Can You Tell...?

..we have some hillbilly ingenuity in us?

Either that or I watched Goonies a lot as a kid?

The pool is set up and now comes the task of procuring more than 6,000 gallons of water to fill it!

It's supposed to rain all day, so we wanted to try and capture some of that rainwater and divert it into the pool.

See? Ladders propping up old gutters left behind in the pole barn.

Some old t-bars weighing down the first gutter, delicately sitting on the frame of the barn, with the sledge hammer actually keeping it from sliding! The gutter sits on top of the greenhouse and the t-bars keep it from sliding off.

That's hillbilly gravity-defying skill at it's best!

Water from the first gutter drips into the second gutter which is sitting atop a log and broken cinder block set into the first rung of the ladder.

 Water flows into the third gutter sitting on another ladder, finally dripping into the pool.

Not a bad set up. Looks crazy, but every drop helps to fill up the pool!

(pardon the mess. pretend you don't see anything but the pool and the hillbilly gutters! thank you.)

We are going to rig up a better gutter system around the pole barn so that all the water will flow into rain barrels, which will then be used for topping off the pool and watering the garden. We were pleased to see there were plenty of old gutters left in the rafters of the pole barn, much more than we originally thought. Looking forward to coming up with a rainwater-catching system using what we have!

*edited to add:

The hillbilly gutters added over 400 gallons of water to the pool! Obviously not enough to fill the pool, but 400 gallons!!  Whoa! 

We had the pool water guy come out and fill it; one trip = 2,000 gallons.

3 trips total for 6,000 gallons and he couldn't even put in the last bit because the gutter system added so much water-- way more than we ever expected!

We are now using the water collected in the rain barrels for topping off the pool and it's all working out great! Not once, have we needed to use the hose!

 

Hand-Me-Downs

It's almost that time of year again, when I take things to the children's consignment shop to sell. Friends recently gave us some clothing from their children, so it was time to sort through all the boxes to see what fit, what to pass down from one child to another, save for later, and finally, decide which to donate, use for rags, or sell.

This was an all day job! First I sorted through the boxes and separated by gender, then by size. Working with the girl clothes first, I had Evelyn pull everything out of her drawers and we took out all the too-small clothing, and then let her pick what she wanted from the pile of clothes in her size.  10 short-sleeves, 10 long-sleeves, 10 shorts/skirts, 10 pants/jeans. Repeat two more times for Gretchen, then Sylvia.

Clothing that Sylvia no longer wears is an easy decision-- most of those will go to be sold or donated. Clothes too small for Gretchen or Evelyn will be saved for the next year or two, until they are too small for even Sylvia to wear. I have quite the pile of clothes that are in good condition to sell, and some that I know won't pass the consignment's store inspection, but still have lots of good wear left in them, they'll be donated.  Clothes with holes and bad stains will be turned into rags. There are some bright colors-- I'm thinking of a rainbow rag rug with some of those...

Well, how about that? I actually followed through on my idea and started a rainbow rag rug!! I may do a double rainbow, since this isn't very big and I've only 2 more colors to do-- blue and purple. Using kid-sized clothes presents a challenge, since as it gets bigger, I won't be able to take the color all the way around. See the yellow? I barely made it one and a half times around. It's looking really nice, though-- the colors are kind of muted in the picture, it's much brighter in real life.

I didn't finish going through all the boy clothes yet. I hope to finish that this week.

 Another advantage of sorting the clothes is finding out what we need or are short-handed on.  It's nice to see that I won't have to buy any clothing for at least a year or two, except for shoes. We're well stocked on pretty much all articles of clothing, which is a nice feeling when one's husband is out of work and money is tight.

 We are so blessed to have such good friends that think of us, and lucky in that we don't mind hand-me-downs. We've always practiced what we preached to the kids, about buying used at the thrift stores or yard sales, saving money, and making do or do without. I'm glad to see that the kids are happy with what they have and no gumbling about it being "old" or belonging to some other kid. Thanks for thinking of us!

<3

Endless Possibilities

A friend of Andrew's told us that there was a place not too far from us that sold used metal barrels in good condition for cheap. When he told us how much, I thought he was kidding. Turns out, he wasn't.

We knew of the place, in fact, we'd been there before. It's a digger's heaven! They sell everything from marked-down food, yard sale items, those cheap-o tools you find at flea markets, furniture from salvation army with the sale tags still on-- the price crossed off and an even cheaper price written in, and boxes of stuff outside, under a roof that you are free to dig into and get your hands dirty. Beware, though, we found out the hard way, there is only a port-o-potty and no place to wash your hands, so better bring wipes with you!

Anyway, he told us they sold barrels for $7.50 each. Really? No, really??? I envisioned rusty, dirty barrels with films of grease or oil, all dented and banged up. I imagined I'd be half inside scraping out stuck-on bits of black tar and trying to figure out where to dump the chemicals. These barrels were nothing like that. They were clean, in good shape with minimal dings, and once contained fruit juice concentrates. Labels still on them ranged from lemon, lime and apple concentrates. Food grade metal barrels with lids and bands for $7.50? And clean?? What a bargain! We paid and then walked across the street and picked out 4.

