How was your week? I can hardly believe it is May already!!! I want to say where in the world did the month of April go--but I already know the answer--the virus ate it!!! It just kind of feels like it never happened. Like life hit the "pause" button back in March, and that March is where we still are! But the beautiful weather outside is telling me different, and I AM enjoying that!
So on to frugal happenings. It feels like I did not do much this past week, but I know I was busy the whole week and each day was filled with caring for my family so it's all good. But a few things that I do remember include the following:
*I ordered a maxi dress from Land's End. Still waiting for this to come in the mail, but I am hoping/expecting that it will fit well and be a nice and very needed addition to my wardrobe this summer. It was on clearance, and then I had an extra 50% off of the clearance price, which brought it down to a very reasonable price. I DID have to pay shipping cost, since I was not ordering over $75 worth of stuff from them, but even with paying shipping the final cost was still well worth the price. And Land's End quality has been good in my experience, so it should last and wear well.
*I ordered several things from a co-op. Since we have a basement, I have space to store larger quantities of the foods we eat on a regular basis. So much more affordable than purchasing in small containers from the grocery store. Besides that, if you can't get to the grocery store for some reason, it is really nice to have a pantry in your home that you can "shop" from! I ordered Steel Cut oats, Oatmeal, Walnuts, Soybeans (I make my own home made soy milk from these), and Millet.
*I made up a new recipe! I found a muffin recipe on-line, but needed to change a few things to make it friendly for some food allergies. So I did a little experimenting, and it turned out pretty good! I want to tweak a few things next time. I, personally, thought it had too much salt in it, though my hubby thought it was perfect with the amount of salt. But next time I will cut that down just a little. It is a millet Cranberry Orange Muffin recipe. I needed to leave the sugar out, and to help add a bit of sweetness I replaced half the cranberries with an amount of raisins. That way there were some cranberries still, but also some raisins to add in some sweetness that was lost by leaving the sugar out. I think that switch turned out pretty well. They were still not overly sweet, but since I no longer eat refined sugar my tastes buds have adapted to less sweet things, and I thought they were fine. I could also add in a few chopped dates next time, perhaps, to add a little more sweetness for those who would like that. Anyway, for the first time making major changes to a recipe, I thought it was a success!
*I made a yummy "bowl" meal, using ingredients we had on hand. My teen daughter and I are REALLY enjoying "bowl" meals recently. Basically, a variety of things all served--of course--in a bowl. Underneath what you can see in this picture is a mixture of lettuce and fresh spinach. Then on top the pinto beans, corn, brown rice, baby carrots, and two kinds of salsa. It was delicious! And I am thinking for those with food allergies, this meal could be served with the rice being replaced with millet, and the beans being replaced with something--not sure what yet, but maybe broccoli or some other vegetable that is on the "acceptable" list. Maybe even some chopped roasted sweet potatoes! Lots of possibilities!
*And last but not least, I received a very special delivery today from a sweet friend. The last time we had talked on the phone I had mentioned how much I was missing fresh bananas, since I was trying to limit my trips to the store. My friend's hubby has been doing the shopping for them as well as for her parents, and she had him pick up an extra banana bunch for us! And they brought them by this morning along with a box of Lara Bars, which she already knew I could eat--yay! SUCH a sweet thing to do! We visited just a little outside in our back yard, all spaced a distance away from each other. SO nice to see them, and extra sweet of them to bring by these gifts! And the note on the bananas was an extra sweet touch!
~Susan
