was very impressed today when she and a photographer came to finalize the paperwork for the listing and take the pictures that will be put on to a brochure and on the internet.  I cannot imagine the dollar amount that the landscaping, pressure washing, and cleaning would have cost me to hire it out.  I know Rob and I could have never finished without all of the help.

I was given several gifts this weekend, too, to make the house look better.  My aunt brought these 2 orchids to put on the mantle.  They will last, and won’t have to be replaced often as fresh flowers would.

My aunt also brought the basil for the windowsill.  My oldest daughter brought the lemons and limes, suggested by a reader.  The photographer did not put them away, but we did find quite a few little things moved out of sight:) You can also see the wonderful job a couple of friends did on my cabinets–they cleaned them and rubbed them down with lemon oil.  My daughter also brought me a new dish towel to put out for the showings.

We cooked a turkey to feed many of the people.  Ja’Ana and I made 2 batches of the rice-lentil salad.  The second time, she made it with quinoa, rice, and beans, because that is what we had left to use.  It was amazing to me how quickly that went down the hatches.  I had also cooked some pinto beans with peppers in the crock pot.  They had been out in the camper and I replaced them with fresh ones.  Those were devoured on Saturday.

On Sunday, an entire small church came as their service project to help us.  We have never been anyone’s service project before, and we were grateful for their help.  We were very touched that they thought of us.  They brought soup and rolls.  My daughter Abbie brought cupcakes, muffins and chicken chili.  We put out more turkey, salad and drinks.  I was able to get 2-litre bottles of pop for $1.25 at one store, and then found them for $1 at another, so bought more.  I also got chocolate milk for $1 for 1/2 gallon and orange juice for the same price.  We also offered hot drinks, such as coffee and tea.  The organizer for the church group brought some of those beverages and I provided some.

As usual, I walked on the treadmill while watching a movie we checked out from the library instead of buying a gym membership or paying for cable.

We went to the library tonight and got quite a few movies and books.  We will be staying in the camper for a few days and want them to watch and read.   We will go back and forth from the campground to our house, church, and other activities, but want to be out of here for the open house and multiple showings (hopefully).  The inventory in our area is very low, and the realtor expects to hit it hard this first weekend.  After that, it will be shown by appointment only.  Apparently, a house not far from here sold during the first week recently, but of course, we can’t count on that happening.  Average is 30-45 days.  So, only time will tell what will happen here.  I just don’t want to have to police every room, nag people, etc.  Hopefully, it won’t take too long to sell, as my kids are MESSY!

I needed to go to work yesterday.  While I was gone, Ja’Ana took it into her head to cook me dinner.  She used things we had on hand, and it came out great.  As usual, I packed a lunch to take with me.

Patsy was supposed to dress up for school as a tacky tourist.  She used things we had on hand–a flowered dress, a map Rob found, and a hat she owned.  She topped it off with last summer’s river sandals.  Pretty cute!  Tomorrow is tie-dye day, and she has a top she can wear.

Today, I spent several hours putting everything to rights for the photographer.  After he and the realtor left, I hit the wall with exhaustion and took a nap. Rob fell asleep, too.  The girls sat on chairs in front of the fire.   I usually can’t sleep during the day, but I guess I was finally tired enough. Patsy was at school, but I woke up right before she got home.  After that, having not cooked dinner, or instructed anyone else to cook it, we got into the car and went to town to do errands and ate out.  We got our fishing licenses, the fresh food for the camper, such as lettuce, and went to the library as well as having dinner.  I think we all enjoyed a break from working so hard.  I cannot express how much we appreciated all of the help we have received.  One thing, though, is that they all come and go as their schedules permit.  We are here through it all, and ended up working for 10-12 hours many days during the past 2 months, and especially the last 2-3 weeks.  It’s no wonder we are tired!  Hopefully, this will be a little calm in the storm for a few days while we get rested up for the “real” move after the house sells.

On Friday, Rob and I spent the evening with 6 adorable children, ranging in age from 5-13. Our 2 youngest went with us, as well.  We took dinner with us and ate.  We also took these board games.  Every one of these games was played by one group of children or another throughout the evening.  The Wheel of Fortune is electronic, and was in high demand, so kids took turns with that one.  At one point, both Rob and I were involved teaching a couple of the youngest ones how to play Rack-o.  I was one team.  Rob was the partner for the 2 little boys.  For that game, you get the cards from smallest to largest and that was a bit of a challenge for some, but everyone had fun!  I played the stacking tower game quite a few times with the 5-year-old.  I also took a Pearler bead craft kit and several kids made a craft.  Then, we ironed them right away so they wouldn’t get bumped. After that, we cut up some apples and added them to some other snacks I brought, and pretty soon it was time to go home.  It was a fun, frugal way to spend an evening.

