Blackberry Jam

My husband's grandma has a giant patch of blackberries in her backyard. Little Abe and I spent a good deal of time in the hot hot heat last Sunday filling a bucket full. Those plants are ferocious! They guard their treasure with swords drawn and ready to stab. You can see little Abe and his papa wearing long sleeves despite the heat as a sort of pathetic guard against the prickers. I refused to put on a long sleeve shirt or jacket and treated the whole endeavor like a game of operation. I was rather successful with the exception of one incident where a branch attacked my left hand and arm. Yowzers!

I haven't ever been a huge fan of blackberries but I couldn't pass up the offer of free berries, a fun adventure, and little Abe getting to spend time with his papa and great grandparents. Our bucket full of fresh berries soon became four jars of blackberry jam. I made the three ingredient kind with no gelatin or pectin. A lemon is used to help the jam gel. RECIPE HERE It turned out a little too lumpy (I couldn't get the berries to break up as much as I would have liked) and I wasn't sure that little Abe would like it very much BUT we've both been vastly enjoying it on toast these past few mornings. I also had a chance to try a second go at canning. Last year canning the green tomato chutney was my first try. I think I'm getting the hang of it. I may actually can some of the tomatoes from the garden this year instead of frantically trying to use them all up as they ripen. The entire adventure turns out to have been a win, win, win. Except for the one pricker attack.

Library Outing

Moving along with the Fourteen February goals. Today we marked off another one.

1. Read 19 books with little Abe. (to get to 500 in our 1000 books before Kindergarten book log)

In June we picked up a book log from our local library so that we could take part in their "1000 Books Before Kindergarten" program. Every time we've read 100 books we bring the book log into the library and little Abe get's to place a gold sticker in the book log. Then the librarian hands him a big bin of books to choose from as a reward for having read 100 books.

This program is really neat. In the first place it's free and in the second place it's fun. (It just so happens that I apparently say "and in second place" a lot. I hear my kiddo starting many a sentence with this phrase) 

We enjoy reading together but logging each book we've read and working towards the goal of reading 1000 books absolutely encourages more reading, at least for us. I also like the fact that the program gets us to the library more often then we were usually going. And a free book for keeps here and there is a neat reward. (you know I like free)

This is his favorite part of going to the library (although, drinking from the drinking fountain took a close second place today). He is always thrilled to stand on the ledge by the windows and look down at the street. The main part of the library is on the second story. He thinks the road is "SO FAR DOWN!" I love how utterly fascinating certain things are to him. I was very tempted to rush him along (and am each time we go) but as usual I took a seat in the cushy chair they have placed right next to the window, smiled to myself at how much my boy was enjoying himself, and kept repeating in my head, "be patient. be patient. just let him be."

Once again, he had to pull all the Star Wars books from the shelf and look through each. We only brought home two but I'm pretty sure we'll read both of them 100 times. (We brought home several other books too, not Star Wars related) This was a very good goal for the month. I really enjoy our little library outings.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

This was our craft yesterday. That's my little Abe : )







He made the spider and cut out the rain drops. Life is SOOOO much fun with this one.

(The video quality is pretty poor but we'll probably made some more of these. This was just such fun!)

Snow Day

All night while most were slumbering round these parts of the globe the snow was coming down in bucket fulls. We woke up to several fresh new layers of the white stuff. I opted out of going to work for the day and we hunkered down. Today was no spend day number six for the year.

But we did venture out of the house for a bit. The wind chill is pretty low and the snow isn't good for packing so we didn't stay out long but my little guy had a blast jumping in and off of piles of it. He made snow angels, found sticks to swing at mounds of snow, and threw plenty of fresh fluffy falling apart "snowballs." (when its this cold the snow does not pack; its like trying to make a "snowball" out of sand)

He was caught putting handfuls of the yummy white fluff in his mouth every few seconds. I haven't the slightest clue how his face didn't freeze off. We walked down our street to the corner and back. I love these mini adventures where my little buddy gets to experience something we don't do every day of the week, finds joy in the tiniest of pleasures, and where the both of us get to create new memories, memories in which we really enjoy each other.

