Very busy weekend, and the beginning of my next Christmas gift

It was a jam-packed weekend, to be sure. But I found some time late Sunday afternoon to begin my next Christmas gift. I finished my dish cloths. And now, I've begun some spa cloths. A spa cloth is slightly larger than a dish cloth. 

I'm using a different pattern from the dish cloths. But also another good one for a relative beginner. I'll post a link to this spa cloth pattern, along with the changes I made to it, in a day or two, when I've finished this first one. I can give you the finished measurements, then, too.

I also finalized my Christmas gift list, for the gifts that I'll make. I think I've got everyone covered, including a couple of manly gifts. I'll give you that list this week, too.

I hope you had a great weekend. 

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for early August (with a garden in abundance)

Friday

Cod cakes, made with some frozen cod, poached and flaked, then combined with bread crumbs, parsley, Bay seasoning, an egg, lemon juice and salt
Cole slaw with our garden cabbage
Apple slices
Cheddar Bay biscuits (the Red Lobster knock-offs, made with homemade Bay seasoning)

Saturday

Fire-roasted hot dogs
Home-bake buns
Cole slaw (again with garden cabbage)
Fruit salad of blueberries, blackberries, apples, banana
S'mores

Sunday

Rice and black beans
Sauteed kale and mushrooms
Fruit salad of blackberries, apples, banana
Blackberry pie

Monday

Kale and shallot frittata
Oven-roasted purple and white potatoes
Apple wedges
Pickled beet salad over fresh lettuce
Blackberry pie

Tuesday

Herb-crusted pork roast, crusted with rosemary, thyme, garlic and lavender buds from the garden, plus cracked black pepper and sea salt
Rosemary, garlic and shallot potatoes (both purple and white potatoes)
Cole slaw with cabbage from the garden and the last of the pickled beets, added
Fruit salad of apples and blackberries in strawberry and blackberry jam dressing
Home-bake French bread and butter
Vanilla cupcakes

Wednesday

Black bean and chicken taco salad with lime-cilantro dressing (lettuce, celery, black beans, chicken, canned corn, cheese, olives, homemade dressing of tomato paste, lime juice, oil, cilantro, chili powder, cumin, garlic, sugar, salt)
Freshly fried tortilla chips
Leftover cupcakes

Thursday

Chicken, rice, kale and mushroom casserole (with celery, onion powder, garlic and thyme)
Fruit salad (once again blackberries and apples in jam dressing)
Cupcakes


So, even I have to admit that some of our meals this week have bordered on gourmet, for our family. I've been playing a little game with myself, in trying to use as many different items from our garden as possible. And, yes, my family is lucky to have me!! ;-)

And then there was Thursday's dinner. One of those slapped together casseroles that made me happy that my kids are past the must-have-everything-separate phase. The inspiration was a combination of cleaning out the fridge, and needing to be simple. It worked.

That's it! Another week of suppers at home.

How were your menus this week? Any thrown together casseroles on your table?

Have a great weekend!

First Thursdays

Today is the first Thursday of the month of August. Do you know what's so special about first Thursdays?

In many cities, Seattle included, the first Thursday of each month means free admission to various museums that normally charge an admission fee.

So, here in Seattle, there are several major art museums, the natural history museum, the Museum of Flight,  a museum dedicated to railways, the Museum of History and Industry, and a maritime museum -- that are free today. 

On top of free museum admission, many cities have an art gallery walk on First Thursdays, in the evenings, sometimes offering free parking.  For example, in Seattle's downtown Pioneer Square area, from 6 to 8 pm, tonight, almost 3 dozen art venues open their doors to visitors. It's a walking tour of the various galleries, museums, shops and small restaurants, with free parking in a few select parking garages in Pioneer Square. 

Some cities choose a different day for free museum admission, sometimes the first Friday or first Tuesday of the month. In some cities, it's referred to as "residents free day". It's worth a google, to see what's available in your area, if museums interest you.

Anyways, these free days make for great outings for me, and the opportunity to take in some of my area's wonderful cultural exhibits, without breaking the budget.

Does your community offer any First Thursday art walks, events or freebie admission?

A mid-summer bouquet and a summer collection

The lady at our church, who does the table arrangements for the fund-raising teas, made pretty bouquets of white daisies and giant violet-blue hydrangea blooms, a couple of weeks ago. I thought they were quite pretty, the white daisies adding just that pop to liven up the hydrangeas.

A few days ago, I put together my own bouquet for our kitchen table, fashioned after hers.

In the bottom of this vase, I keep my collection brown and white, washed, sea glass. Whenever I go to the beach, I look for sea glass.

I'm partial to the blues, greens and whites. I've collected these pieces, above, over the last 25 years. I keep them in a bowl on display in the living room.

I have other nature collections, from the other seasons, on display in our home, also. Collecting from nature is not only frugal, but I think trinkets from the outdoors are some of our loveliest home decor pieces, connecting us to the natural world, each time we look at them. And while these pieces of glass were once man-made. It's their life in the sea that has given them their character and beauty.

Making caramel topping to use as dip for apple slices

The apples on our early apple tree are ripening fast and furiously. I had been picking one or two at a time, directly from the tree. Then every morning, picking up and using all of the apples that had fallen in the night.

Over the weekend, the fallen apples had multiplied, significantly. I got out the taller ladder and began harvesting that tree, filling 2 drawers in the fridge with good, unbruised apples. I suspect we have enough apples for fresh, daily eating to carry us through the month of August. I can skip buying bananas or other fresh fruit, for the time being.

After some hard work, yesterday afternoon, I decided it was time for my dessert from lunch. I had thought to just make enough caramel topping to dip my own apple dessert. Remembering how much my other family members love apples and caramel dip, I decided to make a half-pint, to keep in the fridge. It really doesn't take much extra effort to make a half-pint over 2 tablespoons.

I didn't follow a recipe, but cooked some white sugar, molasses, water, corn syrup and salt in a small saucepan, until it was nearly sheeting off a spoon. Then turned the flame off, and swirled in vanilla extract and butter. (Those last 2 ingredients are what give the caramel topping it's old-time, candy store aroma.)

Anyways, a nice reward for all of the up and down on the ladder picking apples -- a plate of apple slices and some caramel dipping sauce.

For a little price comparison, 8 ounces of caramel topping costs about $1.25 to $1.50 at Wal-Mart. My 8 ounce batch of homemade caramel topping cost about 30 cents, and I got to lick the spoon!!

July 2016 Grocery Spending Journal

July 4. Dollar Tree for graham crackers to make s'mores. $1 It's not a big box, but about 9 oz, I believe, plenty enough for s'mores for all of us. As I can't find graham crackers for under $2 a lb in the larger boxes in regular stores, this is a good deal.