We are giddy with excitement at all the possibilities these barrels give us. There's so much we can do with them! We picked these green ones because they are creamy white inside and easier to see if they are dirty and if we decide to use these for food storage, we can see better if there are bugs or rodents in them. The lady we bought them from said she uses them for rain barrels, but I'm kind of hesitant to use metal barrels as rain barrels. We do have a plastic barrel that we plan to use as a rain barrel and sure would be nice to have a 2nd rain barrel but not metal.

I want to go to the local grain mill and see if they will make a custom chicken feed for me and usually to do that, most mills need to make it in batches of 500 pounds or higher. These barrels would be perfect to store all the chicken feed in and that would mean no more almost weekly trips to the farm store for chicken feed.

They would also make good dry food storage barrels for surplus bags of flour, sugar, or rice. Keeping them in the basement in a dry, cool area and we'd have plenty of food to last awhile if the sh!t ever hits the fan.

With some of the less-than-perfect barrels, they could be used in the pole barn for holding farm tools or as garbage cans. They're better than those cheap-o plastic garbage bins. Bigger and sturdier and no worries about cats or other animals getting into them. You could even cut into one and turn it into an outdoor wood stove.

We're already planning to go and get a few more-- we want to replace our cheap-o plastic trash cans and I'm thinking I can take one of the sturdier plastic ones and use that for a rain barrel. No sense in tossing a still good trash can, even if it is cheap-o! The trash can-turned-rain barrel can be the one we use for garden water and I can cut out part of the lid and replace it with a screen to keep out debris and mosquito larvae. I'll use the other plastic barrel by the house for watering the herbs and rhubarb patch, also for refilling the water bowls for the cats and chickens.

My mind is just going crazy with all the possibilities of these barrels!! They had 2 colors-- the green with the white interiors or all blue inside and out. To keep them from mixing, I think we'll get blue for trash and pole barn/farm use and save the green ones for food/grain/storage use. The lady at the store said they go fast in the summer and hard to keep in stock, so we'd best go back soon while there were still plenty to choose from and we can afford to be picky.

Any other suggestions on what we can do with these barrels??
-

Gift Idea

Thanks for all the GREAT Birthday comments!

I had a really good birthday, spent the day with my family

and I didn't have to cook or do the dreaded dishes!

:o)

-

My Father-In-Law and I both have birthdays in September, so we had a double birthday party for the two of us a couple weeks ago. When we asked Andrew's Mom what he wanted for his birthday, she said that he'd be happy with his favorite candy-- caramel creams and licorice. I didn't think it was enough, so the kids and I made up a batch of oatmeal-apple cookies to go in the gift bag. But what to put the cookies in? Well the container the oatmeal came in was pretty nifty, and the label peeled right off, which left a nice, white cylinder to play with-- why not? So out came the permanent markers and I got busy decorating it:

To personalize it a bit, Andrew went through his old photos and we copied this one then glued it on the container. It's an old pix of his dad on a ferry and his mom put one of those conversation stickers above the guy next to his dad-- looks like he's not feeling too good. The sticker says, "Don't bother me now!" and then I wrote underneath: I'm tossing my cookies! I've got a sick sense of humor, I know! :o)

Below the picture, I wrote the ingredients: Dash of kisses, Lots of Hugs, Little bit of this, Little bit of that. Calories: Absolutely zero & guilt free!

Good to the last crumb! Yum yum!

What are you looking under here for? Nothing to see- move along!

--

I had fun drawing on this and he got a good laugh out of it when he took it out of the bag. I thought it was a good way to recycle a perfectly nice container and I have saved the other oatmeal containers for future gifts. Christmas is around the corner, so I can use them for the holiday goodies I like to make and give as gifts. Just thought I'd share the idea.

*

Corn Woes

My corn isn't growing so well. I am frustrated about that-- I l.o.v.e. corn. The first year here, they hardly grew past a couple feet tall. Second year, they were growing great and we were just about to harvest the ears when raccoons beat us to it and left very little for us-- maybe a few dozen. Third year, I didn't bother. Last year, I got less than a dozen, and the rest of the corn stayed small. I wasn't going to plant any this year, but I had some seed leftover so I used that up. The corn is iffy-- some of it looks alright, some of it is still puny. I'm ready to throw in the towel on growing corn. Another part of me wants to keep trying, figure out what works and keep at it. Maybe with the chicken poop I'll be cleaning out soon, I can compost that and till it into where I plant the corn next year... I just might give it another try next year. I love corn too much to just give up on it.