Hot chocolate would have been a very  nice ending to the snowy adventure but since the little guy enjoys eating the snow so very much I thought he'd be pretty impressed with chocolate snow ice cream instead. Into our blender I gathered a big bunch of snow from a clean spot in the yard (beside the house where our dogs and no people ever go). Then I mixed some cocoa powder with hot water and sugar. I cooled the cocoa mixture down with cold milk and poured that into the blender with the snow. It made for some scrumptious (low calorie I might add) "ice cream." I topped Abe's treat with sprinkles because sprinkles make everything a tiny bit more special.

Average daily spending for 2016: $19.94

Benches

My husband has had the past week off from work. He's been really stir crazy. A few days ago he say's," Let's do something."

Little Abe say's, "Let's go to the bouncy place!"

Hubby say's, "No, I mean like go for a walk somewhere."

He decided that we should drive 45 minutes south to a really nice little town on the water (yes, we live in a really nice little town on the water) and go window shopping. Little Abe was convinced that there were going to be amusement park rides or something equivalent. He's delusional.

So we're down there walking past all the little shops, it was a really lovely day, and little Abe popped a squat on the first bench we passed. He totally acted like it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. "WOW, look at this awesome chair! Mom, look, look." My husband and I giggled at him and went along with his glee and delight. We didn't rush him but almost as soon as he'd gotten up he spotted a set of chairs and rushed over to sit in each of them. "This one is my favorite color... oh, look at that color." 

I'm pretty sure he "tried out" every single bench in town. And he ooh'd and ahh'd over each one of them. I thought the whole ordeal was so funny that I started to take photos of him sitting on all of the "cool chairs". We all had a lot of fun, him sitting on all the neat benches and hubby and I watching him try out all the seating down town. He made a few older men laugh as they were sitting on neighboring benches, I imagine waiting for their wives who were in the shops actually shopping. They'd probably never seen anyone so excited about benches. My kid is very dramatic. I don't think anyone believed that he "LOVED" all the benches as much as he was letting on but he was certainly having fun with the game and it was very funny to all who watched.

When he saw the red bench with the flowers (in the last photo) he actually gasped and said something very close to, "Oh mom! It's so lovely! This is the most beautiful chair I have ever seen" before he rushed over and jumped onto it. (He looks less than thrilled in the photo but he was concentrating on drumming with those two sticks when I snapped it) We certainly didn't go to an amusement park like he was hoping but a long afternoon strolling through a quaint little town with very adequate out door seating made for a very amusing time.

This Week's Christmas Craft

I apologize. I am being completely facetious with that title. I've already seen people on facebook complaining about Christmas merchandise being stocked in the stores. I know that there are a great deal of people who get really flustered by the mention of Christmas before Thanksgiving. I am not trying to tease you folks.

The little guy and I did inadvertently end up doing a Christmas craft this week but I promise it was unintentional. And while I personally have never been a fan of seeing Christmas merchandise on the shelves during the beginning of October I feel a little differently about it this year as I have been working on getting my Christmas gifts all planned out since sometime last month.

I wanted to do a craft this week with little Abe. I've done this craft before while I worked in a learning based day care years ago and I really liked it back then. I went upstairs to find my stock pile of tissue paper (which I'm now wondering if I disposed of when I did the basement clean up). All I could find were various types of Christmas tissue paper that I'd saved from gifts I've been given at Christmas. And a few new sheets of red, green, and white as well. "Hmm, I already planned on doing this with him, well, I guess we're just going to have to do it in Christmas colors now."