July 9. Coming home from a day at the farmer's market (and no, I didn't buy anything at the market, but enjoyed the atmosphere, had samples and got some good ideas), we stopped at WinCo, mostly for the bulk bin items. I bought a pound of milk chocolate chips (for making candy this week), at $3.11/lb, about 2 pounds of raisins, at $1.79/lb, about a half pound of chopped dates (to add to overnight oatmeal), at $2.14/lb, a half pound of instant milk powder, at $4.19/lb (breakfast shakes and peanut butter balls), about a half-pound of soy beans, at 85 cents/lb, a pound of raw, whole almonds at $5.99/lb (for making candy and non-dairy milk), 1/10 of a pound of unsweetened coconut (for adding to homemade soy milk, adds flavor and fats), at $3.15/lb. I also bought another 72-ct package of corn tortillas for $2.18, and 9 bananas at 48 cents/lb. I received a 6 cent credit for bringing my own bag. Total spent -- $20.69

July 9. Next stop on the highway coming home, I ran into Cash & Carry, primarily for all-purpose flour (50-lbs for $11.68), but also bought a 2-gallon box of 2% milk for $4.40, 10 lbs of carrots for $3.89, a 3-pack of celery for $1.67, a gallon of mustard for $4.19, and 12 oz of onion powder for $3.71. Spent $29.54

July 13. Dollar Tree for ketchup. I am making some sloppy joe filling for a church supper, and I was given very specific instructions for making it (no modifications to the recipe). So, while I might ordinarily make my own ketchup substitution, I couldn't for this night. Fortunately, it only cost me $1, which I think I can handle in my budget. Spent $1

Total spent for the month, so far -- $52.23. I'm doing okay for the month. We're almost halfway through and I've spent under 30% of the budget. Cheddar cheese is on sale again at Cash & Carry, so I may pick up a few 5-lb bags, later this week or next. And I need milk, always.

July 15. Fred Meyer, mostly to get milk, on sale, and pick up my 3 Friday freebies from the last couple of weeks. What I bought -- 5 half-gallons of whole milk, 99 cents each, 1 half-gallon orange juice, 99 cents, 5 bananas, marked down, 49 cents/lb, 1 lb of organic mushrooms, marked down, $2.39, 1 package of hot dogs, 89 cents, and the freebies, 1 2-liter of cola, 1 46 oz bottle of cranberry, cherry and blueberry juice, 1 Gatorade snack bar. I spent $10.11

July 21. Cash & Carry for the sharp cheddar on sale, $8.98 for a 5-lb bag, I buy 3 bags, plus 15 bananas, at 42 cents/lb. Spent $29.91

July 22.  Fred Meyer, for the coffee on sale. I find 1 can of Folgers 1/2 decaf, 1/2 regular for $4.29 on clearance, and buy 2 cans FM brand reg, a 1 can decaf, at $4.99 each. I also find organic mushrooms on markdown for $2.30/lb, and I get my freebie, a can of Mt Dew Kickstart. Spent $21.65

Total spent so far -- $113.90

July 29. This should be my last grocery shopping of the month. Went to Fred Meyer for 5 half-gals of whole milk and 1 half-gal of orange juice, all 99 cents each with coupon. Also stop by produce markdown section, and buy 2 8-oz packages of mushrooms (99cents each), and 6 red-tape bananas, at 49 cents/lb. Next I head to the meat marked down section, and buy a 14 oz package of chicken Italian sausage (5 links), reduced from $4.99 to $2.49. And finally, I go to the clearance rack in the back and find almond paste for filling pastries, 8-oz containers for $2.69, I buy 2 and will save these for a special almond-filled pastry. I also got my Friday freebie of a 17 oz bottle of peach sparkling iced tea. Spent $16.76

Total spent for the month of July -- $130.66

Coming in to the month of July I had a surplus of $239.89. Add that to my budget of $190, and I have $429.89 available to spend on food this month. I underspent by $299.23. That will be my surplus going into August, which when added to the monthly allotment of $190, will give me $489.23 that I could spend, if I find good enough deals to want to stock up.

What I bought:

Produce

2 pounds raisins
1/2 pound chopped dates
35 bananas
10 lbs carrots
3 pack of celery
12 oz onion powder
1 gallon orange juice
2 lbs organic mushrooms
1 lb whole mushrooms
46 oz bottle of cranberry, blueberry, cherry juice (Freebie)

Meat
1 8-count package of hotdogs
14 oz chicken Italian sausage link (5 links)

Pantry

1 pound milk chocolate chips
1/2 pound soybeans
1 pound raw almonds
1/10 pound unsweetened coconut
72-ct package corn tortillas
50 pounds all-purpose flour
1 gallon yellow mustard
1 bottle ketchup
2 liter of cola (Freebie)
1 Gatorade Fuel bar (Freebie)
4 large cans coffee/decaf (25 to 29 oz each)
1 can Mt Dew Kickstart (Freebie)
1 bottle sparkling peach ICE tea (Freebie)
16 oz of almond paste for baking

Dairy

1/2 pound instant milk powder
2 gallons 2% milk
10 half-gallons whole milk
15 lbs sharp cheddar cheese



Mid-month, we were given enough sandwiches and produce to last through 2 family dinners. Also, several of us attended 2 church dinners, eliminating the need to provide for those meals. Our garden continues to provide most of our produce. Every morning, I slip outside to pick an apple from the tree to have with my breakfast, and my daughters take salads and fruit from our garden in their lunches each weekday. My son still gets all his weekday lunches provided at work, gratis.

I didn't find any stellar deals on meat this past month. It's just as well, as I've got the extra freezer unplugged for the summer, and we're still using up meat from prior purchases.

In going through my supplies, I've noted that we're running low on butter. I'm down to about 9  1/2 lbs. of butter. At our regular usage, this amount will last us until the end of September. Awesome butter sales aren't found, much, until around Thanksgiving (in November for U.S.). That leaves me with about 6 to 7 weeks either without butter or having to pay a lot more for it. So, I'm having to do some sneaky things, like keeping the butter in the fridge, all of the time. And not putting the whole stick into the butter dish at one time, but only half. When it's kept out, in a dish on the counter, we seem to go through the butter much faster.  So, I just keep popping it back into the fridge, and that slows the consumption down. And by limiting how much goes into the dish at a time, it seems to nudge people into using just a little less. I know it works for me. I'm also going to return to making our own soft butter (that post, with instructions, here). Utilizing these strategies, I should be able to stretch out our butter supplies an extra month. Also, this week, Fred Meyer has butter on sale, with coupon, for $2.50/lb, limit 2. $2.50/ lb is not an awesome price. However, this week is the week with the Senior Discount shopping day on Tuesday. So, I'll take my coupon on Tuesday, and buy my 2 lbs of butter at $2.25 per pound. That will help. And I'll keep a watch on prices around town for deals on butter.



