I’m just testing something

03Oct08

I think I may have screwed up something with the email feed on my new blog…I think I may have copied and pasted the wrong code into the subscription box, so that when you try to sign up for the feed on my new blog, you just subscribe to this blog.

I think I have it fixed, but I’ll let you know for sure tomorrow.  My apologies!  I don’t know how this happened…I’ve set up email feeds on quite a few blogs before this, and I’ve never had a problem.


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A new location for my blog!

01Oct08

I know…I really can’t seem to keep my blogs in one place for very long.  But I promise that this is the last time my blog will move for at LEAST a year.  :)

I now have my own server for The Frugal Girl, which will give me some more options as far as design and layout goes, and which will hopefully allow me to do some neat things, like putting my baking and photography stuff all in one handy-dandy location.  I’m still messing with the design, and I’m nowhere near figuring out how to incorporate the baking and photography.  I did finally manage to install the software, though,  aaaand I figured out how to import all of my files here onto the new site(YAY!).

The new site is all set up for email feeds(all sixteen of my dear subscribers will be pleased to know that!), and hopefully The Frugal Girl will still feel almost the same.  Unfortunately, the design theme I use here isn’t available to use on my new blog, so the look is slightly different.  Perhaps one of these days I will figure out a way to import this theme over there, but that’s a little out of my league at the moment.

The new address for my blog will hopefully be easier to remember now…it’s simply www.thefrugalgirl.com.  I know some of you have very graciously added a link to my blog in your own blog sidebar, and I’d be grateful if you updated the information there so people can still find me!

Thanks in advance for being such long-suffering readers.


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It’s kind of a financially depressing time…

30Sep08

It seems like the last few days have been filled with nothing but terrible financial and economic news.  And honestly, I don’t understand all of it.  I’ve read the articles, but I just don’t have a real grasp of the details of how this happened and why, and I don’t even really think that the enormity of the problem has hit me.

See, I’m really sort of a small-time finances kind of gal…I’m in my groove when I’m figuring out whether a $.55/2 coupon on a item that’s on sale 3 for $5 is a better deal than the off brand, but when it comes to larger financial matters, I’m not really all that great.(fortunately my husband does better with large stuff than with small stuff, so we’ve managed to not make disastrous large decisions most of the time!).

At any rate, the financial problems in the news the last few days definitely fall into the big-time finances category and not into the small-time category, but I’ve been thinking about how now is as good a time as ever to focus on the small stuff.  We can’t control what’s happening in the stock market or housing market, we can’t control how banks loan money, and we can’t control what the government decides to do about it, but we can do a lot to control things on a smaller scale.  We can…

…and a million other things that I haven’t gotten to post about yet!  Obviously, these things won’t make up for a $10,000 loss in your mutual funds, but since you can’t do anything about that, you might as well focus on something that you CAN do.   And if our worst nightmares come true and we end up in another Great Depression, these sorts of skills and habits will be more necessary and beneficial than ever.


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Two other things about cheap laundry.

29Sep08

I did several posts on cheap laundry recently, but I forgot to mention two things.

I talked about thinking out of the box when it comes to drying solutions and gave several suggestions. However, I forgot to mention this one…if you run out of room on your line or your drying rack, try draping some smaller items(like undies and children’s clothing) over the edges of your laundry baskets. These can be easily placed where the sun is shining, and the clothes are obviously very easy to put back into the basket when they’re dry!

The other thing is regarding fade prevention. I pointed out in one of my posts that the sun is a wonderful spot-remover. This is awesome for white clothes, but the same bright sun that removes stains will also fade darker colored clothes. To prevent this from becoming a problem, you can simply turn the clothes inside out so that the visible side won’t fade.  However, if your family is like mine, you probably won’t have to turn very much laundry inside out…my kids and husband turn pretty much everything inside out when they take it off!


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Menu for 9.27-10.4

27Sep08

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

  • Roasted Chicken with stuffing and cranberry sauce
  • Green Salad

Tuesday

Wednesday

  • Chicken in gravy on toast(I’m counting on leftovers from Monday!)
  • Apple slices

Thursday

  • Broccoli-Chicken Braid
  • Green salad

Friday


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The nightstand

26Sep08

This is actually the piece of furniture that got me started on my painting spree. I picked it up from a freecycler, sight unseen, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was solid wood(except for the top, which is a sort of formica…or something like that!). I was unsure of how well it would take paint, but I sanded the whole thing down and gave it a try.

Here’s what it looked like when I got it.

And here it is after some paint, and some hardware modification.