This is the simplest craft ever. But my little guy did end up struggling with it. First he and I tore some tissue paper into square-ish pieces. I put a little elmer's glue into a dish. I'm talking like 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon little. Then I added probably two tablespoons of water. I really watered it down a lot. I stirred the water and glue up and then we painted one side of the torn tissue paper with the glue water. As soon as the tissue square is covered in glue water you press it to the side of the jar. Once the jar was completely covered I went over the whole jar with a layer of glue water. And done. After it was dry I set a candle in it and we got to see our lovely craft glow. The specks you see on ours are because we had a few sheets of tissue paper with glitter in the paper.

Little Abe was having a difficult time "painting" the squares of tissue with the glue water. His tissue kept tearing and balling up. I think he was just using too much force which is completely understandable for a three year old. I felt badly that he struggled with our fun craft so once the jar was done I randomly pulled an old pizza box off the table (that I'd completely meant to throw out that very morning) and told him that he could paint sticky water all over the box and decorate it with all the torn paper that he'd like. While I personally am not as fond of how visually stunning the pizza box covered in tissue looks compared with the jar holding a lit candle he really enjoyed painting the box, sticking tissue all over it, and then doing it again, and again, and again. The only problem is that now he thinks we're going to be keeping an old pizza box covered in tissue paper. Oops.

Fun on the beach

Yesterday around six o'clock the little guy and I headed to the beach for a Sunday evening stroll. We brought his football and my camera. The two of us spent an hour together walking on the beach, chasing the football, playing in sand, looking at tiny shells and feathers. There was a little bit of seagull chasing and lots of giggling. He insisted on making a "sand castle" in the middle of the beach with dry sand. I didn't have the heart to tell him that his pile of sand wasn't a castle. He was so proud of his sand pile.

We live really close to the beach but we don't head down there super often. There are usually a lot of people there and honestly the beach is not nearly as fun or memorable when it's covered in bodies. Yesterday was perfect! It was an overcast evening with just enough slit in the clouds for a beautiful pre-sunset glow. The cool (but not cold) breeze seemed to be keeping the people away. Or maybe people have just stopped visiting the beach since it's officially autumn now. The waves were small but the sound of them was just loud enough to carry away every stray thought and calm ones mind. The sounds of seagulls calling to each other on the beach (or yelling at each other; seagulls are very feisty birds) and waves breaking on the shore are some of the most calming sounds I've ever known. It was the perfect evening. 

This little dude kept telling me, "this is my best day ever." He's very easily entertained but it was really a perfectly wonderful evening. Truly the both of us are pretty easily pleased. A beautiful sky, the soothing sounds of nature, calm quite fresh air out of doors by the lake, and fun, good quality time spent together; THAT is the most perfect of free fun!

The sky was overcast most of the evening. No one here was able to see the beginning of the eclipse but the clouds broke just in time. Shortly before the moon turned red there wasn't a cloud to be seen. My husband was at work but little Abe and I watched the red eclipsed moon together. Even though he does not understand what he saw it was pretty special.

Another Splendid Saturday

As you all know we picked our watermelon from the garden yesterday. That was certainly a highlight. Before that however we visited a friend of mine. I've never been to her house before, this is the first we've been invited over. I've been wanting to see it for years since she's mentioned how she lives in a log cabin in the woods. She had us over for cake to "celebrate" her having been at work for 40 years. She works in one of the stores I service and although she doesn't consider it any sort of accomplishment to have worked in the store for 40 years little Abe and I were more than happy to share her cake with her.

A morning spent with cake and coffee, with a dear friend in an absolutely gorgeous log cabin in the woods... need I say more? My little guy was on his very best behavior and pulled out some pretty cute conversations and observations. I was so proud. She had some small dog toys that she brought out for him to play with. They belonged to her daughter who is away at college now. You already know how my little Abe LOVES little dog and cat toys. My friend told him that he could bring the dogs home with him if he promised to give them a good home. (a little bit of a toy story 3 moment there) He was thrilled!!! If you hadn't already figured it, yes he played with his new pets ALL day. He didn't even take a nap (that is NOT normal for my child (maybe it had something to do with cake in the morning)).

