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It’s finally starting to get garage sale season around here. Summer is just around the corner and kids are getting out of school, so it’s prime time for garage sales! Today, I spent $14 and came home with a bunch of fun stuff!
2 pair of Arizona brand sports pants for Riley – $2
1 Polo T-shirt – $.50
1 Gap Polo Shirt – $.25
Casual Corner brand blouse – $1.50
Lemon Grass Brand blouse – $1.50
Elementary Social Studies Textbook “Neighborhoods” – $.25
Chemistry Textbook from 1963 – $.50
Complete Kindergarten Math Curriculum – $3.00
Complere Kindergarten Reading Curriculum – $3.00
Big bag of fleece scraps (small and large pieces) – $.50
All the below knitting stuff for $1.00
Susan Bates “Peg It” Knitting Conter
Size 3 Double point Knitting needles
size 8 Double point knitting needles
Stitch holder
1 set size 10-1/2 short knitting needles
1 set size 7 short knitting needles
1 set size 5 short knitting needles
1 set size 3 short knitting needles
2 sets size 10-1/2 long knitting needles
1 set size 9 long knitting needles
1 set size 8 long knitting needles
1 set size 5 long knitting needles
1 set size 3 long knitting needles
1 set size 2 long knitting needles
I’ve seen several other ladies on other blogs doing this, so I thought I’d do it too. Over the last couple of years, I’ve had many questions about how I dress. We live on a farm and yes, I wear dresses. I wear dresses while feeding the pigs & chickens, gardening, cleaning the house and even when we’re hiking and camping. Here is my outfit for the day.
Knit blouse from Walmart (bought new last week, on sale for $7 I think)
Denim swisher skirt by Cattle Kate (bought used for $2 I think)
Khaki MaryJane style crocs (Walmart)
I’m not real good at doing my hair…I’m just not a hair person, so I go for quick and easy. I just pulled my bangs back (they are about chin length) with some clippies and just pulled the rest over to the side in a low ponytail. This keeps my hair out of my face, yet keeps it down like Marty likes it.
I really haven’t had to spend much on homeschool curriculum over the past few years. Here are the stratigies I use to cut down the cost to nearly nothing!
1. If you know a teacher or have a teacher in the family, asked them about older text books. At my parents schools they have an area where they store old out of date school books. This has been a big help to us. My Dad and given me math books, history books and other subjects. While not from a Christian perspective, they are very helpful and you can easily add the Christian perspective to them.
2. Garage sales and thrift stores are another good source. I’ve found old public school text books, readers and even antqiue school books. I don’t think I’ve paid more than a $1 for any of them. Also, garage sales are great for all sorts of educational books. I have to admit, the majority of my garage sale spending goes towards books.
3. If you have other family who homeschools, swap out curriculum with them. Both of my Sister-in-Laws homeschool. Between the 3 of us, we homeschool 8 kids. Share what you’re not using and swap back and forth.
4. Check out some books from the library. You can usually find lots of books that you can use for homeschooling there. They are great for independent study, research, etc.
5. You can find a ton of free stuff online! Resources like An Old Fashioned Education are indespensible! There are tons of free books online, many old textbooks which are great for homeschooling. I’ve complied a list of websites that offer these free books & texts.
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Ignite the Fire
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Please keep the Brown family in your prayers. They lost their infant son to
Potter’s Syndrome on May 19th. This is the same syndrome that our son Gabriel died of.
Also keep my grandmother Adeen McNiel in your prayers. My Dad just called and she is in the hospital with congestive heart failure. The were able to do anginoplasty and insert some stints. She also has some issues with her kidneys. She has really been stuggling since my grandfather passed away and needs much prayer!
Sorry I haven’t been around much the past couple of weeks. We’re trying to get finished up homeschooling for the summer. It’s just been hectic and busy around here.
Yesterday I started a batch of Candy’s Crockpot Yogurt. This morning I poured it into canning jars and put it up in the refrigerator. It’s really pretty thin stuff! I was going to make yogurt cheese, but it’s just too thin for that. Hopefully it will thicken up a bit over the next couple of days…Marty’s really wanting some yogurt cheese. He loves the stuff!
