last day of 2025

good morning everyone

Today I have a few errands to go on.

Then to celebrate, we will watch a live stream from the Clay Cooper theater in Branson to bring in the new year. 

Tuesday, I did some house cleaning. And this pantry I call our junk pantry was just disorganized as could be.

Of course, I did not take it before Photo. I really need to do better at that.

But above is the after picture

Earlier this year, I put two small boxes in the bottom of the junk pantry

One was for keeping throw away plastic and one was for keeping cans

I pulled out the plastic containers to stack it So it would fit in the box better

It’s just amazing how many plastic food containers we bring home.

And this is certainly not every container, sometimes I didn’t wash them. Sometimes we have used them for other things.

The clear square one is from tiny tomatoes.

I think it will be especially good to plant more tomato seeds in. It already has drainage holes in the bottom.

in Oklahoma, it will be time to start gardening seeds in the house pretty soon.

I think starting the seeds in the house is my favorite part of gardening.

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone

❤️ Rhonda 

Goodbye 2025

Hello friends,  

I’m ready to turn the page from 2025 to 2026. 

Actually, the last several years have been hard for our family but I’m hopeful 2026 will be better.  

but we will see, right?  

I’m planning for a more productive year ahead in several ways.  

We didn’t have very elaborate Christmas decorations out this month and I packed away all the Christmas things today and

  left up this 4 foot tree and put out mostly snow themed decorations.  

on the tv are screensavers from Youtube- there are so many there to choose from.  

This is the little New Years boy that was bought at a thrift store years ago but it’s really special to me because it looks like so much our grandson JJ.  

But the ceramic boy was here long before JJ.  

This may not be very readable and it’s just a rough draft so far. 

In 2026,  I hope to declutter, organize and clean every space in our home.  

Our home is not overly cluttered but every space needs some attention.  

I’ll try to take photos and show my progress.  

If you’re reading this,  thank you for sticking with me.

❤️Rhonda 

Orange Peel craft

I peeled a 3 pound bag of little oranges for quick snacks. 

The oranges went in the fridge and I had a pile of orange peels that smelled so good. 

I was wondering if I should do something with them. 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

The day before,  I saw an idea to cut the peels with a little star cookie cutter,  

then let them dry on your radiator and then string them into garland for Christmas decorating.  

It sounded very nice but I don’t have a tiny star cookie cutter or a radiator——-yes, I’m sure they could dry in the oven or just naturally——-

but I’m was still thinking.  

anyway,  later in the day,  the first thing I see on facebook is this reel 

https://www.facebook.com/hodgesfarmtexascooking/videos/813382301307963/

She had a pile of orange peels torn into small pieces and she strung them on a wire to make a little wreath.  

That sounded very easy so that’s what I did.  

I used a length of wire from my craft supplies and tore the peels into random shapes,  all roughly the size of quarters.  

Then I strung them on the wire.  

That’s what I used and had left from 3 pounds of oranges.  

No wire?  You can also string them with a needle and any kind of string or twine.  

I put a ribbon bow on mine and hung it on our junk pantry door in between 2 aprons.  

❤️Rhonda 

[Autosaved] catching up and groceries

hello everyone

I called my dentist office first thing Monday morning and they said to come in at 9:50 AM.  

They were able to re-glue my crown back on and everything is fine.

It was both painless and cost free.  

I started this post several days ago and now Friday,  I’m just getting back to it.  

You bloggers that post daily,  I applaud you!  

Between having spare time to sit and technical issues,  I don’t know if I’ll ever be a daily blogger.  

but on with news and doings 

Tuesday was Veterans Day and we went to our 5th grade grandson’s school for a very sweet and patriotic program.

My husband is 5ft11.  I think Jackson is growing about an inch this school year.  

I’m wondering how tall he will end up.  

This weeks Kroger grocery delivery- I think it was about $72 total 

I think everything was either on sale or had a good digital coupon except the canned cherries.  
2 bags of tomatoes, 3 pounds delicious green grapes, 4 packages lunch meat,  2 fresh salsa that were B1G1 and 2 cottage cheese 
5 pounds butter $2.99 each and that’s as cheap as I’ve seen any butter in 2025

milk, tortillas, tart cherries for a pie 
Grandchildren’s favorite bars, Kroger corn chips were way less than name brand 

the breads and pies were on flash markdown or I wouldn’t of bought them.  

Our daughter has been married 18 years.

  They registered and received a very nice set of pottery dishes that they’ve used exclusively ever since.  

Those dishes have really dwindled done to where they just need more dishes

She asked me if I thought white dishes could be found at thrift stores,  mainly bowls and plates.  

I had time to stop at Goodwill yesterday and found all these.  

They had so many! 

you can’t see all of it in the photo, but I bought a vintage 8 inch Pyrex pie plate for our kitchen.  