We decided in the evening that we ought to make a card for her to say thank-you for these special new puppies and for a lovely morning. My goodness three year olds are fun. I drew a few quick sketches of his new dogs and he colored them in (sort of (coloring is not his favorite thing)). Then he cut each doggie out and glued it onto the card. He told me what to write inside which I get a kick out of because I write it exactly as he says and reading it back is always super cute. We'll put it in the mailbox tomorrow. I wish every single day could be Saturday. No matter how frustrating a week might be the two of us always seem to find a lot of special fun and happiness on Saturday.

Spending rundown yesterday and Friday: $2.59 on a new toothbrush for little Abe. $35.33 for groceries, the bare essentials really. $21.96 for another stock up on coffee grounds, which are groceries but I wanted to note that I bought four packages of coffee grounds. Each bag was $1.50 off. With four bags that's a $6 saving on coffee. Running out and buying coffee that's not on sale is my norm so I will continue to stock up when a decent sale hits.

My budget for the month is $513.62 which leaves $263.41

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.05

Another Installment of Free Fun

This has been a VERY busy week. I worked longer days than normal every day this week. Compared to the average joe that isn't long but it was hard work and that combined with a little extra stress really wiped me out. Wednesday morning I went into work four hours early so that I could go to an amusement park that same afternoon with my family. Friday right after work my little guy had horse riding lessons. He napped right after that and then we went to my mom and sisters house to visit with my aunt that I haven't seen in ten years. It's over an hour round trip to drive to my mom's. My husband's band had a concert this afternoon (during naptime of course) so that was fun but equally exhausting (plus my little buddy got his very first bee sting right before the concert).

Thursday is my longest day at work. Even though I am a part time employee and try to keep myself at a four hour work day, I work double stores on Thursday. I can be gone for close to nine or ten hours with commute. The family and I have done lots of fun stuff this week (and last, and the week before that) but I have really been feeling burnt out in the evenings and I hardly want to get my kid ready for bed let alone play with him and take him outside to run around in the yard and so forth. Yeah, we're doing lots of extra stuff throughout the week but at the same time I don't like our evenings to suffer because I'm so tired. (and yes my house is trashed)

Thursday I was spent but my little buddy convinced me to take him out back. I told him, "yes we can go outside but I am going to sit in my chair with my feet up. Got it? I am NOT going to play out there." Of course he was totally fine with that plan, yep, totally...

We got outside and I sat in the almost 20 year old camping chair I keep out back and propped my feet up on an old milk crate. I strategically sat in the shade as it was a bright sunny warm evening but there was a fabulous breeze. Ah, relaxation after a long work day! Thee best. All of the sudden little Abe takes a big handful of lush long green grass, yells "grass fight" and throws it at me. He's never done that before and it was really silly. I was as dramatic as could be and he laughed hysterically. Of course when you make any child laugh they're going to instantly repeat whatever action brought forth the laughter. Thus commenced a 15 to 20 minute long grass fight. I mostly stayed seated in my chair in the lovely shade but we both grabbed small clumps of the lawn behind our house and tossed them at each other, dramatically being affected by each bombardment. I am endlessly amazed at how much fun a little one can create in the simplest of places.

Somehow the 15 to 20 minute "grass fight" became mobile and we started chasing each other with our ammunition. He'd run after me. I'd run after him. We'd run at each other, crash, and fall to the ground (ouch, the grass in the sunniest part of the back yard is dry, brittle, and scratchy). Me being in the pathetically tired state I was, many a time stayed laying on the ground for a bit too long. Unfortunately too long of a rest resulted in a 34 pound three year old running across the yard and leaping on top of me. This is something I've learned to handle rather well as my child has made an art out of jumping on his parents but catching such a surprise is quite the work out! The grass fight ended up concluding over an hour later. Lesson learned: there is no such thing as sitting in my chair with my feet up. But there is certainly such a thing as free fun. An hour long grass fight with your best little buddy; I'm not sure you can get more free than that.