I think this is still my most favorite piece of furniture that I’ve gotten from freecycle…I just love the lines of it. It’s not fancy and overdone, but it’s not plain and boring either. The only thing is, I wish I had one more like it. If I did, I’d SO be putting them in my bedroom and getting rid of my particle board nightstands! I would settle for something that was just similar(I think as long as they were both black with silver hardware, it could work), but nothing has come down the Freecycle pike recently. I can be patient, though. ;)


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Some cheap(and green!) wall art

25Sep08

I buy an Ansel Adams calendar every year(after Christmas, of course, when they’re 50% off!) and this past Christmas, as I was getting ready to recycle the calendar, it occurred to me that it’s kind of a shame to throw away these lovely black and white pictures, which are on nice, heavy duty paper. So, I dug up an old black photo frame, dusted it off, cropped the calendar picture to fit, and voila! I have a nice framed black and white picture.

The frame is actually a total cheapie, but it came with the mat, and I think the mat makes a huge difference. If you don’t happen to have a frame sitting around, they can be had cheaply at a place like Michael’s or A.C. Moore. They go on sale for 40% on a regular basis, but you can always use one of the 40% coupons from the ad if you don’t catch them on sale.

I put the frame on an empty wall above a table that I got from freecycle(I painted it, of course, and I’ll post the before and afters of that maybe tomorrow).

While I adore black and white pictures(you know this if you visit my photo blog much at all!), I didn’t think I really needed twelve of them on my walls. Rather than throw them in the recycling bin, I posted the picture of my framed photo on freecycle as an example and offered up the rest of the calendar. I divided them up between two people, and so to the best of my knowledge, nothing but the wire from my calendar has gotten thrown away.

By the way, the picture below is what that area used to look like. When we moved in, there was a low drop ceiling there, carpet, a little skinny opening to that area, and no door on the laundry room. With the help of my dear dad and brother, we framed and drywalled the area, added a pocket door, installed recessed lighting, and tiled the floor. It’s still sort of a weird, hard-to-use area in our house, but it is SO much better than it used to be.


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A late menu

24Sep08

I actually planned this before I left for vacation. I’ve never done that before, but it’s working out pretty well. When I planned my vacation menu, I also planned a week’s worth of meals to use when we came back…I picked stuff that used mostly pantry ingredients, so I could cook without having to grocery shop right away post-vacation. Usually I come back and haven’t a clue what I’ll make, and I end up having to come up with something on Monday when I’m trying to teach my piano students and do school with my kiddos, so needless to say, this worked out a lot better!

Sunday

  • Buttermilk Pancakes

Monday

  • Stromboli
  • Black grapes

Tuesday

  • Fettuccine Carbonara with grilled chicken breasts
  • French Bread
  • Apple slices

Wednesday

  • Tacos
  • Fruit Salad

Thursday

  • BBQ Chicken pieces(I haven’t decided on any side dishes yet…I have to see what produce is on sale this week!)

Friday

  • Homemade deep dish pizza

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Food waste photo from vacation

23Sep08

Yep, I took one even on vacation! I shopped carefully and tried to eat wisely over the course of the week, but I just made too much pizza and too many pizza bagels. We had some other groceries left, but I packed them in the cooler to bring home. The cooler didn’t have enough space for some mushrooms, so those hit the trash too. My camera was already packed, though, so I didn’t take a picture of those.

We spent $95 on groceries at Walmart, but then there were two smaller trips too and I don’t have the totals of those handy. Quite obviously, I’m a ways over my $80 a week goal. I’m not too bummed about it, though, because I expect to spend more on groceries on vacation…I do a lot less cooking from scratch, and I don’t have the option of shopping a bunch of sales. Still, more-expensive-than-usual grocery shopping is a sight cheaper than eating out for every meal(and there’s more to come on doing a vacation the frugal way later this week!).


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You can vote for me at Divine Caroline!

23Sep08

My friend Christi kindly nominated me as her favorite home and food blog(thank you, Christi…you are a dear!).

Supposedly I can install this cute little button my site that will allow you to easily vote for me, but WordPress isn’t letting me do it(it might be too much like an ad?). I only have three votes so far, so I’m pretty darn positive I’m nearly last in the runnings(and I don’t even have any idea what good thing happens to the person that wins!). Oh, scratch that…I see that $250 is at stake here!

At any rate, if you’d like to vote for me, go here It looks like you have to register with Divine Caroline to do it, so I totally understand if you’d rather not bother! I haven’t even bothered registering to vote for myself(actually, I probably can’t do that. :p)


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