Patsy played with Legos for quite a while on Saturday.  We don’t buy new toys often. These were the boys’ Legos, years ago.  Although Patsy doesn’t play with these often, she enjoyed them for an entire afternoon. She was pretty tired from a morning of trotting around fetching and carrying things for us and welcomed the chance to sit down.  I have a few well made, durable toys I will keep when we move, including these Legos and a large Thomas the Tank Engine train set.  I also have a Lincoln Log set.

I cooked at home and am making excellent progress on using things from the cupboards and freezers.  I went and got some groceries at Grocery Outlet and got some good deals on tilapia, lunchmeat and a bunch of other things. I easily fed extra people several times this week.  I love being able to offer a good meal to those who come and help us with this huge project of sorting and pre-packing.

All of the piggies went to hog heaven this week, except this one. It was too small.  Rob has a friend who will finish it up.  He just needs to take this one over there within the next couple of days.  So, I will have pork soon.  We chose not to have them make sausage or ham this time and that will save money.  I still have some ham we got for a cheap price and love using the ground meat and roasts plain.

I got busy today and finished using up the turkey bones in my freezer.  Early this morning, I put on 2 huge kettles filled with bones from when we butchered our turkeys last fall.  We had cut a lot of meat off of some of them, and ground it into turkey burger.  I froze many bags of bones, with meat on them.  I let them simmer all day while I sorted, packed and worked on the camper.  Then, after all of our excellent helpers went home, I processed the broth.  I fished out the bones and put them into bowls.  Then, I ladled or poured the broth through a strainer into a large Pyrex measuring pitcher.   I put the broth into jars and canned them  The smaller pressure cooker in the back has 7 quarts in it.  The larger one in the front has 2 layers of pints in it.  There are 10 in there.  More could fit, but that’s the amount of broth I ended up with.  While they were cooking, I picked the meat off of the bones.  I froze 3 bags of good meat, fed the cats lots of “goodies” and had enough broth and meat to make dinner.  I gave my oldest daughter the remaining 2 bags of bones so she could make broth, too, and so that I would be done with that project.

I made turkey a-la-king over rice.  The rice was in the camper and had been for a long time, so I used it up and put fresh out there.

I used some broccoli that was left over from dinner last night.  Rob and I had a delightful evening with some children last evening.  Both of their parents had other places to be, so we spent the evening.  I used every last red potato I had, because I cannot find any baking potatoes around here, although I’m certain I have some. (We are gaining on the project, but the garage is still a train wreck!) I was going to make baked potato bar, but instead, roasted the red potatoes in chunks and served cheese, broccoli, ham (frozen after the last ham we cooked), and sour cream as toppings to put on the chunks.  It worked great, but I overestimated the amount of broccoli.  By far.  I guess the kids have other favorite vegetables.  They were exceedingly polite about it, and probably would have choked some down for my sake, but I told them not to bother.  I was there to spoil them rotten, not insist on them eating broccoli.

Our camper came back on Thursday from being in the shop for 2 months.  There was some warranty work that needed to be done, and a certain part was difficult to obtain, I guess.  We had taken it in right after our camping trip after Christmas when we realized it was leaking (bad seal) into the outdoor kitchen.  I found a large gallon bag of Chex Mix I had made at Christmas time and taken camping.  It was still great and the children polished it off for me as a snack last evening.  There are 6 of them, plus Patsy and Ja’Ana, so it took no time at all to use that up:) They also enjoyed some apples and little cutie oranges and some hazelnuts.  They polished off close to 4 quarts of canned fruit we took, as well.  I love feeding a crowd–very gratifying and fun for me.

Today at noon, I was able to use an enchilada casserole that had been frozen for quite some time, throw away 3 items I found freezer-burned in the freezer, some frozen fruit (peaches, blueberries, wild blackberries, and strawberries) I put frozen into a bowl and let thaw into fruit salad right before lunch so it was still slushy, some ranch dressing mix I made into a dip and served with carrots and celery, and some drinks that had been around a long time when I fed 5 extra men and young adults after they helped all morning.

