Guys,seriously, take care of your teeth.

A frugal thing to be sure, but my PSA is for an entirely a different reason.  Fixing dental problems is a sometimes uncomfortable, but more times painful undertaking.  Just had togo get a crown on one of my molars.  What was supposed to be a visit of 1.5 hours, turned into 2.5 hours of drilling, smell of drilling teeth, water in the face, novacaine,  inadvertant pinching of my mouth in order to get to the tooth, etc.  No fun what so ever!  Now technically I am supposed to go and get another crown at a lter date, but as it stands right now, that will not be happening any time soon.  So ..., yea.... take care of your teeth.  Brushing, flossing, and rinsing with mouth wash is much more preferable to what I went through today.  I am thankful it is over and I am now home.  WHEW!

So aside from all that fun...not... myplan for today is a batch of granola and a couple of loaves of bread.  I need to do some housework.  Life is so exciting.   lol. 
Speaking of exciting, we are down to 1 car now.  Baby, our mini van, has bought the farm.  We have junked her.Poor baby.  After tax season we are going to try and save up for another car, preferrably a truck for DH. 

On the crafty front, I was able to re-string 6 Madame Alexander dolls for a friend of mine this past weekend, and have cut out a beautiful doll dress for the doll I reconditioned for my mom..  You can see a pic of her here.  She is the second doll down the page.  The dress will be mostly cream colored with mauve/sage accents.  When I finish it I will post a pic.  I love working with older dolls.  I love working with dolls period.  It is  my grown up way to still be able to play with dolls. 

So that is my life in a nut shell.  I hope everyone is having a great day. 

Wow! It has been a bit since I posted last. Sorry

Last week was kinda crazy and to be honest I didn't feel too well.  Feeling a lot better this week.  I was working longer hours last week do to some staff shortages.  Nice in the fact that I get a bit more in my paycheck, but would prefer the short hours.  Maybe that is why I feel better this week.  Things went back to normal.

I am having a hard time not being able to get out and do anything in my garden.  Grrrrr.  I did get my fruit trees sprayed a second time, then the rain came in earlier than I intended.  Again Grrrr.  I am dying to get my hands in that dirt and get my garden going again.  It looks at me so sad, beconing me to come outside and play, but weather keeps me at bay.  I can't complain too loudly though.  At least we aren't in a drought anymore.  So I come home from work and do some house cleaning.  I would like to say I came up with some wonderful frugal nugget no one knew about, but can't say that was the case this week.  I can share things I did that were frugal in nature.
1)  Made bread to barter in trade for 4 dz free range organic eggs.
2)  Made a loaf of bread in trade for a jar of sour wood raw honey.
3)  Used up items I had in the fridge that needed to be used and repurposed them for other meals. ex:  made veggie soup from odds and ends of veggies I saved in the freezer until such time as I had enough to make soup.  I made french toast from stale bread, or made cinnamin toast from bread ends.
4) Fianlly did my taxes and because I counted sales tax in my deductions, we were able to have more than the standard deduction and so paid less in taxes than we previously thought.  Yay! Needless to say, now that we know that we are saving every receipt.  I aint playin. 
5)   Combined trips when possible to save on gas. 
6)  I organized my kitchen drawers to  make everything easier to find/reach.  I was able to do this cause Dh organized atop shelf in his Baseball/Football card cabinet and was able to take all the electronic cords that had accumulated in one of the kitchen drawers.  Now that stuff is in the  man cave and I can have the extra drawer in the kitchen.

Now I am about to go clean up the kitchen from lunch and makeup some goodies to have in the house.  While those are baking I can scurry around cleaning and straightening.  It's how I roll.  So I am off in order to release you from possibly the most boring post ever.  LOL.  Once I can get outside and do more than the house type stuff, I will have more to share.  Bear with me as we muddle thru the winter weather together.  Have a great day!

Substitute for dishwashing liguid

Trying something new.  I have tried Dawn dishwashing liquid, as well as all the other name brand and generic brand dishwashing liquids.  I get frustrated with all of them in the fact that within minutes I am looking at dingy water, no bubbles, etc.  Now I know the soap can clean without the bubbles, but if bubble sustainability isn't necessary, why pay the crazy price for Dawn?  For that matter, I say to myself (and now you), why pay for dishwashing liquid at all?  Even the Aldi brand is now $1.89 a bottle.  You have to use so much per batch of dishes.There has to be a way to save a bit.  You know me, every dime saved is important.  Pinch that penny till it screams.  So enter....

