Cardboard Campers

 Today I worked on making some little glitter putz cardboard campers.

 

 

 Pattern:  https://retrorenovation.com/2015/12/03/diy-putz-house-12-a-mini-vintage-travel-trailer-free-downloadable-pattern/

 

I started making little cardboard glitter putz houses about 6 years ago, made a few here and there and pretty much lost interest. 

 

Turned out my sister loved the little houses, and asked for new ones for Christmas, and I'd end up finding myself, in December, stressing and struggling to get a house or houses made. 

Including this Christmas, despite the year-long quarantine, when I should have had time to create a Continents worth of little houses. 

To be honest, I wasn't even going to make one at all this year. (This just past Christmas.) But then one day we were chatting and she said if I needed a gift idea for her, she wanted a little Halloween house. So then I felt like I needed to make her one. 

 

I managed to get one made, in the nick of time. I usually make myself, my Mom and my Aunt houses at the same time, but couldn't do that this time. I did good to get this one done in time.

 

When she said she wanted a Halloween house, I wasn't sure exactly what she was wanting. My usual creations are sparkly, glittery, colorful, snowy....I didn't know if she wanted that, but in Halloween colors, or what? 

For whatever reason I decided on this one (pictured above), and she loved it. Actually squee'd when she opened the box. 

So, I decided to try to do better this year, starting early, giving myself plenty of time to make a few putz creations for Christmas. 

While looking for ideas/patterns for the Haunted house, I had ran across the little retro camper and decided I would like to make it next. 

I originally set a goal for completing them in January, but after spending a day cutting out the pattern and getting one piece of one camper cut out, then spending three days doing other stuff, I thought I better extend my deadline to...maybe Spring. 

I actually made a lot more progress than I was expecting. Somehow managed to get all the pieces cut out, and even started primer-painting them.
Being done by the end of January may be a reasonable goal afterall, good Lord willin'.

Frugal New Year

 I used share on my fb when I'd go shopping and what I got and how much I saved and such.
     It seemed like no one was really interested in learning to save any money, so I pretty much gave up.

This year, things changed.
    Between young relatives just starting out trying to save for a home, and the scare of the virus/quarantine, I've had questions about saving money on groceries and stocking up for emergencies. 

    Although, I think most of them have already forgotten the need to stock up in case of emergencies. Just about a month or so ago several of them were complaining about not being able to get toilet paper again. I wanted to scream at them, "Did you learn nothing?! Why haven't you been stocking your cabinet with toilet paper over the past few months?!". 

    Anyway, I'm not the deal shopper I was a few years ago. I just got burnt out, I think. So I quit getting coupons, quit religiously following the deal sites trying to get every deal possible. Went back to regular grocery shopping at WM. 

    But there were a couple of money saving tactics that wasn't complicated or requiring much effort - stocking up on sale items (that you use), and buying mark-down products. 

    With today being New Year's day, last week I wanted to get some collard greens for our traditional NYD dinner of collards, black eyed peas, and cornbread.

Before I headed out to the grocery store to buy some, I checked the ads for my local grocery stores online.
I found that one of the stores, Ingles, had them on sale for 2/$4, or $2 a bunch.
I saw they also had several other things on sale for prices good for stocking up on. 

I was busy canning most of the day, so it was later in the evening when I got to the grocery store, and it seemed practically the whole produce dept. was marked down. Potatoes, squash, corn, cranberries, oranges, grapefruit, apples...so much was marked down. 

Granted, the produce is nearing it's end date, not the freshest but not bad at all, you just have to eat or do something with it fairly soon.
I grabbed a little tray of seedless red and green grapes for snacking, 99cents.
Found two 3-pound bags of onions for $1.49 each, or 50cents a pound. I had been waiting on an onion sale so I could make/can some french onion soup.
I was waiting to find bell peppers on sale for 50cents each to make/can chili...found a 3-pack for 99cents. Even better. 

My $2.00 *bunch* of collards turned out to be what I would have considered three bunches, but it was three -stalks?- in a rubberband called a bunch. That's getting my money's worth. 

I didn't note the original prices but I saved probably $6.00 or so on produce. 

They also had all their Luck's beans on sale for 50cents a can, regular $1.00 a can. Dried beans are cheaper, but not everyone has time to cook beans, or has jars and a pressure canner to can them for heating and eating, so 50cents is a good price for stocking up on canned beans.
I mostly got these for my emergency-food-stock. 

Saved $10.00. 

They also had 2-ltr soda and Tonic water for 50cents each. 

I'll be honest, I drink aaaaa loooooot of coke (cola). I know I shouldn't, but I do. I usually pay 57cents a 2-ltr for Sam's colas at WM, so it wasn't a huge savings, but pennies add up to dollars eventually. 

