Buttercups

If the lawn doesn't get mowed
There are tons of buttercups

Frugality

I noticed on the Yahoo home page today that there's yet another article about frugality. It's sooo trendy now. Of course they always have a way of making frugality look bizarre. A few months ago there was an article about a 50 year old single woman who raided the dumpster at a local bakery for bread. (I hope it was wrapped!) Today it was a woman saving bagel crumbs who dresses her kids in "hand-me-downs". Oh My! They made her sound like she was scraping the bottom of the frugality barrel.
I save bread crumbs. How could I not? I make homemade bread and I have tons of them and I dress my kids in hand-me-downs. But they always look nice and their clothes are clean and mended. They don't look worn out. (I'd never dress my kids in rags anyway - I need them for frugal crafts) I don't know exactly how you afford to buy clothes if you don't buy at least some of them used. Seriously, the difference in price is incredible and the quality is usually better than the clearance racks. (I shop these, too.)
Frugality in the popular media is portrayed as an unfortunate state of suffering and weirdness. But I think just the opposite. I think it's an improvement in quality of life. Cooking from scratch, buying higher quality used clothing, making your kids walk to school, baking bread and making homemade soup and jam, and using cloth napkins enhance life.
One day about ten years ago (when we were in one of our many economic downturns) my oldest son came home from high school and told me that he was bragging at lunch about his totally homemade sandwich. The bread was homemade, the peanut butter was homemade (I had bought peanuts in bulk and ground them up) and the jam was homemade. His buddies were in awe. I'll defy anyone to find a better tasting peanut butter sandwich anywhere. But it's more than that, something homemade says you care. Can't put a price tag on that.

If Only I Had Time

I think I could have a pretty good blog if I could find the time. But right now I am looking at 4 large overflowing hampers of laundry and 6 baskets of clean laundry that needs to be put away. I had 2 very hectic days and I haven't even started my broccoli yet. (gotta do that today)



So if you are looking at my blog - come back in a month or two. I might have a few entries by then. I have a lot of experience living on the edge of frugality and I have a lot of thoughts on family life and openness to children and I would love to share them. But my resolution for Lent was to try to make life as ordered and peaceful as I can for my family. HUH? I guess that means catching up with the laundry. I will tell you a couple of tips before I go though. First, if you have one of those days when you find there's not a clean sock anywhere and you are trying to recover, have all your kids and your husband figure out what they need to wear the next day - and wash those things first:



then figure out what to have for supper.


Then at least you have the two biggest challenges of housekeeping dealt with. It works for me:)

My Frugal Hack Idea for Parsley

I use a lot of parsley. It's essential for stew, broth and spaghetti sauce. The secret ingredient in my grandmother's Northern Italian spaghetti sauce recipe is parsley. But I'm getting sick of paying 2.00 a bunch for an herb. Then it occurred to me. Why not buy plants at the grocery store? They cost 3.00 but after I snip the parsley I can keep it growing in the window and plant it in the garden this spring. I am doing the same with chives. When I've cut down the herbs most of the way, I go get a new plant. I have 4 so far. I put them in really cute clay pots that a guy gave me on freecycle.

IT'S GARDEN TIME !

One of the best frugal activities ever invented is gardening. I had a garden when I was a little girl that my Dad made. It had a little fence around it and I grew flowers. Mostly cosmos. One of the first things the Mountain Man did when we bought our first house was to put in a garden. He came from a long line of gardeners. His parents and grandparents always had big gardens but it was mystifying to me. Needless to say he got busy with other things and I took over the garden. He’s much more methodical than I will ever be and often by the middle of the summer it’s growing more weeds than vegetables but still it’s amazing and it’s addictive. I think what really got me hooked was the tomatoes. There’s nothing more delicious than garden tomatoes.

We’re going to expand the garden this year seeing as there is doom on the economic horizon and MM is reading The Farmer Boy to my kids which has inspired him.

I put out a request for manure on freecycle and I found some neighbors who board horses. Yippee! MM loaded up the truck last weekend and the fellow who gave us the manure offer to load up his dump truck and deliver some more. I’m in gardener’s heaven!