Frugal Fridays #6

I’m a little late getting this posted today- I’ve got 4 sick kiddos at the moment, so it’s going to be short and sweet.

Side note: There was a point in my day a couple of days ago where I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I felt like I should be doing *more.* I’d just finished reading a blog post from a fellow mom blogger whom I admire, and sometimes I have a tendency to let my imagination run a little wild. I imagined for a moment that her house was perfectly clean, that she (unlike me) was NOT still in her pajamas at 2pm, that her husband got to come home to a wife who was put together and maybe even had her hair and make-up done, and that  she smiled joyously while driving her kids around to activities rather than sometimes being totally exhausted and overwhelmed by it like me. The crazy thing is that I had dinner cooking, bread rising, yogurt culturing, and the 6th load of laundry for the day going at this moment … not to mention the school lessons and parenting I’d done that day, and I was STILL knocking myself down. How nuts is that? I really had to stop for a moment and redirect my heart. Sometimes I think we mothers are our own biggest drag. If you ever have moments like that, or if you’re having one today, I wanted to share a scripture verse that I turn my mind to during those times.

Successes:

1. I made 2 loaves of bread.
2. 1 batch each of crockpot yogurt and pumpkin maple walnut granola.
3. We finally made it out to the Amish bulk foods store that is about 40 minutes from our house. We don’t have food co-ops, LDS canneries, or much else for purchasing in bulk. We do have Sam’s, but unfortunately there are just some things that Sam’s doesn’t carry….like rolled oats (which we eat a TON of)! There are places online that we could purchase from, but shipping anywhere east of the Mississippi puts the cost through the roof, so that’s not really much of an option. I found 50 lbs bags of rolled oats at the Amish store for $28. They also have wheat berries (I hope to obtain a grain mill someday soon), sugar, brown sugar, sucanat, turbinado sugar, millet, quinoa, bulk spices and herbs…and so much. I’m so glad we made the trip.
4. On the way out to the Amish store, I saw something equally exciting that I never knew existed near me….a produce auction!! It’s run by a local Mennonite Community (honestly, I didn’t realize we had a Mennonite community 30 minutes down the road from us). They’re closed until May, but I’ve already put it on my calendar to go in 2015. I have limited garden space on our 1/2 acre suburban plot, so I’m looking forward to filling in the gaps so that I can can, freeze, and dehydrate more for our pantry. I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw the big pavilion!
5. Speaking of dehydrate, my husband earns reward points through his work that he can use to purchase things from an online store that the company has set up. He saved up enough to purchase me this RedHead 8-tray Food Dehydrator. I’ve been wanting a dehydrator for the last 3 years, so I’m really excited…and so thankful that we had a way to order it at no cost to us.
6. I made more dishwasher detergent and floor cleaner this week as well. 
7. I made elderberry smoothies this morning for my sick little kiddos. I’m hoping it cools their scratchy throats and helps their immune systems fight this nasty cold. I made the smoothies using homemade elderberry syrup and homemade yogurt…making them much more frugal than if I used store bought yogurt or elderberry syrup.

Fumbles:

1. Oh, I had a pretty big fumble this past week. I NEVER go shopping on Black Friday, but this year I really needed to get some good deals on fabric for the quilts I’m making the kids for Christmas. Joann’s had some good deals on their flyers, plus I had a bunch of coupons. I should have known better, because this happens to me fairly often when I go to Joann’s. I *thought* I was buying fabric that was on sale. But I wasn’t. I was buying fabric that was totally, completely, absolutely NOT on sale. And I was buying a lot of it. I almost broke down in tears when I realized how much money it was going to cost. I *almost* left the store without the fabric, and I probably would have if my husband hadn’t been with me. He convinced me that we could afford the expense, and that he wanted me to spend on the money so that the kids could have a handmade quilt made for them by their mama. So, I spent an obscene amount of money on fabric. Dear Joann’s: Can you *please* mark your sale fabrics and non-sale fabrics more clearly?! It’s hard enough to pick out coordinating fabrics for any project…but being thrown for a loop by unclearly marked sales almost sends me into a nervous breakdown.

Goals:

1. I have 4 or 5 lbs of fresh cranberries that I need to can. I just can’t decide if I want to do cranberry sauce, or try making cranberry juice. But I need to decide quickly before they go bad.
2. I need to purchase some food-grade buckets to store the 50 lbs of oats I bought at the Amish store. I also need to get our 25 lbs bags of flour and sugar into buckets. We go through the flour pretty quickly, so ordinarily I wouldn’t worry about it, but we have a corn field behind our house and that sometimes means we get field mice in the winter. I wouldn’t want to tempt them with our pantry items. It would be a significant blow to our budget if we had to replace any of it right now.

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