One thing to keep in mind, if your family spends a whole lot more on groceries, than mine: all 3 of my kids have their own earned money, if they want packaged snacky foods, they buy them. So, I'm not spending any money on those things. I save a lot by practically never buying prepared snacks like chips, packaged cookies or breakfast/snack bars, boxed cereal, and sugary drinks (other than a couple of bottles of juice per month). Instead, we snack on fresh fruit, raw veggies, popcorn, nuts and seeds, raisins, toast/bread, peanut butter, muffins and homemade cookies. And I've shared with you our available beverages -- iced herb tea, homemade lemonade, orange juice, smoothies, milk, black tea/coffee (hot and iced) and water. The bonus is, snacking/eating the way that our family does, is so much healthier for us.

There are times when one of my kids would like some of the packaged stuff. And they're all free to buy what they want, with their own money, or they can try to replicate the item they crave, with a homemade version. Last weekend, one daughter really wanted a milk shake, and was lamenting the fact that she didn't have lots of spare money (most of both daughters's earnings goes towards tuition). She said that if she did have more money, she'd go buy a milkshake at McDonalds (was this a hint for me to buy a shake for her? Oh well, hint not taken!). I told her how I used to make myself milkshakes/frosties with milk, chocolate syrup and ice cubes, in the blender. She tried it and was thrilled to have made a shake for herself, for free. Same daughter had a pot-luck to attend at work, on Friday. She was asking what she could bring that wasn't dessert, as there were already lots of sign-ups for dessert. She didn't want to use her own money to buy something. So she came up with a batch of scratch biscuits. And then, the other day, she really wanted a couple of cookies. Not enough to bake a whole batch, just a couple. She found a recipe online that made 1 large cookie. So that's what she did. She's learning! I'm proud of her for finding and trying ways to make a substitute for an item she wants.

It's been important to me, to not only teach my kids how to cook for themselves, but also to learn how to accept a substitute for something they might want. Sometimes, our career choices are less than lucrative, but profoundly fulfilling in other ways. I want my children to be able to live free of the pressure to have everything that everyone else has. Most of us won't get to have everything we want, and accepting substitutes is a big help towards living with that reality.


Whelp, that's it for grocery shopping in July.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the end of July

Friday

Chicken, vegetable and noodle skillet dinner
Fruit salad -- apples from our tree, blueberries from our garden and a banana in a dressing of plum liquid from stewed plums and homemade strawberry jam

Saturday

Homemade mushroom and black olive pizza
Fresh blackberries
Celery sticks

Sunday

Chicken soup, made with the leftover chicken and stock from Friday
Crackers and toast
Bananas

Monday

Vegetarian enchiladas, filled with rice, black beans, beet greens, garlic, onions and seasonings, topped with cheese/olives
Snow peas and carrots from our garden, raw, with homemade dip
Apple jello, made with old green kool-aid from pantry, lemon juice, gelatin, sugar, and added chopped apples from garden (apples that had been knocked off trees by squirrels. I cut off the bruises and chopped)
Blackberry cobbler

Tuesday

Leftover enchiladas
Leftover apple jello
Tossed salad
Leftover cobbler

Wednesday

Dinner at church, we had a taco bar and cookies

Thursday

Kale frittata topped with marinara sauce
Brown rice
Fresh apples, from our tree
Hot fudge pudding cake, topped with blackberry sauce (wild blackberries picked on our property)

Again, this week, I planned for an easy night, with making twice the amount of enchiladas that I normally make. Doing so gave me time to work on my knitting!

As I was watering the garden yesterday, I realized that we can get quite a lot for our meals, just here on our property, for the next 6 weeks. This should free up some of my grocery budget for stock-up items at Cash & Carry. For this month, I'm still below my budget. Of course, I still have some shopping to do later today. We'll see how I do by the end of the weekend.

On Wednesday, I worked in our church's kitchen helping to prepare the taco bar for about 100 members. I was working with 5 other ladies. It was interesting listening to them talk about some of the meals and foods they like to prepare. And it really drove home the truth that some folks cook frugally while others cook expensively. How we spend our money is an individual choice. As you all know, for me, I choose to cook frugally so that there is more money in other areas of our budget.

I hope your week went well, and you were able to keep cool. What were your favorite meals this past week? If you have a garden, what are you able to harvest right now? I'm still a few weeks away from tomatoes, but maybe we'll get green beans in a week.

Have a great weekend!

Planning for the most difficult purchase of this life

So, while I'm not exactly ancient, in years, it's time that I put aside the nonsense of living as if I'm immortal. That was fine when I was young, but planning for that most difficult expense is simply the mature thing to do, now.

Yes, I'm talking about planning our (husband and myself) funeral/burial expenses.

I won't go into what a frugal person should choose -- a pine box vs cremation, or plots with a view (who are we kidding -- whose view?) or remains scattered at sea (a lovely touch is to bring rose petals, and drop those along with the remains). But where I am in the planning process, right now, is getting used to the idea, and determining our wishes, on this.

My dad passed away in 2002. My brother, sister and I had to hastily make arrangements within a few days time. His passing came on very short notice -- diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the month and gone by the third week of that same month. We didn't have a chance to talk about what he wanted, with him. We loved our father, so, of course, we wanted the very best of everything for his burial and memorial service. Isn't that how this plays out in most families? You want the best, so you spare no expense.

By talking about this now, and doing local research, I can let my children (they're all adults, so not talking to school-age kids about my end of life) know just what matters to me and how I want to be remembered. I'll tell you, this isn't something you can marathon your way through. I've had to do research, in small bits at a time, to prepare my mind for all of these details. But it's best to do this now, and not let the unspoken continue until the time for planning is too late.

Things that I've thought about . . .

. . . that I wish to be buried and not cremated
. . . but I do not want a viewing or embalming (which means I don't want someone putting makeup on my face for burial), and I'll wear my own clothing, thank you
. . . that I want a wooden casket and not a metal one (my box does not have to last forever)
. . . simple flowers, I don't need a large elaborate spray of flowers
. . . that I do want to be buried near our family home, so my kids can visit as they need, in the early years
. . . that I want a weekday burial service
. . . and a weekend memorial in our church (more friends and family could attend if they wish to)
. . . some music that was meaningful to me
. . . a small home reception, in the family home, perhaps using a grocery delivery service to provide deli catering trays
. . . that I'd like to help write my own obituary, now, with the possibility for updates by my children, later. I'll keep my obit with a copy of our trust documents.

And that's about as far as I've gotten on this.


What I learned in doing my research, besides caskets coming in a large range of price points . . .