I used quite a few home-canned items this week, including carrots and green beans I put into a soup when my aunt and sister came to help me Friday.  I also used frozen broth and turkey bits in that soup. I also used some potatoes that had gotten left in the camper since Christmas break and were sprouting. I am using onions almost daily from my garden.  The red ones are starting to want to sprout a bit, but the Copras are still firm as ever, for the most part.  I still have quite a few left out in the shop.

On a non-food note, I threw away a sweater that was worn out.  I also ruined a frying pan by forgetting it on a burner too long and then touched a plastic container with it, melting the plastic onto the bottom of the pan and warping it, so I threw away the pan and the ruined container.  Thankfully, it wasn’t my best one.

I found some zucchini in the freezer, marked ‘9.  I don’t know if it was really that old, or if I was lazy when I froze it, but it was perfectly fine.  I made a batch of brownies from an old mix I had in the pantry and stirred the drained zucchini in.  They turned out good.

The single way we saved the most money this past week was the amount of help we got from friends and family with the sorting and moving.  If we had to hire the amount of help we got, it would have cost us hundreds of dollars.  We were able to move 2 huge loads over to my brother-in-law’s.  When my husband offered the one man, who is a relative stranger to us, gas money, he declined, but agreed to take an old wood splitter Rob did not need anymore.  It needs work, but the man seems delighted.  No one else wanted anything.

I found 8 small glass bowls in the attic.  Why were they there?  What was I ever thinking?  Who knows, but I was planning to buy some for the camper.  Even at the dollar store, they would have been $8.  I also found some glass casserole dishes in the basement that I have not used for a long time.  My mom and I cleaned them all up, and I will choose what will fit into the camper, and donate the rest.  I will need more glass/casserole dishes than I use when camping, since we plan to stay in the camper for a few weeks between houses.  I have many offers from friends and family to come to their houses and cook casseroles, etc., if I want to and then just warm things up in the camper.  I may do some of that.  I also may have Rob barbecue everything outside, or give the kids sticks over the fire, when we are at a campground.  I do have a teeny, tiny oven in there and some burners, so I plan to cook a bit in there, as well.  There is a small microwave, and I prefer glass to warm things in.  I had some very old plastic bowls in there, but now I won’t.

We contacted a realtor, who was highly recommended by a friend.  We will have her out Tuesday to discuss things.  I hope that the immense amount of cleaning and sorting will meet with her satisfaction, but she will probably give us lots of tips to finish up the job.  I hope to get a higher price, obviously:)  We are wanting to get this on the market as soon as we can.  As Brandy, The Prudent Homemaker, pointed out–the sooner it sells, the sooner we can stop paying payments on it.  As the payments are very hefty, that’s what we were thinking, too.

Piles of trash were burned, saving garbage fees.  The red car in the background has been inoperable for quite some time.  Rob and my nephew, Steven, got it going, and Steven took it home on Saturday.  He has the parts, which Rob paid for, and will fix it for free.  The door has been smashed in on the side, and he thinks he will be able to get new doors as well.  One of the girls will probably end up with it for a first car when Steven gets it fixed up.

We sold a few more things on e-bay.  They were not costly, but one interesting one was a cut thunder-egg rock Rob found in the shop.  It sold for around $3, and the buyer paid shipping.  I think sometimes we take things for granted, because we have had them for a while.   I remember my mom had one on a little shelf and I always loved looking at it when I was a child.   Rob and his dad loved rock hunting, and so we do have more of them to enjoy.  I’m glad someone else can enjoy this rock.  He wasn’t sure when he put it up on e-bay if anyone would want it, so it was a nice surprise.

My aunt helped Patsy cover a pillow form I found, while sorting, with flannel for her camper bunk.  I already covered another one for Ja’Ana.  I hope to find another form and make one for Lovana, as well.  I think if they can prop up on their bunks, or have pillows for lounging on the floor while watching tv., they will feel more cozy.  I got some new sheets at Macy’s on a very good sale for the camper.  Ours have holes in them out there, and I am replacing them.

