Frugal Friday—Week of June 20-26, 2021

 

Good Morning Frugal Friends!

How has your week gone? I hope you are doing well!

Our week was a blur of activity!  I did manage to squeeze in just a few frugal activities, however. . . 

If you remember, I talked last week about the two music camps my daughter was able to attend—one for adults, and then one for children.  This week was the camp for children, with just a day and a half in between the adults camp ending and the one for children beginning. I tried to use this time wisely, and ran to Aldi’s for stocking up on fresh things. I already had plenty of veggies in the house plus the freezer, so this was just for some fruit.

 

Then, my daughter and hubby checked out our blueberry bush.  I have three bushes, all three different varieties, but only one really produces.  A second one gives a few berries, literally, and the third nothing.  But at least the one that bears fruit does a nice job! 

I checked out the garden and found our first two zucchini.  I know people joke about how they can’t get rid of zucchini, and how the plants produce so abundantly, but I have never had over production of zucchini so if anyone wants to leave extras on my door step I would be happy for them! I was thrilled for these, and we ate them up! 

I paused to enjoy some beauty for my soul.

Then music camp began.  As we walked up the stairs to the second floor of the music building where check in was happening, I saw this sign taped in the stairwell.  I want to remember it always.  There were thought provoking quotes all around, if you looked for them.

One day during camp, my hubby showed one of the music teachers a limber jack that he made.  A limber jack is an Appalachian percussion instrument.  There is a paddle that you sit on one end of, then you hold the limber jack so he is standing on the paddle.  As the music is played, you tap the paddle and it makes the limber jack’s feet dance and gives kind of a rapping sound.  The teacher was delighted when she saw it, and asked him to show it to her orchestra children.  She teaches the youngest children in the camp.  So my husband agreed to bring it in, and while the children played a song called “Flying Fiddlesticks,” the limber jack danced along with them.

It was an intense, very packed three and a half days.  The last day of camp, the children all split up in groups and do community service by going to play at nursing homes.  With COVID, different nursing homes had some of the children play outside, under a porch.  Some were fine with the children coming inside to play.  Other years a group has also gone to play at the local public library. Then in the afternoon, they come back together and play two concerts where they can share with each other the music they have been learning, and parents are invited as well as others.  This year, this event was held at a community building our town has.  It is a large building, and has garage style doors all around it, so every other garage door was opened up so there would be plenty of fresh air and ventilation.  Sometimes a little TOO much ventilation, as a nice breeze kept music pages turning a bit unexpectedly, or even jumping off the music stands!  But the director produced some nice long clothes pin type devices that helped solve that problem. One little friend of my daughter’s gifted my daughter with a matching bow to wear, that would match that year’s camp shirts.  It doesn’t show in the picture, but the bow fabric even has music notes on it!  This was SUCH a sweet gift of love, and touched my daughter deeply!

Another camper, a middle school aged girl, thanked my daughter later for being her stand partner in one of the pieces.  She is not as skilled of a player at this point as my daughter is, and she told my daughter that it meant a lot to her that my daughter would be her stand partner and that having her as her stand partner really helped her to play better.  This filled my heart.  This is the entire attitude of this music camp.  It is not competition, and stepping on someone else to get to the “top.” It is everyone belongs.  THIS is why I love my daughter being involved with this camp, this teacher, who “happens” to be my daughter’s regular violin teacher.  Except that I don’t believe there is anything by chance.  I am convinced God planned for this teacher to be a mentor for my daughter.

Other frugal activities—today we cleaned some of the college apartments that the teachers stayed in, this part of our working off part of my daughter’s camp tuition.  In a few days we will clean the rest when the other teachers leave.  Some fly in from long distances, so leave when their flight was best booked. 

I also dried some spearmint and catnip from my back porch pots.  The spearmint I will use in tea.  The catnip goes to the pussy cat.  I have a cat toy for him that has a Velcro opening, where you can insert more catnip.  Of course, he has made a couple extra “holes” in it as well, but it has a double layer and is so far holding up well to his abuse!

It was a wonderful week.  I am exhausted. I am also filled.  I cried. I deepened friendships with other moms. I listened.  They listened to me. 

And at the end of the week, God sent us these—from that same one blueberry bush.

God is good.

How was your week? What did you do to save and bless your family and others?  I would love to hear about it!

~Susan

 

Frugal Friday—Week of June 13-19, 2021

 

Hi Everyone!

How has your week been? I hope good! We have been blessed in so many, many ways this week—not from anything that we did, but because of the kindness and generosity of others. It truly makes me want to remember even more, to bless other people myself, whenever I have the opportunity and ability to do so.