Corn at the farm stands around here is pricey-- most sell for $5 a dozen. Ouch! As much as I hate to do it, I get my corn from the big chain stores, they sell for about $3 a dozen or less. We easily eat a dozen for one meal between the 7 of us. I asked around, trying to see if anyone would give me a discount if I ordered a large amount of corn, so that I can put some away for the winter. I'd like to try and not buy any metal canned foods from the store. No one is willing to cut a deal. So when the chain store has their corn on the cob on sale, I am buying a few dozen here and there to freeze and put away for the winter. I feel a little better when I know the chain store I am buying from gets their corn from a farm in Pennsylvania. Not exactly local, but closer to us than Florida or Georgia.

When freezing corn, I recycle the spaghetti jars and use those for the corn kernels. There's a certain brand of sauce that uses mason jars, a little less than one quart size and I buy those when they're on sale. (hopefully I wont have to buy any this winter with all the tomatoes I have about to ripen soon!) I use a mennonite recipe and the corn gets frozen in liquid-- water with salt and sugar added to it. I don't like loose frozen corn kernels, I think they taste tough, but after trying this recipe, the corn tastes as if I just put it in there! Very good and Gretchen, the picky eater prefers this corn over the metal canned ones from the stores.

My Mom gave me an early Christmas gift and bought me my very own pressure canner today! I was lamenting the fact that freezing the corn was taking up precious freezer space and I was going to have to limit it to about 40 jars-- one jar per week until the next corn season. But now, with the pressure canner, I am going to be able to can the corn and keep it in the pantry instead! I have 9 of those less-than-one-quart spaghetti jars in the freezer now, and I'll can the rest, so hopefully I can put away 100 quarts instead of only 40. I look forward to pressure canning my chicken broth and other things I normally freeze and freeing up space for other foods.

First, though, I need to get over my nervousness about using a pressure canner. I have heard enough horror stories about them, so I am a little worried, but I'll be sure to read, read and read again, the instructions on how to use it. I'll be pressure canning my first batch of corn tomorrow, so wish me luck!

Makeover!

A while back, on one of the blogs I like to read, she posted about taking a wooden Ikea end table and turning it into a little kitchen for her kiddies. It was inspiring, really. She took this little table and transformed it into a nifty play area-- cutting out a hole to slip a bowl into for a sink, painting rings for the stove area, a curtain for the front to hold dishes and pots. It's been a while since I read that post, so I can't remember all the details, but it stuck in my head. I'd been on the look-out for a little table like that on my jaunts to the thrift shops and yard sales, but had no luck. Of course, I am specifically looking for something and it is nowhere to be found!

-

We had a plastic kitchen, but it was big and awkward and frankly, I didn't really care for it. It was down in the basement in the playroom and it was more trouble that it was worth. We sold it at a yard sale over the summer and I was glad to see it go, along with all the cheap plastic food bits as well.

In our effort to clean and declutter the house this year, we are moving stuff around, sorting through odds and ends, and downsizing on pieces of furniture.

This, used to house my sewing machine and my fabrics were in the cupboards beneath. It was getting to be an eyesore, plus the kids never left the sewing machine alone, always fiddling with the thread or flipping the switches or yanking on the cord. I was going to move it downstairs and add it to the sell pile, when it hit me-- this could be the kitchen for the kids!!


It's an old dry sink, not an antique. I could never cut up a perfectly good antique, but this is maybe 70's or 80's, made from pine, and has a cheap, fiber-board back. Nothing to cry over if I cut into it. After getting the go-ahead from Andrew, I spent the day yesterday transforming it into a kitchen for the kids.

Ta-dah!

Oh my! The kids LOVE it! They couldn't wait to move in and make it their own!

I knocked off the front part of the dry sink area, cut a hole in the top for a stainless steel bowl I never use for the sink, then painted rings for the stove area. 2 wooden knobs painted red and blue for the water and later, I'll make a faucet from pipes and add that.


Down below, I added thumbtacks on the back of one door for their utensils, and 2 screw hooks on the other door. I'll replace the thumbtacks with screw hooks later, we're afraid the kids may pull it out and Peter might put it in his mouth or someone steps on it. For now, it's pretty secure, so I'll just keep my eye on it.

My very own Vanna!

The kids have played with this non-stop since I finished it and I am so glad for the inspiration from a fellow blogger. How nice to re-purpose something that would have otherwise been taking up space. It's also the kind of toy that I don't mind people seeing, it looks like a piece of furniture and it doesn't stand out like a purple, plastic kitchen would have.

Grandma gave Sylvia and Gretchen some kitchen play things for their birthdays: A wooden and fabric cupcake making set, and a stainless steel pots, pans and utensils set (all from Target). The girls got a Christmas tin tea set from Santa that includes the tray, 4 tea cups, saucers, plates and a tea pot. I saw one on clearance from Walmart exactly like the one we have from Target, but with a circus design instead, and I would have gotten it if we didn't already have this one.

I don't want any more plastic food or plastic dishes. They're cheap and the dog thinks they're chew toys for her. I'll be making felt foods to add to their cupboard. There are lots of food patterns on the internet, so I'll be getting ideas from there. A few ideas: eggs made with white felt and a yellow felt circle in the middle; light tan felt bread slices; red circles for tomatoes; yellow squares for cheese; pink squares or circles for ham and bologna.... oh! the possibilities are endless!!

