When I Dream....

I dream of shiny new appliances for my kitchen.

Okay, maybe not, but oh my goodness gracious did I find some beautiful stainless steel appliances that would look soooooo pretty in my kitchen. (sigh)

The oldest and I had stopped into Home Depot to pick up a flapper for our toilet a couple weeks ago.  Super exciting purchase, let me tell you.  Whoo hoooo.  Anyway we cut through the appliance section on our way to the register and holy moly did I get myself a little bit side tracked.  First thing I saw was this gorgeous low profile refrigerator.  Not a side by side, just a fridge, like I used to have only fancier.

Then I found stove.

And a dishwasher too, of course.

My current stove and refrigerator are 22 years old.  I've done repairs to both, but they are holding up and performing just fine so I don't need to replace either one.  The dishwasher is 12 years old and honestly I could care less about it.  We hardly use it, except that it is white and wouldn't match the stove and fridge.  A true dilemma, I tell you.  My smarty pants daughter made the remark, "Oh too bad you already paid for Disneyland or you could afford to get these."  Rub it in a little?  Nah, I'd rather go to Disneyland.

But, I took loads of pictures and I'm thinking maybe I can make this a goal.  Hmmmm.  They sure would look nice in my pretty newly updated kitchen..... but.....

For now I dream.

Our Thanksgiving Menu Plans

When it comes to the big Thanksgiving dinner we are pretty darn tradition around our house.  Our menu doesn't vary a whole lot from year to year, although there have been times we went the non traditional route, but for the most part we to the usual turkey and all the trimmings.

I like to plan ahead so I can start "collecting" groceries early and then I don't have a big cash outlay in November trying to get everything at once.  This year that included our turkey when I found turkey breasts on sale at Fred Meyer for 99¢ a pound and I ended up buy five of them.  So far we have cooked two and still have three left along with a big ham in the freezer.

I definitely want to use great grandma's silver

Most of what we'll need is already in our house.  I'll need to pick up veggies, wine and a few other little things, but for the most part we've got it covered.  And because our friends and family are always invited to dinner I made up two different menus depending on who decides to joins us.

One menu is for a small crowd and one is for a larger as it is too soon to tell yet what is going to happen.  We have a lot going on this year so rather than try and pin everyone down it makes far more sense to just be prepared for any eventuality.  And because our home is on the small side, it the crowd is too large it may mean we end up at someone else's house altogether.  If that happens then the girls and I will switch to plan B.

Menu plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas are all tucked into my new planner
Fun, fun fun!

Plan B is we fix our own little Thanksgiving meal on Friday because we love the leftovers.  And I love, love, love to prepare this meal.  As much as I enjoy going somewhere else for dinner and not having all the mess to clean up after, it just isn't the same if you can't reheat leftovers in the microwave the next day and eat pie for breakfast.  You know what I mean?

So this year our plan is basically that we really don't have a set plan, but we are prepared to be flexible and for any eventuality.  Sometimes that is just how it goes.

The Hall Closet

We have a good sized closet in our downstairs hallway located beneath our stairs.  It has been sheet rocked all the way to the landing and houses our hot water heater.  Behind the hot water heater you can tuck a lot of long term storage items and in front is a good space for things we used more often.

What lurks behind a seemingly innocent door
Ahhhhhhhhh!

We pulled everything out keeping like items together

Then I started by organizing our
collection of CDs & DVDs

When I first moved in to our home I added shelving and coat hooks so we could use the space better.  Since I had turned our coat closet into a pantry this space became our coat closet and a great place to store our vacuum cleaner.  During our most recent home improvement projects it also became our catch all to the point that I couldn't get our vacuum cleaner in there if I tried.  Let me just say, it was a complete disaster!

We only keep what we still watch or listen to

During project mode I was fine with it being a mess, but once those projects were completed and others put on hold for the time being the condition of that closet started to gnaw on me.  So a couple weeks ago on a Sunday morning the youngest and I pulled everything out and got to work purging, cleaning and reorganizing.

All of my craft supplies neat & organized

Stickers and works in progress

Stamps & adhesives

A lot of things needed to be put away somewhere else, surprise, surprise.  Other things needed to be tossed out or donated.  What remained are things we use, regularly.  We keep all of our CDs and DVDs in here, and in typical fashion, for me anyway, they are all in alphabetical order.

Papers & card stock

School supplies

I also keep a lot of my crafts supplies, especially for paper crafting and school supplies in these old plastic drawer sets.  I also keep a one of the drawers to hold all of my extra candles and wax melts.

Assorted felts, pom poms, pipe cleaners, etc.

A blurry shot of my candles & wax melts

Our Christmas wrap and supplies was kept in here but has grown in volume to the point it was messy and hard to keep neat.  I removed all of that and put it into a larger bin and it is now housed out in the garage.  I did leave some of the paper, bows and gift tags in the hall closet for convenience.  Once we are done wrapping gifts for Christmas the rest will go too.