I have a few of these in my cabinet because I was using them to make laundry soap.  Not happy with the laundry soap.  I think I have really hard water (probably why I don't get all the nice bubbles), but it works for some. Anyway, I ran out of dishwashing liquid a couple of days ago, and rather than jump into the car and make a trip into town to get more, I thought I would try this.  This is emormous soap bar (14 oz) and it costs about $1.   I begin by putting the whole bar in the sink and let it stay there as the sink fills with hot water.   I let it stay there a little longer after I get the sink full, but after a couple of minutes I take it out and rest it on the back of the sink.  I have to say I am very happy with the results, and it doesn't seem to be using too much of the bar at once.    It does a great job loosening stuck on foods and all the bells and whistles one looks for in a soap for their dish washing.  Sound like a commercial yet?   Now in full disclosure here I will say it does leave soap residue on the side of my sink, but I just wipe around the sink as the water drains out and its good.  No worries.  So should you feel the need to go CAAARAZY with some dishwashing, give it a try. 

That's it! I'm leaving my husband....

That got your attention didn't it! (smile)  Nah, I am leaving him, but not why you would think.  I am leaving this morning to go house/dog sitting at my brothers house about 1 hour away.  I will be there til Thursday morning.  Then I will go to work and then home my normal time.  Until then you could say the inmates are running the assylum or in this case, the bachelors are running the house.  No one knows what I will comehome to, but more than likely not anything too bad.  To save on gas I have been waiting to make a trip to Sams, Kroger, and some other errands until I am on my way to brothers house.
Anyone else notice the gas price increse?  You would have to live under a rock to not see it, or not own a car.  Woo Hoo lets hear it for a weak dollar!  Sorry, I digress.  Anyway, I just wanted to say I will be without computer for the next few days.  So see everyone on the flip side!

This is sooo cool!

Well Dh and I went to Nora Mills to get my Wheat Berries and wheat germ.  When we got there the place was packed and cold.  You have to remember this is the original stone mill from this area.  Anyway, the mill was running when we got there.  I have been there so many times, but never was there when the mill was running.  It was so cool!  There are these huge stones at least 3 ft in diameter at the base of an enormous hopper.  We watched as the corn funneled down into the stones.  At the bottom of the stones you can watch as the grain flows down into a hole in the floor to the lower level.  While the wonderfully nice man was ringing up my purchase, I asked him if the stones had ever been changed.  He said they were the original stones about 137 years old.  He said every once in a while they need to take the mill apart and re-groove the stones, but they are the original stones.  They came from France looooong ago.  They only run the mill on Saturdays so if you are ever in the area on a Sat, go up and see.    If you love that kind of stuff like I do, it is so great to see. 

Something to think about when grocery getting

For years now I have purchased my groceries once a month.  It worked fine for us, but due to my switching jobs at the hospital and taking a cut in pay, necessity has required me to budget my money into two trips to get groceries.  Now full disclosure here: I maintain a pantry(thats putting it mildly), so it's not like I have to restock my foodstuffs every grocery shopping trip. That being said, I am noticing extra each two weeks.  I am able to get only what is on sale and what I have to have.  This is allowing me some extra for storage.  Example:  I went this past Thursday to the store and bought everything I have to have as well as some sale items I needed (Kroger had the Kraft cheese slices and the Philedelphia cream cheese on sale Yay!).  I still have $98 left for the next two weeks.  So figuring what I still want/need to get from Sams Club:  60 oz carton of coffee creamer for $5.87, a 6lb box of tortilla chips for $7.92 and a 5 lb block of mozzerella cheese for $11.56, I still have approximately $72 left.  So (rubbing my hands together with glee) I am off today to get a 50 lb bag of hard white wheatberries from Nora Mills Grainary to add to my pantry.  Nora Mills is located in Helen Ga about 40 min from my house. You can see a pic here. They still have a working stone grain mill, water powered.  You can buy the flour as well as other grains already ground, or do like I do and get the 50 lb bag of grain.  The 50lb bag is $35 which takes me down to $37 and I am thinking of buying their wheat germ for my granola for about $3.  Now I am down to $34.  I have no idea what to use the extra money for.  That is until I see something on sale either this week or next.  So I have to say this is working for me.  Everyone has to do what works for them.  I am already in town so extra for gas isn't an issue.  I also have to throw out a hugh Thank you to Kim a friend of mine who I go to church andnow work with.  She is in a barter agreement with me for eggs.  She brings the eggs and I bring the baked goods.  Saves us both and she will also be the benficiary of the wheat I buy today.  I have to say I had to cook store bought eggs today for breakfast, and there is a difference.  Really.  Dh and I are in agreement that if our barter agreement ever ends (Please no!), we are definately getting chickens.  It is that noticeable after spending the last 2 weeks enjoying farm fresh eggs. 

Todays plan after the trip for wheat, is to bake.  I have to make my "payments" for the eggs I get tomorrow as well as our weekly loaves of bread and some things for a super bowl party at church tomorrow.  So on the dockett is Cinnamin rolls, choc chip cookies, 2 loaves wheat bread, peanut butter brownies(for you Pastor), and mac and cheese.  So please don't let a nutritionist near my kitchen.  LOL.  Except I can bragg that only whole wheat flour, realbutter, nothing processed etc is usedin my cooking. So there!
Well I am off to get dressed for the day.  You guys have a great day!