Our first huge blessing came from what typically would be an unexpected source—a business! Of courses, businesses are exactly that—a business! If they cease to be making money, it will not be long before they cease to exist and they have to close down. Yet—it is also true that having a loyal customer base can also help a business stay afloat. Well, I certainly hope and pray that the business that blessed us stays afloat for many many years, providing jobs for their employees and service to their community. The business I am referring to is a music shop, named “Atlanta Violins.” They are located in Rosswell, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. This is the store that we purchased my daughter’s violin from. 

At the time, I was so impressed with our salesman that I determined we would never take our business to another shop! They truly do their best to match the customer with the right instrument for that person, price wise, instrument wise, everything. And they are NOT pushy—I HATE feeling pressured to buy something, anything, and that is the quickest way to get me to take my business elsewhere. . . .

Well, so we purchased my daughter’s violin from Atlanta Violins, and a while after that we purchased her viola from them. 

Then just this past December, I purchased my violin from them. Well, wooden string instruments are prone to having something happen called “open seams.” This happens primarily when the weather and humidity change, as the wood swells or shrinks. There are things one can do to help prevent this happening—and trust me, we are doing ALL those things already! Keeping a humidifier going in the room the instruments are stored in, checking with a humidity gauge to make sure we are in the correct range, etc. But sometimes, in spite of doing everything “right,” seams still open. And then the instrument makes a “buzz” sound. Well, my daughter’s violin has had a buzz for a while now, but it is quite the drive for us to get to Atlanta Violins so we had delayed in getting it repaired. Finally we could delay no longer, because she had a music camp starting this week and wanted her violin to be rid of it’s buzz! So we made an appointment last week, and away we went. Instead of only taking her violin, we took her viola as well as my violin and my husband’s viola, so they could have a “check up” so to speak, since we were going anyway. We had been told previously that if you had purchased your instrument from them, they will check it for free. Of course you need to pay for any needed repairs, but I really appreciated knowing they would check them for free. My husband’s viola came from a different shop, so we fully expected to pay for his being checked, but figured the others could at least be looked at for free since we were going there anyway. . . 

Well, it turned out quite different than we expected! Both my daughter’s violin, and mine as well, ended up needing some extensive repairs, and required leaving them at the shop several days to have the work completed. Atlanta Violins did do a tweak on my husband’s viola while we were there last week, and did not charge us anything for that, as well as they found an open seam on my daughter’s viola and they re-glued that last week while we waited and they did not charge us for that repair either. You may wonder if they just use weak glue, or why else would these instruments be falling apart all the time? The answer is yes—they actually DO use weak glue, on purpose. This is so as the wood swells or shrinks, it will be the glue that breaks, not the wood. So open seams are quite common.

Well, we really appreciated what they did for us last week for free, but when we went back this week to pick up my violin as well as my daughter’s violin, they charged us exactly zero for those repairs as well. I was shocked, because it was certainly fair for them to charge us for their work. The neck of my violin had actually been starting to become lose, so they ended up completely taking the neck off of my violin to repair it. This is more of a major repair than simply gluing an open seam! My daughter’s violin needed several major things done, and in addition they carved a new bridge and a new sound post for her violin. Her very first violin, before we found Atlanta Violins, that first violin had needed a new bridge and sound post, and it cost us around $350 just for those two things! I am not even sure how much these repairs would have cost us for all of them if they had chosen to charge us—but I am guessing around $1,000 maybe? 

I do not at all assume that all of our repairs in the future will be no charge, but I can say I am truly thankful for what this business has done for our family already! And my husband is currently saving his money to purchase a better quality viola in the near future. Guess what business he will be purchasing his viola from? 

We cannot recommend them high enough! So if you are at all within any driving distance of them, and are in need of a shop for string instruments, I definitely recommend them! We drive two hours to get there, and while I do wish they were not as far away as they are, they are definitely worth the drive! They also have a pretty awesome instrument rental program, if you are looking to rent one.

Our second huge blessing came from the music camp my daughter—and actually my husband as well, are attending this week. If you play a string instrument, then you MUST learn about Chamber Music Weekend!!! I won’t go into all the details here, but you can learn more about them here: Chamber Music Weekend

Our daughter is a quite accomplished player, and she usually attends At First Sight, which is a sight reading music camp for children. You can learn more about At First Sight here: At First SightWell, she normally attends At First Sight, but her violin teacher was encouraging her to attend BOTH—At First Sight for children, as well as Chamber Music Weekend for adults. My daughter told her teacher, when the teacher brought this up during lesson time, that she didn’t have the finances to attend both camps. Her teacher—who happens to be the director in charge of both camps—looked at her and said “Have we not always worked out the finances before?” And through a variety of ways—Alison doing some coaching during the children’s camp, a scholarship, as well as some apartment cleaning where the teachers for the music camp stay—well, this wonderful and kind teacher did indeed “make things work.” And so here she is, having the most wonderful time, playing music that fills and stimulates and challenges her, and being mentored by a room filled with some of the most kind and caring people you could find anywhere! 