And now the vacuums fit back inside

Laptop bags and my leather jacket hung up
and there is still floor space

Once everything was neatly put away there was plenty of room for our vacuum cleaner.  Now when I open the door I get a much better, more positive feel of this space.  No longer to I cringe as I try to dig for stuff I need.  Now it is like a breath of fresh air to open the door and see calm and order.  Plus, I now know where everything is and it is easily accessible.  This will make crafting so much nicer.  Vacuuming too for that matter.

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

After a solid month of go, go, go (actually we've been on the go since mid August) we ran out of steam.  The BIG band competition wrapped up on Saturday night, we got home at 10:00 that night and I woke up Sunday morning feeling wrecked.  We took the day off and I mean OFF.  None of us got dressed all day and we didn't do anything but watch TV and eat reheated leftovers.  We were all done in.  I thought of a million things I could and should be doing, but I didn't do any of them.  Late that afternoon the youngest and I did manage a quick little Christmas project we had planned to do (details to come), but that was it.  By Monday morning we all seemed to be back on track and feeling pretty chipper.

Monday I came straight home from work and pulled chicken, sausages and salmon out of the freezer to thaw in the refrigerator.  We polished off the leftovers that night for supper making it pretty easy.  I made some coleslaw and my oldest put a pan of seasoned broccoli in the oven to roast.  She loves roasted broccoli.

Tuesday I picked up you young one from cheer practice and we stopped in at Albertson's to stock up on sirloin steaks that were on sale for $2.88 a pound.  I bought two large packages along with a gallon of milk and some asparagus that was buy one get one free.  It's a little on the pricey side even at that, but I really enjoy it so I do splurge from time to time.  After a quick supper we were off to the high school for a marching band wrap up concert and awards ceremony and that officially put an end to my oldest's high school marching band career.  Now onto pep band!

Wednesday was Halloween!  We stayed home and pretty much just hung out.  It made for a nice quiet evening for us, which has been lacking around here for quite some time.  We watched Michael Jackson's Thriller video and called it a night.

I reorganized my home office space so I can get back to paper crafting and other crafts whenever I want to.  Feels good to know I'm all set and now know where everything is should the mood strike.  I also know I have more than enough supplies and probably shouldn't buy anything for a while.  I also gathered up and sorted some photos and got them somewhat organized.  That is another project I'd like to work on and get finished up this winter.

Thursday was deadline day for my daughter to complete the second round application process, (she is a finalist) for one of the scholarships she is applying for.  Fingers are crossed that she gets it, but we are realistic in that there are a lot of people vying for this one.  She has been working extra hard on this phase of the process for the past two weeks.

I gathered up all of the Halloween decorations and got them put away.  A couple weeks ago I purchased a large orange storage tote at Walmart for $5.88 and I was able to get everything inside of that and the one I already had so my largest jack-o-lantern no longer sits alone in a plastic bag.  I still have plenty of room inside both totes for the rest of our Fall/Thanksgiving decor as well  I set out my new ceramic pumpkin set I picked up on clearance at Bed Bath & Beyond.  Now we are officially decorated and ready for the next holiday.

Friday evening we all got to come home and just relax.  Once again I felt the week just zoomed right on by although it seemed we had a little bit less to do.  I made the girls corn dogs and tater tots for supper, they thought they had died and gone to heaven, and we watched some or our Fast & Furious DVDs together.

Still dark outside when we headed off for the parade

Saturday ended up being our busiest day of the week.  My youngest marched with her cheer team at the Veteran's Day parade.  I had to have her at her school to ride the bus at 7:45 in the morning.  Denny's had their Grand Slam breakfast's on special for $5.99 so the oldest and I had breakfast there and I also used my AARP card to add on a 15% discount.  I brought my pancakes home for the girls to have with their breakfast another day.  After breakfast we ran a few errands before it was time to pick up the young one.

We did some pawn shop shopping and came home with a treasure.  I'll be doing a post on what we got coming up in a couple of weeks.  Super excited to share that with you all.

I collected some more pinecones at work and also at our neighbor's house for Christmas crafting.  Free pinecones are a great thrifty find!  I can't believe what they charge for them at the craft stores when they are all over the ground here.

Markdowns

I squeezed out every last drop of toothpaste in the tube before I tossed it.

I brought home a large bag of stale hotdog buns left from our company BBQ the week before for the chickens.  We didn't have a lot of kitchen scraps to share with them this week so that worked out quite nicely.

How was your thrifty week?

Fall Clearance Shopping

I did a little bit of clearance shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond.  It is located right next to our Fred Meyer and I don't often shop there, mainly because I don't usually need to.  I love the store and what they have to offer, but for the most part I just don't need to go in there.  That is until they had a rack full of pumpkins sitting outside their door marked at 50% OFF.

I added a couple of the mini pumpkins to my kitchen windowsill

So I went over and took a look, but I didn't really see anything there to tempt me.  My oldest, however had gone inside and was soon beckoning me in.  There was more stuff on clearance inside.  Oh my goodness, yes there was.

It looks adorable on our couch

I'm a sucker for pumpkins, absolutely love them, and I think my oldest is too.  She glommed on to a sweater pumpkin right away and I knew we were at least going home with that one.  And at only $2.99, heck yeah!  It is stinking cute!