. . . that there is such as thing as a cardboard casket -- who knew? And families will decorate these caskets to reflect the life of the passed family member.
. . . a large spray of flowers for the casket can cost a couple hundred dollars -- yikes! that is so not my style. I am honestly fine if my kids go to the grocery store the evening before the burial, and pick up a few bouquets to lay neatly, on the top of the casket, themselves.
. . . you can pay up to $10,000 for a plot in some memorial parks (and yes, that seems to be the industry name for cemeteries, these days -- memorial park sounds much lovelier), and a family garden (with room for several family members, a bench and maybe a small tree) goes for $150,000 in a swanky memorial park that I'm familiar with. But our local memorial park has comparatively reasonable rates of one to two thousand per plot.
. . . that Saturday burials often come with a surcharge
. . . that you can buy burial clothing through the mortuary. Um, just weird, to me. Something from my closet will do.
. . . that you can rent a casket. That sounds laughable, right? But seriously, if you plan to be cremated, you can rent a casket, for a viewing, prior to cremation, if that's your wish.
. . . and that there may be lower-priced caskets whose models are NOT on display. You need to ask about these, specifically.
. . . embalming is not necessarily required. It's pricey. You can spend close to $1000, for embalming and body prep work. The alternative is refrigeration. Minimal cost, average seems to be about $50/day.
. . . that there are lists, online, of popular music used at memorial services, and you can even find lists of the music played for the services of a few famous people (like JFK, Princess Diana). Ditto for poems and sayings/quotes.
. . . that there seems to be a charge for every single detail from death to final rest. Transportation of the body, death certificate copies, storage of the body before burial, a sealed casket (presumably to keep the elements out -- and, but why? I ask).


What I learned from my experience with my siblings, when our dad passed . . .

. . . there were so many decisions, large and small, to be made in such a short span of time.
. . . we each had our own ideas of what we thought should be done. Fortunately, the 3 of us are very good at compromise. But if we had known what my dad would have wanted, we could have saved a lot of time and energy.
. . . it was very easy to get swept away in the spending, with a thought process like "well, it's Dad's money after all, might as well go for the very best". And while the 3 of us get along very well, we have different spending/saving personalities.
. . . that while the funeral director is required to provide a list of all of the services with a breakdown of fees, we weren't in the right frame of mind right then, to take our time going over that list and find alternatives or do without some line items.


There's a huge benefit to beginning these talks now, while I'm still in good health. This difficult conversation is not charged with emotion the way it would be if I were seriously ill. And financially, planning for this right now, and talking about this with my children, will allow me time to budget and set aside money to specifically cover this expense, so my kids won't feel the financial burden when I pass.

This isn't morose. It's loving, to want to take care of my kids one last time in my life. Okay, someone hand me a tissue, please.

What I'm drinking this summer, for about a nickel a gallon

How much is a 2-liter bottle of soda? About 99 cents? How about 2 quarts of Kool-Aid? Maybe 20 cents? What about iced black tea? Plain, no sugar or lemon, depending on how strong you like it, if using 6 Dollar Tree tea bags, per 2 quarts, it would cost me 12 cents per gallon, and that's unsweetened.

I could be drinking plain water. And that would certainly be healthy. But I prefer some flavor in my water, and just a hint of sweetening.

This summer, I've been making pitchers of iced herbal tea, using the pineapple mint, spearmint, peppermint and lemon balm from my garden.

I use a large tea pot to brew the infusion. I stuff a very full handful of washed, fresh herbs (various combinations of the above), in the tea pot. Then I pour boiling water over the herbs and allow to steep. I pour this infusion into a 2-qt pitcher, add 1/4 cup sugar, and stir until dissolved. I then top off the pitcher with fresh, cold water, making 2 quarts.

The herbs are free. The sugar costs me about 2.5 cents per quarter-cup.

Would you like to hear an interesting comparison? Many years ago, I had a huge diet cola habit. I bought and drank a 12-pack of diet cola, any brand, every week. At the time, a 12-pack cost about $2.50 to $3. I was spending about $10 per month on soda, or $120 per year, just for me.

If I drink herbal iced tea, year round, my cost, at a gallon per week, would be about $2.50. That's a savings of $117.50 per year.

Knitting tips from one beginner to another

Yesterday, I showed you my first hand-made Christmas gift for this year, hand-knit dish cloths. There was a little more that I wanted to add about the subject of beginning knitting, in case one of you is also a beginner, and attempting to make these yourself. I know, many of you are much more experienced knitters than myself. In no way am I suggesting these tips would help better knitters. Just tips to help someone who is just starting out.

Avoid paying full price for your knitting supplies.
Shop sales, use coupons, and buy at thrift stores.
Michael's (the craft supply store), often has either a great coupon (50% off), or a good sale (40 to 50% off) on their yarn. Jo Ann Fabric's seems to always have a coupon out for at least 40% off, sometimes as much as 60% off.

If the yarn is on sale, but the needles I need, are not on sale, I've been able to use a high value coupon on the needles, buy my yarn on sale, and come out spending about half of retail prices. Thrift stores have a spot, usually tucked away, with needlework supplies. If you thrift much, just make a run past that section, and check out what they have, each time you're in their store. Know the retail prices for the items you might find.

If your project requires stitch markers, you don't need to buy anything.
Find a cheapo plastic straw in your kitchen and a pair of scissors. Snip off bits in 1/8-inch increments, for however many stitch markers you need. So long as your knitting needle can fit through the straw piece, this will work for a marker. Need a larger marker for really fat needles? Open up and bend a paper clip into the size marker you need.

Before you begin a project, do a sample of the stitching.
A small patch about 2 and 1/2 inches square, will be enough to get the hang of what you're trying, and a chance to change your mind, if it feels too difficult for your level. Also, at this time, check your work against an online tutorial or with someone you know who knits well. I discovered that my purl was wrong, during my last sample. Better to catch it on a sample, than at the end of the project and discover I'd done it all wrong.

As a beginner, knit in quiet.
Don't try to knit with the television on, or listening to music, or carrying on a conversation with anyone outside of your own head. Learning to knit is just like learning any other new skill. It requires concentration. You wouldn't attempt learning to drive with a bunch of distractions in the background. Think of learning a new skill as training your brain. Until your brain is well-trained in this skill, those distractions will cause you to make mistakes. And try counting out loud, if you have to. "knit 1, purl 1, knit 1, purl 1". Something about saying the words kept me on track with this pattern, in the early rows. It also guarantees that everyone will leave the room, and leave you alone to your knitting, giving you that un-distracting space to learn.

Find the "checks" in your project's pattern.
The checks are what I call how you tell if a row of stitching is on track or correct. For instance, on my dish cloths, the pattern is in an even number of rows, all the way through -- 4 rows to each section of the pattern. You know the yarn tail from casting on? Well, I know that if I'm knitting towards the yarn tail, I'm on an odd numbered row (row 1,3), and if I'm knitting away from the yarn tail, then I'm on an even numbered row (rows 2,4).

