Trying again

Hello everyone 

I’ve been away from blogging most of the summer. I checked my blog yesterday and saw that more of my recent posts have missing photos. I’ve done a search to find out the problem, but I cannot find a solution that works that I can do or that applies to my blog. 

So………..

I’m going to write a short post now with photos and a back up and see what happens.

Our patio pergola hosted 3  families of baby robins this summer.

They were fun, watching the parrot sit on the nest, and then faithfully feed the babies. About three weeks after the eggs hatch, the babies leave, and they all go away, and never come back.

I’m still working on downsizing the amount of things in our home

Yesterday I gave away a whole, another big batch of stuff on the Facebook buy nothing group.

Last week I worked on my homemade cookbooks. I had four binders and several folders with printed off recipes and recipes saved  from magazines

They were quite unorganized!

We have had to do some serious changes with the foods that we eat so many of the recipes I had saved were completely useless at this stage.

BEFORE 

AFTER I know, it looks dirty, but the scrapbook paper is a distressed style and looks a lot prettier in person

1 single notebook takes up a whole lot less space than all that other stuff.

The notebook has four dividers – main dishes, side dishes, breads & desserts, and miscellaneous

Some of the recipes are printed from the Internet and some are cut from magazines.

 Some are glued onto pretty scrapbook paper.

I used dividers that I already had and I was happy, but they have pockets in them. 

This is in the back in the miscellaneous section.

I also saved some menu plans from the past. I don’t know that I’ll ever use this again, but they’re fun for me to go back and read.

  

If the photos stay on the post for a few days, I will try to get back to blogging

If they disappear, I may look into starting a new blog or

I just don’t know.

❤️Rhonda

Advice is most welcome about the missing photos 

End of June -to do list, sewing, grocery haul

Hello again- I’ll just jump right in

I made a to do list that started Sunday- it’s not pretty but hopefully it will keep me on track 

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I used to sew a lot! I found this photo of 2 of my children in pajamas I sewed - around 1987 I think. 

Aren’t they cute?  They really were happy children that usually had smiles on their faces.  

Anyway, this got me thinking that our youngest granddaughter would enjoy a twirly nightgown too. So I searched EBay and somehow found the pattern.  

I cut out a blue polka dot one last night 

I am so thankful for online shopping.  I’ve been using Kroger delivery and it’s great!

Oklahoma does not have any actual Kroger grocery stores but there is a delivery hub about an hour from our town.  

I wont say their prices are rock-bottom lowest, but they do have good deals.

They have weekly sales and coupons and if you match them up, it’s pretty good.

They also have two weekly Free-Bees coupons, this week it was for marshmallows and apple sauce cups. I think my grandchildren will enjoy making rice crispy treats with the marshmallows.

Anyway, I ordered Saturday evening and my groceries were delivered Sunday morning about 7:30 AM. I ask for delivery between 7 and 8 AM.

They bring them right to my door and they travel in a refrigerated truck, so everything was fresh and chilled.

Kroger has the best produce of any store I’ve purchased from.  

The 3 bagged produce items were dated into July

Everything looks fresh and A+ in my opinion 

Look at this crazy big bell pepper! It’s on top of a 1 pound strawberry box

Dog items and grocery items.  The chicken breast were buy one get one free and I should’ve bought four or six. It was a good deal but I don’t eat that much meat these days so that will easily make three meals. The cream of tartar is for homemade Play-Doh.

As I said, before, the marshmallows and applesauce were freebie coupons.

That’s a lot of bread, right? I already had two loaves on my order. Then at the end, when you check out with Kroger, they usually have some short dated items that are half price or less. So I went ahead and added three more of the discounted loaves of bread, and I just put them in the freezer.

Can you believe these five grandchildren are getting so big and old? The youngest one is eight and the oldest one is 14! 

They have very busy lives -ball tournaments, ninja tournaments, livestock shows, Girl Scout camps, church camp, energy camp

They all had some free time in their calendar last week and were able to have a sleepover here.

I’ve been doing more decluttering. Most stuff that was usable has been passed on to people who wanted it on our local Facebook buy nothing group.

