Happy New Year, Yearly Goals and Literature Class

I have literally been trying to write a "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" blog post for three weeks.....maybe someday I'll finish getting the Christmas pictures loaded.

For right now though I thought I would just touch base and say "Hello"...."we're alive".....we survived another Christmas with our retail shipping store....

Jason's Grandma Mercy passed away the Sunday before Christmas which makes the third out of six Christmases since we opened our store that we've had a death the week of Christmas.  Unfortunately the kids and I all became too sick to be able to go to the funeral.  We were thankfully able to attend a daily mass being offered for her at the nursing home where she had been living for the past two years yesterday.  It was wonderful to be there with a priest that had been seeing her once a week and who also administered her last sacraments to her within a few days of her death.

I'm sure that most of you have seen the different blog posts where people "pick a word" for their year.  Last year I picked "organize," but didn't tell Jason or the kids.  This year as we were all trying to recover from the icky cold virus that mutated into different forms for each person I was brainstorming ideas/goals for this new year.  I decided to pick words that started with the letter "f" since that is also the first letter for "fifteen."  I actually talked to Jason and the kids about it on New Years Day.

Our words for this year are:

Family

Fit

Focus

Frugal

and 

Fun

Obviously this blog had been all about family and frugalness.  The fit has been a goal of mine since last May.  I am at the hard part of finally feeling better from all my pregnancies, illnesses and past surgeries, but I'm in the tough spot of injuring myself when I try to work out and then gaining more weight while I heal.  I also realized that I had gotten into the bad habit of thinking bad things of myself so part of fit is also "forgiveness," which also means being kind to myself.  I actually managed to lose 4.5 pounds and 4.5 inches in the last six weeks of 2014, so I'm hoping to just slowly keep plugging away at being "fit" this year, by exercising when I can "fit" it in and just watching the calories.  The "focus" came as a two part goal.  Part of "focus" is just continuing to organize the house and all the "stuff" of being a large home schooling family.  The other part of "focus" is for both Jason and I to make some goals we have personally and professionally....these are extra things which means we have to really tighten down on our already packed schedule.....just making sure that each minute counts as we slowly plug away at meeting those goals.  Helping each other by watching the kids and clearing the calendar of extra stuff so we can get the work done we both want/need to do.   Then sometimes-well actually ALL the time-I need the reminder to have "fun" because I am such a workaholic.

I will now being teaching middle school literature at our local home school co-op besides being the Kindergarten Montessori teacher in the mornings and teaching preschool Catechesis of the Good Shepherd in the afternoons, so I'm actually not sure how much blogging I'll be getting done before May.  We have quite the reading list this semester as we focus on literature from 1800-1850 (to match with our history timeline.)

We will be reading:

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (in order to get Mark Twain in this year and again next year)

Robinson Crusoe (we didn't get to this last semester when we were in the 1700's)

The Last of the Mohicans

Northanger Abbey (our two weeks of Jane Austen since it's one of her shortest works)

Edgar Allan Poe Week

Emily Dickinson Week (she's after 1850, but that way we can focus on more 20th century poetry next year)

Longfellow Week

One week of misc American poets/short stories (still to be determined)

Uncle Tom's Cabin

House of the Seven Gables (if time)

I'm exhausted and excited just thinking about it.  Feel free to leave a comment telling me what your goals or "words for the year" are....Also, let me know what some of your favorite classic books are!  Literature is one of the things I love most about home schooling.  I've got to read so many awesome books with the kids that I missed as a kid (and probably wouldn't have gotten to reading as an adult without the "pressure" to give my kids a classical education.)

I pray that you all had a blessed Advent and Christmas Season and that 2015 brings you much peace and happiness.

May you have the sweetness of achieving your goals this coming year!

Always,

Stephanie

Frugal Kitchen Curtains and Bench

Kitchen Remodel #3

Homemade Curtains with lace tie backs

So far 2014 has continued the trend of being one set back after another which has seemed to be the pattern for our lives these past few years.