How does this help? In the pattern for the body of the cloth (not including the all-knit stitch edges), the pattern goes as such -- (row 1)K,K,K,P,K,P,K . . ., (row2) K,K,K,P,K,P,K . . ., (row 3) K,K,K,K,P,K,P,. . .(row 4) K,K,K,K,P,K,P. . .  Rows 1 and 2 begin and end with 3 knit stitches then switch to purl, knit, purl, knit, and rows 3 and 4 begin and end with 4 knit stitches, then switch to the purl, knit, purl, knit. If I know what direction I'm working on (towards tail - rows 1,3, or away from tail - rows 2,4), I can figure out where I am in my pattern of 4 row-pattern. This comes in handy when your mind wanders and you lose track of what you should be doing.

Also, on these dish cloths, if I come to the end of a row, and find I only have room for 3 knit stitches, when I was thinking I was on a row than ended in 4 knit stitches, then I know I've made a mistake along that row, somewhere. And I can fix it before I go onto the next row.

That's what I mean by the "checks" in my project's pattern. Those little details that tell you if you are on the right track or not.

Don't try to knit commando-style (this has nothing to do with going commando, that one is totally up to you).
Don't force yourself to knit for hours on end. Just knit in small fragments of time. Promise yourself that you'll just do one or two repeats of the pattern, then get up and do something else. When learning a new skill, mind-fatigue can set in, and that's when you're most likely to make a mistake.

If your knitting has a repeating pattern, try to always do your work in sections of repeat.
You will always know where to start up again -- at the beginning of the repeat. And if you do have to leave your work in the middle of a section, to say, answer the phone, write down on a slip of paper, where you are in your pattern and what to do next. And if you have to track how many sections to knit, write those down, tally-mark style, on a slip of paper, as you complete each section.

And when you make a mistake (it's not an "if" situation, all knitters make mistakes), don't give up.
Don't even unravel to the beginning and start completely over. Force yourself to make an attempt to fix your mistake. Sometimes, it will mean undoing 1 row of stitches, sometimes it will mean undoing 4 rows of stitches. If you at least try to fix the mistake, there's a very good chance you won't have to redo the whole thing. Get someone else's input on your mistake. Ask someone to help you undo it, if you need. For me, all it took was some emotional support from my daughters, when I went to undo one row. Then the next time I made a mistake, I felt confident to correct it all on my own.

You see, learning to knit is as much about learning to correct your mistakes, as it is learning the stitches. And your progress will be greatly hampered, if you don't work at learning to correct mistakes.

And this brings me to an obvious tip -- if while you're making a stitch, it feels "wrong", "tight" or something else, stop in your tracks, and look it over. 
Maybe you've not picked up the full loop of yarn, but are missing a very thin strand of it. Or maybe, you've picked up more than you should, on the end of your needle. If you stop, right at this point, and figure out why it feels wrong, you can save yourself a lot of correcting work, 10 minutes from now.

Go by measurements and not by row numbers, when working someone else's pattern.
Your knitting may be looser or tighter than the person who wrote the pattern. With my dish cloths, if I had knit the cloth exactly the number of rows specified, my cloth would have turned out to be about 8.25 inches wide by 7 inches long -- not square at all.

And her pattern had me measure to 7.75 inches long. She didn't specify how wide my 35 cast-on stitches would become, once knit. Mine came to 8.25 inches wide. And the border of 4 knit rows on my knitting was 3/8-inch long/tall, so the length of my knitting, before adding the border on the final end, should be 8  1/4 inches minus 3/8 inch, or 7  7/8 inches. Only 1/8 inch difference, but it would make the cloth not quite square. And since I do have the ability to make it square, shouldn't I try?

So, use measurements as your guide. You'll be more satisfied with the results.

And finally, take the time to do a clean job in finishing your project.
Leave about 6 inches of yarn for the tails. Weave the tails in neatly, wrapping around a couple of stitches, here and there. Try to do this in a way that is not visible to the front side. Then cut the last fraying bits of the tail, clean away. How you finish a project can make a simple dish cloth look well-done, or sloppily slapped together. It makes a difference.

And once that first project, following a pattern is complete, do another, just like it. And then another, and another. Really master that one item. You'll soon be able to make them with ease, and you will have that same basic stitch pattern down pat, to use in a future project. I'm on my way, with getting this pattern mastered. I've now completed almost 2 of these dish cloths. Hand-knit household items make great gifts, if you happen to knit, say, 10 dish cloths.


These are my rudimentary ruminations, from one beginning knitter to another.

I didn't learn to knit until I was well into adulthood. And I mostly learned from books. My daughters had the fortune to learn to knit, through their high school. Knitting qualified as a "art" class. They had a very talented knitter on staff at the school, who could walk them through large projects, helping them to correct mistakes, showing them how best to hold the needles and yarn, etc. And so, that's why they are my resident "experts" when I have a problem with my knitting.

First hand-crafted Christmas gift

Last week, I hinted a bit about making Christmas gifts. Here's the first I'll share with you.

Last year, just after Christmas, I bought this set of 2 tea towels on clearance from Williams-Sonoma (half-price, I believe). This pattern suits someone on my gift list, my step-mom (she doesn't read my blog, so no worries that I've spilled the beans).

To add to these tea towels, I'm knitting dish cloths in this sage green, all cotton yarn. I bought this yarn in 2.5 oz balls from Michael's this past week, at $1 per ball (on sale, regularly $1.99/ball). I bought 2 balls, and used about 2/3 of a ball to knit one dish cloth, following, a pattern from this blog, Creating Laura. The finished size is about 8.25 inches, square, on size 7 needles, with worsted-weight cotton yarn (Sugar 'n Cream, by Lily).

I'm a beginner knitter (still after all of these years, I've not made much progress LOL), but I was able to knit one cloth in about 6 hours. My plan is to make 3 dish cloths, with these 2 balls of yarn. If I can make 3 cloths, with 2 balls, at $1 per ball, my cost per cloth is 67 cents.

To this gift, I'll add a vegetable brush (from Dollar Tree), and several homemade, gourmet soup mixes. My step-mom lives alone, and I think some easy-to-make soup will be a perfect gift for her in winter. As I find soup mix recipes that I try and like, I'll share them with you.

A handmade gift is a gift of time, love and thought. At least that's how I feel about it.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for a summer week

Friday

Bean and vegetable soup, w/sliced hot dogs
Cornbread
Tossed salad

Saturday

Tea sandwiches (given to us)
Tossed salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes given to us)
Macaroni salad (given to us)
Grapes (given to us)

Sunday

Leftover tea sandwiches (given to us)
Tossed salad (given to us)
Vegetable and egg fried rice

Monday

Salisbury steak covered with Hunter's Sauce
Macaroni salad (given to us)
Creamy dilled cucumber salad (given to us)
Steamed carrots

Tuesday

Rice and beans, topped with cheddar
Tossed salad of lettuce, celery, black olives and shredded cheese, with homemade creamy vinaigrette
Fried corn tortillas
Stewed, frozen plums

Wednesday

Kale and onion quiche
Steamed carrots
Blackberry rustic tart

Thursday

Kale and onion quiche
Steamed carrots
Mixed fruit rustic tart


On Saturday, the girls and I volunteered our kitchen and serving abilities, again to our church's monthly fund-raising tea. After the clean-up, the lady who coordinates the teas gave us enough leftovers for a couple of night's meals. making dinner on those nights was easy-peasy.