Spending rundown today: $0. NO SPEND day 60 for the year.

My budget for the month is $436 which leaves $211.78

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.26

Free Fun

Every once in awhile I like to post about some sort of free fun we've found. I have no super creative fun tips for this post but boy oh boy did the little dude and I enjoy a weekend filled with free fun.

Friday evening we spent several hours in our backyard playing with the neighbor girl who's the same age as little Abe. After the two of them played together quite well for a very long time they decided that it would be a grand idea to start spraying me with water from these super neat squirt-ers that he got from the dollar store for a big helper reward. The things hold a good deal of water and pack a punch. Then I thought it'd be a grand idea to turn on the garden hose and start spraying the two of them. (I got permission from her dad) We spent the longest time spraying each other back and forth. They would run away screaming and then "sneak" back and attack me (I don't think it's possible for three year old to sneak). Needless to say we three ended the day thoroughly soaked to the bone, exhausted, and very satisfied with our evening of fun in the sun and water.

Saturday morning after a great nights sleep little Abe heard the neighbor girl outside again. She's only here on the weekends so he begged to head back out there to play again. They spent several hours playing together in the sun at his water table (and transferring water from his table to a bald spot in the backyard where they made a very impressive mud puddle). I spent the morning, close to three hours, sitting in a lawn chair and watching the two cuties playing together. I LOVE watching my son play with other kiddos. There's something that just amazes me about the interactions. At one point he told her that he loved her. I giggled and she just batted her eyes and said, "awe." He was thrilled with the "awe" and I had to laugh some more.

Saturday evening after his nap I called a friend to see if she had food processor I could use for the carrot pesto. My blender wasn't cutting it. She invited us over to use the food processor and we made plans to walk our kiddos to the playground. Pesto made and boys drumming session marked off we headed to the playground so the boys could play together. We ended the day again exhausted and very satisfied with our many wonderful interactions.

Sunday morning I asked my husband if he would go for a walk with me and our son. He FINALLY said yes. (I've been asking him almost every day for a week) Then he called his sister and his mom and invited them along. We left the house at 11:30, walked down to lake Michigan, strolled down the boardwalk and made it to the end of the pier before half of our group (his sister, mom, and nephew) realized they were beyond tired. At that point my mother in law offered to buy us all frozen yogurt I think in an attempt to encourage herself and the nine year old to make it back up the boardwalk. We stopped for frozen yogurt, her treat (although the bill was huge so we told her we'd pay her back our portion come Thursday), when we got back downtown.

It was a great walk! Good exercise. Pretty fun time with my hubby's family. An absolutely beautiful day! And my kid enjoyed every single minute of it. Despite the adults having sweat out almost every ounce of liquid in their bodies somebody (my husband) promised the kids they could go to the playground so once we finally made it back to the house my sister in law and I had to stop at the playground (only a few houses away from us) to let the kids play. We got back to the house at 3:30. We went for a four hour walk with only a frozen yogurt stop and a tiny stint at the playground. WOW!!!! To be honest, my husband and I usually do the same route in ninety minutes. It's amazing how much slower you walk when you've a hobbling mom in law in tow. I hope she's okay...

To sum it all up I spent $1.50 this weekend on a box of rice and a head of garlic so I could make the pesto. This weekend was jam packed with totally free fun, wonderful moments with friends and family, laughter, and LOTS of sunshine. It was the epitome of summer.

Trip to the Library

My little buddy and I have read 100 books in the past 20 days. That means we were able to go to the library for him to get his "100 books read" sticker and a prize as a part of the "1000 books before kindergarten" program. I accidentally referred to the reward that goes along with the sticker as a treat. So when the librarian handed us a box of books that he was able to choose from for his reward he wanted to know when he would be getting his "treat" too. He was pretty adamant about that treat which according to him is specifically something delicious and not necessarily a neat reward.

