We're Alive

We are still here and kicking, just not with much energy. Everyone seems to be recovering, although the two little ones just keep dragging on with parts of the illness. On Wednesday I thought we were really on the uptick, so we went to Mary's piano class. I am so glad we did, as her teacher moved her up to the next level in this class. She was so proud of herself, and rightly so. This fall she has put a lot of effort into her piano practice.

While she was at practice I had to go to the grocery store and spend what little money we had left after Christmas shopping. While just four days before I had shopped for the two weeks, being sick we had depleted our 'sick' supplies and the little ones had used almost all of their two week diaper/wipe supplies in those four days.

One of the exciting things we found at the store is a local source for milk!!! I have not written about it much, but I am still trying to reduce the distance our food travels to our table. I won't ever be a local purist, but every little bit counts. I really thought that milk would be an area I would not have very much control over. I was so happy to find that there are some grocery stores in the area selling milk from a dairy farm in Hillsborough, a small town about 40 miles away. The price is decent; a bit more expensive than the store brand, but cheaper than organic. And, they even come in those old skool glass reusable quart and half-gallon bottles. I bought a quart to see how it stands up, and I will admit there is a slightly better, fresher taste to it.

Unfortunately, our wellness did not last and Thursday morning both Emily and Robbie woke up sick again. Which meant we had to cancel gymnastics for us as I could not find anyone available to drive the two big ones there. We did get our mantle all decorated...
I think it ended up very nice. My MIL stopped by in the afternoon to bring dinner to us and dropped off the angles that she had gotten the girls somewhere. They add very nicely to our lone Christmas display. Last night we enjoyed our first fire of the season in the fireplace.

I think we will have another day at home. No where we need to go and the little ones still seem out of sorts this morning. Our school semester is over as of today. Mary finished both her reader and math book earlier this week. In January she will move up a level for both of those. We will spend the next few weeks just reading books that we have out from the library.

Peace,
Amy

Blueberry Picking

We drove about 30 minutes out into the country for blueberry picking this morning. It was a good little drive and I kind of scoped out properties as it is one of the areas we have talked about moving to in the future. The farm was a great little hippie farm, not big on space and perfect for keeping up with the kids.

The set-up is totally mix-and-match, re-use/recycle in action. Guineas, chickens, roosters and peacocks/peahens wandering around. An above-ground swimming pool right next to the picking area - which my girls thought was a wonderful idea until I told them the pool wasn't part of the deal.
Mary was probably the most excited about going, which lasted about 10 minutes into picking. She gave me her berries and busied herself chasing bugs, entertaining Robbie and whining about how hot it was (it really wasn't being that it was morning and overcast). She redeemed her excitement when the owner told her she could have all the peacock feathers she could find. She spent the last little bit of time picking up feathers.
Emily had a blast. I think she ended up with five blueberries, but ate many more than that. She also found the blackberry bushes nearby and discovered that she likes blackberries as much as blueberries. I had to keep herding her back to the blueberries. She totally has the whole 'Sal' thing from Blueberries For Sal.
Katie had the best time picking berries, even if she doesn't look like it. She didn't want to stop. She is the only one who doesn't eat blueberries, but had a blast picking them.

I ended up with nearly 6 qts for $2.75, plus a box full of peacock feathers for free.

Now, I need to go clean-up the kitchen and decide what is for dinner, since it is after 6pm. DH will be home soon and he will think all I did when we came home was look at different book lists on the computer, read through some boards on the internet and take a nap.

Peace,

Amy

Come on rain!!

Generally the news of a named tropical storm heading in our direction isn't the best news, but here on the first day of hurricane season we have the second named storm of the season. And, yeah, we are in its path! I'm sure most people between central Florida, Southeastern Georgia and into the Carolinas are actually kind of happy about this storm. We are dry and anything that will bring a good soaking rain is something to look forward to.

Of course this weekend I'm supposed to take the girls to the Animal Planet festival. So, we will have to see if they get disappointed or not. We can't go tomorrow, so I am hoping that by Sunday afternoon we might just have a nice comfortable drizzle happening.