Maybe this post could inspire you! :o)

_

Buried Treasure!

Buried treasure: old glass bottles, 1951-62 (based on outline lettering from the Clorox bottle)

The thing that's really nice about old glass is that it can survive. It can be a fickle thing, shattering on impact, but sometimes, if it's lucky, it can be tossed into a pile of trash, covered with dirt and then some years later, be discovered and dug up to be used for something else.





After a good soak and washing, these old bottles are as good as new again! They are four-fifth of a liter so I am assuming they were once used for some sort of alcohol. Beer? Liquor?





They are now a vessel for my peach wine, which is quite tasty by the way. I have gone through every single cap in the house to see if any fits, and wouldn't you know? The only one that fits is from another alcoholic beverage bottle! I am using a water bottle cap, which almost fits, and then plastic wrap over it, secured with a rubber band. I have 4 of these filled right now and another 2 gallons of peach wine to divide into smaller bottles.





It's snowing now, and this is just the thing to keep me warm while we play in the snow! :o)





-
By the way, I still have 2 fleece puzzles left and if mailed priority by Monday, they should arrive in time for Christmas, so if you want one, send me an email with "Puzzle" in the header. cattyjenny@aol.com Check a couple posts down for more info.

Buttons!

I love old buttons. Whenever I see a button-filled jar at the flea markets or yard sales, I make a beeline for it. I finger them and mentally pick out the best ones. I have lots of buttons. Pretty ones, glass ones, metal ones, utilitarian ones. I blame my high school sewing teacher for my love of buttons. Never cared or noticed them before, unless I had to button up a shirt.

I was a star sewer in her class. I would finish our appointed projects ahead of schedule, so she let me have individual projects on my own. I picked out a vest pattern I wanted to make, and she let me pick out these beautiful satin-y fabrics for the back and lining, and a lovely rose pattern in rayon for the outside. I wanted something different for the fasteners on the vest, but scanning the racks at the fabric store yielded nothing. Then my sewing teacher broke out her special buttons. It was a lovely tin full of them. She explained the history of a few and I was surprised to learn that some were from civil war uniforms and some had human hair woven into the centers! I never knew that buttons could tell so much about a time period until she showed me her collection.

After I admired her buttons and picked out the ones I liked, you know, you pull aside the pretty or unusual ones and pass by the ones that you don't really care for, she did the unexpected. She let me have them. I picked out 5 I thought were special and put them on my vest. She also had vintage buckles and she let me have one for the buckle in the back of the vest. It was perfect! Just the look I was going for. Sadly, I no longer have the vest, it disappeared when I was traveling and I've not seen it since. I do, however, still have my love of buttons.

So when I saw this idea a while back on someones' blog, I knew I would try it myself. She used hers as pins and I think she even suggested adding magnets for the fridge, but I thought they'd make lovely ornaments for the tree.

Button Flowers!!

Pick out your buttons, arrange them, then glue with Aleene's Glass and Bead glue (I found mine at the craft store).

Middle made that big one from metal buttons.

The kids did the arrangements, I did the gluing. Crack a window or turn on the ceiling fan when you use the glue, it's pretty smelly.

You could use new buttons, they sell bagged ones at the craft store, or use what you have. I admit, I had a teensy bit of an inner struggle with myself when the girls picked out a particularly nice button for their flowers, but I refrained from saying anything. In the end, it makes a pretty flower, right? We used a mix of old and new buttons. When some of my Mom's clothes got ruined in the fire, I snipped off the buttons! Many of these were from Mom's clothing.

After the glue dried (I let it sit overnight), I strung embroidery thread through the button holes to hang on the tree. Some flowers had no exposed holes, so I glued a fuzzy wire twisted into a circle on the back. You could also use a paperclip twisted into a hook, or use an extra ornament hook. I'd like to make more and use them as fridge magnets. These would make such cute gifts! The girls had fun and I have a little more room in my button jars now!! :o)

Make Your Own Baby Pants!

Baby needs pants. I don't have a whole lot of hand-me-downs for him, considering I have 3 girls ahead of him. So unless I want to put him in dresses, I needed to do something about his lack of pants. I am currently making sure that every load I wash, I have one of his 4 pairs of pants in there. This is getting tedious, I don't like having to wash all the time, and he is about to out-grow 2 of the pants.

What to do, what to do?? Then I remembered seeing somewhere in blog-land, someone taking an adult shirt and turning it into shorts for the kiddies (if someone knows which blog that was, please send me the link!). I figured I have enough sewing know-how to do it on my own.

I have this old sweat-jacket that's too small for the husband and it's just taking up space in here-- perfect for little jogging pants for Baby!

