Grow. Pray. Build. — Bloom Where You're Planted.

Frugal Fridays #32

Ashley M. — Sat, 19 Sep 2015 12:04:06 +0000

Dear government person: there are affiliate links in this post. Canning, canning, canning. That’s pretty much been my life in between homeschool lessons, beekeeping lessons, and everything that goes with keeping home. It’s a good busy, though. By the end of it, I’m always very ready for cooler temperatures and the reprieve that winter brings. It makes me thankful to live in a climate that has a substantial winter because it almost forces us to rest, and that’s a good thing! Although I know I’ll be itchin’ to get my hands back in the dirt by late February. I fell in love with deep mulching my garden this year, and I just cracked the cover of The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book: Secrets of the Famous Year-Round Mulch Methodto see what else I can do to make the mulch work even harder for me next year. Here’s some of the things I’ve done to save money these past couple of weeks: 23 pints of salsa. I found this page on large batch salsa canning to be super, super, super helpful. I even printed it off so that I’d have a hard copy. That’s how helpful it was. The tomatoes were from my garden, the rest of the veg came from the farmer’s market. 8 quarts of applesauce (so far). The apples came from the ancient apple trees in my backyard. There are still many to be picked and made into more apple sauce (I’d like to have at least 25 quarts in the pantry before winter), apple butter, apple jelly, apple pie filling, maybe even apple juice. I’ll also dehydrate some into apple chips. […]

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Frugal Fridays #31

Ashley M. — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 19:00:41 +0000

Short list this week guys, sorry! Not a whole lot to report. We’ve been sort of hunkered down since hubby has been traveling for work and our school year as officially started. Like all of you, I’m feeling a tad stretched thin with limited wiggle room in my day for…much of anything outside of the essentials. I’m really praying that life settles down a bit for September. I don’t know about you, but our Summer flew by so fast I don’t really even feel like we got a chance to realize it was Summer! The tomatoes are really rolling in lately. I’ve been dehydrating them for the most part. My husband has been out of town much of the Summer, so finding extra time for canning has been difficult. I’m hoping to get some more canning done in these upcoming weeks since hubby is now home for good! My pepper plants are just really struggling, so I went ahead and started buying them from a farm stand down the street. 5 peppers for $2 isn’t bad! Those are also going into the dehydrator, as is the zucchini. I am freezing some stuff, but I have to say I am largely focusing on building my pantry (i.e. storing food in a way that doesn’t require refrigeration). I met up with a friend and my kiddos and her nephew had fun playing at a free spray park/playground. I returned library books on time for once… 😛 I found packets of organic heirloom seeds on clearance at Wal-Mart for .97 cents. I bought 11 packets toward my seed stash for Spring 2016.

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Frugal Fridays #40

Ashley M. — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 00:53:59 +0000

My beekeeping uncle gave me bags and bags of summer squash and zucchini when I went to his house to check on our beehives. He also gave me some rutabagas, eggplants, and cucumbers. Nom!! I printed some free handwriting worksheets and scissor skills worksheets from worksheetworks.com . Neat website! I dehydrated onions, bananas, and tomatoes. I cleaned my bathroom with a cleaner made of vinegar, water, and Lemon Essential Oil I’ve restarted an old habit that I used to have back when our budget was superduperinsanely tight. When I go to the store, of course I have a list and I walk in with the intent of not buying anything that isn’t on the list. I also keep my cellphone on “calculator” and each time I add something to the cart, I add it to my total so that I’m not surprised when I get to the cash register. But one of my best habits is: before I go to the cash register, I pull my cart off to the side where I’m not in anyone’s way. I look in my cart and really think about what I have. If there’s anything in there that was a sort of impulse-buy, or if it’s not something that I really need/want/will use/have a place for….I pick it up and either put it back on the shelf or hand it to the clerk and tell her that I’ve changed my mind about it. I made fresh pico de gallo using all produce from my garden. Pico de gallo is my FAVORITE. I don’t buy tomatoes from the store (they never taste as good!), so the only time of […]