My heart is filled to overflowing! Atlanta Violins made sure she had her instruments in top notch working order, and her teacher made sure she was sitting here in this room where the magic is happening. 

Who can YOU invest in today? 

And how have you saved money and blessed your family this week? I would love to hear about it!

-Susan

Frugal Friday! Week of June 6-12, 2021

 

Greetings Frugal Friends!

How was your week?  I hope it was delightful, as mine was!  

My week started last week, as in we took off for a small little weekend away.  So my frugal activities for this week centered around our weekend trip and doing it in expensively. 

My niece is staying with us for the summer, so she can work on her college campus.  When we found out that she had NEVER been to the Smoky Mountain National Park before--and it is just a stone's throw away from where we live (o.k., so it's a long stone's throw, but still!), well, this was a problem that needed to be solved!  Frugally solved, but solved none the less.  So for our frugal weekend away, we rented a very tiny cabin at a "mom and pop" campground that we love to go to.  They only have three cabins there, and one circle of RV spots.  For the cabins, you bring all your own bedding, towels, etc., and we choose to bring all our own food from home as well.  We eat healthier that way, and much less expensive as well!

Pussycat packed himself for the trip, but we told him he would have to stay home!

We made it! At the entrance to the park!  Happily, there is no admission fee for this park.  This was part of the legal stipulations when the park was created and people gave up their land to become a national park.  My understanding is it has caused problems with having enough in the budget to operate the park long term, but as a park visitor I am very thankful for those that went before me and left this gift for me.

After unpacking in our cabin, we first went to Clingman's Dome, which is the highest point not only in the park, but also in the entire state of Tennessee!  It is quite a drive to get up to the parking lot, which has a lovely view!

From the parking lot, there is a very steep but short trail which leads to the observation tower. We were blessed with a day with wonderful views!  So many times I have been to this point and it was completely socked in with clouds or fog!  So I was thankful that my niece could actually SEE the view when we took her!

Some lovely flowers I saw along the way.  I do not remember the name of these.  I will need to spend some time and look them up!

On our way down from Clingman's Dome, we hiked just a bit on the Appalachian Trail.  I found these pretty hydrangea along the trail.

On Sabbath (Saturday) morning, we ate breakfast early so we could get on the trails before it was too hot and also while there was still room in the parking lots to park our car!  The Smokies ARE the nations most visited national park, and summer time is prime tourist time!  At the start of our trail, we found these beauties above.  I have hiked parts of this trail before, but evidently never at precisely this time of year as I do not ever remember seeing these flowers before.  I love them with their elegant and simple beauty!  I didn’t know their name, but we have looked them up and they are called “Galax.” 

This one we have on the trails where I live.  It is “Mountain Laurel.”

I do not know these tiny white flowers. . . Anyone know?

This one is some type of a mint, at least the stem was squarish.

Our hiking team!

The trail we took we have hiked before, but this time we hiked it farther than we have ever gone.  We left the crowds behind, and saw absolutely no one but our family for around an hour.  There were five or six stream crossings. Happily, the water levels were relatively low, or these rocks we were crossing on would have been covered with water! Some of our stream crossings did not exactly have enough rocks for my liking, and I could have used a few more.  Some of them other hikers have dragged pieces of logs to help give a place to cross on, but the logs are round and rather slippery, so I preferred placing my feet on the rocks if possible. . . 

So while crowds of people were flocking to well published waterfalls that are close to the road you can drive through the park, we went off into the woods, and happily stumbled across this beauty of a waterfall.  The music of the water was lovely, and we had the place entirely to ourselves that morning.

Another of the flowers we saw along the trail.  I do not know the name of this one yet. . . 

After our morning hike, it was time to head back to our cabin for some lunch and rest and air conditioning, during the hottest part of the day.  A good time to read books, or look up flowers in the flower book we brought along.

In the late afternoon, we found ourselves in Cades Cove.  This is an area that used to be an active community, in the days before the park was organized. Some of the original buildings still remain there.  This cabin above is the John Oliver cabin.  John and Lucretia Oliver, the original owners, were the first permanent white settlers in Cades Cove. It was built in the 1820’s, and is held together by gravity and notched corners.  The Oliver family descendants lived in this cabin for over 100 years! 