We checked out a handful of new books for us to read together and I actually took a few extra minutes to find a few books for myself. I can honestly say that reading is one of the many things I now neglect upon having a child/ being a mom and I swore I would never stop reading (and other things) once I had children. I'm pretty happy to have a few new books in the house now.

One of the books I picked up is a title that a very dear friend has been suggesting I read for awhile now. I'm a few chapters in and although it's a book I would never be drawn to myself I'm really quite enjoying it. The one line I've jotted down thus far though is:

Completely true! Made me laugh and I seldom think about food this way. Oh yeah, the book is "The Body Book: The law of hunger, the science of strength, and other ways to love your amazing body" by Cameron Diaz. Yes, Pieliekamais I'm finally reading it :))))

For the kiddo we checked out several books about being brave. He's working on memorizing the Bible verse this week (let's see if I can do this without looking it up), Joshua 1:9 Be strong and brave. Do not be afraid, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (yep, I did it) We're going to do a few crafts surrounding bravery this week and so we've checked out a few books about bravery too. The one I like the most is Sheila Rae, the Brave. He was thoroughly intrigued through the whole book and when we finished reading it he said that he "really liked that one," with the little excited tremble that he's known to do when he's overflowing with happy. He also had an opportunity to do a bravery challenge at the library. I told him that he did not need to talk to the librarian if he did not want to but that it would be very brave if he stood beside me and did not hide behind mommy's back. He tackled the feat with absolute courage and did not hide behind me at all. He even handed his own books to the other librarian when we checked out. Progress is progress :)

After the library outing I took him to Tim Hortons to get a treat (a donut and milk). I had my treat at the library though. There was a birds nest in the parking garage and a momma robin was sitting on her egg(s). I noticed the empty nest last time we were there and I took little Abe over to look at it. But this time he spotted it and pointed out that there was a bird in it now. We watched the momma sitting there for a little while. Nature is so incredible! He says to me, "can you say good spying?" (He tells me what to say, A LOT). I congratulated him for noticing the momma in the nest. That is the kind of thing that is truly a treat for me.

When we got home from our adventure we decided upon some good outdoor time before reading our books. So we started putting together and painting a box house. He was less interested by it than I thought he'd be but that's probably because I chose to do the activity after a morning of running around. I'll see if he's into it after nap time. FYI, I drive a VERY small car. How I got that thing home from work... I don't even really know. It was a bit like Mary Poppins magical bag if you ask me!

Sorry for the long and random post. I haven't been posting much lately and I just wanted to take a moment in between reading and my kiddo napping to drop a hello. So, hi everyone! I hope you're all enjoying this fabulous summer. I'm trying to stay a little ways away from the computer and spend lots of time out of doors. So far so good! I have not tallied or added up the spending for, gee, at least a week and I'm afraid I might have lost a few days due to my negligence. I'll get at it soon though! I promise-ish 

Free Fun. Installment number... eh, who knows.

For full disclosures sake I am in the worst shape of my life. Well, except for maybe middle school. I was horribly out of shape in middle school. The other day little Abe told me that he wanted to go to the beach and walk around in the sand with no shoes. Today I decided to fulfill his wish.

We headed to the beach with a cheap mini football (I think we got it from the dollar store) and our two selves. First we took a good long walk up and down the shore. We looked at little rocks and bits of shells, and sadly a lot of junk. The beach is still wintered so there were neat hills, mini sand dunes if I may, up and down the length of it. They were fun to climb and push sand down. There was also a smallish bulldozer flattening out the beach and getting rid of the mini sand dunes. If nothing else it was kind of fun to watch. But as well, along the half of the beach it had finished flattening their were huge bulldzoer wheel indents and triangle shaped hills of sand with peaks that were really fun for little Abe to hop over.