They had a barrel full of the little dollar pumpkins at only 50¢ each so I found three in there that are different than the ones we already have and my daughter found a beaded one that she really liked.

$4.99!

Then I came across this three piece set of ceramic pumpkins on clearance for only $4.99 and that came home with me too.  Along with a set of felt leaf coasters my daughter thought we should use on our Thanksgiving table.  She is right about that of course.

A dollar

$12 later we were out of there and headed over to Fred Meyer so she could get a key made and we ended up finding another clearance table.  Of all things, candy!  Sure didn't need that, but when I spotted full size Hershey bars for a buck a package I snapped up all they had.  We also got a bag of almond kisses for $1.89 and the girls found packages of mini candy bars for only 49¢ each.  They have friends with birthdays coming up and plan to stuff them inside coffee mugs to give as gifts.

I usually see these on sale 2/$6

I definitely said Whoohoo!

I figured I'd use the Hershey bars for Halloween on the off chance we did have a trick-or-treater and we could be "that house" that gives out the full size candy bars.  However, that didn't happen as we didn't get one single trick-or-treater and now I'm stuck with 18 Hershey bars, but no worries.  I've got plans for them and they will not go to waste.

I also found some peppermints that are on my list for the holidays at only 79¢ so I picked up 2 bags of those.  That should be plenty.  I may take some into work to share at Christmas time.

I put some of the kisses in a dish for guests to enjoy

I like to have a little sweet treat for people to enjoy when they visit
Makes our home more inviting I think

We came home with a bag of treasures from Bed Bath & Beyond as well as a bag of goodies from Fred Meyer.  Loads of gift ideas with that bag of goodies, let me tell you.  We're excited to get started.

October Thrifty Wrap Up

Here we are again!  Can you believe how quickly October flew right by.  Mercy!

I began the month with $16 in my checking account and about that much cash in my wallet so not too shabby.  Pay day was on the fifth so I was able to get all of our monthly bills paid ahead of their due dates and mid month I paid our mortgage three weeks ahead.  I made my planned savings contributions and a double payment on my PayPal account (carpet) as well.  What remained after all of that was used for groceries, dining out, a trip to dollar movie night at our neighborhood cinema, tickets for band competition, stocking up and some birthday gifts.

I did pretty well stocking up the pantry last month with items for holiday baking as well as filling in with items we were running low on.  I took advantage of sales and added digital and paper coupons everywhere I could to purchase those items at the lowest possible cost.

I used coupons at Bath & Body Works to obtain a free item for my gift bin as well as a discounted item.  Both will make nice gifts for someone on my list.  I did a lot of no and low cost little projects around the house as well as in the gift making department.  I was also able to wrap a bunch of gifts using supplies I already had.

It was also the month where I stock up for winter making sure all of our animals are well provided for.  We had plenty of pine bedding for the coop and in September I had bought 50# of scratch grains.  Last month I added two 50# bags of lay pellets that should get them through the coldest months until spring.  I also bought two large bags of dry cat food to put up in the garage.  In August we put in a really good supply of Timothy hay and pellets for the bunny so she is all set.  Our pantry and both freezers are full so we are all set too.  No one is going to starve around here.

The biggest expenditure for October was to book our family vacation which is a trip to Disneyland in 2019.  We are ever excited and can hardly wait to go.  I put all of it on my credit card in order to receive the rewards points first and will pay that amount off with money from my savings account when the bill comes due.  It was a lot of work to save up that money, but definitely well worth it.

November will be challenging for me as we have two birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas up ahead and two annual bills that come due every year.  But as always, I'm up for the challenge and feel fairly confident I can pull it off.  At least I hope so anyway.

The Practice Of Gratitude

I believe that if you practice gratitude on a daily basis you become a happier and more content person.  I do it every day and often throughout the day.  It has become a really good habit for me to fall into.  During the week my days are busy and often hectic.  It isn't possible, most of the time, for me to have moments of quiet to collect my thoughts, but with one exception.  On my way to work.

I have about 5 to 6 minutes in the car (I have a very short commute) where I am completely by myself and I choose to use that time to say my prayers and thank God for all that I have, all that I have become and for all that He has blessed me with.  I always pray for guidance and patience as I navigate my day, especially if there is something I may be struggling with, and of course to watch over and protect my children while they are away from me.  It isn't a lot of time, but it is good quality time and it really sets me up to start my day in the right frame of mind.

My greatest blessings right here

I find that by practicing gratitude I'm much calmer, more content with what I have and at peace with who I have become.  I no longer have doubts about whether I am a good enough person or if I'm doing the right things.  If money is tight or I don't have something I need or want I remind myself of what I do have and I am extremely grateful.  I know that I've been very blessed to be able to raise my children and provide for them all that I've been able to provide and still be able to provide plenty for myself as well.  In a lot of ways we have more than we need.  We are blessed with abundance.

My mantra is to always try to be better and do better.  Don't give up or give in.  Keep on trying, no matter what.  And to always be grateful and thankful.  As a result I find I have had far greater successes in my life.  It feels amazing.  The daily practice of gratitude has been the best decision I've ever made.