Today I finally made it back over to the Farmer's Market - we finally had the stars aligned with having spare cash and free time. The bonus was I had to drive into the city anyway for something else so I didn't use any extra gas to make the trip. The stalls are really starting to fill in. Bushel baskets overflowing with squash, zuchinni, tomatoes, cucumbers, spring onions, freshly dug red potatoes, and many other things.

Before we left to run errands I did good and made out our menu for the next two weeks so that I could have a list to go by, and hopefully, would not get too crazy. I spent $20, to the penny - I like nice round numbers. I got: local wildflower honey (the sample was really tasty), basket of peaches, 3lbs red potatoes (@ $.50/lb), three heads of leaf lettuce, 2 slicing cucumbers and a qt of strawberries the girls just had to have to snack on. We really did not need much. I was so tempted by the squash and zuchinni - but had not made room for them in our menu. I might go back next week for some.

Speaking of groceries, it is a new month. For May my finally tally was $341 for groceries, under our budgeted goal of $350. I didn't make my stretch goal, but I'm okay with that. We still have meat in the freezer to get through much of June.

I've decided to budget $400 for this month, and aim for $300. But, I'm not all pushed to make a stretch goal this month. Our canned goods are fairly low, and with hurricane season here I think I may need to spend a little extra money building up that area of my pantry. I'm hoping for a chance to go to Aldi's next week (maybe childless). The canned goods are not for our daily use through the summer (too many fresh things to eat), but to give us something to fall back on if necessary. We end up using them during the fall and winter.

So far we have spent $89 of our budget for June. The $20 at the Farmer's Market and another $69 at the local Kroger to finish off our shopping list for the payday. I should be able to cook every meal we have planned with what we have here.
Menu 6/3 - 6/15
6/3 - Homemade or Frozen Pizza, salad
6/4 - Spaghetti, salad, homemade french bread
6/5 - Grilled Chicken Quarters, roasted potatoes, peas
6/6 - Broccoli/Ham Quiche
6/7 - Stuffed Shells, salad
6/8 - Sweet & Sour Popcorn Chicken, Rice
6/9 - Hamburgers/Hot Dogs, French Fries
6/10 - Homemade/Frozen Pizza
6/11 - Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans
6/12 - Tacos, refried beans
6/13 - Leftover Meat Skillet Dinner, buttered egg noddles
6/14 - Chicken Spaghetti
6/15 - Grilled Pork Chops

I still need to try to find ways to keep the grocery budget low. I sat down tonight to figure out what we need to save for the remainder of the year and came up with $3500 by Christmas. This includes new tires for the van, birthdays for each child, car insurance (it would sure be nice to be able to pay this in full for a change), christmas, and the biggie: a family vacation to the Outer Banks this fall. DH has plenty of time accrued for us to take a whole week at the beach. We have found a cottage that will take us and our dogs on the beach for $600/week.

A family vacation is a huge thing for us. When MB was almost two we managed to go visit my sister on the west coast for a week, but since then our family trips have been weekend get-aways. The girls will have a blast. We are looking to go in either September or October. It should still be warm enough to swim and be on the beach, but not so hot it is miserable to be on the sand. It also gets us in after the high season, so we can actually afford it.

We have a plan, and have already started squrriling the money away. I plan on trying to sell some baby stuff to make a little extra. We also don't have several school year/lesson expenses for the next three months, so that can be used towards the savings.

I have my goal this summer, and am excited to get busy. Wish us luck.

Peace,

Amy

19lbs of Strawberries

We went strawberry picking this morning and came away with 19 pounds of strawberries. I'm taking little break from cleaning, cutting and bagging them.

Don't they look yummy?

These local, sweet berries cost us $1 per lb. The sour, packaged strawberries in the grocery stores are on sale this week for $2.50 per lb. I took MB and K to help me, and it only took us about 30 minutes to pick this many berries.

We will freeze most of them to eat later in the year, make ice cream, smoothies. Tonight's dessert is probably the best of all: fresh strawberries & whip cream.

Peace,

Amy