a couple of things

we have no telephone or internet access at our home for the next week. don't ask, i don't feel like talking about it. anyhow, this may not be too bad for us since a week of silence sounds quite nice, actually. we also have friends from sheffield, england flying in tonight to stay with us for awhile, so i wouldn't be on here much anyhow.

i'm at the library using their internet because its FREE!!! as are their dvd rentals....that's my frugal friday post in a nutshell :)

its our 4 year anniversary today. josh surprised me this morning with something beautiful and sparkly in a little white box, which produced a few tears (tears from my eyes; not his)

gotta run, my toddler is not understanding the concept of being quiet in a library..

frugal friday

okay people, its time to put our heads together and think of more ways that we can be frugal!

my idea for this week may seem a bit like cheating since not everyone is in the same sort of position, but one of the biggest ways i've been able to be frugal lately is through having GREAT in-laws!!

josh's parents (and gramps) have planted a great big vegetable garden this year. we've already been enjoying delicious strawberries and fresh cilantro, and can hardly wait for all of the other yummy things to pop up. they also have chickens who lay plenty of eggs that we get to eat (free range and hormone free, nonetheless!)

a couple of weeks ago when we were in a severe pinch, chris showed up with a few essential grocery items and a gift card to buy more! she also pays me to clean her house every now and then, which goes straight towards putting food on our table. we are so blessed.

josh's job as an electrician allows him to collect scraps of copper wire and turn them in to the recycling depot for cash. between our in-laws and the wire, our pantry is currently sittin' pretty. good thing too, because we have visitors staying with us for much of the rest of this month! i've been diving into recipe books lately, looking for meal ideas that don't require me to buy a whole bunch of ingredients.

there's my ideas for this week. i hope you'll share your ideas in the comments below!

a bit o' braggage

when getting married, you don't really REALLY know what you're getting yourself into. i mean, no matter how romantic and charming and affectionate your spouse-to-be is before you say your "i do's" that could honestly all change the moment he first comes across the toilet that you unknowingly clogged. or the moment he fixes the bathtub drain only to discover that it was wads of your slimy, long hair that was causing it not to work properly. or the moment that he understands how untruthful you were being when you told him that you never farted and if you were ever to fart, it would smell like roses. (that's a whole other long story i'll save for another post) everything could change in an instant. especially in the situation i found myself in: a long distance engagement followed by marriage the day after i moved down here. having a relationship that consisted mainly of long phone calls gave josh and i the opportunity to hide so many things from one another and i'm so thankful that there were no major surprises once we were married.

one minor suprise was just how romantic and charming and affectionate josh still is today. he is one of those guys who always seems to get it right on special days like my birthday and christmas. this mother's day was no exception. i had sort of warned him days ago that i wouldn't be cooking, cleaning or changing diapers on mother's day. i think he may have forgotten about the no changing diapers part, but i didnt' mind because he pulled out all the stops to make me feel special and loved and appreciated. sunday morning he made me a delicious coffee cake and brewed me a cup of my special flavored coffee that i love. he took tristan out during church so that i could enjoy the mother's day service. after church he skipped his usual study class and fired up the bbq upon which he layed two of the most succulant steaks i've ever laid eyes on. they were so gorgeous i had to take a picture:



mmmmm...filet mignon. my favourite. while the steaks were sizzling, he tossed up a caesar salad and toasted some garlic bread so that by the time the steaks were perfectly done, all i had to do was pour myself a glass of wine and enjoy this scrumptious spread:



we timed it just right so that tristan was taking his nap during our meal. it was so quiet and relaxing, i felt like we were on a date somewhere other than in our kitchen! when tristan woke up, he presented me with his mother's day present: a cute pair of flip flops and a glittery card that he made in sunday school (with lots of help from daddy!)

i don't like to brag about anything i've ever done, but when its something that my husband did, i don't mind. i can't even brag that i found the best man ever because i know that it was God who found the best husband i could ever have asked for. thanks, josh for being so amazing to me. i love you.

happy mother's day

when leaving my parent in law's house this evening, chris gave me a hug and said "thanks for giving birth to my grandson." i beamed and said "it was my pleasure." i thought about that for a few seconds and quickly said "actually, it was my pain."

yep, our computer is now up and running!

postponement

i'm terribly sorry, but Frugal Friday will have to be postponed for awhile. i'm at the library using the internet there because our computer has decided it doesn't want to go online anymore. after a lengthy phone call to our internet provider, it seems we either have to:
a) replace a certain cable
b) replace our modem
c) replace our computer.

i'm praying its a or b.

i'll be back as soon as its fixed :)

Bugs & Other Things

there are 5 exploding rose bushes that line our driveway, each one boasting a different color and each a distinct scent of flower. since we moved in i haven't done much to take care of them besides cutting off the dead blossoms and watering them every once in awhile and, just lately, they have thanked me profusely by blooming their little hearts out. of course, no matter how healthy a rose bush may be, those pesky aphids seem eager to take them down a notch and our rose bushes are no exception.