I truly recommend looking into your area buy nothing group. People give away lots of neat stuff and people ask for stuff. 

And it just feels so good to take stuff that we don’t need and put it into the hands of people who do want it.


OK, I need to get up and get on with my day. The last of my tea is gone.

I hope you all have a great week 

❤️ Rhonda 

June things

Hello everyone 

Sorry but I just haven’t had enough energy to blog and when I checked my blog earlier in the week,  many of my photos don’t show.  Have no idea why as I pay Google for photo storage.  

Can you see photos on my posts?

Anyway,  our entertainment this spring has been 2 nests full of baby robins.  We had 2 separate robin nests under our pergola roof and we have had so much fun watching them.  Both parents work so hard keeping the babies fed and protected.  And then once they are about 3 weeks old,  they all leave and live somewhere else.  

The photo is not great as I took inside our living room window. 

The babies have their mouths open most all the time.  

This is the birds in the first nest a day before they flew the coop.  

I rarely go into stores and prefer to order or do Walmart pickup for most things.  But I’ve seen a few IG posts about some Dollar Tree things.  

So I stopped there today.  

Centrum Mens vitamins - best by date is in 2024 and they are made in the US.  $1.25 is a super deal on these.  

I’ve worn this brand of press on nails and they are usually $7 or more a set.  

I was especially happy to find these for $1.25 a box.  

If this post works with photos- I’ll blog again soon.

Hope you are all fine

❤️ Rhonda 

May 8- to do lists

Good morning!  So far we’ve had a very mild spring with no need for the air conditioning and little need for the heater.  

But warm weather is here so now the grass and things outside will start growing.  

I said last week that I thought I would accomplish everything on that to do list,  well- 2 things didn’t get done.  

I didn’t finish one top I’m sewing and the hall bathroom paint didn’t get touched up.  I’ll try to get to those this week. 

Also I never made a sandwich toppings box but I did use those ingredients for something else. 

That’s what my lists look like as the week goes on. 

Here’s my new to-do list. 

Hope you all have a productive and pleasant week 

❤️ Rhonda 

May 5- freezer cooking and food storage

Hello 

When we visited our son in January,  I looked through a few of their cookbooks.  I found a slightly different way to cook beans, especially to I

use the beans in future dishes.  I bought quite a few dry beans during the pandemic and with meat so expensive, this seems like the perfect time to eat those beans 

I don’t know what cook book published this- I just took a few phone photos of the recipes I was interested 

I did red beans, just like the recipe except no garlic and I used 2 bay leaves. 

I’ve always presoaked dry beans and I’ve never put in the salt until the beans were cooked tender.  

But this method worked great! 

I think I ended up with the equivalent of about 10 regular size cans of beans with one recipe.  

While I had the 4 quart crock pot cooking red beans, I made a big batch of pasta sauce in the bigger crock pot, 

 also to put in the freezer.  

http://ahomewithasmile.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-ive-been-up-to.html

Above is a link to my first blog where I explained my method for making what we call Roma Sauce (other people just call is spaghetti sauce 😉)

Another task on my weekly to do list was to look over our canned goods and food storage, to kind of check dates, quantities and if we short on something important.  It’s truly hard to know how much to have on hand.

I straighten everything up in the sewing room closet and the kitchen pantry.  

For 2 people living in our household,  I think we have plenty.

That shelf has canned meat and tomatoes. 

Lots of canned goods in the cubbies- each shelf will hold 32 regular 15-16 ounce cans- plenty of soup, vegetables, fruit

And probably more fabric than I will ever sew up 

Kitchen pantry - 

I don’t think you can really see everything in the photos - but after straightening everything, the only thing I put on my future grocery list is olive oil.  

I’m just showing this in case it’s helpful to anyone.  

And because it’s Cinco de Mayo, we had a sort of Mexican inspired supper.

2 grandsons are here and we ate late, after their ball practice 

Our favorite kind of nachos

Tortilla chips topped with refried beans, a jalapeño slice for people who like them and any kind of cheese

Then bake or broil until the cheese melts and the chips toast a little.  

Serve with toppings like salsa, etc if desired 

These are so yummy! 

❤️Rhonda