After our long hoppity walk along the sand we started throwing the football to each other which very quickly evolved into one of us throwing the football off in the distance and then the both of us frantically chasing it, tumbling down on top of each other when we reached it, getting sand stuck to every place one can get sand stuck to along one's body, and then laughing hysterically. We played this very silly game for close to an hour (maybe longer). I don't know that we've ever had so much fun. I don't know that I'm going to be able to walk tomorrow (my legs feel like jello). My kid is going to sleep fabulously tonight! It was completely free fun, completely effective exercise for this very out of shape momma, and such incredible bonding time too.

Free fun: head outside and enjoy each other!

One funny bit: we were sitting in the sand together. He was trying to make a sand castle. I had my feet under the sand. Um, pretty normal for sitting on a huge sandy beach. He accidentally grabbed my big toe, started to say, "what is this rock..." and then when I moved my toe he almost peed himself, jumped with a terrible fright and then started laughing uncontrollably as he very quickly realized it was my foot. Through his laughter, almost accompanied by happy silly tears he said, "I thought it was a snake." And then just kept laughing and laughing. I think all the other folks enjoying a quite evening on the beach (not a lot of people being only the first day of May) thought we had lost our minds.

Yellow Apple Basket Flowers

Sustainability folks and homesteaders alike seek to re-use things, find new uses for things, and get as much use out of something as possible. I'm just an increasingly more and more frugal gal but when I look up "homesteading" on pinterest I'll tell you that something inside of my heart starts to sing! I did so yesterday for practically an hour while my little guy was napping and it was a gloriously wonderful hour that planted hundreds of seeds in my mind. I'm actually looking forward to gardening and being outdoors considerably more than I already was and I found some ingenious ideas for gardening outside of the confines of our yard that my hubby is not very supportive of me digging up for a gloriously big veggie garden.

Today's project involved that pile of yard waste I posted about a little while back, an old rotty apple basket that I found in my basement during my recent basement clean up and some VERY invasive scraps of yellow perennials that were given to me many years back by my Grandmother.

My Grandmother was a wonderful gardener who had English garden type perennial beds surrounding her home. When my husband and I were first married she gladly split a great deal of her perennials and helped me plant a beautiful bed in my yard. I planted daisies, hostas, lavender, coreopsis, and several other plants with her from her garden. One of the plants she gave me was a very lovely yellow flower, Lance-leaf Coreopsis. That particular plant took over my bed, choked out my other flowers and just spread like wildfire. It's really beautiful but I got pretty mad at it the year before last for eating up all my other flowers and just started pulling it out everywhere I could find its remnants. I also found that it was super hardy, as I threw some scraps into a bucket and they took root in the other yard scraps I had in the bucket and bloomed for the whole rest of the year.

Today I have pulled up most of the remaining coreopsis plants (that have survived despite my having tried to eradicate them two years back) and placed them into this apple basket from my basement. I actually put three plastic jugs into the bottom of this basket as it's HUGE and I did not have enough scrap dirt in my driveway to fill it, plus I wouldn't have been able to carry it full of dirt. The dirt is not the best quality but I did manage to get most of the leaves, grass, and roots out by hand. I'm hoping the lovely yellow super invasive flowers from my Grandmother will bloom in the basket. I really think they will as they are hardy as all get out. And I think it will be a beautiful addition to my front bed at ZERO cost to me. I like the rustic look of the basket too. If the experiment fails I have only spent a small amount of time putting this basket together and will have lost nothing. This is my kind of homesteading beautification.

Now you must try and imagine these flowers in that old apple basket in front of my house. Of course I will post a photo later on this year if this experiment ends in success.

Worms

Yesterday: Kites.

Today: Playing in the backyard with worms! He found at least five of them.
(While I spent an hour picking up dog dirt... about which I'm not complaining. I'm so happy to be able to be outside!!! ) Have I mentioned how happy I am that spring is here!?!?!?!