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Frugal Fridays #39

Ashley M. — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 06:00:50 +0000

First things first. This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click a link within this post and then purchase something, I receive a percentage of your purchase total as a commission. This does not cost you anything extra, but it sure does bless my family and my blogging efforts…and we totally appreciate that! I’m having a bit of trouble with slugs eating my pepper plants, so I’m trying a few natural solutions that I’ve read about. Namely sprinkling egg shells at the base of the plants and also using cornmeal. I’m really hoping this works! To date, peppers have been my arch-nemesis in the garden. I planted about 1/3 of my garden in peppers this year, so I’ll be mighty disappointed if they all flop. We inherited some furniture from an aunt and uncle who are selling their house. We got a dresser and a dining room table that will accommodate our growing family a bit better. We’re passing along our previous table to an in-law for them to enjoy. We are enjoying a steady flow of onions, tomatoes, zucchini, lettuce and some herbs from our garden. A deluge of kale, as usual. 😉 We’ve also gotten a handful of jalapenos. Still waiting on some bell peppers, green beans, and other goodies. I’ve talked to a few other gardeners in my area and they’ve said their garden is slightly behind schedule as mine is. Then again, my MIL’s garden is flourishing like mad! We’re getting a bit of a “heat wave” here with some temps up near the 90’s along with a good amount of rain. I’m hoping this gives my garden […]

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How to Can Turkey

Ashley M. — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 08:00:52 +0000

First things first. This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click a link within this post and then purchase something, I receive a percentage of your purchase total as a commission. This does not cost you anything extra, but it sure does bless my family and my blogging efforts…and we totally appreciate that! I purchase turkey around the holidays when it’s at rock bottom prices. At what other point in the year can you get meat for .50 cents/lbs or cheaper?! You get the meat, plus you can make a fantastic broth with the carcass. Canning meat kind of weirded me out, to be honest. I’ll eat tuna fish, but I’ve never been able to enjoy canned chicken breast or other meats. And in my mind, they pretty much all equated to Spam. ::shudder:: BUT, I kind of got over that after reading many other mamas talking about how much better home canned meats taste than store-bought, and obviously since you’re canning them at home, there are no weird unpronouncable ingredients to worry about. So, I decided to give it a try. I had 2 turkeys. A 16 pounder and a 20 pounder. This yielded me about 20 pints of canned turkey, plus lots of broth. I froze the excess broth that I didn’t need for canning. Raw Pack vs. Hot Pack? It’s possible to raw pack turkey. I was tempted to go this route because I thought it would make my life easier. However, I read several sources encouraging me to roast the turkeys one day, take all the meat off the carcass once it cooled, and then on Day 2 […]

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Frugal Fridays #38

Ashley M. — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 10:52:20 +0000

First things first. This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click a link within this post and then purchase something, I receive a percentage of your purchase total as a commission. This does not cost you anything extra, but it sure does bless my family and my blogging efforts…and we totally appreciate that! Successes/Blessings: From Goodwill I found: Financial Peace Revisited along with the The Financial Peace Planner by Dave Ramsey for $5! I also got 2 boys t-shirts, 1 pair of pajama pants for my son, 2 outfits and a pair of winter booties for baby Henry, a drawing book for the kids, and 2 chapter books for the 8 year old for another $12. I canned 20 pints of turkey with broth, and 5 pints of beef (stew meat). I visited with a friend and her kiddos who we don’t get to see often! I used some of my home canned tomato sauce from last summer in a dinner. I’ve harvested red onions as needed. I’ve harvested about 10 tomatoes and a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes. I’ve harvested lots of lettuce for salads. I printed and bound ebook workbooks for the kids using materials that I had on hand. We’re starting our school year back up next week. We walked to the library on a beautiful sunny day, and then went across the street to the little family owned cafe. We were able to get mama an iced coffee and everyone a snack for under $5! (The inspiration for the picture featured in this post- a beautiful work of art by Padurariu Alexandru) My husband repaired 2 of […]

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Chores and a Free Chore Chart Printable

Ashley M. — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 08:30:59 +0000

(Here is a list of some of the wonderful websites this post is linked with) This is a re-blog of a post I did a few months ago outlining our family’s chore system. I wanted to republish it because I created a nicer printable chore chart that I thought some of you might enjoy. It’s at the bottom and free to download and use as you wish. I wanted to share what’s working for us these days regarding chores (we call them jobs). We’ve had a number of systems and charts over the years. Some worked well, others not so much. Some systems worked for a time, but then life shifted and so did our needs. I encourage you to try a variety of things. If one system doesn’t seem to be a good fit for you and/or your children, don’t give up. Just try something else until you find something that works. Since we homeschool, everyone is home all day and our house gets quite messy. I really feel that we should all work as a team to clean up the day’s mess, not just mom and dad doing it all. I don’t ask for perfection. I don’t think perfection is really even possible in a home with children … let alone 5 of them! And I don’t want perfection anyway. I’d much rather our home feel comfortable and lived-in, than sterile and unwelcoming. On that same note, things can quickly go from lived-in to utter chaos around here. So we take a few minutes a few times a day to put things back in relative order. There are some […]