I'm all for trying to live as frugally as possible, but for this month I have to admit that I've been continually resisting the urge to shop.  In fact the weekend that Debbie completed these projects for me I didn't want to go to work, I didn't want to pay the bills and I most certainly wanted to "blow some steam" by thrift store shopping.....Instead I went to work, I paid the bills and I bought some food treats and came home to my sweet girls and mother-in-law.

A few weeks ago Jason and Joey went on a camping trip for Boy Scouts.  It was a rare occurrence that Debbie, my mother-in-law, had both that Friday and Saturday off from her job.  She suggested a "girls sleep over" weekend after a field trip day that I had originally planned got postponed for a week.  She also brought up the idea of completing the curtains and bench make-overs that I had been talking about completing for almost two years now.  I actually have had the bench fabric for two plus years and the curtain fabric for almost a year.  (Yes, my mother-in-law lives directly across the road from me, and yes, she did sleepover in the guest room.  I will admit it seems kind of funny, but remember the guys were also gone for the weekend.  She finished the curtains at midnight so she just walked upstairs to sleep versus across the country road.  Plus I had to leave early for work the next morning.)

Last summer I "kidnapped" Debbie for a day as her birthday present.  We went thrift store shopping in Amish country, which is just an hour's drive away from where we live.  One of the great things about Amish country is that at certain stores you can find amazing fabric that has been donated since most of the people still sew in that area.  I found these two pieces of fabric at one of the stores for at total of $4.  Jason had just "flipped" the kitchen and painted the cabinets blue so I thought this would be pretty fabric for the door in between the sink counter and baking counter:

The daisies are just beautiful and lend a soft romantic look to the "Tuscany Country" look that I am hoping we will eventually achieve in here when we can paint the wall panelling.  (Though I have to admit it may end up looking more "French Country"):

I had been brainstorming about what kind of curtain to hang in front of the tupperware cabinet.  I wanted something waterproof with blue tones to match the cabinets, yet something to somewhat match the door curtain.  I hadn't found anything since last July that I liked.  One day when I was putting linens away I saw this vinyl tablecloth leftover from a previous summer and thought it had great potential, so I will now have daisies and sunflowers to use as accents for my kitchen:

The three curtain fabrics together

I had bought two curtain rods to hang the curtains on back in January from Wal-Mart.  They cost somewhere between $10-$12 total.  Debbie and I talked and decided that I had enough fabric for a valance.  Thankfully Debbie had an extra curtain rod for the valance at home for the great price of "FREE."  She also suggested tie backs and brought over some gorgeous lace that she had bought at a garage sale for fifty cents.

Debbie is a craft queen....she made these curtains without a pattern....just measured the spaces, measured the fabric....had to do some creative thinking for the daisy material to figure out how to lay the fabric so that we could get two curtains and a valance out of it...but in less than four hours on Friday the tupperware cabinet and my kitchen window had new curtains!!!  (Debbie did say that the vinyl tablecloth was not the easiest material to sew-it stretched while she was sewing it.)  I personally break into a sweat just threading the needle on my sewing machine.  These projects probably would have taken me two to three times the amount of time it took Debbie.  I also would have had to buy a pattern to make the door curtains.

Completed sunflower curtain hiding our tupperware

This is the fabric that I was able to buy at Joann Fabrics two years ago when it was on sale and I had a coupon.  I don't remember how much the material cost, but we do have enough material that we will be able to cover any kitchen chairs we choose to match:

Red vinyl material

It's durable and waterproof!  Jason's mom had a 50% off coupon for Joann Fabrics so she measured the bench Friday morning and then managed to find a 2" thick by 24" wide piece of foam that we were able to cut in two to fit the  12" wide bench so that it would have new padding...so we got $36 worth of foam for $18.  Debbie glued the pieces onto the bench besides gluing them together so that they wouldn't separate over time.  (A few days after Joey came home from camping he thanked me for putting new foam on the bench.  I guess it had been getting painful to sit on though neither he, Jessie or Katie had complained yet at any of our family meals.)