Later in the week, I knew I'd want Thursday off from cooking duties, so I made a double batch of everything, on Wednesday. Maybe it was a bit boring to eat the same thing 2 nights in a row. But it solved the problem of how to cook when I wouldn't be home for much of the next day.

I am trying to use up my saved fat in the freezer. The ham and bacon fat is always used quickly. Next easily used would be either the chicken or the beef. The least popular reserved meat fat is the turkey fat. So, I am making efforts to use that one up. The kale quiches had such a strong flavor, anyway, with the kale and onion, that the turkey fat flavor went unnoticed. I'll be remembering that the next time I cook some kale.

My grocery bill went up by about $30 this week, and will go up again another $20. That's $50 spent, bringing me up to around $110 for the month, so far. I found sharp cheddar cheese on sale for $8.98/5 lbs. I bought 15 pounds. And I'll be stocking up on coffee tomorrow. Last week, I'd thought about buying coffee, but it was $6.99 a can at Fred Meyer, and that was more than I wanted to spend. So, I'd thought to myself that we'd just manage to get by with much, much less coffee until Senior shopping day in August, when I'd save 70 cents, at the least. Well, wouldn't you know it, coffee is on sale at Fred Meyer this week, same cans, for $4.99. By not buying any last week, I saved $2 per can. I like that! Coffee goes on sale in early fall, so I'll buy enough to get to then, and hope to find it on sale, on a Senior discount week, then stock up for winter.

I resisted going out to eat on several occasions. Yesterday afternoon, coming back from errands and a stop by the beach, I was very tempted to buy a burger and fries. Then I thought, maybe just the fries. And then I talked myself out of both of those ideas, and into a peanut butter on whole wheat, with the last of the macaroni salad, and a sliver of the blackberry tart. It was a wonderful lunch, all homemade, and didn't give me a stomachache. I'm glad I resisted the take-out.

What were the yummy things you ate this week?

So, that's it for me for the week. I'm working on some Christmas gifts. Maybe I'll give you a peek next week, if they seem to be turning out okay. Have a great weekend!

A loose clasp on my tea balls

If you drink loose-leaf tea, you know the frustrations of a tea ball whose clasp will not stay closed.

You fill your aging tea ball with tea leaves, close the clasp, drop it into a mug, and then pour water over it.You can't dunk the tea ball up and down, as it comes open too easily. And even when the tea ball is just resting at the bottom of the mug of water, the ball manages to open itself, just enough to allow leaves to float out and into your tea.

Yes, this is my frustration, with not just one tea ball, but with both of my tea balls. I tried using pliers to tighten the clasp, to no avail. I considered buying a new tea ball. But it bothered me that 2 tea balls that otherwise work for steeping tea, would no longer be used, simply because of a loose clasp.

My rather crude fix involves a rubber band from a bundle of radishes. The rubber band must be somewhat food-safe, if it's been holding my produce together for several days, right? Anyways, after I fill my tea ball with loose-leaf tea, I wrap a rubber band around the outside, holding the whole thing together. Found my fix. It's not pretty, but it does the job!

I wanted this to be as effortless as was promised

Getting labels and their adhesives, off of glass jars with baking soda and vegetable oil

After I soak and peel the label off of jars, I'm left with that white adhesive on the glass jar. I can scrub and scrub, or I can try a short-cut.

There are commercial solvents on the market to remove labels and stickers. But if you don't happen to have any, or you wish to use something totally harmless, and that you have in your pantry right now, this may work for you.

Using a paste of baking soda and veg oil has worked on a couple of jars, but not on all of them. This was one of the stubborn labels, on a jar of peanut butter.

I peeled as much of the label off, as possible.

Then I spread a mixture of 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, generously onto the remaining label.

As advised, I let it sit for about 30 minutes.

I used a clean, dry, rough rag to rub the label off. Not much came off, so I used a table knife to scrape the rest of the paper off. But it left the adhesive residue.

So, again I generously wiped the paste onto the jar and allowed it to sit.

When I came back, I used the same, dry, rough rag to wipe the adhesive off. I will say, almost all of it came off. I had to rub vigorously in places.

Then I washed with soapy water, dried with a towel and it did come pretty clean.

It just wasn't nearly as effortless as the other jars I had cleaned. So, just one of those things that sometimes works very well, and sometimes you have to put extra effort into it to get it to work.

Overall, I did much, much less scrubbing than just with soapy water, on these really stubborn labels. So, it did work well, in that sense. And it didn't cost me any extra money, buying a commercial product. And it didn't dry my skin out or require me to wear gloves. So, yeah, it was worth it. Just not totally effortless.

I've been keeping this dish of baking soda and oil paste in the cupboard, and using it for a month or so. I had to use some the other day, when I discovered a piece of chewed gum was stuck to the kitchen counter. I pulled up the bulk of the gum, then spread this paste onto it, and wiped it up with a clean rag. On chewing gum, stuck to the counter top, this was brilliant.

Since I showed you our living room, already, thought I'd show you our family room, too

Why would I want to share our family room?

• Well, some of us are just curious. We like to see how others live.
• Some of us are looking for ideas and inspirations for our own living spaces.
• But mostly, there's this one wall in particular, that I want to share, and think someone out there might be able to use this idea. And I have to say, most importantly, this was an easy project for amateurs, with zippo carpentry skills. An yet it gives the room "mood".

I'll start with this accent wall.

This room was part of a kitchen remodel in 2008. We had an open floor plan with the kitchen, casual dining and family room, previously. We wanted a separate family room from kitchen, with eat-in area in the kitchen. So, we added a wall, separating the kitchen/eating area from the family room. The wall was erected where a visible, heavy ceiling beam supports the attic above. It seemed to be a natural dividing line between the kitchen and new family room.

In building this wall, we found some oddities, which needed camouflaging. So, it seemed the quickest option was to lay plain, very thin, mahogany panels, on the family room side of the wall.

We hired someone to actually frame the wall and lay sheetrock on for us. (Like I said, no carpentry skills whatsoever, and we didn't want this wall, umm, leaning, when a wall probably shouldn't lean.) And he nailed up the mahogany luan paneling (he had tools, we didn't). Mahogany luan is typically very thin, and very smooth, but could have imperfections, so it is primarily used where it will be painted. Also, it's very inexpensive. Our local lumber store sells it for about $20 per 4-foot by 8-foot by 2.7 mm (about 1/10-inch) thick sheet. This type of very thin panel is designed to lay flat against another smooth surface (like sheetrock).