Cut the sleeves off at the seam. I am using Baby's jogging pants for sizing. I cut down on one side of each arm about 10 inches from the top. This will be where I sew them together to attach the legs and make a front and back. Pin right sides together all the way from front to back, then sew.
Here it is, all sewn together. I folded about 1 1/2 inches down around the waist and sewed all the way around, leave a seam open for the elastic. Thread elastic through then sew seam closed.

Ta-dah!! Pretty good job, if I may say so!

Fits Baby perfectly! You'd never know these were from old sleeves unless you took a closer look! I am already looking around for more old shirts to make more pants for Baby! I get to recycle stuff we have and keep from spending money on items that Baby won't wear that long anyway! Now he has warm legs and I have money in my wallet-- everybody is happy! :o)

From This, To That!

We are working hard to clean up and get rid of the clutter around here. It's not as easy as one might think, because as soon as I get one surface cleaned off, in come 4 little ones with their (pick one) puzzles/books/drawing paper and markers/barbies/etc., which then get dumped on the formerly clean surface. *sigh!*

I started with the basement and got new cupboards to help corral school supplies and craft supplies, but then we moved my Mom's things into the basement and I cannot get into the cupboards anymore. So I need to set up a new school area upstairs. We have a fairly large living room, so I'm going to use a corner for keeping school supplies handy.

Now... what to keep the supplies in. Hmmm...

I found this nice, old wire basket at a yard sale a couple weeks ago. It looks like it would be just the right size...

Voila! A handy dandy carrier for keeping markers and construction paper all in one place! I'll be adding a recycled, cleaned can to the corner and attach it with wires, to hold scissors and glue sticks. I so love it when I can re-purpose something like this into something I need.

Now, if I can just re-purpose something to make a bounce shield for my clean surfaces so that when the kids put something down, it'll bounce right off! :o)

Crayons and Quilt WIP

Having 4 children (well, 3 really) that like to snap crayons in half while they color and a dog that likes to steal crayons and chew them to bits, we have lots and lots of little crayon pieces all over the house. I remember reading somewhere that you could melt the little bits and make one big multi-colored crayon. After a search on the internet, I found several sites that show how to make them.

The basic instruction is to heat your oven to 350*. Then take your little bits of crayon and use a foil-lined tin or use a silicone muffin pan (as I did). With a metal pan, the foil makes it easy to pop out, and the silicone doesn't need foil. Anyway, I put the girls to work peeling the paper off the crayons and then sorted by color. You don't need to sort by color, but I thought it would be nice to have all the purples in one block and so on. Pop the muffin pans in the oven and it takes about 10-15 minutes.

This is the result after 15 minutes. One site said you could use a toothpick to swirl the colors, but I didn't do that. After they cooled, we popped them out and voila! heart and flower shaped crayons! These would make great party favors for little ones and it's a great way to recycle all those broken bits of crayons. Keep away from the dog though, not too long after this, Maisie grabbed the purple one and chewed it to bits again! I'll just save them and when I have enough little pieces of crayon, I'll do this again!

I goofed on my quilting project. I have been ironing my seams open and I found out that with quilting, you should iron to one side. Oh. Well, at least I haven't gotten very far, and it won't be too much trouble to go back and iron all the seams to one side. I also ran out of a particular blue fabric (that blue that's peeking out on the bottom left there) and when I went back to the fabric store for more, they said it was all gone. dang it! I'll figure something out. I already have an idea for what I'll do, I'm just not sure how it will look until I have it laid out. Now, excuse me while I go and do some major ironing!

Modern Bartering

My husband and I have been fortunate in our experience with consignment stores. I used to think consignment places were overpriced and filled with junk, until we moved close to one that happened to be next door to our favorite chinese food place. Looking in the windows every time we picked up our order, we saw that there was some really nice stuff in there. Long story short, we started consigning with them and we made some nice money selling old stuff.

Then we discovered used books and music stores. We got lucky with our timing and we got rid of most of our cassette tapes before stores stopped taking them. The same with our videos, we sold or traded in a lot of our movies on tape before it was too late.

We are now trying to get rid of most of our music CDs before places stop taking them. With the popularity of downloading music onto various devices, CD sales have gone way down and we are trying to make a little money off our music before they are worthless. I've been holding onto my music for sentimental reasons, even though I no longer listen to them, and I have been working up the courage to get rid of them (so not my husband's taste in music!!).

There's a great big used bookstore that we frequent, which also has a music and movie section, too. We often trade in our books, music and movies there and it's a good feeling to walk out with an armful of "new" books and movies without ever having to take out the wallet.

Because we cut off our satellite service, and there is no TV here in the mountains without it, we have been expanding our selection of movies. We check out movies at the Library and if there was a movie we saw that we really liked, we try and get it at the used bookstore.

A couple of weeks ago, the Hubby and I went through all our music, and we got rid of a bunch (almost all of mine!) where there was maybe one song on the whole disc we liked-- wrote the title and singer of the song, for future downloading (when we can afford to buy our own music device) and traded it in for store credit. You get more in store credit than cash, so we always opt for credit and then we turn around and get movies or books. The last trade-in brought us over $150 in store credit, so we have been having fun picking out movies to watch.

