Frugal Friday! Week of April 4-10, 2021

 Hello Frugal Friends! 

How was your week? I am thankful to be able to say that this past week went much better for us than the week before did! I am so glad, because the previous week exhausted me in many ways! But now we have had some recovery time, and the weather has been just beautiful! The wildflowers are blooming out in the woods, and I love hearing all the birds sing! 

So onto our frugal activities:

*I dug up baby raspberry plants that were trying to take over my garden pathway. Some of them I transplanted back into the garden bed where they are SUPPOSED to be growing (raspberries are rather unruly children, and do not follow the garden rules very well 😉) and some I gifted to the “plant lady” at my local Walmart. She and I had been “garden talking” the previous week, and I mentioned that I had baby raspberry plants that I needed to move and that I could bring her some if she wanted. Her eyes lit up and she expressed that she would absolutely LOVE some raspberry plants! So I found out when she would be back at my local store, and made a mental note to bring her some. She was so surprised and delighted when I showed up on Monday with baby plants stuck into a baggie with their roots wrapped in a damp paper towel! Seeing her happiness at least doubled my own happiness! I did give her the proper warning that they ARE on the invasive side, so to make sure she planted them only in an area that she does not mind them taking over, because they will! But—they give you raspberries, so they are forgiven! 

*I purchased lavender plants for $1.00 each. After I gave the plant lady the raspberries, I went ahead and looked at what she was marking down on clearance. I was able to purchase seven lavender plants for just $1.00 each. They only needed water, and by the next day had recovered completely. The plant lady knew this, but with so many plants for sale in the Spring shoppers are not going to choose a wilted plant to buy when they can purchase a better looking plant. Thus she was marking them down so they wouldn’t simply die and need to be thrown out. At the same time I purchased a Columbine for $2.00. I am not sure yet if that plant is going to recover for me or not. It hasn’t died—but it also has not bounced back like the Lavender has. So time will tell. I did get it planted in my flower bed yesterday, and mulched it well, so maybe it will recover now that it is not living in a pot. We will see!

*I bought a tray of Marigolds for just $1.00. As I have mentioned previously, I do not put a lot of my garden dollars into annuals, but for just $1.00 they are now bringing a nice pop of color with their cheerful faces on our back porch. My teen daughter absolutely loves them, as I knew she would. 

*I accepted the offer of some cut lilacs from our neighbor. We enjoyed these flowers on our table for a full week before they faded. Every day my daughter and I plunged our noses into them, to drink deeply of God’s perfume. I do not enjoy perfume that comes in a bottle, but when it comes in the form of a flower it always smells wonderful to my nose!

*I took my daughter to receive her first COVID vaccine. While not happy for the necessity of getting it, we are thankful that she was able to receive it as our county recently opened up immunizations down to the age of 16. It was a bonus that the location she was able to get it was a circle drive through a nature park! It was a slightly misty, lovely drive. We would have preferred to be in the park hiking, but we did enjoy the time together. We were super SUPER impressed with the organization of everything.  It was a circle drive, with spots for ID checking, a tent to receive your shot, and a place where you waited in your car afterwards for 20 minutes to make sure you didn't have a reaction.  We were told when she received her shot that if we needed help, just start honking our horn and they would come immediately to help us.  We felt grateful and cared for.

*I looked up my daughter in law’s History blog to read her new post. This week she wrote about the Mason Dixon line, and how it came about. I learned things that I had never known before! If you would enjoy reading a fantastic History blog, you can find it here:

A Line Between North & South

  She includes additional resource links with every article she writes— fantastic resource for anyone interested in History, and especially for homeschoolers!

*We had our carpets professionally cleaned. How is this frugal, you may wonder? Several years ago my husband and I had our entire house re-carpeted. The carpet that we choose has a warranty for a good number of years, stating that dirt,stains, etc. will come out. The condition of keeping the warranty valid, however, is you must have your carpets professionally cleaned every 18 months, and keep the receipts to prove that you had them cleaned. You also must use a company that uses hot water extraction method for their cleaning. Well, we may choose to let our carpet warranty expire some time, but my hubby and I decided that while it was new, anyway, we would do our best to keep it valid. And were we ever glad that we did! Even though we do our best to remove shoes when entering our house, there is still dirt that inevitably gets tracked in. The very first 18 month time period when we had our carpets cleaned, there was dirt that did not clean out. I called the warranty number, and they sent a different company to our house just to do a spot check, to see if THEY could improve the dirt stained portion. If the second company had been successful, we learned that the warranty would not have covered anything, as they would simply say the first cleaning company did not do a good job but there was nothing wrong with the carpet. BUT, the dirt staining did not come out for the second company either. I had to send pictures of the carpet areas to the warranty people to prove it, but they did indeed replace our entire houses carpet! It WAS a lot of work on our part, as we had to once again clear every single room of everything! You should have seen how much furniture can be stuffed into a kitchen or bathroom! And anything small was carried downstairs to the basement. My husband and I are both teachers, so this meant a LOT of books! But we did receive new, unstained carpet in return, AND the bonus is when you move everything in your house it is definitely a good opportunity to look at what you have and decluttered what you are not using! Having our carpets cleaned will also help them wear longer, as any dirt that falls underneath the carpet acts just like sandpaper when you walk on the carpet, and it will wear out sooner. I did use a coupon that I found for $30 off the cleaning price, so I was thankful for that. And the two young men who did the job were very pleasant and professional. I was happy my business could help them have jobs.

"My humans are crazy and piled all this stuff on top of their bed!"

It took 24 hours of not walking on the carpet, to allow it time to completely dry.  Fortunately, our kitchen is large enough to move the school table in and use that for meals, homeschool, etc.

Our "Music Room," which is basically our adult son's childhood bedroom--now holding a borrowed harp, two violins, one viola, and two mountain dulcimers.  We normally keep a humidifier going in this room to help with the wooden instruments.  They need the right humidity in order to not dry out too much and crack, etc.  Well, I have learned how to NOT need to run the humidifier--just have your carpets cleaned!!!  We normally want the humidity range in this room to be between 40 and 60.  When I went in after the carpet cleaners were done, the humidity was a high 68!!!  

Well, that was my week! How was yours? What did you find to do to save money and bless your family? I look forward to learning from you!

~Susan