Doing stuff at home all day

Today is a holiday in the USA so all the grands were out of school and with their parents.
My husband and I stayed home all day except he was gone for 10 minutes to fill up our car.  Because of Harvey, gasoline has been in short supply in some places.  So just to be careful,  we've been keeping our tanks full.

Last night our dishwasher was making a funny squeak.  We think it was just two dishes scraping against each other but it made me remember I hadn't cleaned the inside of the dishwasher lately.
All dishwashers are different but for ours, both sets of spray arms come out easily and need cleaned as bits of stuff get caught inside.  I also took out the filter pieces and soaked them in vinegar to remover lime deposits.  Our Oklahoma water has lots of lime.
Then,  I poured that vinegar into the dishwasher and ran a short cycle with hottest water,
After, the interior was sparkly clean and there was no more funny squeak.

While I did this job, my husband worked on our slow draining bathroom sinks.  No photos, but he took the plastic drain pipes under the sinks apart and cleaned out "black gunk" with his fingers and an old toothbrush.  Ewww I know,  but I'm thankful he could and would do it.  

In the kitchen,  I made another batch of energy balls.

I cooked 4 pounds of breakfast sausage and then froze them for easy breakfasts.  Half is regular and half is hot sausage.  I put a label on the outside and a foil divider in keep them separate. 

I made a big salad that we will eat Tuesday and Wednesday, also a box of taco toppings that we had with tonight's tacos.

I talked to my daughter a few weeks ago about what clothes her children needed for winter.  One boy needs jeans and her daughter needs a coat.  I remembered this Columbia jacket I bought last year when my favorite thrift store was having their closing sale.  It's clean and soft, should fit Elizabeth fine and keep her warm.
I used a seam ripper to remove the tag that had the previous owners name on it.   Now it's ready for colder days.

My husband finished up a holster he's been working on.He has a Mares Leg pistol that looks like a short rifle.

He used an eagle belt buckle he has had for years. He kind of looks like Marshall Dillon when he modeled it.

We do live in Oklahoma and guns are very common here. But he doesn't walk around with this strapped on.  It's just something to have.
We are very safe with guns.  They are locked away and my husband had so much artillery training as a Marine, he follows every gun safety procedure.

We both enjoy making things and this was a project for him to work on leather.  

I did all our laundry today.  I use the clothes dryer some but I also hang most tops and pants to air dry on hangers.  

I also did some deep cleaning and a little decluttering in the kitchen.

On the table, are some top patterns and a few lengths of fabric. I plan to cut out 3 tops for me.
I like the other tops I've sewn up this summer so much, I don't like it when they all need laundered and I have to wear a store bought top.

This is my list of things I plan to do this week.

I made some progress but I think it will keep me busy all week.

This was a fairly normal day for us, I don't understand when people are bored.  There is always something that needs doing in our home. We have no time to be bored.

Freezers, cooking and zinnias

Good evening everyone.
This month my goal is to eat down our freezer.  We have quite a bit of frozen food on hand,
We are hoping to harvest lots of pecans at our friend's orchard in a couple months and we will store most of them in the freezer.

This is our chest freezer.

From these photos, it looks like we only have ice cream and vegetables.  

But this freezer is 3 feet deep and I promise there is more than enough meat for the month.  

I'll post an inventory later in the week as we are getting a new upright freezer delivered on Wednesday, I think.  Chest freezers are just so hard to organize.  I've been wanting an upright for awhile and have been watching the ads.  Lowes is having a great sale this weekend.  With my husband's military discount and free delivery, were getting a nice upright for about 1/2 of what it would been without careful shopping.  

This chest freezer will get passed on to a son that hunts.  

If you want a new freezer,  this blogger Fun cheap or free is giving one away.  She is doing a challenge she calls "shelf-tember" where she wants people to cook from their pantry shelves and freezer all September and only spend $25 each week on fresh produce, milk, etc.  I'm not following her challenge exactly as we've already done a big grocery shopping trip this month.  But I do plan to not shop much more in September and to cook every meal at home with ingredients we already have.  

So far,  this month we've had barbecue sandwiches and taco bowls both made with cooked roast beef in the freezer and  sausage gravy on freezer biscuits. To avoid eating out,  I packed sandwiches, drinks and snacks when we drove to the commissary to shop.  

I'm pretty most of my blog readers do this kind of scratch cooking anyway.  But I'm guilty of going to the store and buying things we really could easily do without and eating out a convenience instead because it's a special occasion.  Any of you remember when eating out was most always because of a special occasion?

Our zinnias, that I grew from seed,  are doing so well even though summer is almost over.

If you're wanting lots of color in your yard next summer,  I recommend thrifty zinnias started from seed.