Bench with new foam with the new sunflower curtain behind it

Debbie covered the bench while I was at work on Saturday.  Katie, Anna and Libby (affectionately known as "The 3 Littles" around here) were quite concerned about this project.  I guess they kept asking Grandma Debbie if I KNEW what she was doing to our kitchen bench????  They informed her that they were going to tell me right away when I got home.  They also watched her like little hawks.  Here was a picture that she sent me (ignore the messy kitchen please):

Katie and Anna watching Grandma Debbie's every move with their stuffed "Eddie" poodle which is named after Grandma Debbie's real live Eddie poodle

She even said that they were quite distraught that she was throwing out the old fabric and foam from the bench, so I guess they are picking up on thrifty habits of saving/reusing as much as possible.  After a few hours, since Debbie did have to make one trip into town to get different staples for the staple gun, here was the finished bench (again, ignore the messy kitchen):

Libby, Katie, Anna and Jessie on the finished bench

After I made it home much later than planned, we watched a movie while eating some splurged for cheese cake and frozen mini-eclairs that I had bought for the girls night sleep over:)

Completed Bench

Curtain Project Costs:

Amish Country Curtain Fabrics: $1.25 and $2.75=$4.00

2 Curtain Rods: $12.00 (high end estimate-also one curtain rod was free)

Table Cloth Curtain: $8.99 originally (used for one picnic and then stored)*

*Still have 3/4 of it left for future projects

Lace Tie Backs: $0.50

Curtains Final Cost: $25.49

Bench Project Costs:

Bench: $10.00

(bought it at a thrift store)

Foam Padding: $18.00

Material: $20.00**

(**estimated price for just the material that covered the bench, have tons leftover)

Bench Final Cost: $48.00 approximately

Kitchen Remodel Costs to Date: 

Previous: $1542.98

New Total with Curtains and Bench: $1616.47

Jason is planning on working more on the kitchen while the kids and I go on our annual summer trip to visit family....I am looking forward to being able to show you more kitchen pictures in July or August.

Here are the first two posts that I made about our Kitchen Remodel:

Kitchen Remodel #1

Kitchen Remodel #2

Libby laying on the newly covered bench

Wishing you the sweetness of perseverance and patience,

Stephanie

Linking To:

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home
Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
Home Sweet Home at The Charm of Home
Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

TCA Consignment Sale

Red Dress Coat from Consignment Sale

So, as our recession digs deeper and taxes grow higher I rarely buy brand new items anymore.

I "accidentally" missed my turn three years ago and while turning around I saw a sign advertising the TCA Consignment Sale.

It has helped make being frugal so much easier!

Twice a year I can shop for name brand clothes, shoes, books, toys, furniture, etc, all in one location!  (For those needing baby items, like strollers, cribs, etc, this is the place for you as well.)

In fact for the previous two years I have actually had all my Christmas shopping for the five kids completed after the Pre-Sale for Consignors.  It has made Christmas time with our busy retail store so much easier!!!  I didn't have that luck this year, but we did manage to find some more Scooby Doo items for Katie's birthday theme and Dora the Explorer/Diego for Anna's September birthday.  (Now we just have to make the cakes-and remember to wrap items earlier than five minutes prior to the time I want them to open them!)

Polka Dot Church dress for Libby

I meant to get pictures of all the things I was consigning plus the actual gymnasium, but forgot to do so.  I also forgot to get pictures before the big kids put all their new clothes away.
Here's a few of the items that I got for the younger kids though.  (Because every girl needs a few dresses that aren't hand me downs from her big sisters, of course.)

3 more dresses for Libby

I am having trouble with my other pictures downloading tonight, but they have more than just clothes.  We bought three video games tonight.  In the past we have bought dvds and a video game system.

We also invested in new backpacks.  Jessie is excited about her latest backpack-both Katie and Anna commented about how pretty it is when they saw it as well!

Jessie's "new" backpack-in excellent condition

Unfortunately, unless we end up finding the box of size 11 and 12 shoes packed away in storage, I may have to end up buying new shoes for Katie.  No one was selling that size of shoes this week at the TCA Consignment Sale, but we did score a pair of black cow girl boots for Jessie for $4.00.  (If I do have to buy new shoes because I can't find used ones at any of our local resale stores, I will shop at the Payless Shoe Store first: best deals in town plus they give a military discount of 10% on top of their sales.)