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Clicking Around

Ashley M. — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 11:15:14 +0000

Here are some good posts I’ve stumbled upon while browsing the web: Recipes: Cheesy Zucchini Orzo: I made this as a side dish this week and it was a hit! Soaked Granola: LARGE batch! Delicious! Homemaking/Frugal Living: Things to Buy in August : A great list of things that are at rock bottom prices in August (produce, school supplies etc.). Homeschool: Free Printable Matching Colors Busy Bag : I’m putting together some **simple** toddler busy bags for when we restart our school year so that he doesn’t feel left out. Free Teach Us to Worship 4 Week Bible Study (Elementary age): Yes. I am in full-on homeschool planning mode right now. I haven’t had a chance to check this over, but at a quick glance, it looks like something I may use with a couple of my kiddos. A whole bunch of these “hardest part of my homeschool” posts from over at Simple Homeschool. Just to get my mind right before we dig in. Gardening/Homesteading: Epsom Salts for the garden. My pepper plants are not doing well…so I’m trying this in hopes of a better harvest. Praying!! Season 2 Episode 10: Chickens and Strawberries of An American Homestead : Love it. As usual. Makes me wanna move to the mountains and live off grid!

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2015-2016 Classical Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Ashley M. — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 08:00:12 +0000

We are very much in the depths of summer right now and loving it. We’re relaxing a whole lot. That’s something I have to be intentional about, or else I have a tendency to want to go-go-go. That’s no good. There will be time for me to be super busy soon enough. We’re having lots of play dates, board games, sprinklers, playgrounds, impromptu picnics, and all that good stuff. However… 😉 My wheels have been turning about the upcoming school year. I occasionally find little pockets of time to look over our bookshelves to organize and make note of what we have on hand that can be used for schoolwork this year, make some lists of poetry and scripture verses for our memory work, and click around to lots of fun homeschool planning posts on Pinterest. Like here and here and here and here. And then there’s those school supply sales. .17 cent spiral notebooks and boxes of Crayola crayons for .50 cents. Be still my heart. Oh, and if you’re kinda freakin’ out over this whole homeschooling thing, like “howintheworldamIgonnadoallthis?!” kind of thing? May I suggest the book Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace. I read it last year and it soothed my worried mama soul, encouraged me, and was a total breath of fresh air. Okay. Back to the curriculum. This year I have: a baby, a 2 yr old, a kindergartner, a 2nd grader, and a 3rd grader. Lots o’ Littles. I’ll be using loop scheduling for things like history, science, composer study, and art. I also combine as many subjects as possible. Click here if you’re […]

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Frugal Fridays #37 and Budgets

Ashley M. — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 05:00:45 +0000

My husband went away last month for work. He was gone 3 weeks and made a lot of overtime. We were so looking forward to using some of that extra money to spruce up our kitchen a bit. Turns out, life had other plans. Murphy’s Law. One of our vehicles has needed over $1,100 worth of work in the last few weeks- and it’ll need even more work before winter. The other vehicle (our van) needs an inspection and possibly some other work- praying not too much. At first, I was feeling really grumpy that all of our “extra money” was going toward un-fun things like car repairs. And then…duh. Thank you Lord for that opportunity to make that extra money, which made these car repairs affordable to us rather than completely financially debilitating. That’s better. I’ve talked to my husband several times over the years about financial programs such as the Jim Sammon’s Financial Freedom Seminar (mentioned several times by the Duggars- I love them, though I didn’t love the seminar and my husband couldn’t even stay awake for longer than minutes during it. True story.). And also Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. We don’t have a ton of debt. A small amount, mostly student loans. But we could definitely use some help in the planning department. I tend to get really excited about things like budgeting, and then I get a little fatigued by it and fall off the wagon. My husband absolutely loathes being stressed out by money. So we follow a general budget, but definitely not as structured as we could be (and structure would definitely help us at times). […]

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