when i was in the backyard with tristan the other day finding ladybugs in the grass, josh informed me that ladybugs like to eat aphids. barely had the sentence left his mouth before i was collecting pretty little spotted crawlies and carrying them carefully to the rose bushes in the front yard. it was morbidly fascinating to watch the ladybugs wander around their new home for a bit before finding a nice, juicy aphid and biting its head off. after josh mowed our "lawn" (i like to call it a lawn, though there are plenty more weeds back there than grass) i realized with a bit of horror that many ladybugs were probably finely diced and would no longer serve their noble purpose of Aphid Destroyers. still, i found a few more this afternoon and even got the neighbor girl in on my quest to populate our rose bushes with so many ladybugs that the aphids would run screaming from them in fright.

i realized that ladybug catching had become a sort of obsession for me this evening at josh's folk's house. we had just finished a delicious scottish dinner of steak pie with peas and i was in the backyard letting tristan roam free amongst the chickens when i noticed that i was seeing red spots in the grass when there really weren't any there. try as i might to ignore my ladybug sensing instincts, i just couldn't stop scanning the grass as i walked, looking for bits of bright red. upon nearing the little car that tristan loves to sit in, i saw a sort of movement in the grass. thinking it could be a ladybug, i looked closer and discovered that it was a rather large swarm of earwigs. by the time i realized that there were earwigs on the seat next to my son, he had realized the same thing and was removing himself hastily from the vehicle. i pushed the car forward revealing what looked like an earwig orgy that had just been interrupted. chris, bless her heart, called the chickens over to eat their fill of the disgusting bugs as she took hold of tristan's little car and shook it. dozens of earwigs feel from the car and, as she kept shaking and banging it, more and more kept falling to the ground. the chickens must have been pecking faster than ever before to keep up with all of them. that's when i noticed that the earwigs were swarming around one of the plastic, hollow wheels of the car. chris must have shook that thing for a good 10 minutes and i would say that hundreds of earwigs came falling out of that hollow wheel. it was so disgusting, i'm still feeling itchy just thinking about it.

i hear that natural predators of earwigs are toads. however, ladybug collecting and toad collecting are two very different things. good thing they have chickens over there.

Frugal Friday

in an effort to become more regular at blogging (yes, i know i've been a slacker), i've decided to try my own themed day, beginning today. every friday shall henceforth be known as Frugal Friday where i will bestow oodles of frugal ideas on my faithful readers in exchange for comments (or your own post if you'd like) giving your ideas on frugal living.

some people think that the word "frugal" sounds awful, but i have to admit that i quite like it. its much nicer than the nasty sounding "cheap" or pittying "poor". frugal people quite often are frugal by choice rather than necessity and this, i think, is the best sort of frugal. i, however, fall into the second category. our piggy bank is on a bit of a diet at the moment and, the way things are going with this whole recession, it looks as if it may get worse before it gets better. because neither josh nor i even want to consider ending my full time position as a stay at home mom, i've got to do my part and find little ways here and there to scrimp and save and stretch and just be smart about how i spend the money that josh works so hard to provide for us.

here are a few ways i've embraced the frugal life lately:

1. laundry. you may remember that a month ago my dad bought us a washline (or clothesline, as they say here in the USA) which my dear husband put up for me. i cannot begin to tell you the happiness and satisfaction i get from pinning my loved one's clean clothes up on the line and removing them, smelling of fresh breezes, an hour later. i've also just begun to really take a second look at the clothes i'm putting into the washing machine. are they dirty enough to be washed, or could they be used a second or third time? pajamas (especially tristan's) are throughly used before they are washed and many times his shirts are just spot-washed and worn the next day. i wash everything in cold water except for the REALLY dirty icky things, like dish cloths and bibs and socks.

2. phone bill. my mil gave me the idea of looking over our monthly phone bill to see what sort of services we are being charged extra for. is call waiting really a necessity when i have a perfectly good cell phone that someone could call if they needed to get ahold of me? how many long distance calls are we really making per month and are we paying for more of that time than we're using?

3. dinner. the best idea i've gotten so far is from aimee's blog. she suggests adding lentils to your ground meat the next time you make hamburgers! if you cook and mash red lentils, then add one part lentils to 2 parts meat, then season the meat as you normally would for burgers, you honestly can't even taste the lentils! not only is your meal now healthier, but you've just stretched your meat. i made hamburgers the other night and used the leftover lentil/beef mixture to make meatballs for spaghetti. tasty. my mil told me that she adds oatmeal to her burger patties as well as shredded carrots and onions.

4. thrift stores. okay, so i know they smell like stale cigarette smoke and sweat, and i know that there is a lot of trash in between the treasures, but when you do find those treasures, its amazing!! tristan and i make a weekly trip (walking, of course) to the local thrift store because its basically a new store every week with all the new arrivals! the other day my little wire wisk got bent out of shape (literally) and i had to get a new one. why pay $3.99 for a new one in the store when you can grab a perfectly good used one for only 25c? last month i bought a bumbo seat (which are around $30 new) for only $2.99 and am storing it for baby #2 (who, for the record, does not yet exist), and the month before that i scored on a lawn chair, complete with 2 cupholders, for only $1.99. children's clothes are also wonderful thrift store buys if you're not blessed with hand-me-down's like i am.

i've got plenty more ideas, but i'm going to save those for future friday posts. now its your turn: what have you been doing lately to save money?