Shortly after the John Oliver cabin, you come to one of the three churches in the cove.

How my heart goes out for the parents who buried their precious baby!  And there are many other infant graves here. . . Life was hard.

I am glad they had God to hold on to. 

The Cable Mill, built by John Cable in 1867. This mill was closed at the time of day we were there, but it is still operational and I have been inside it many, many times.  Park employees will demonstrate grinding corn and such with the grist mill, and if you are interested you can purchase the flours that were ground there.

Our family has been coming to the park for fourteen years.  We have been held up in “bear jams,” when all the traffic on the road stops because of bear activity, but we have never actually been able to see the bears ourselves.  We have gone around Cades Cove without seeing bears, and church friends of ours have followed us just 30 minutes later and seen bears.  Well THIS time, with my niece along, not only did we see a bear, we actually saw SIX bears!!!  We were delighted!  this photo was the first one we saw.  He was actually closer than it looks in this picture, as my little cell phone camera makes it appear farther away. After this one, we saw a mama bear with three adorable cubs!  I was delighted to see them, and happy they were far enough away to be safe.  We remained in our car and did not get out to take pictures, though if you observe the distances you are supposed to remain from wildlife you are allowed to get out to take pictures.  After the mama and babies, we saw another single adult bear.  So not only did my niece see a bear in the wild, she saw SIX bears in the wild!

Another of the cabins in the cove.

These cabins are open and you can walk in the downstairs.  You do need to be aware of your surroundings, as snakes do like to hang out near buildings as well.  You ARE in a park, and wild creatures are definitely around!

The last cabin you come to on the loop road.

Sunday morning we had planned to hike to Greenbriar School house, but we woke up to showers and it was predicted that a thunderstorm was coming in later.  We decided to drive to the school, since there is a road to this school house.  This is in a different part of the park, and not in Cades Cove.

The girls are on the bridge behind the school house, with the trail we had planned on hiking up.  After taking the road in—which we had never done before—and seeing how narrow this TWO LANE road is, I looked at my hubby and told him I never wanted to drive to the school house again!  If we had met another car coming the other direction, it would not have been easy for either one of us to back out with the drop off on one side of the road and a mountain going up on the other, and lots of trees all around! From now on, we will only hike to the school, which is my preferred activity anyway! But I was glad my niece could see the school house, even in the rain!

Can you imagine going to school here?  These children did just that!

The only light they had to see by came from the windows and door.

Sadly, the time came for us to say “until later” to our beloved Smoky Mountain National Park.  But now, my niece has seen this beauty!

What did you do this past week to save money and bless your family?  And do you vacation frugally, or do you save up and then splurge?  I would love to hear what you are up to!

~Susan

Keep In Touch!

 

Hello Everyone!

Just a quick post to update you on following this blog.  As many of you already know, the "Feed Burner" subscription will soon be going away.  Many of you have followed this blog using this widget.  I am trying out a new to me e-mail subscription method from "Follow It." If all works correctly, I "think" the subscription box in the side bar should be up and running.  If you have previously been following posts through e-mail, and would like to continue, you may need to sign up again with the new method--I am not positive if it will import all old subscriptions over or not.  I am just not that up on how everything works!  

SO--if you would like to continue receiving posts through e-mail, feel free to try signing up again in the side bar, and hopefully that will work! There is also a second place, a "Follow Me" button at the bottom of this post, so if the side bar widget is not showing up you can sign up at the "Follow Me" button.

I hope you are having a wonderful day!  We had a great weekend away, to one of my favorite places.  I will post more pictures later this week, but the picture with this post was one I took this morning on our drive home.  Can you guess where we went? :)

~Susan

Frugal Friday! May 2-June 4, 2021

 

Hello Frugal Friends!

Wow!  A month has whizzed by, without my posting anything at all!  It is not that I do not have any ideas to post--I just don't end up sitting down to write!  Nor have I kept a good list of all my frugal endeavors. But I do remember some of them, so will share a few anyway, and I hope they will help spur other ideas for you that may help save and bless your family! 

*I made a second mesh tray for my dehydrator, using inexpensive plastic canvas from Walmart. I already had one mesh tray--these are useful for dehydrating things such as herbs, and any small item that may fall through the regular plastic tray spaces.  The company that made my dehydrator sells additional mesh trays--or at least they used to--my dehydrator is so old, I honestly am not sure if the company is even still in existence.  I have had it at least 22 years, and realistically more than that. But 22 for sure.  Anyway, my niece is staying with us for the summer, and she was going to go on a back packing trip.  She brought up wishing she could make her own dried back packing foods, and I remembered my dehydrator.  So I pulled it out of the basement and we started brainstorming. I didn't want to take the time to wait for additional trays to come to me in the mail, because she was going back packing that next weekend.