I think you readers are some of the nicest people on the internet,  I've gotten so many sweet comments this month and I thank you all ❤️

DIY sewing machine tune up - and LoveNotions pattern #3

I'm not sure when I bought this Necchi sewing machine but I'm guessing it was 6-7 years ago.  I've sewed with it a lot and it's never been serviced. That last dress I made was a tight textured knit fabric and my machine did not like sewing it, the tension looked wrong and it skipped quite a few stitches.
I thought about taking this machine in for service (and sometimes that is the only way) but I really like to just do things myself.
I did some searches about the causes of my stitch goofs.  One is a dirty machine.

So, I got out the brush that came with the machine.  I opened the front door and dusted all those parts.

Then I unscrewed the cover over the bobbin and dusted all that space.

My husband removed the screws on the bottom plate and found lots more lint and dust in there.
He said some canned air would of been good for cleaning the inside too, if we'd had any.

Another cause of skipped stitches might be the wrong needles.  I was using universal needles and they weren't working so I got 2 packs of needles for knits at Joann's.

If you look close, you can see the after stitch- in red at the top of the photo.
Our dusting and $7 in needles resulted in perfect stitches on knit fabric.
This saved at least $50 and 2 trips to the next town where a shop is that services sewing machines.

I've made 2 different Lovenotions.com patterns and liked them both so much. 

Tonight, I started a 3rd- the Cadence.  It is similar to the Laundry Day Tee but it uses woven fabric. 

The patterns can be printed on a home printer and then the pieces taped together.  That's my method, because I like to do things myself.  They can also be printed at a copy place on large sheets so no taping would be involved.

I hope to start cutting out a Cadence soon and I'll post the results. 

I truly like Love Notions because their garments are stylish very easy to sew and they are so easy to fit.  

If you want to try the Laundry Day Tee pattern for free, just join this page on Facebook and you can get the code to get that pattern free.  

August - finishing the month

hello everyone.
We had a family gathering here Sunday after church.  We had 4 generations of family - my parents, my husband's parents, 3 of our children with their spouses and children.
I did a very simple menu but everyone liked it just fine,
We had grilled hamburgers and smoked sausage dogs.
Side dishes were raw veggies and dip and chips.

Very simple buffet 

4 generations of men

2 year old Charlie wanted to sit with her great grandmother. Charlie had her own plate

 of food but she put it all on RoRo's plate 😍 and they shared. 

Sewing- I didn't sew as much as I hoped but I did finish 3 LoveNotions.com laundry day garments.
I made a white top in shirt length with fabric from my stash.

I sewed a tunic and dress from the same pattern with low cost Walmart fabric. 

I also did a few simple sewing projects that got added to my 100 day sewing challenge. 

My daughter has been doing some organizing projects.  This one will help them have smoother mornings.   She has 3 young children and they each get a hanging organizer and shoe box,  the organizers hold their school outfits for each day of the week.

I happened to be in Walmart one morning when they were doing some crazy clearances.  

All of these socks and boys underwear were clearanced to $1. I got enough for all our grands. 

This store had oodles of these and it was fun listening to other shoppers to call people to find out sizes so they could buy for them.  

When my husband and dressed for church, we both ended up wearing red, white and blue.  We tried taking some selfies these next 2 photos are the best of about 30.

Now, welcome September ❤️

DIY children fun, batch cooking and etc:

Hello everyone,
school is back in session for all our grands that go to school and our grown children that work in education.   We are settling into a new schedule and so far,  everything is going pretty smooth.

I am still helping with childcare for some of the grands but I don't have a single grand that is here for any full weekdays,  this is a big change for me as I've been caring for different combinations of grands for the last 8 years while their parents worked.
Whatever will I do with all my free time?
So far,  I haven't seen that much extra free time but I am sure I will stay busy no matter who is here.

Here a few things our grands had end of summer fun with.

This was homemade chalk paint.  Each muffin cup held 2 T of cornstarch, 2 T water and 5 drops of food coloring.
Stir it up well and then paint.  Please look on Pinterest if you want more instructions but that is truly all we did

The grands had a great time stirring it and painting with it.  

It didn't really show up so well on the driveway but it was still lots of fun.  

It also completely washed away  when it rained.


All the grands like to pour and this 2 year old is having a great time with just water and a plastic tea set on a tray covered with a kitchen towel.
The towel controlled most of the spills and it was just water so it wasn't much a mess.

When the bigger grands wanted to have a tea party,  I got out a tea set my mom found at a yardsale years ago.  It is pottery and looks a lot like Fiesta ware.

My parents were here for this tea party.  They had some lemonade for pouring and some Ninja Turtle cookies the grands baked with a mix from Dollar Tree.
They all had a very sweet time and I know the tea sets will be used often when grands are here.