I only bought one cola here because I wasn't sure I'd like it...I didn't hate it, but didn't love it enough to go back and buy more before the sale ended. Otherwise I picked up a few 7-Ups and ginger ales. 

The tonic water is 77cents at WM, so I saved a little over $1.50 on these. 

Some cereals were BOGO (buy one get one free) which made them $1.98 a box. Not the best price, but under $2.00 a box is my buy price, so I got a few boxes while I was there.
I can usually get cereal for $1.49 or $1.79 without coupons at Kroger during a sale, but they haven't been on sale lately (watch, they'll go on sale this week, lol) and, too, I have to drive to another town to a Kroger, so unless I'm going somewhere anyway, or it's an especially good sale, it costs more to drive to Kroger than I would save if I went just for a few boxes of cereal.

I saved about $6.00 on cereal. 

(Don't know why my picture is upside down, sorry!)

This wasn't really a savings, but I paid over $3.00 for a box of those peppermint candy sticks for my Aunt for Christmas, so I grabbed another box while they are half off. 

I had seen the Coconut bon bons before Christmas, but passed because of the price, which I don't recall exactly what it was, but I'm positive 64cents is much less than half off regular price. I love coconut bon bons, so I got all three bags they had left. 

The gummy and jelly bean religious candy marked down to $1.74 each I got for John-the-husband to snack on while working. 

The bread was $1.00. It's 88cents at WM, but I didn't want to go to WM, and I figure I saved enough on the other stuff that I could spend 12 extra cents on bread. 

My receipt says that altogether I saved $28.93.
Had I bought all this stuff at regular price it would have cost me nearly $30.00 more. I don't know about others, but 30 bucks is a good chunk of change to me. Three and half times and it adds up to $100.00. 

Happy New Year, 2021

 Wow, how in the world can it be two whole years since I last posted?
       You just blink, and half your life is gone by. 

      I knew I hadn't posted in awhile (but not two whole years!), but didn't think too much about it. Seems like I felt like blogging was going "out of style", most were going the social media route, fb pages and groups and such. Bloggers I followed slowed or stopped posting...My posts weren't getting many/any readers, so...I just didn't take the time to do any posting. 

But then just recently it dawned on me that I have visited/read/used a good many blog posts over the past couple of years, even right up to yesterday, in fact.

     The ones yesterday in particular were titled something like, "How to cook collards and ham in my Instant Pot". One post among many that I've gotten information and education and ideas from. A few days ago I was reading posts about putting wood slats on my ceiling. A couple of weeks ago it was posts on making the little cardboard (glitter/putz) houses. I read posts about how to can this or that, survival prepping, repair projects, decorating, crafting, and more. 

 
As I was reading through, gosh, probably a dozen or so blog posts about cooking collards in my Instant Pot, I thought, "Thank goodness these posts are here."
(Me realizing just how many blog posts I've been reading over the past years) "Why did I think blogs were going away?"
    My neglected blog(s) crossed my mind, but then I thought, 'meh, my posts are just blah, blah, blah. Nothing helpful or useful to anyone.' 

But then I thought about other posts I had read that people wrote about their lives and doings and this and that, and I enjoyed reading many of those, too. I don't know, sometimes it's like visiting friends (except without the having to be social part). 

Long story short (haha) I want to try to start blog posting again.
     I'm not calling it my New Year's resolution, because we already know how that goes (hint: it doesn't), but I plan to make the time to do some posting again. About whatever. No theme, because I'm...the opposite of structured...I don't know the word for that. Random, maybe. All over the place. Very ADHD.
  

 

Happy New Year, 2019

After Christmas, I was tired, and gave myself permission to take a few days off. Chill, relax. Read, sit on my can. Whatever.

     But then....well, I'll just take the stuff off the tree. I'll just put this away. And that.
Before I knew it, I had most of my Christmas decor packed away.
     All that was left, was what didn't fit in the bins. I needed to get more bins.

I also changed/washed/made the beds, and got all the laundry done before New Year's day.
   Old superstition says don't wash clothes on New Year's Day, or you'll wash someone out of the Family.
    So if anyone kicks the bucket, it wasn't my fault.

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

 Mine is more like an anti-resolution.
      I'm *not* participating in No Spend January.

Sounded like a good idea at first, and relatively easy. December is probably my biggest spending month, with Christmas and all. (Or maybe November, with Black Friday and property taxes due.)
     Having spent like rapper with his first contract in Nov and Dec, it should be pretty easy to not spend in January, right?

November is also a month for good baking supplies sales, so a good time to stock up on that stuff.
If you cook/bake enough at Christmas and have leftovers to put in the freeze, you really ought not need much more than milk and bread through most of January.