Monday, we had Beans & Rice for dinner along with rolls. Yesterday it was pork steaks and stir-fry veggies. Today we’re having chicken and veggies cooked in the crockpot. Our grocery store had leg quarters on sale for $.49 a pound so we bought several packages. I just chopped up an onion, 4 celery stalks, and 5 carrots and put them all in the crockpot with the chicken. I seasoned it with a bit of garlic, rosemary and paprika. It smells soooo wonderful! I’ll probably serve it with biscuits.
Today the kneading paddles for my 2 Zojirushi bread machines (bought at a garage sale for $1 each, they were just missing the kneading paddles) arrived!! I’m so excited! I’m going to get my sour dough starter going this weekend, so next Saturday, I’ll start playing around with a recipe for sour dough in the bread machine. I’m really looking forward to using these new “servants”.
We’ve been doing a lot of “robot meals” around here lately. The crockpot and counter top convection oven have been seeing ALOT of work! The bread machines will be added to our robot meals as well. They don’t heat up my house the way the stove/oven does. I don’t have to use harmful microwaves either! We bought our counter-top convection oven at a garage sale for $3 and it’s been in constant use. We’ve used it to bake biscuits, cook meats and veggies. Sunday, we had a delicious meal. In the bottom of the convection oven we placed fresh green beans, added water, a stick of butter, and seasonings. On the grill part, we placed steaks and seasoned them as well. We turned the oven on and in about 30 minutes we had delicious, juicy steaks and green beans to die for! Easy peasy! If fact, if we ever find another one of those ovens at a garage sale, we’re going to snatch it up quick! Sunday afternoon, I put bean and rice to soak in our crockpot (as in Nourishing Traditions). Then Monday morning, I drained off the water, added fresh water and cooked them all day. We not only had enough for dinner, but there was enough for Marty to take to work to eat for lunch the rest of the week! They were so yummy! I love the ease of cooking in these electronic servants!
I’m out of whey, so I’m going to set out some lentils to soak in water and yogurt for tomorrow’s dinner. We’re going to have letil tacos. Tomorrow morning, I’ll drain off the water and put it in the crockpot along with fresh water and a chopped onion and seasonings. I’ll let them cook all day. Then about 1 hour before dinner, I’ll brown some ground beef (1 pound) in the skillet and then add it to the lentils. I’ll let it cook until dinner time. We serve it on sprouted grain tortillas with cheese. This is another family favorite and it will also provide a lot of leftovers. I’ll put the in the refrigerator to cool and then place the cooled taco mixture into seal-a-meal bags and use our new (another recent garage sale find) vacuume food sealer to pump out the air and seal the bag. I’ll then put them in the freezer so I have a quick meal ready and waiting. I’m going to do the same thing with the leftover beans from monday (what Marty didn’t take to work). I’m trying very hard to teach myself to do these sort of things, as they really do cut down on the grocery bill.
Another thing I’m trying to do is cut out all sodas. I’m keeping a big pitcher of ice tea made at all times. I use organic caffeine free green tea. This is a healthy drink with no calories or chemicals. Much better for me than caffeine free diet Dr. Pepper! It’s hard giving up my Dr. Pepper habit, but I know it will be much better for me. My tea, sweetened with a little stevia hits the spot and fills the sweet void that cutting Dr. Pepper left behind.
Well, I’ve rambled on long enough! LOL! I need to get busy and do some more laundry. Have a great day everyone!
This is part 2 of 2 videos. See part one HERE
This video is 1 hour and 25 minutes.
If the video doesn’t show up, you can view it at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7798117152905143532&hl=en
Part 1 of 2 videos – Part 1 video is 1 hour & 43 minutes long. Marty and I attended a lecture by him a couple of years ago and found it to be extremely helpful, so I believe these videos are entirely worth spending the time to watch. Part 2 of this lecture will be posted in a separate post.