Rob went to get the camper back, but it needs one more thing done, so he came home empty-handed.  Hopefully, it will be done soon.  I’d really like this huge pile of things out of my bedroom.  They belong out there.  Almost all of the work is warranty work, but one thing we will be paying for, because we want it done.  It is less expensive to just leave it there until it’s done completely.  There was a seal that was leaking, and that would be tragic if we didn’t get it promptly fixed.  Water is not our friend in a camper, except in the faucet and bathtub:)  By catching it early, and them fixing it under warranty, we saved thousands of potential dollars worth of damage and repairs.  I’m so glad we are year-round campers and took it out over the Christmas break and found this problem before any significant damage was done.

We were able to clean the basement out and make a place to stack storage bins.  We saved at least $200 by not having to rent a storage unit for those things for another month, at least.  We are finding that storage units are costly.  We have never had to rent one before.  One place, that is less expensive ($189/month for the biggest unit), is full.  Another one is around $229 for a little less space.  Yikes!  That will add up quickly.  All the more reason to be thankful for the things we can store over at my brother-in-law’s.

We had a simple birthday dinner for my sister today.  We spent very little on the food and presents, but enjoyed the time together immensely.

My niece, Alissa, found some candles in the drawer, and lit them up for her mom.

Jake was watching eagerly because he wanted his mom to wish for little toy cars for him when she blew out her candles.  Silly boy!

This past week was a mixture of saving and spending–kind of like life–full of good and bad.  Here’s how it went:

The pigs continue to grow.  An appointment was made this week for the mobile slaughter man to come the first week of March and take care of them.  They are all spoken for, except 1,  and several are paid for.  We anticipate Rob’s labor will pay for our pig.  It got a little complicated when we realized a few weeks ago that one of them had not been properly castrated by the woman we bought them from.  After phone calls, and pictures being sent back and forth, she traded in the incorrectly fixed pig.  Thankfully, Rob was able to catch it with no problem and take it back.  So, it was not a complete loss as it would have been if we had been stuck with a viable boar.  They aren’t good to eat, and we have no need for a daddy pig.  The new baby is smaller, by far, then the other ones. So we are out a bunch of feed, plus the cost of transporting the pig and trading it in.   We are still not sure how we are going to handle that–but the good news is that we are still going to make enough money from the other ones to pay for our pig.  We will be lucky to break even on this one, though.

Rob picked up a temporary job and earned a bit of $.  He might have been needed one more day, but a piece of glass he had previously stepped on caused an abscess in his foot, causing us to go to the doctor for lancing and antibiotics.   She said he had to stay off of it.  The good news is that he is healing up nicely, now, and he did get paid for the one day.

We sold some dishes, cookbooks, home-school books, and a few small items from the shop on e-bay and a used book store.  We got over $150, which will bring our savings total for fixing up the new house up to around $600, once we get it all into the right account.

We did not buy a new refrigerator or popcorn maker when they broke.  I am using the fridge in the garage and a pot for now.

We had our taxes done instead of having Rob do them with Turbo-Tax as usual.  It was complicated this year because we had done some logging.   We had a fear that we would owe a lot, but that was not true in the end.  We also worried that our inexperience and lack of knowledge would cause us to make a mistake that would come back to haunt us later.  We will be getting a small refund.  I’m sure we paid taxes, but there was enough money withdrawn from Rob’s paychecks from last year to cover it.  I’m so glad we had this firm do the taxes.  They had a lot of experience in timber sales, which is why they were recommended to us  and knew how to calculate which part of the sales were actually profit, and how much timber was purchased when we bought the property (they don’t consider that profit).  We still do have expenses to pay, such as replanting baby trees, etc., so still are not spending the money until after we have paid what we need to.   Still, we had envisioned paying, and ended up not paying and even are getting a bit back—-happy day!

We have been eating a lot of that cauliflower I froze last fall, along with many other vegetables I preserved by canning or freezing.

I shopped on Thursday at Costco for myself and 4H club, which was Friday.  I am in charge of cooking classes and there were 9 recipes to prepare for this week.  I purposely chose recipes that used my stockpile.  I didn’t have everything.    I didn’t have time for multiple stores, so got what I could at Costco and spent about 10 minutes in a Safeway getting the few remaining items.