Welllll, the last few times I was determined to conquer No Spend January, I got my tail kicked. Mostly petty little stuff that adds up, chicken/pet feed/supplies, doctor/medicine bills, home repair projects end up costing more than expected. Then there was the year we replaced the heat/air system to the tune of $7K.

So, yeah, *not* playing that game again.
     Had I been, I would've lost early. Someone shared a good sale on canning jar flats on 1/04 that I couldn't pass up, so I ordered five.

However, 1/04 was payday, bill paying day, so after ordering those, I got in the truck and went to the feed store and Walmart, got chicken stuff, pet food, some groceries, and a couple more bins to pack away the rest of my Christmas decor.
    That should tide me over for a couple of weeks.

This has officially been the longest week ever.
     It's only been 6 days and I'm already running out of stuff that usually would've lasted a lot longer.

NEW YEARS DAY

We went and had New Year's Day dinner at my Aunt's (house*).
 
     It was pretty funny, my Aunt always cooks collard greens, black eyed peas and cornbread for NYD dinner.
    Yes, more superstitions, its about prosperity in the new year - greens = paper money, peas = coin money, cornbread = gold.

She had mentioned earlier, before Christmas, wanting some of the venison cube steak I got from my parents, so I decided to cook some for NYD, too.
      Well, she was sick, had been for a few days, sinus and bad cough, not feeling well.
She said she wanted me to bring it, but she wasn't sure she felt like eating all that. I said, well, leftovers.

So we got there, and cooked, and lol, she said, I'm gonna have to eat collards for supper, and she ate two cube steaks and gravy and biscuits and mashed potatoes.
    Lol, them's some good eatin's.

NEW YEAR ANXIETY

Following a nice NYD at my Aunt's, things went downhill.
   First off, we took some collards and cornbread by my BIL's. I ended up sort of falling down the porch steps.  It'd been rainy for I can't remember how long, and I had stepped in dog crap in my other shoes, so the steps were wet combined with my nearly slick-bottomed old tennies, my foot went out from under me. Hit the next step and kept going, hit the next step and kept going.
    Only I didn't fall fall, because I was hanging onto the rail with my left arm for dear life.
       Nearly dislocated my arm. Scraped the skin off the inside of it. My legs felt...wrenched.

We gimped on home, stopping by the convenience center to dump some trash, and Kevin pulled a muscle in his back, badly.
     He's pulled muscles before, but only where it was uncomfortable. This time, he was in tears, in pain.

Needless to say, neither of us did much the next few days.
    And on top of that, we had an appointment coming up on the 8th that I was seriously dreading. Seriously. As in, nervous wreck.

I've figured out that one way I deal with anxiety is by preparing.
    I thought it was preparing for whatever it was I was anxious or worrying about, for instance, flu season, or winter weather.

But apparently, being anxious or worrying just kicks in my survival mode, period.

I felt better on the 4th....when I was spending money.
    But at least it kicked me out of my lethargy. 
I spent the next few days basically sitting in front of my pressure canner, running it double time.

I had bought a 10# bag of potatoes on sale. Usually I cube, blanche, and freeze potatoes for use in potato salad later.
     I love getting potatoes on sale, but there have been many times I passed on making potato salad because I hate peeling potatoes.  So if I get them for a good deal, and peel them all in one un-fun session, my reward is having potatoes ready to go for tater salad when we want it.

As I've said, I've been trying to get away from freezer preserving as much as possible, and I learned from the Rebel Canner group that you can can potatoes, and they end up perfect for potato salad, or frying or baking or mashing...

My Dad went hunting this year and got us some deer meat. He had it processed/frozen, but I don't want to be dependent on the freezer, so I thawed some it, and canned it.
    I had been dehydrating ground beef, which works out as well, and takes up less room, but I'm more worried about the long-term storage of it, because I don't vacuum seal the jars, and air, I'm told, can mess up your food after awhile.
    This probably won't last long-term, but I like to be prepared.

Pictured above is jars of cube steak, and plain ground venison.
    Below, I canned a few jars of venison chili. Ready to heat and eat.
   

I bought a big bag of dried pinto beans from Sam's awhile back, and I can up a few jars at a time for ready to use.  Otherwise, leaving them dried takes less storage space.

Another thing I learned from Rebel Canners was you could can Boiled Peanuts.
       My family likes boiled peanuts, mostly in the fall/winter, and will get a bag when we go out to festivals or fairs or markets or whathaveyou, but then one year I learned I could make boiled peanuts at home.
     I did, but it took several hours on the stove top, so it's not convenient to do often, plus they weren't preserved so they had to be eaten pretty quickly.

This way, there is about a serving in each jar. Just heat and eat. The rest are preserved and will last a year or so. Probably longer, but I'm not sure how the texture of the peanuts would be after sitting in water a long time.