Movies are priced (depending on how recently released it was) between $2 - $9, and most of the time, if you wait a little longer, the prices drop even lower. Most of the movies we get average $5 and we can expand our library of movies really nicely that way. The place we go to has a really nice selection and we have picked up movies ranging from classics (Bullit, Hell In The Pacific) to children's (Spongebob, Mouse Hunt) to comedy (Porky's, Monster-in-Law) to romance (Music and Lyrics). Granted, they don't have it all, and sometimes it takes a while to find a particular title, but we don't mind waiting and usually in our hunt for something, we find something else we weren't looking for. So it all works out.

If you haven't been to one already, check your local directory for a used books or music store near you. You're recycling by trading in old movies and books and not buying new. Plus, you're keeping money in your pocket when you opt for store credit.

Practicing Old Ideas

I think my MIL is unconsciously passing to me what she grew up with and then implemented when my husband was little-- which is buying clothes several sizes too large, and then hemming, so that a pair of pants can be worn for 3 or 4 years instead of only a year or so.

The girls all got new pajamas for Christmas from Grandma and Grandaddy and they were all several sizes too large. Left up to me, I would have put them away and waited until they fit, but the girls were adamant about wearing them, so I had to spend my morning hemming 3 pairs of pajama pants and sleeves.

I have to admit, the end result was pretty good and the girls were happy to wear their new jammies. Thanks Grandma and Grandaddy!

While hemming, it got me thinking about the way people did things back then-- buying too-big clothing; passing down clothing from oldest to youngest; repairing and patching rips and holes; re-purposing the fabric into something else, IE: quilts, rags, or rugs. I already practice passing clothes from Oldest to Middle to Youngest. It's what I grew up with, wearing my older sister's clothing when she out-grew it. I already repair and patch clothing, and I already re-purpose clothing and sheets into sewing and crafting projects. The only thing I don't do is buy larger sizes.

I can appreciate the idea-- hemming and then letting out the hems as the child grows. But for me, this is time-consuming, as I would have to repeat this practice with each of my 4 children. I find it easier to just pass them down to the youngest. I must admit, though, I do buy larger sizes when it comes to dresses-- it seems they are just too short! If Oldest wears size 6 in a dress, I'll buy size 8 for her. By the time she is 8, that dress would be too short! Sorry, but my girls are not little hoochie mamas and I will not allow them to wear dresses that showcase their underwear every time they bend over! I've heard "I see London, I see France, I see Jenny's underpants!" more than once when I wore a dress on those very rare occasions. And, I'm sorry to say, there are just too many sick people out there and I don't want to bring attention to my girls and their exposed legs while wearing too-short dresses and skirts. But I digress.

I like knowing that I am getting every last drop out of the clothing my family wears. With the exception of gifted clothing, it's very rare that they get brand new clothing (except for underwear and socks!) and it does my heart good when we don't add to consumerism by buying brand new items. So we are re-using clothes in a multitude of ways-- buying used clothing, passing down to the next kid, repairing holes/rips, and finally re-purposing into something else. Not only does this practice save us money, we are not being a burden on this earth by using and re-using the same item over and over again.

Welcome 2009!

2008, a year of living frugally, not only by choice, but because we had to, has proven to be a good year for us. There were many times when I worried about where we were going to get the money to pay the bills for that month or how I was going to keep food on the table. We always had just enough to pay the mortgage, but everything else-- gas, food, electricity, car payments, etc, was a stretch. We came up with a lot of ways to make the dollar go farther, and we learned to do without. Some things that we thought we just had to have, we discovered we were quite happy not having after all.




We gave new life to a lot of items we had around the house-- turning an old telephone wire into a clothesline; old curtains into cloth napkins; food boxes into drawer organizers to name a few. We also reused things far beyond their "one-time use", like yogurt containers and peanut butter jars that make great holders for buttons, beads and other little stuff. I learned a trick from fellow blogger, Sparx (you can find her blog on my blogroll titled "Notes From Inside My Head") and washed baby wipes to re-use over and over again, and also recycled ice cream buckets to hold the wipes-- both clean and dirty.




I am lucky enough to have a friend that runs a consignment shop and I was able to sell my children's too-small clothing and toys and buy clothing they needed at a fraction of the price. Unless I told you, you'd never know the clothes and shoes they wore were second-hand. The husband and I both scour thrift shops and yard sales for items we can use or sell and we have been able to keep from paying full price for brand new items that would have otherwise broke the bank. We cancelled our satellite TV and my pager and saved nearly $100 a month on those two alone!