The finish is a bit faded but I don’t care.

It just shows this pie plate was used and enjoyed by a family in the past.  

TIP for stickers-  Those stickers were perforated and very difficult to pull off.  

So I put all the dishes in a sink of hot soapy water and left them to soak while I did an errand.  

When I came back,  the stickers were falling off on their own.  

I had time to go to a second thrift store but didn’t buy anything.  

Both stores seemed to be packed with merchandise.  I won’t say prices were great 

but I think shopping at most any thrift store should have good inventories.  

Hope you all have a good weekend 

❤️ Rhonda 

Monday new week to do list

good morning everyone 

I’m dressed and ready to go to a dentist appointment.  

A crown came off Saturday so I’ve been eating carefully since then.

I called my dentist and they told me come at 9:50. 

I’m very thankful they could see me this soon.  

Now it’s time to get busy doing stuff! 

❤️ Rhonda

The rest of Thursday’s cooking, boys and slime and maybe other stuff

Hello everyone 

I peeled and cut up vegetables to use in chili, taco filling and cooked ground beef.

I did the carrots to cook for a future side dish.

The bell peppers and red onion are for salad or whatever.
I cooked 3 pounds of beef for taco filling and 3 pounds of seasoned cooked beef.  

All went in the freezer for future meals.

I was way wrong in how many onions I would use.  

there is only one jar of onions in the photo but I put 2 jars in the fridge.  

They will keep a while but I need to plan some onion-heavy meals this month. 
3 pounds of beef went into a big pot of  chili along with a pound of cooked pintos.  
Lots of dishes were washed after the cooking 
This is ground beef from Kroger that I bought for $11.97 3 pound tube or about $4 a pound.

I was very happy with it.  It smells and tastes right and put off very little water/fat when cooked.

I froze the rest of it plain

I’ve never done it this way but I sliced each tube into about 1/2 pound sections and 12 hamburger patties.  

I put the tray in the freezer and will bag them up when frozen.  
3 of the grandchildren ate supper with us Friday.  I made a batch of our favorite buns,  mixing the dough in a bread machine and baking them in the oven.  

SLIME !  

this is still a popular craze I guess 

This is recipe we mostly followed.  

https://kidsactivityzone.com/fluffy-slime/

We made one recipe split between 2 bowls.  

Their mother provided the glue.  Other ingredients were shaving cream, baking soda, optional food coloring and a little borax mixed with water.

Many recipes call for contact solution which is not an ingredient we have.  Borax in water works great.  

These boys are 5th and 7th graders. Not shown, but their 10th grade sister came and played with some slime too and she had as much fun as they did.  

❤️Rhonda 

very productive day

Hello everyone 

I’m pretty happy with how much I accomplished today.  

As scheduled,  Kroger delivered my order.  

They put it all right by front door.  Isn’t that great?

There were no substitutions and no unfilled items so I was especially thankful.

Below is what $164 will get you in Oklahoma right now.  
15 pounds of ground beef,  3 1/2 pounds cheese, 3 pounds sausage,

  2 pounds hot dogs, 1 package lunchmeat and a container of salsa.  
Complete Non essentials 

The chips were 4 /$10, I think the brown sugars were $2 each and the white sugars were 2/$5,

  sodas and 2 packages of snacks my husband requested 
Bell peppers, onions, carrots and spinach 
Orange juice and milk -  I really appreciate Kroger guarantees at least 10 days of fresh with dairy products - This milk is dated 12 days out and I pretty certain it will last even longer than that.  
and 2 strings of tree lights.  

Not shown -3 dozen eggs and a freebie bag of potato patties - they were already put away 
I filled up our morning pill boxes for a month - a few prescription pills and a few vitamins 
I worked out our November budget and paid a few bills.  It feels good to have it planned out and not have to think about it anymore 

If you have any older elementary -middle school age children in your life,  you’ve likely heard about 6 7 

Well,  I know it’s just a craze and mostly nonsense.  But I am 67 years old so now when I hear 6 7,   I’ll think they are talking about how special I am  🤭 

Are any of y’all 67?

Our granddaughter Cora is 7.  Last night at dinner she said “we aren’t allowed to say six seven unless we are counting”. 

Her dad asked her what it meant and she said she didn’t know.  

So I think it means the children are annoying their teachers with their 6 7.  

But this will pass…….

I also cooked up 9 pounds of that ground beef today and cleaned up all the dishes.  

The pictures are still downloading from my phone to my ipad so hopefully I’ll blog about those tomorrow.  

Hope you all have had a great day

❤️ Rhonda 

 

I think my posting issues are fixed

I’m sorry for the crazy posts this week and thank you all for your help and kind words.  

I’ll just get back to the homemaking and daily life posts I like to 

Our 5+ year old Bosch dishwasher quit working a few weeks ago.  