Children love to cook and help in the kitchen.  This 5 year old was helping me roll out noodles.
It costs nothing to have them help and they enjoy it so much.

Today I did some big batch cooking.  

I made a recipe of Energy Balls.  It is based loosely on a YouTube video by Keep Calm and Clean

I make them a little differently.  I mix up the peanut butter, honey and vanilla and then I add the quick oats and either mini chocolate chips or mini M&Ms.  Once mixed,  I use a little scoop and make balls,  chill until ready to eat.  In the video,  she also adds brown sugar but I think these are plenty sweet like this.
These are a favorite of the grands and they are quite filling and hunger satisfying.

If you look for other Energy balls or protein balls recipes,  most have a lot more ingredients.   We really like this simple recipe just fine.

I made a triple recipe of  Freezer Biscuits I've made this recipe many times and they are always good.  They are freezing and will get bagged up with frozen solid.

I also baked a triple recipe of banana bread/muffins and a double batch of chocolate chip muffins.



When everything was cool,  I put it in plastic containers for the freezer and in sandwich bags for school lunches.  We are having company this weekend and will probably serve some of the banana bread and chocolate chip muffins.
I also packaged up some to take to my parents at their retirement home.

I want to mix up a new recipe for a Cajun seasoning but I was out of onion powder.  I did have a couple quarts of the dried onion flakes.  I tried grinding them up a  little coffee grinder,,,,,

and it worked just fine!  I will be using this homemade onion powder for the Cajun seasoning as well as when I make more Taco Seasoning and Rub for smoked meat.
It always a win when you can use what you have instead of adding things to a shopping list, right?

Keeping it real though....
All that baking and cooking used lots of dishes.  The dishwasher was full and running as well as all the dishes I hand washed and have air drying.  (hmmm,  I'm not sure that is a complete and proper  sentence but you get the picture)

I'm still doing bargain shopping in small amounts  This was last week at Dollar General.  

I used just digital coupons on the Dollar General app and website.  

After deducting all the coupons as well as a $5 off $30 coupon for buying Gain products,  I spent $12.71
Before coupons, it was about $35.

I'm still walking everyday and keeping track of my steps with a Fitbit.
They sent me this badge last week.

Way back in 2009,  we canceled out satellite TV.  We've lived just fine without pay tv all these years and got most of my shows through a rooftop antenna.
But the weather has really been blowing that antenna around, and to adjust it,  someone had to go up on the roof.  My husband has no business being a roof anymore and our sons are helpful but all have busy lives.
So I pretty much insisted we get cable tv.   It is through the same company we have had our internet and landline phone with so the TV gets bundled in and the price was not bad at all.
Also,  there is no contract and we can cancel anytime if needed.

My husband really likes TV but I don't watch it much.  I did finally watch my first episode ever of "Fixer Upper"  It was OK but I haven't watched any more.  I thought I might of been really missing something and the show is nice but it turns out  I wasn't really missing anything.

I have only sewed for 3 days since I last posted about the 100 Day sewing challenge

I did finish a new top and have 2 more garments for me cut out.  Hopefully I will show those to you all soon.  

 That's the homemaking that's been going on here- thank you for visiting.  

Frugal July part 6

hello everyone.  Since July is almost over, I'll wind up this blog series with a few things from the last few days.

We had a family party this weekend to break in our new patio and celebrate my husband's birthday.
One son brought his bounce house and it's pool attachment.  The children had so much fun jumping and going down the water slide.  My son rents this bounce house out and he says it's more than paid for itself.  It's been enjoyed by his children and at several family parties too.

We bought a small wading pool for the 3 smallest grands but 2 of the bigger grands had a lot of fun in it too.

The party was in the backyard but our home was pretty dirty afterward.  I did a bit of straightening Sunday but most of it got done today.
Here is my home list, as well as my CVS and Dollar General list.
If you look close at my wrist, my Fitbit says I'd already walked a little over 3 miles this morning.

At Dollar General, I only used digital coupons on their App. 

I used a $2/$10 purchase, $2 Tide, $3 Downy, a buy 2 get 1 free for both the applesauce and breakfast  pastries. 

My total came to exactly $10. 

This haul is from CVS. It was a lot more complicated than the Dollar General but I got so much more.  I used newspaper coupons, personalized coupons from CVS, app coupons, printable coupons from PGEveryday.com along with a $5 ExtraCareBuck from a few weeks ago and some of the gift certificates earned through swagbucks and MyPoints.
Thr original total was about $109.  But after all my coupons, deals and about $40 from the gift certificates, I spent NO cash at all.
I got back $20 in CVS Extracarebucks, $1 from Checkout51 and .25 from Ibotta.

This closes out our thrifty July.  I'm planning on August being mostly frugal too. 

We will see though,  we make plans but we don't know for sure what will happen.