Christmas shopping -- yep that's what I said, Christmas

I've been amassing a pile of Christmas gifts in the closet, over the summer.

This is a great time of year to check thrift shop shelves for Christmas items. Folks are cleaning out their own closets and donating to the thrifts. A couple of weeks ago I found a few Christmas things at Value Village -- added to the stack.

Also, I regularly receive both Kohl's and Penney's $10 off coupons. Last week I spent a few hours using 4 $10 off coupons (1 $10 off/$10 to Kohl's, 1 $10 off/$25 & 1 $10 off/$10 at Penney's, and 1 $10 reward I didn't even know I had at Penney's from the suit I purchased last spring). With these coupons/rewards, I bought 5 gifts for this coming holiday season, and spent a grand total of $12 out of pocket.

Add these items to the stash of after-Christmas clearance gifts I bought in January, and my pile is growing. I'll still have a couple of large ticket gifts to buy. I'll begin hunting those down soon.

Am I just crazy, or have you begun Christmas shopping/crafting already, too?

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This week's lunch round-up: the garden is really producing!

With an abundant garden right now, I am using what's ripe to put together lunches. And as it was so terribly hot yesterday, I tried to make items do double-duty for dinner last night, as well as lunches for the week. (The kitchen was in the mid-80s by afternoon.)

For dinner, we had veggie quiche (using some of the cooked veggies also used in the egg and veggie fried rice), 2 bean salad, brown rice (what was left of the large pot of rice from making the fried rice), and fruit salad using some of the apples and blueberries.

So here's the lunch round-up for the week:

• fresh apples
• boiled eggs
• egg and veggie fried rice
• blueberry muffins
• 2 bean salad (green beans and pintos, don't have 3 beans, LOL!)