We had a garden and, while it wasn't our biggest, it was enough to give us plenty to eat. I canned many jars of jams, applesauce and tomatoes; froze corn, strawberries, pumpkin, and zucchini; dried apples and bananas. I'm grateful that I had the know-how to do so and a husband that knew to keep the kids out of the kitchen while mama was "cannin' up a storm!" and didn't mind eating pizza or sandwiches because I was too tired from canning to cook dinner. Growing our own foods helped save us even more money by not having to buy certain items at the store. 2008 also saw us making more things from scratch and relying less on "ready-made" mixes and discovering the food we are eating from scratch wasn't that hard to make and tasted so much better than the box. The bonus? it was healthier for us, too! We now buy less and less boxed foods and make just about everything from cakes to flavored rices, baby food to soups.

I made and baked all our Christmas presents to family and friends and gave some of those canned jams as gifts as well. We didn't have to buy (not that we could have anyway) any presents and all the gifts were enjoyed by everyone. If we had spent an average of $20 per person for gifts, we would have spent well over $300. By making bird ornaments, monsters and dolls from fabric I already had, jams from food we grew, fudges and cookies from pantry items, I spent less than $35 total on gifts for over 16 people! That's monetary value, the time invested in making those gifts is far more valuable and I cannot calculate the time invested.

Another way we saved money was by chopping and splitting our own wood for heat. We scrimped and saved and managed to buy a log splitter from a friend which has saved us many hours (and our backs!) of splitting wood by axe. We no longer have to buy oil to heat our house and now with a new (to us) chain saw, we can cut down our own trees next year for wood to burn. That log splitter has already paid for itself because the amount of wood we use to heat the house would have cost us over $1000 without it.

2009 will still find us living frugally. Our circumstances haven't changed: my husband is still working the same part-time job and we still have the same mortgage and car payments to make, but we are doing more things to try and improve our circumstances. We are garden-dreaming and planning to plant a larger garden this year with emphasis on more herbs, a variety of vegetables, and potatoes. If money permits, I'm hoping to add apple and cherry trees to our tiny 3-tree orchard and I would also like to get some grapevines set in, too. The same friend we bought our log splitter from has a small tiller for sale and we are now putting aside money to buy that from him.

The cat food and litter we buy changed their packaging. More plastic, but we see the silver lining-- it's very similar to the plastic they use in weed blocking fabric, so we have been saving the bags to use in the garden this Spring. That will save us money and time! Less weed pulling to do, or at least we hope so!

I must add that we have been blessed with generous friends and family, who have been kind enough to help us out here and there. Barefoot from Barefoot in the Garden (also in my blogroll) sent us her daughter's car seat for Baby (Thanks again!). An old co-worker has kept in touch with me through my mom, gives us clothes from his own kids who happen to be a year ahead of my own children, many of them never worn and still with the tags on them. Members of my MIL's church, whom we have never met, bought us several hundred dollars worth of groceries and cash and gifts for Baby. Our own family members have also been extra generous with us, giving us more than usual for birthdays and Christmas gifts and "just because" and for that, we are forever grateful and humbled by all the support we have received. I know we would not have made it this far without their help and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Here's hoping 2009 will be a good year for all of us, and may you be blessed with loving family and friends. Happy New Year, my friends!

Quick Fix

Our office is located in the breezeway between the main house and the apartment. It's a nice wide room with windows all along one wall and then windows and a sliding door on the other side. The sliding door had those annoying vertical blinds. I *hate* vertical blinds. I've had to co-exist with them in just about all of the apartments I've ever lived in and they are just boring, void of any personality and not exactly private. Horizontal blinds, I can live with, but vertical-- blah!

The vertical blinds in the office were cheap and flimsy, with little metal weights on the bottoms and as soon as we moved in, the girls zeroed in on the weights and every single one has disappeared. I haven't seen one around here since, and as a result, the blinds flutter and don't hang down straight. Very unsightly, but we lived with it. It was only an office and when company came over, the door got shut to hide the mess on the desk.

For quite some time, I had a stack of yard sale sheets and linens and blankets on the floor of the office. I meant to put them away, but with 4 kids and a house to care for, time seems to slip through my fingers. Finally, I tackled them last week and as I reached for the orange blanket, an idea dawned on me.. would I be able to use it as a curtain in place of the vertical blinds? Could I use the existing hardware without having to buy new rods? I could, and I did.


Voila!! I was able to slip the old blinds out of their clips and I slipped the blanket in. I worried about the weight of the blanket, but it's holding. I can even open it with the old hardware! What a nice bit of re-purposing! Reusing the hardware and recycling a vintage blanket for a curtain.

When the sun comes in, the whole room gets a lovely orange glow and I've noticed the girls hang out in the office more often, sitting in the middle of the room on the floor, playing dominoes or cards. The room is also a bit warmer now, with the blanket keeping the cold contained instead of the old vertical blinds letting all the cold air in. I knew there was a reason I hadn't put away those old sheets and blankets! :o)

Green Thrifty Thursday

A while back, Sparx posted about recycling/re-using her son's baby wipes. She would wash them after using them and gets at least a dozen uses out of them before throwing them away. At first, I just read it and moved on, but it stuck in my head. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to try it for myself.