So, grab your rubbermade containers, laundry baskets, thirty-one totes and reusuable shopping bags and/or empty boxes and head over to the TCA Consignment Sale for some back to school/winter clothing deals.  (They do have some laundry baskets you can shop with, but there is a limited number so the baskets may not be available if there are a lot of people shopping.)

If you go and like what you see, remember that consignors get to shop first so sign up to sell stuff at their April  spring sale!  Remember that all that hard work of tagging stuff goes to help give financial scholarships for students in need to get a Christian education and to support the Tri-State Christian Academy.

The TCA Consignment Sale is located at: Mercy Baptist Church, 3474 Pennsylvania Ave, Weirton, WV 26062.  The 2013 Back to School Sale hours are: 9am-3pm both July 31st and August 1st, 9am-7pm August 2nd, and from 9am-3-pm on August 3rd-when many items will sell for half price.

Nothing to disclaim: This is not a paid endorsement.  Nor do I get an extra percentage of my sales-same 60/40 split on all items I sell.  I am simply a happy consignor and shopper!  I greatly apologize that I didn't have better pictures-hopefully next time!

Wishing you the sweet joy and excitement associated with the beginning of a new school year,

Always,

Stephanie

Frugal Kitchen Remodel-Post #1

Frugal Kitchen Remodel

So, Jason has been a busy, busy man!

I went away with the kids to visit family for the past few weeks.  He decided to "flip our kitchen and living room" while I was away.

I will go into all the details at a later time, but he painted the above cabinets that he got free from a friend who is also remodeling their kitchen.  My dream is to eventually to paint all the wood panelling in the hopes of it one day looking like a Tuscany farm kitchen.  We still have to add back splashes.  (Not to mention me reorganizing items as I cook/use this new space.)

The sink and counter are from Ikea, then he found a similar faucet to what I liked via the web.

  The white dishwasher came with the house when we bought it.

Frugal kitchen-looking towards our fireplace

 The table in the left hand corner (by the door) was free from a local church.  The pine cabinets sitting on it for storage are being reused from our old kitchen.  The bench I got for $10 from The Urban Mission Thrift Store.  The table (which has leaves that extend/tuck underneath it) and chair we bought at a local antiques store a couple of years ago.  The top needs to have new veneer added, but that's a project for another day (or year).

Frugal kitchen remodel-looking towards the "new living room"

The white cupboard is actually a very light blue.  We bought this piece (along with the phone table you can see just past it in the door way to our now living room) at a garage sale six years ago when moved into the house.  We scored them along with a matching third piece for around $75 or so.  Right now he still has the kids small toy cubby in front of some more of our old pine cabinets.  He decided not to paint anymore cabinets until I came home and we decided what to do with them.  I will probably paint the walls before I decide whether I want to leave the cabinets as is or paint them either blue or white to match the sink cabinets.

So, while I haven't been able to post any Hopedale Market updates, it's just because we've been busy....Jason said that the only reason he has survived our extended time away from him (without getting the blues) is because he's had this massive project to focus on.

It will be nice to have a bigger space for entertaining when we have company over.  It will also be nice to have a "cosier" space as our "new" living room.  (Not to mention that in the long run this should help with our heating bills.)  Jason still has to hook the cook stove/heat stoves back up, but technically he has until October barring anymore massive power outtages.

For those heading out to the Hopedale Market, Jason should be there with homemade biscotti and coffee.  (Due to all the rain, we still have nothing coming out of our garden to sell.)

Wishing you the sweetness of home (there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed with you own pillow!), 

Stephanie

Linking to:

My Romantic Home

Creative HomeAcre Blog Hop

How Does Your Flower Garden Grow?

 2013 Frugal Flower Gardening

My largest flower bed: approximately 3 feet wide by 25 feet long

So, I am having my annual battle with my front garden beds.