SO.  I bought some plastic sheets at Walmart, and used the one mesh tray that I had as a template to draw where to cut for the new mesh tray.  It turned out just fine!  The plastic sheets from Walmart were maybe 1/2 inch more narrow than my trays that I wanted it to fill, but I just centered it so the "short" part is only 1/4th inch on each side, and it actually works perfect as a little finger hold for when you want to pick the mesh tray up! 

I made her several trays of pinto beans, as well as some black beans.  I also made her some dried bananas and gave her some dried apple slices that I had made previously.  Along with some instant brown rice and some oatmeal, this gave her quite a bit of light weight foods, and since she is very sensitive to gluten, we had more control over any potential cross contamination so she didn't need to worry about that.

*I enjoyed fully our beautiful garden.

This is my garden gate.  Most of the year it looks rather like a tangled mess--probably because it kinda IS a tangled mess!  But during the month of May, it becomes a glorious mass of pink roses!  I have included a close up of the sweet flowers.  And one of the best things is this rose is thornless.  Every year it seems that a bird will build it's nest there.  If I was a bird, I would love to build my nest in a bower of roses. . . 

If you are interested in this variety of rose, it is known and sold as a "Peggy Martin" rose, and has quite the story behind it from hurricane Katrina. You can read more about that story here: Peggy Martin Rose

Other things are also blooming in the garden. I do try and squeeze in food, but I confess at least 50% of the garden is filed with flowers, which is food for my soul.

These flowers above are all in pots on my back porch.  I can see them from my kitchen window, whenever I am working at the sink. 

The rest of these flowers are all out in the garden.  They are either perennials that came back on their own, or from seeds that I planted this year.

*I continued to read my daughter in law's History blog as part of our homeschool.  Recent posts that she has done include the following:

Whitaker, Rind, and Wager: Part the First

If Walls Could Talk

Men of Honor, Part 5: A Soldier of the West

*I attended our daughter's string quartet recital.  These teens truly did a fantastic job! After the recital, she decided to take some of the recordings that various parents had captured and organized them into a very nice YouTube channel. If you would like to listen to their recital, I think you will enjoy it very much.  You can find it at this link: 

Quaternity String Quartet in Recital | May 24, 2021

If you would like to subscribe to her channel, she would be delighted. My daughter is the violist in the group, which is an instrument that is often rather overlooked.  It is similar to a violin, but a tad bit larger and plays a lower register.  She also plays the violin, but in this concert was exclusively on the viola. There is often a shortage of viola players, and she has received frequent requests to help with various school orchestras to help fill in their viola section.  As a homeschooler, in the past she has been able to do quite a bit of helping out in this way, but sadly two years ago she sustained a rather significant injury, which necessitated her almost completely stopping her music playing altogether.  She still suffers some pain, and has to be careful with the amount that she plays, but by God's grace, and with the help of two wonderful physical therapists, she has come a long way on the road to recovery.  For this reason, I am even more proud of her and her hard work.  I know what she has gone through, and how difficult it has been for her to get where she is today. I especially love when she uses her music to raise funds for charity, which she does every year.

*I picked strawberries from our garden.  I do not have very many plants, just a few in a five gallon bucket.  But they were sweeter than sugar!  I am wondering if there is a way I can propagate more plants from the ones I have.  I am not sure what type they are.  Does anybody know if I can help more plants to grow?

*I picked a few raspberries from our garden.  More will be ready soon.  These are from plants given to me from a friend's garden.  I have in turn passed on some extra plants to others.  I still had to pull some plants from my garden pathways and throw them away, which about killed me.  I hated doing it, but I had no one else who wanted to take them and I knew if I left them where they were I would soon have no pathways in my garden!  My daughter assured me, "They will grow back in the path, Mom."  She is right, they will. 

*My daughter picked some flowers from her garden bed, and used them to decorate the table one day.  We then put them in a vase, and have been enjoying them for around a week so far, and they still look pretty good!

*I made our own Taco Salad bowls, baking whole wheat tortillas in some pans that I found years ago at the thrift shop.  We used to purchase salads like these at Taco Bell, but they stopped selling them a while ago.  Mine taste better anyway, and are cheaper to make and we get more food! 

Well, those are the things I can remember from the past several weeks.  What have you been doing?  Do you have a garden, and if so, is it producing anything yet?  Please share, as it helps us all learn more!

~Susan