Reading the fine print on the wipes packaging, did you know that most wipes are partially made of cotton and/or polyester? When I think about all the wipes we have gone through with 4 kids, that's a lot of cotton being used only once and then thrown away, piling up in the landfills.



I told the husband what I wanted to do, and he was all for it. So we took an old ice cream bucket and labeled it 'DIRTY WIPES' and started throwing used wipes in there. Really poopy wipes went into the trash, but the pee-pee wipes and lightly poopy wipes went into the bucket. It was filled up in about 2 weeks!



When it was full, I took the wipes and washed them with the laundry. I separated out the wipes from the clothes and then packed them in another clean ice cream bucket.

I added about 1 1/2 cups of water with a few drops of baby wash soap mixed in. After I got it as wet as I wanted, I labeled it 'CLEAN WIPES'.
I compared the washed wipes with a new wipe and they are still thick as ever, although a little bit furry from being washed. I can definitely see myself doing this permanently and getting more uses out of each wipe. This is good for me in several ways: I am helping to keep trash out of the landfill (reduce); I am buying less wipes and saving money (re-use); I am using the same wipes several times and using an old ice cream bucket (recycle).

Thanks, Sparx, for the great idea!

Living "Green"

I wanted to share something that has been on my mind lately-- besides the impending birth of the baby and mulberries.

Living "green".

I hope this isn't going to be another trend for people to jump on the bandwagon and say, "look at me! I'm green!" and then a few short weeks or months later, they go right back to doing what they've always done.

Being green IS a total lifestyle change, one that can be as easy or as hard as you make it. You can take small baby steps and grow from there, which makes it easy, or make big changes which sometimes can be costly and hard to keep up.

The husband and I have always been aware of our consumerism and after moving to our first house and discovering what a great recycling program our landfill had, became avid recyclers. Moving here, where there are nearly no recycling options at the landfill, we've had to find other ways to reduce our trash and recycle.

During the winter time, I admit to using our dryer when drying clothes. Partly because we bought a vent that lets the warm, moist air go back into the house instead of outside. Helps to heat the house and restore the humidity in the air that the wood stove dries up. My point? Since installing my outdoor clothes line (made of recycled telephone wire), I have just received my first electric bill that has zero dryer energy on it. Our average monthly bill is around $130, and it has gone all the way down to $89! That's $40 in savings!! Nothing else has changed-- we still use the same amount of electricity for lights, TV, cooking (electric stove), and computer. The air conditioner has not yet been used and the only thing that has changed is the dryer usage. I should add that I am probably using the stove more because of the jam-making I am doing these days.

Just imagine the power we all can save if everyone would choose to line-dry their clothing instead of using a dryer.

There are many more changes that we'd like to make / add to make our lifestyle even more green:

-A bigger garden for one-- I haven't been able to plant as much as I hoped this year (I like to think my growing belly gives me an excuse) but I'm happy with what we have planted so far.
-We plan on getting chickens next year, so we are busily working out chicken coop plans and gathering used materials to build one.
-I'd LOVE to get a goat, too, for the making of goat cheeses and yogurts, but I don't know if that is feasible just yet.
-I want to get more fruit trees than what we already have-- cherry, apple, blueberries to name a few.
-Rain barrels are desired as well, but I still need to figure out how to truck the water from the house alllll the way to the garden without breaking my back or having to buy multiple hoses.

There is much more that we could do, but these are the biggest goals we have at the moment. What kind of changes have you made this year that has made a big impact on your life and / or wallet?

*Sniff!* Ahhhhh!

At long last, I have a clothesline hung up outdoors again! It has been 3 years since I hung clothes outside to dry, but not 3 years since I've line-dried my clothing. We have a clothesline in the basement by the wood stove, so I use that mostly. Anyway, I bought a pulley for being able to hang a line way up high just like I saw one of my neighbors have, and it sat in it's brown bag for ages. With all the posts I've been seeing lately about outdoors clothes drying, my soul has been itching to get my own line up.

Yesterday, I got out the pulley and started eyeing where I wanted it, but it didn't look feasible. Hubby suggested using the light pole and stringing the line to the dogwood. Not my first choice, but it'll do. I already had a load washed and waiting to be hung and Oldest helped with pinning the clothing. There are multiple green things happening here: look closer...
See? Sorry, too close! Forgive the blurry shot, I couldn't get the camera to focus on the knot instead of the background, but can you see what I used for the line?

How about now? Yeah! Telephone wire! How many of you have miles and miles of old telephone wire lying around the house that have no usefulness anymore? With the onslaught of cordless phones and cell phones, there is no need for long telephone extension cords. We've had these wires sitting in a box for the past 3 years, not wanting to throw them away, but not needing them either, until now!

So, multiple green things happening? 1- Recycling telephone wire; 2- Drying clothes outside which reduces our energy usage and saves us money; 3- We are re-using an old Lard tin bucket for the clothespin holder. My soul is at peace.