This is Jerry Brunetti’s highly informative video lecture Food as Medicine (2005) where he lays out his experience with terminal cancer which he successfully overcame with eating healthy and different food than he used to eat until then. In 1999 he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and given 6 months to live. He did not submit to chemotherapy, but rather, developed his own unique dietary approach to enhance his immune system. Jerry shares his personal experiences and provides his recipe for healthy living. You will learn about the crucial importance of minerals, which foods to choose for your best health requirements and what to avoid. After viewing this fascinating lecture you’ll realize the remarkable value of food in building good foundations, and providing buffers, to keep your body healthy. 3h long. A must see for everyone. Food as Medicine features: -The power of pigments -Make your plate a rainbow. -Protection from cruciferous vegetables. -The good oils. -Fabulous fermentation. -Eggs-The ultimate food. -Butter vs. Margarine-The power of raw milk. -What major minerals do-Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorous and Sulfur. -The trace mineral catalysts-Copper, Manganese, Zinc, Boron and Iron. -The forgotten five-Iodine, Molybdenum, Cobalt, Selenium and Chromium
If this video doesn’t show up, you can view it at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8841234327210711547&hl=en
Just wanted to take a minute and update about the soap we made Sunday. We cut in on Tuesday and it was still a bit too wet to cut, so it’s not pretty soap, but it’s drying well now and it will be fine.
I can’t wait for it to be ready so we can give it a try!
I finished up 3 project today!
First of all, I finished a bag order of 4 bags…
This is the outside
This is the lining fabric
I also finished up a knitted dish cloth
I also made a sunbonnet. This was a really quick project that took me about 1-1/2 hours to make start to finish. I used the one from the McCall’s Costumes pattern #M4548. It’s not quite what I really wanted the brim a little wider and the gathered part at the crown sticks up a bit funny. Overall, though it was an easy project and will keep the sun off my face while doing outside chores
So, overall it’s been a productive day!
Well this has been a fun, but busy Mother’s Day weekend. Friday we went to Walmart and got all the stuff we needed to make soap. Then we went out to eat at Braum’s. Saturday, we went grocery shopping and hit a few garage sales. Then we came home and Marty tinkered around with his Jeep. Then we all took a nice long nap. Nice relaxing day!
Sunday I made another 1/2 gallon batch of yogurt. Then we made soap!!
Here I am all geared up with my safety glasses, one of Marty’s old work shirts and rubber gloves…all ready to make soap!
Here is a picture of the soap right before we poured in into the mold. Didn’t get any pictures of the mold and all, but we just used a rubbermaid shoe box. Right now it’s sitting wrapped up in a towel on top of the refrigerator. I’ll sneak a peek at it this evening after Marty gets home to see how it’s doing. I can’t believe I waited so long to make soap from scratch..it was WAY too easy!
Then Sunday evening we fixed some sausage and sauerkraut for dinner and Marty took some of my fresh yogurt and mixed it with blueberries.
We added a little agave to sweeten it and it got gobbled up really fast! Marty made a second batch and put it in the freezer so we can have it for dessert tonight. Homemade frozen yogurt! That finished of the 1/2 gallon batch of yogurt I had just made, so today, I need to make another 1/2 gallon of it.
Saturday I received a really neat book for Mother’s Day from my Mom (THANKS MOM!!). This is one book I can HIGHLY recommend! It is just so neat and is chock full of wonderful information for making hundrends of products at home. It covers kitchen mixes, recipes, cleaners, home remedies, and tons more. I can see this book being indespensable for the homemaker! It’s called “Homemade” and is put out by Reader’s Digest.
Then today, I got a fabulous package in the mail from my friend Kelly…
It was full of yarn,recipe cards and homemade pads!! I love it! Thanks Kelly!!
There were small, medium and large ones.
Isn’t this the cutest little pad ever! LOL!
Today, is a gray and overcast day. I need to catch up on laundry, make more yogurt and do a bit of cleaning….all the usual fun stuff! Have a great day everyone!!
