Sunday Ramblings

This year's tomato seeds are well on their way. I have these little guys set on the kitchen window sill behind the sink. Same as last year. It's official that one of my greatest joys during the spring season is watching the little sprouts on the kitchen window sill lean toward the sun and get bigger and bigger each day. I love seeing the start of new life, new fruit, new growth in it's very beginning stages just sitting there in the sunshine each time I need to use the sink for anything. For me this is pure joy.

(for the record, seeds grow really well in egg cartons and old strawberry containers. (I poke a hole in the bottom of each egg holder))

Speaking of little sprouts, I used some dollar store construction paper to cut out letters and rectangles. My little sprout glued each letter in place. He may have adhered a few hanging off edges and he might have glued down one of the 'P's backwards. It made the "Happy B-day Daddy" sign all the more personal. I wasn't expecting Abe to glue all the letters down. I thought he'd lose concentration after the first six or so. Nope, he did every single one all on his own. I'm not sure how much my husband loved it but we're quite proud of ourselves and our efforts and for that I'm giving us a pat on the back and two gold stars. It turned out really cool. (I love being frugal)

Frugal Tip

Check the Dollar Store first!

We have two oven mitts. One has a burnt spot right where your fingers grab so I've been having to try and hold that one oddly in order to grab cookie sheets from the oven without getting burnt fingers. The other has the insulation inside the mitt stripped right where your fingers grab. Same scenario really. We haven't been in desperate need of a new oven mitt because I can use towels to grab pans from the oven or hold a towel in the mitt but I have been wanting a new mitt.

I truly do not buy much stuff and I use re-purposed socks as dish rags. We only got our portable dishwasher about two years ago as my Christmas gift from my MIL. Before that we never had a dishwasher and I usually didn't have a dish brush either. Yes, I'm a minimalist. Since having the dishwasher I've noticed that I really don't do a good enough job scraping all the little specks of food from the dirty dishes so that slowly a nice grainy mess had accumulated in the bottom of the dishwasher. I'm sure you're all glad to know that about my life now. I cleaned the mess out but also realized I needed to do a better job of washing the dishes before putting them in the washer. I'm sorry but does anyone else think its crazy that most dishwashers require relatively clean dishes? I came to the conclusion that a dish brush that I can quickly wipe away food residue, crumbs, and ketchup (oh the mounds of ketchup that my guys leave on all of their plates...) would be the best plan of action.

I have been pricing oven mitts and dish brushes for awhile now. The oven mitts I've seen have ranged from $5 to $7 to $11. I couldn't bring myself to spend that on something that isn't really a necessity. The cheapest dish brush I saw $3.49 and they just go up in price from there. A few days ago little Abe and I stopped at the dollar store so that he could pick out a toy. We happened to walk past the dish brushes and I gasped. Every single time I go to the dollar store I find something that I've been putting off purchasing and every single time I'm surprised to see this thing at the dollar store. We saw the oven mitts a short while later. I let little Abe pick the color mitt we should get and I'm very happy with the good quality of it. Some things at the dollar store are such cheap quality that they aren't worth saving the money on but many many of the things there aren't as nice as their counterparts in regular stores but just as effective at their task. It's a tiny bit pathetic but it feels like Christmas to me that I've just acquired two new very useful items that I've been wanting and putting off getting. It's like a gift.

If I would have spent $3.49 on a dish brush and $5 on an oven mitt that's $9 with tax. I spent $2.12 at the dollar store instead and spent $6.88 less. Hip Hip Hooray! Frugal tip for today: Check the Dollar Store first.