While we did this pseudo wainscoting on the smooth paneling (to camouflage some issues in the wall underneath), this project could also be done on smooth-finished sheetrock.

What we used --

• 2.5-inch wide by 5/8-inch thick, MDF, plain rectangular trim (the silhouette, from the side is a plain rectangle, no fluting, carving or ridges
• 3.75-inch wide by 1/4-inch thick, 48-inch long strips of unfinished, birch trim
• 2.5-inch wide by 1/4-inch thick, 48-inch long strips of unfinished, birch lath trim
• 3/4-inch coved, corner moulding
• nails (finishing nails to attach birch trim to mahogany panels) and ordinary hammer
• inexpensive miter box and saw

We used the plain, 5/8-inch thick, MDF trim as a chair rail, the whole length of the wall, the 3.75-inch wide birch trim as vertical stiles, and the 2/5-inch wide birch trim as the horizontal base and top stile. The coved corner moulding "finished" the ends of the wall and transitioned into plain drywall.

Cost --
Our total cost (not including primer/paint) was under $150, for a wall about 20-feet long and almost 7.5 feet high, or about 150 square feet. The luan paneling (only necessary to cover some wall problems) added about $100 in materials-cost. So, without luan, about $1 per square foot, or $1.66 per square foot with luan cost.

In contrast:
Prefab wainscoting averages about $7 per square foot, for materials only (not labor). For 150 square feet of wall, that would have cost about $1000.

Time spent --

My husband and I worked on this wall, 2 Saturdays in a row, about 4 hours each day, for a total of 16 man hours. If we had known what we were doing (neither of us had a clue when we began, and wasted a lot of time trying to figure things out), we could have done this in about 6 hours, working together. As it was, for a savings of about $750, divided by 16 man hours, that's an "earnings" of about $46/per hour.

What we did --

We had already installed the crown and baseboard moulding, prior to this work.

The mahogany panels left seams every 4 feet. These seams became our design-starting point.

Dividing the wall in half, horizontally, we worked on the upper half first.

We used the 3.75-inch birch to cover the seams between mahogany panels, from the crown moulding down. After covering the seams, every 4 feet, we added an additional vertical stile, in between every seam-covering stile. So, our finished vertical stiles are 24 inches apart, center to center.

After the upper vertical stiles were in place, we placed the MDF chair rail, just below the bottom of the birch stiles.

Once the chair rail was installed, we added the 2.5-inch birch strips, cut to fit, as horizontal stiles, at the top and bottom of each panel (just below the crown moulding, and just above the chair rail).

With the upper section of the wall finished, we duplicated this work, below the chair rail, cutting the birch pieces to fit.

Ends of the wall were finished with by dead-ending the horizontal stiles against a piece of vertical cove corner moulding. A mitered cut was made on the chair rail ends, up against the adjacent walls.

After caulking and filling nail holes, we painted the entire wall in the same color as the rest of the room (Cookie Dough by Glidden).

Above the fireplace we did a similar trim. The above mantel area was covered with plain panels, then we added the birch strips for accent, and painted all.

The mood we were trying to set with this room is cozy English country hunting lodge or rural farmhouse, if that's possible.

This room is most used in the late fall through winter. It's the room with a television, so we watch videos on those cold winter evenings, for home entertainment. The wall color is darker than the living room. It's meant to wrap you up in warmth, like an extra blanket on a chilly night.

We duplicated this idea in our entry hall, on the wall below the stairs. This area is painted in white, and only on the lower part of the wall.

There's a bedroom in which I'm wanting to do this same sort of wall treatment. I'll update you if/when that ever happens.

A typical week of grocery shopping during mid-summer

This was at Fred Meyer last week. In summer, we tend to live from our pantry, freezer and garden. We supplement with purchases of milk, eggs, some produce, and any special deals that I could stock up with. Otherwise, my weekly shopping can be quite small, this time of year. Come fall, I'll make up for it, with some big shops, on a regular basis.

Last Friday, I made a once-every-other-week stop at Fred Meyer. This is how much I got for about $10.

I take advantage of whatever weekly freebies I have coming my way. Fred Meyer (and other Kroger affiliates) allow just over 2 weeks to use the freebie coupon. So, if I go shopping on a Friday, just after downloading that week's freebie, I can pick up 3 week's of the free item.

Those freebies are usually squirreled away for particular needs in the future. They're often junk/convenience items, so in my book, they're treats and saved as such.

Freebies, this week.
I picked up a 2-liter of cola, which will be saved for the Christmas holidays. (Family tradition for us, to have cola wile decorating the Christmas tree.) The PACt juice flavor that I chose was the cranberry-cherry-blueberry. My cranberry crop this year will be dismal. (I'm rejuvenating the bed, and it will take a year or two of good care to get my cranberries back to producing 3 or 4 quarts of cranberries again.) So, with this juice, I'll make a fruit juice jello salad, adding chunks of apples to the cranberry juice gelatin, for our Thanksgiving dinner. And in place of cranberry sauce, made with fresh berries, I'll make a dried cranberry relish, for Thanksgiving, as well. The Gatorade Fuel Bar was set aside for a long drive my son and his girlfriend made over the weekend.

What I paid for.
I also bought 5 half-gallons of whole milk, 1 half-gallon of orange juice, 1 8-count package of hot dogs, 1 pound of organic, whole mushrooms, on markdown, and 5 bananas, on markdown.

Total spent, $10.11. The cash register receipt reflects the savings of the freebies, and store coupons on the milk and orange juice. It doesn't include the savings on the marked down mushrooms or the bananas. If I include those savings, then my actual total savings would be closer to $12.50.

Obviously, one couldn't make a week's worth of meals on what I bought. But perhaps this gives you an idea of how my grocery spending can be so low in summer months.

Cheap & Cheerful suppers for mid-July

Friday

Refried beans, homemade from pintos, olive liquid, oil, tomato paste and spices
Brown rice, both topped with a green tomatillo-cilantro salsa (a gift)
Watermelon
Tossed salad of garden lettuce, garden carrots, celery in a homemade dressing
Scratch brownies (using this recipe)

Saturday

Homemade cheese pizza, scratch crust, quickie scratch marinara
Watermelon

Sunday

Scratch macaroni and cheese (Dollar Tree macaroni noodles, homemade cheese sauce)
Mustard glazed carrots
Watermelon
Deviled eggs
Brownies or lemon bars (leftover from serving at coffee hour)

Monday

Huevos rancheros
Fried corn tortillas
Green salad
Carrot sticks
Watermelon
Lemon bars

Tuesday

Meatloaf, gravy
Brown rice
Tossed salad, with garden lettuce and store carrots and celery, topped with deviled egg wedges, and covered in scratch dressing
Last of the watermelon

Wednesday

A lecture and dinner at our church (Sloppy Joe's)

Thursday

Cheesy scrambled eggs
Scratch biscuits
Steamed carrots
Apple, celery, raisin salad


I was bit surprised, this week, that I could begin picking some of the apples. They're still tart, but work in salads, and are a nice change from all the berries and melons. And they're free -- lol! I have a couple of favorite variations on apple salad. Sometimes it's more like a traditional Waldorf salad, other times it's apples, shredded cheddar and raisins in mayo dressing. I bought celery last weekend, so our apple salad last night had apples, raisins and the celery. Yummy.