We don’t think it was repairable so we just took it.   I have just been washing dishes by hand. 

 There are normally just 2 of us here and we really don’t use that many things.  

We have been rinsing everything after we use them and I usually wash everything from the entire day after our evening meal.  

I prefer to let everything air dry.  

Towel drying dishes is not allowed in commercial food establishments as it can spread bacteria so I’m happy to air dry.  

We already had this little metal shelf and it just fits in the dishwasher hole.  I keep the dishpan and drainer,  gloves and brushes on it when not in use.  

 They are sort of out of sight but still very easy to access.  

I think my favorite part of this washing method is when I put away the dry dishes.  It is much easier on my slightly cranky back and my husband’s very cranky back to move the dishes from counter height than to get them out of a low dishwasher.  

Kroger is supposed to deliver my order tomorrow morning.  

One of their specials is 80/20 ground beef for $3.99.

Have yall priced beef lately?  It seems to of really jumped up in price.

I hope the 15 pounds I ordered come.  

I plan on cooking part of for taco filling and part of it for chili,  all to put in the freezer for easy future meals.  

We like lots of beans in our chili so I put a pound of pintos to soak and will cook them in a crock pot first thing tomorrow morning.  

Hope you are all fine

Good night everyone 

❤️ Rhonda 

One More time

One more post today to see if I can get this blog post format how I want it

photo is  just an unedited snapshot of our supper tonight 

❤️Rhonda

so far it looks promising! 

hello everyone, I've been updating settings and changing settings. We will see how this one posts, but I don't feel like I'm making any progress getting my blog to look like it used to. One thing I've done around my home to get ready for next year, I cut the spent flowers off of the zinnia's from our backyard. I let them dry in a box for a few days, and then I will store them in a Ziploc bag and replant the seeds next year. A single dried zinnia seems to have at least 100 or more seeds inside. We grow these in our backyard and most people never see them, but the monarch butterflies and the bees just love them. Saving ZINNIA seeds is so Thrifty! I'll be able to share zinnia seeds next spring and plant mine just as thick as I want to. I am no expert on indeterminate and determinate and heirloom or organic type seeds. I just know I have been planting and enjoying this batch of flowers for years. ❤Rhonda

another test

just a test post I put 8 spaces between theses sentences as I wrote this post Do any of them show up?

Trying Chrome…..

This is the view from our front door right now. Our Christmas light man hung the lights back up today. Christmas is two months away, but we think the lights are festive so we will have ours lit from dusk to Dawn until he takes them down sometime after the first of the year. I'm trying this blog post using Chrome on my phone. I used to blog on my iPad with whatever browser comes with iPad. Melanie suggested I try chrome. Theoretically it should work perfectly since chrome and blogger are the same company, Google. We will see. I can already tell I think it's going to run all this text together into one paragraph. I would really like to blog. I like visiting with you all, and I think blogging keeps me more active as a homemaker. So let's see how this test post works ❤ Rhonda

Hello 👋🏻

good morning!

those are a double batch of energy I made as requested by a grandson to take in his school lunches. He won't eat all 5 pounds by himslef. His family members also pack lunches .

i'm still here and I'm fine. I still don't get as much done as I used to, but I'm trying to get busier. Doesn't our new weather forecast look so pleasant? It warm and dry for several months now. We had a lot of rain over the weekend and I'm very much looking forward to what I call Thrifty weather -when we really dont need to run the air conditioner or heater. I'm having issues making posts to my blog. I can't seem to use the app I used to for posting. I'm doing this one directly to my blog with blogger but it won't allow some photos I want to post and it runs all my text together. If you are a blogger, please tell me how you make new posts. Pretty Please, I really need advice ❤ Rhonda

use what you have – Apple butter in a slow cooker

Hello everyone

there were several containers of applesauce in our pantry, most were freebies from Kroger and they were all getting close to their used by date my daughter recently made pear butter. And I've watched several YouTube videos recently of people, canning jelly and jam. So I decided to try turning that plain applesauce into apple butter. I looked up a few recipes. I didn't follow any of them exactly but I will put my recipe that I used below and it turned out Delicious! We like a lot of cinnamon, so mine does have a good bit of that. And it is not canned to American food safety standards. I put the hot apple butter straight from the slow cooker into recycled jars and put the lids on them. Then, when they cooled, they went in the fridge. I'm sure it could be water baths and official canning jars and kept in the pantry, but I'm not giving advice on how to do that because I don't know. for this batch of apple butter, I used About 8 cups of unsweetened applesauce 3/4 cup of sugar 3/4 cup of brown sugar Heaping tablespoon of cinnamon Half a teaspoon of allspice And a few pinches of salt I let it cook in a slow cooker for about five hours. I started every hour or so and stopped when it was thicker Then it went right into jars with lids And into the fridge when it cooled. ❤Rhonda