I took the kids to McDonald’s Thursday after dance.  I figured we could afford that with the excellent news about the taxes.  Thursday was a crash and burn day for me–I could hardly drag one leg in front of the other, but needed to go with Rob to the doctor (we weren’t sure if he was going to be able to drive after they fixed him up–he actually could).  I also wanted to see what the Dr. found–had I gotten all the glass out, done something wrong, etc.  What did I have to do to take care of it at home? Since he could not see the bottom of his foot, it was all me.  Also, planning and getting ready for so many cooking classes for 4H is time-consuming, and I was exhausted because I had saved that job a little too long.  By the time I figured out that I was the one who was going to go to take the kids to dance, shop like  a maniac while they were in class, and do dinner as well, since Rob was in bed at that point with his foot up, I decided that Mrs. McDonald could make dinner.  They accidentally gave us 2 extra cheese burgers and an order of fries.  They caught the mistake and gave us the extra food for free, as they would have had to throw it away, and it was their mistake. We took them home to Rob and he didn’t even have to get out of bed to eat dinner.

It just gives me a larger appreciation for Rob.  I truly could not do well at living the life we lead without his constant help and support.  He has always wanted a large family,and promised long ago to bear his share of the load of the daily work involved with so many special needs kids. And he has.  He will do doctor visits, therapy, dentists, DHS visits, shopping, laundry, cooking, etc., etc., etc., as will I.  It takes us both. Let’s face it, we do SO much work ourselves because our kids either can’t or won’t.  Don’t get me wrong, we train them, but it often takes much longer to do a job than is normal, or it is beyond their ability.  Then you add in sometimes oppositional behavior, caused by neurological glitches, or just teen-age years, and it gets interesting sometimes.  So, we tag team the emotional part as well, and handing out the consequences, etc. He has never resented giving up the toys he thought he wanted when we were young, such as a fancy pickup, a boat, time for fishing a lot, hunting a lot, etc.  I feel like it’s Valentine’s Day all year long, because our love has grown and matured over the last 33 years to so much more than it was when we first got married.  I am blessed.

This past week, I was able to spend a great deal of time on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday sorting, cleaning out, and even packing a few boxes that will go into storage.

I took some time out from sorting to cook.  The last thing I want to have to do is start spending extra money on take-out food because I am too tired to cook, or didn’t plan well.  I had Lovana make up some pizza crust mixes for the camper.  I also made up a bag into pizza that I had made a while ago.

I plan to make home-made gluten-free biscuit mix in the near future.  Making mixes saves me both time and money.  I also use them to stock the camper to make camping more relaxing.

We did not spend the $50 that we budgeted for groceries this week.  We used our stockpile, canning, and freezers instead.  The only thing we bought from the grocery store was matches. We’ve been building a lot of bonfires while cleaning out, as well as our daily wood stove fire, and don’t want to run out of those!  I’m noticing that Ziplocks and Parmesan cheese are getting low, so I probably will take that money to Costco and get those items with it.  I’m thinking that lettuce/produce will take some of this week’s allotment.  We eat a lot of salad.

I’m noticing that, because I’m willing to dip into the stockpile and use up “special” grocery items, we are eating like kings and queens around here.

Both Rob and I sold several things on e-bay.  He’s finding a few things in the shop that he’s listing to see what happens, and so far, a couple sold.

We are putting all scrap metal that we find while cleaning onto a trailer and Rob will take it to the scrap metal yard soon.

As I pack and sort, I am making a big pile of items to put into the camper as soon as we get it back from the shop, where it is getting some warranty work done.  It is likely that we will need to stay in the camper for a couple of weeks after this place sells, and before we close on the new place, so I’m organizing myself for that.  If, for any reason, that doesn’t happen, we still plan to camp as usual, so it needs to be done.  I try to rotate the food supply in the camper each spring so things stay fresh.  This time, I’ve also picked out a couple of extra bins of food from the garage to pack under the benches of the dinette table.  I chose items like mac and cheese, canned soups, mixes (both home-made and purchased), etc.  I don’t use those items much on a daily basis, but do use them when camping.  If we do end up staying a couple of weeks in there, I want this extra food on hand to make things go more smoothly and to save money.  After all, I already own it!  I also am able to pick and choose out the convenience items before someone eats them.  I did a post on how I stock the camper pantry on a budget on Rob’s outdoor blog.

I have sorted out boxes and boxes of books and hope to make it to the home-school used book store this week.  They won’t take them all, but will buy a bunch of it.  Then, I’ll deal with the rest.  We took a huge load of miscellaneous items to a charity thrift store.  I know they will put the money to a good cause.