The other night, Ryan came downstairs and said, Mom, this tea doesn't taste right.

We've had tea taste off, like sour, or something before, so I took a drink to see if I could determine what was wrong.

What was wrong was - IT WAS SALTY BOILED PEANUT WATER.

No, I didn't break off his stick legs and beat him with them, but don't think I didn't think about it!
Ugh. Awful kid.

LOL, gotta love a good prank, though.

*ETA: As I was writing this post, I was running a load of dishes in the dishwasher.
When it finished washing and I went to open the door for the dishes to air-dry, the dishes hadn't washed. The liquid-detergent door had opened, but it just oozed down to the bottom.
Apparently, the pump has gone out, not pumping any water into the dishwasher.
AARGGH!!!!

Christmas Part 3

In my family, we don't really have any set Christmas dinner/gathering traditions, anymore.  Like I said before, things are always changing.

I don't throw around the words "as a firefighter's wife" too much, but I do, if possible, try to work it so he isn't left of the Holiday festivities.

That meant, this year we, and my sister's family, gathered at my Mom and Dad's house on Dec. 23rd and 24th.

This actually a relatively newer tradition for us. We've only been going up to my parent's the past few years.
Before that, we would go to my oldest Aunt's on Christmas Eve day, then after Christmas we would go to Florida and have Christmas with my parents and sister and her family down there.
    At some point I can't really recall at the moment, my Mom or Dad wanted to start having Christmas up here at their mountain home (Dad's Mom's home) again.

We packed a lot of fun into two days. I'm not sure how we did it, that Christmas magic, I guess.

On Sunday, the 23rd, John-the-husband got off from work, came home, and we packed the car and hit the road. It's just over a two hour drive from here to there.

We arrived, said Hey, and then several of us jumped in Mom's van and went shopping up in Murphy.
      Just Walmart, but we had a good time.

When we got back to Mom's, dinner was ready, so we ate, and then we played our White Elephant gift exchange game....which we're still not very good at doing.

My sister started this White Elephant thing a few years ago, to replace our normal gift exchange. I didn't do well with it, because I had already bought specific gifts for specific people, and when something you buy your niece ends up getting opened by her younger brother, no one's happy.

So the following year, I bought random, meaningless, kinda dumb gifts. But her gifts were pretty good. She just wrapped them in funny or trick boxes, and had an idea that after unwrapping the box, you still couldn't open the box - which seemed redundant to me - and decide if you wanted to keep the gift or trade, or...something.

I was not doing well last Christmas, and don't really remember much about it, but apparently my complaints finally got through, and she said, okay, give to who you want to (which actually means, give to everyone, because you don't give to one or two, and not the others), and also something for the white elephant exchange. Now that I could live with.
    Except I still suck at the gifts because, it's not gag gifts, it's decent gifts, but it may go to a 20 year old girl, or a 70 year old man, or anyone in between, and I don't know how to shop for that. I ended up just buying cheese&sausage and popcorn&candy sets.  Turned out, they loved those.

We played several rounds of Uno Attack, and had some cocktails, and snacked, and then later several of us jumped in Mom's van and went to look at Christmas lights.

These aren't my videos, but it all looked pretty much the same. It was bee-yooo-ti-fullll! 




The next morning we had breakfast, and then me, my sister, and my niece went shopping at some thrift and discount stores that were closed the day before.

We got back and ate dinner, then did our family gift exchange.

Later we had drinks and dessert.

My youngest niece decorated some of my gingerbread cookies for Santa.

A little while later we had to say our good-byes and head home.
   It went by so fast, but it was, I think, one of our better Christmases. One I'll probably remember best.

Back at home, we opened our Christmas gifts because John-the-husband had to go to work the next morning and, to be honest, none of the gifts were worth getting up extra early to open.
   I told them, this year I went for quantity over quality. They got a lot of gifts to open, but most would have normally been considered stocking stuffers: air freshener for Ryan's car, sticks of deodorant, bag of sour gummy worms, theater box of candy, etc. They neither needed, nor wanted anything.
    Because when they do want something, they just buy it right then.

Then I sat and watched one of my favorite Christmas movies.

On Christmas Day, me and the boys went to visit their older brother, my oldest son, and take him presents and have dinner.

We had a good laugh when Ryan came downstairs.

The spending limit on our white elephant gift exchange is $15.00, so if my Mom spends less than that, she'll include cash to make it $15.00.

So these red Santa shorts were one of her white elephant gifts, with $10.00 included.
   When the gift stealing was going on, Ryan says he wants those red shorts. We all thought he wanted the $10.00.
Haha, nope! He really wanted the shorts.

He's so funny.