When we bought our house six years this past May we left the flower beds as they were.  The previous owners had some invasive green vine ground covering plant that grew in all four beds. (In hindsight they weren't gardeners and the vine thing kept out all other weeds-therefore the flower beds looked "good" from the road.  Plus there was little gardening maintenance that had to be done.) Since we spent the rest of the summer travelling/frantically moving stuff out of our old house we left the beds alone.  The next summer we were busy opening our business and I was 7-9 months pregnant with Katie-thus nothing happened with the flower beds.  Then for the past 3 summers I have been fighting the vine thing, weeds, poison ivy, thick shade from our giant maple trees, dogs and chickens to get some real flowers/plants in our flower beds all while being pregnant/nursing babies and my previous health issues.  Needless to say, the sad state of my flower beds is always a personal thorn in my side since I LOVE  flower gardening.

Of course this year our budget is even more limited than normal since we now have two kids with monthly orthodontist brace appointments/payments to be made.  I lucked out when I saw a friend post on facebook that she had FREE landscaping rock for anyone who was willing to haul it off.  (She had changed the rock over to mulch in her garden.)  Jason, the one man calvary unit, made two trips with his truck to bring it all home.

So, last August before my surgery I had managed to lay down leftover black plastic that was used when Jason's mom's double wide house had been moved in across the road.  While I know that black plastic can trap the water and lead to more mosquitoes the idea is to use what I already have as much as possible.  Thus we are leaving the plastic down to help keep the weeds out.  Then we will cover it with the landscaping rock.  Finally, we will try to poke holes in the plastic to help the water drain through.

I started putting the rocks down where I still had existing plants-in the case of this flower bed-only the center plants have survived.  I managed to buy 2 blue hydrangeas flower bushes at our local Aldi's for just $8.99 a plant to replace the two plants that I had planted last year that didn't survive.  (They were end of the year clearance plants that I planted just before my surgery.  They didn't have any follow-up care by the extended family-understandably....Jason and the kiddos were busy taking care of me and the babies while trying to homeschool.)  The two plants in front are both types of daffodils that voluntarily grew there by themselves.  At this point in the landscaping I had already used two bags of rocks for this 3 feet by 3 feet space.

 So, my goal is to slowly keep plugging away at just this flower bed.  The long green strip you see in front is one of those "roll out the mat and water the wild flower seeds" kits.  My sister had some of these last summer and I saw these two boxes on clearance last August.  Since I am trying to use what I had I thought I would try these out-of course the chickens have already attacked the mat. We'll see if any of these flowers actually germinate.  Unfortunately the seeds have been treated to be just annuals, but hopefully these will work until next year when I can plant some perennials.  The perspective of the above picture isn't the best, but we used two of those boxes so we have 20 feet of flower mat laid down in the front right and center of the flower bed.

In other farm news we are happy to be selling at our first farmer's market tomorrow!  The new market is located in Hopedale, Ohio in the local fire station's parking lot from 9am-12pm.  Unfortunately, we won't have any produce tomorrow since our kiddos are in a home school adaptation play of "The Taming of the Shrew"tonight, but we will have home made biscotti plus some crocheted cast iron handle pot holders by Jason's mom Debbie.

We do have the following growing in our garden for sale later this summer:

Peas growing up through plastic fencing to help hold them off the ground.

Jason's attempt at "survival gardening" using tree branches to tie his tomoto plants to instead of wire cages or sticks.

I know that Jason has way more planted than that, but you'll have to wait for weekly market updates.  My goal is to post every Friday what we will be bringing to Saturday's market.

Here's a picture of the volunteer daffodil growing off our back deck-doesn't that first bloom and the promise of more just bring a smile to your face?

These are my bright spot....I need to put more mulch over the plastic I laid down last summer, but I love my barrels.  Jason got them as an anniversary present three years ago.  This year we have a perennial ground cover plant (name unknown)-it's the bright yellow you see in the right barrel and extending over the side of the left barrel.  I just picked up some geraniums and begonias to add some color.  The two hostas plants in front have managed to survive all the "flower garden death" for the past six years.  I divided these plants from our the hostas plants at our old house and they make me so happy.  They help remind me to keep "plugging along" when I start to get down about the state of my garden.  Slow and steady will eventually win the gardening race:)

Wishing you a blessed summer solstice:)!

From the Sweetness of our flower garden to yours: Happy Gardening!

Always,

Stephanie

 Linking to:

My Romantic Home
The Creative HomeAcre Blog Hop