Bonus: Last night the little guy got to use his new big helper reward. He spent a half hour cutting a Menards ad to shreds. I spent a half hour holding the ad for him to cut. I can't even begin to tell you how much he enjoyed this activity. My husband thought I was crazy letting our 3 year old just aimlessly cut up a bunch of paper. But it was a great exercise that he highly enjoyed. I was really impressed with how well he held the scissors and kind of fascinated with how he switched the scissors back and forth between hands. I'm now wondering if he's ambidextrous. I have noticed that he holds his fork with either hand as well... sorry, I'm starting to ramble now.

Today should be no spend day 27 for the year. I don't see any reason I shouldn't accomplish this. So, I'm reporting my numbers now, even though it's still just before noon.

Average daily spending for 2015: $17.49

$185.93 left to spend in March

The first HOT day of 2015

It's 36F/ 2C here today! Woohoo! Happy dance! Spring is here! (maybe getting my hopes up a bit too much) Anyway, we spent about TWO HOURS out of doors today. It was heavenly! We built a snow fort. Painted it green with jugs filled with water and food coloring. We threw snowballs. We watched birds. We found grass! Honestly seeing grass on the ground was a huge highlight of my day even though I had to un-bury it. And we played in the mounds and mounds of snow while feeling the warm sun shining down on our skin. Ahh. What a wonderful weekend!!!

See that! It's grass : )

Today goes down in the books as NO SPEND day 21 for the year. I've had two pretty great no spend days in a row this weekend. Even though I abhor daylight savings time (we lost an hour last night) today is almost certainly the most beautiful day thus far of 2015. (Oh, and my sister gave me Cadbury eggs yesterday for a late birthday present <big huge smiles>) Happy! Happy! Happy!

Oh, did I forget to mention that little Abe enjoyed an almost 2 hour "snack time" while we played outside today. Snow is just frozen water. What makes it so incredibly tasty? Don't fret, he didn't eat too much dirt  : )   And there was absolutely no yellow snow in the vicinity (that was the very reason we built our snow fort in the front yard as opposed to the much bigger backyard).

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.21

$291.41 left to spend in March

Free Fun - Visit a Local Farm

A local sheep farm hosted an annual event today: Sheep Sheering day. It was a free event that allowed us to see several different animals; cows, sheep, and alpacas. We also, obviously, got to watch the sheep getting sheered and learn a bit about wool. I'd have to say that visiting a local farm is a fabulous "free fun" adventure. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The sheep were very talkative, not the ones getting sheered but the others in the barn. To my surprise listening to the sheep "maa-ing" was my favorite part of the experience. They really don't "baa." They actually sounded a lot like cows, with extremely forceful vocalizations that I really couldn't get enough of. I love the way sheep talk! It was such fun listening to the boys making sheep noises too.

Many of the sheep were pregnant. A few of the sheep had just delivered and had little new born lambs with them. And there were a bunch of "spring" lambs as well. 

Probably the most exciting and terrifying part of the adventure was when the man finished sheering a sheep he let it hop off the platform and run all the way to the back of the barn before it was corralled. Wow, a freshly sheered sheep running right past you through the barn you're standing in... adrenaline rush much?

They had a few local artisan's there showing how to spin wool into thread. The boys got to touch the wool that had just come off a sheep. It was so thick and soft and, well, awesome!

That's a huge bag of freshly sheered wool behind them.

Well, today goes down in the books as no spend day 20 for the year. I REALLY wanted to buy a pair of $35 handmade wool socks at the farm. They were beautifully colored; how I imagine Joseph's coat of many colors must have looked. They were made from the very sheep wool we were watching being sheered (not that they were made right while we were standing there but the wool was from those sheep at that farm). I mean, how cool is that? And my feet are virtually always cold. But $35. Maybe I'll save up for them. Not today.

This field trip exceeded my expectations. The boys had a great new experience. My friend and I really enjoyed ourselves with them. I learned a few things. I dare say little Abe learned a bit more than me. And I did not spend any money : ) Yes, that's always a highlight for me.

Average daily spending for 2015: $18.21

$291.41 left to spend in March