I also bought 10 pounds of carrots last weekend. Our garden carrots still need time to mature. I was able to pull a couple of good-sized ones, but the rest are from a reseeding effort, and need another month to grow. The store carrots, though, have given us lots of steam carrots, glazed carrots and carrot sticks this week.

I am missing potatoes, these days. but I do believe that we're close to being able to dig new potatoes. Maybe next week there will be rosemary potatoes on the menu.

With my grocery shopping last weekend, I'm now up to about $50 spent for the month, so far.

How were your menus this past week? Anything stand out as being particularly welcome and enjoyed?

Have a great weekend!

Owning the information

You know what I love about blogs, the internet, books and magazines?

Once you learn a piece of information, you "own" that information. That information becomes part of your knowledge-base. You have it stored away in your mind, to use over and over and over.

You know what I love about frugal blogs and sites?

Learning a piece of information won't just save you money when you use that information, one time. But if you continue to use that same information over and over and over, you save money many times, and often improve the pleasure-quality of your life, many times over. And if you share that information, the amount of savings can potentially be endless.


Yesterday, we talked about the raspberry lemonade that I made for a friend and her children, earlier this week.

If I had bought a bottle of commercial raspberry lemonade, I would have spent $2 on that bottle. And because of the cost, that would have likely been the one and only bottle of raspberry lemonade I would buy this summer. Maybe I would have had 2 glasses of that special lemonade, for my entire summer. Then the raspberry lemonade would be gone.

Because I know how to make my own raspberry lemonade, I can make this special drink 3 or 4 times this summer. And I may wind up having 5 or 6 glasses over the course of the season, for about half of the cost of what I could buy a commercially bottled product, ONE TIME.

I save money, WHILE I add enhancement to my daily life.

And now that you know how to make raspberry lemonade, you, too, "own" this information. Not only will I save a dollar or two every summer, making this, but you will, too. And whoever you teach this information to, will also save, and on and on it goes.

Owning the information -- it's kinda like the saying, "give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for life". All because he could own the information of how to fish.

A friend over in the afternoon and some of the last of the raspberries

A friend and her 2 children came for a visit yesterday afternoon.

I'm at home, by myself during the days, Monday through Friday. I have a few occasions to go out and visit with people, or attend Bible studies. But most of the week, I spend on my own, keeping those home fires, if not burning, at least smoldering. It's such a lovely diversion from work, to be able to sit and catch up with a friend, for a couple of hours.

Needing refreshments that could be kid-worthy, as well as would suit us adults, I turned to my pantry, garden and freezer.

From the freezer, I dug out some lemon bars, leftover from baking last week. From the garden I found about a teacup's worth of ripe raspberries. And in the pantry, I had dried cranberries and about a half a peck of raw sunflower seeds.

I toasted some of the sunflower seeds and mixed them with dried cranberries, for a quick trail mix.

For an easy-to-make beverage with a bit more "wow" than ordinary lemonade, I made raspberry lemonade.

This is what I used:

scant 1 cup raspberries, rinsed (this is a good use for the motley-looking, close to overripe berries)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup bottled lemon juice
chilled water to total 1 quart of liquid

I used my stick blender to puree the raspberries. But a potato masher, or back of a serving spoon would also work.

I scooped the raspberry puree into a mesh strainer set over the opening of the pitcher.

With a rubber spatula, I pressed the puree through the strainer.

To the strained raspberry puree, I added the lemon, juice, sugar and water to the 1 quart line on the pitcher, and stirred until the sugar was dissolved.

The verdict on the raspberry lemonade was not only that it was delicious, but you "could really taste the raspberry flavor - yum" -- and that came from my friend's children.

For a little less than 2 quarts, you can buy the Simply Lemonade brand of raspberry lemonade for about $2, at places like Wal-Mart. My homemade version, cost about 15 cents for the lemon juice and sugar to make 1 quart, and the raspberries were basically free, putting my cost at 30 cents for 2 quarts. I just throw all that mathy-math stuff in, cuz I think we like to show ourselves just how much money we're saving -- not that I would really buy prepared raspberry lemonade ;-)

The first batch of watermelon rind pickles and what to do if you don't have a water-bath canner

It's a 3-day process. That doesn't mean that I'm slaving away at it for 3 days, straight. The first day is the most labor-intensive, with slicing off the dark green of the rind, then cutting, plus simmering and making the brine. The next day, I strained off the brine, to reboil and pour over the rind pieces. And on the third day, I boiled the brine, one more time, poured over the rind as it's packed in jars, and finally, water-bath process.

I packed these jars tightly, so I'm guessing each jar will last through 4 or 5 family meals. I think I have about a 4 to 5-month supply of this kind of pickle. It's something we enjoy, but I also forget about it at times, when there's something else we're into in the moment.

I'm hoping to do 2 more batches like this pickle, for a total of 9 pints.

I store the rind pieces in a Rubbermaid container or plastic bags, in the fridge, for up to 4 days, until I have enough to do a large-ish batch, about 3 full pints.


You wanna see my make-shift water-bath canner? So a water bath just needs to cover the lids and jars, about an inch with the water. Any large stainless, or enamel stockpot works well for this. But you need something to hold the jars off of the bottom of the stockpot, while it's boiling. I don't have a rack.

I had a bunch of regular-size, (the smaller ones, not wide-mouth) used canning jar rings. I tied them together with cotton, kitchen string, to make a circle of rings, about the size of the bottom of one of my stockpots. When placed, top side up, inside the stockpot with water, the jars rest on top of the rings, about 3 or 4 fat jars or 6 slimmer jars, in this stockpot. I've used this exact circle of tied-together rings for about 20 years now. Doesn't look pretty, but it works, and can be replaced any year, with the next batch of worn rings. And it doesn't take up much space to store.

Just an idea to keep in mind, if you'd like to try canning some jam or jelly this summer, but don't have the "official" supplies, like the canning rack. I do have a jar lifter, which is a set of tongs with a wide opening to grasp a jar out of the hot water. Indispensable to me now. But before I had the jar-lifting tongs, I managed with some regular tongs in one hand, and a thick towel in the other to grab each jar as I pulled it out of the water. What's that saying? Necessity is the mother of invention. Homemakers have been figuring out how to do any number of things without every gadget out there, since the beginning of keeping the home fires burning.