Mimi in art: part 1

I am very excited!!! I just emailed a fantastic artist about possibly painting a portrait of my darling Mimi girl. I hope she accepts and can bring my darling girl back through the world of art. I miss Mimi terribly all this time later and just really hope we can do this to honer her sweet memory. I will keep updating as I find out more...

Why not freecycle?

I love being thrifty! I think it is in my blood, my mom and dad love garage sale-ing and my mom is queen of the thrift store. My extended family is just as nutty about thrifty-ness so it is no wonder that the frugal bug bit me! Recently I have started using freecycle. If you haven't heard of freecycle it works like this. You go to www.freecycle.org and then you enter your zip code. The website will let you know how many freecycle groups are in your area and you pick the nearest one to your zip code. I believe that all freecycle groups work off of yahoo groups, so don't be surprised when you get directed to join a yahoo group.

The rules are simple: Offer first, then accept offers or post wanted offers. But definitely you start by giving something away before taking something else. I started by offering up some unwanted gardening supplies. A lady quickly responded to my add and we meet at the library where she picked up her new FREE treasures. Then I went on and accepted a few free goodies for our family. I picked up a big bag of little girls clothes that I gave to a friend of mine. Then I posted a wanted add for homeschooling items. These pictures are of the items another lady gave me. A large map of the world. In the first picture you can see Thomas put some green glass on Greenland. I was trying to explain to him that mommy found that glass on a beach in France, but he thought it should have came from Greenland...it is green after all! I have since hung it on a wall. Even Winston wants to learn about the world...ha!

She threw in a complete set of letters that I hung in the playroom at eye level for the little guy.

Looks cute and maybe he will start to recognize more letters.

Below is a picture of a very awesome calender she also freecycled to me. Everything has velcro so we can easily switch the dates and seasons and special holidays. It came with everything, I was surprised that none of the numbers or other small pieces were not missing. It is super nice! Currently it is hanging on Thomas' artist easel. I might buy some more velcro and hang the whole thing some where else down the road. But Thomas isn't really using his easel for art at the moment so its no big deal.

The point of this is to tell you how much fun being frugal is and how easy it is to find things you want without paying for them. Maybe a freegan lifestyle awaits us...

PS. It feels great to give as well!

Freezing spinach

We really love our green smoothies around here. They give us so much energy and they taste great. My only dilemma is that we never seem to make it threw the three pound container of organic spinach I buy from Costco. Its such a great deal at only four dollars, I cant resist buying it. Sadly I always end up throwing some away.

So I had the idea of liquefying my spinach and freezing it. Why not? This way we can throw a cube or two into our smoothies and I don't have to worry about it going bad or taking up so much space in the fridge.

It took full blenders and a little water to use all the spinach. Its amazing how little liquid you can get from so many bulky spinach leaves.

After blending I just poured the liquid into the ice cube trays. Once they are frozen I will transfer them to an airtight container.

My problem was were would I put the ice cube trays? Yesterday I went to Costco, can you tell that I splurged?

Aww, a spot on top of some bread. Yeah, no more wasted spinach!!! Why didn't I think of this sooner?

Step stool madness

I have been on a step stool finding mission for many, many months now. My requirement list was not super long. I wanted to find stools that were made of quality wood, sturdy, tall enough for Thomas to reach what ever he needed, and if at all possible be made in the USA.

I have looked high and low but every stool I come across tends to be missing something on my list.

Two days ago I spent the morning at a new friends house. When I walked into her kitchen I saw the cutest step stools I have ever seen. Her two stools were just like the ones I have posted here only one was shaped like a butterfly and the other like a flower. I gasped and quickly found out where she had found these gems!

Have you ever heard or a store called Home Goods? Turns out there is a Home Goods store just a few miles from our home. As soon as I left my friends house I went straight there to grab up a few stools for Thomas.

Turns out they didn't have any flower or butterfly stools left, but they had several different cars and boats carved onto circular stools. Yeah, perfect for my little boy! I would have settled for flowers and butterflies but this was even better for us. I still cant get over the price, at thirteen dollars each for a solid wood hand carved stool. The only thing I compromised on was where these stools were made. Sorry USA you lost out on this one. These were hand carved in Thailand.

Thomas is now the proud new owner in four unique step stools. Two in the kitchen and one in a down stairs bathroom and another in an upstairs bathroom. I hope this helps him along the way with gaining Independence and feeling a little taller!

Used threads

In the past thrift stores have sort of grossed me out. I always feel dirty when I walk out of one. But lately I have found a new thrill in thrift shopping. It is sort of like a treasure hunt. If you take your time and see what is hiding in these stores you might just stumble upon something you could really use, and at these prices it is hard to beat. The entire out fit Thomas is wearing in these pictures, to include the Columbia hat and working kids binoculars came from the thrift store. All for under ten dollars. There are no stains or rips nothing missing just nice clothes that some child (probably) hardly ever wore. Thomas looks like he is ready to go on safari!

Wetlands park

Thomas and I went to the wetlands park a couple days ago. This first picture is of him after he fell into the water!

We found this great place, and we had it all to ourselves. We walked through this forest of watery reeds then crossed a bridge. Suddenly we were surrounded in water and shaded by giant trees. We lied down on a bench and watched the trees dance in the wind.

Thomas grabbed a stick and was excited about the possibility of catching a shark or an alligator.

For Thomas and I, it doesn't matter if its a hundred and ten in the dessert heat, we love to get out and explore nature!

I made Thomas some binoculars out of toilet paper rolls and painted them black. He was on the look out for new and exciting animals.

Busy morning

This morning came way too early, but the nice thing was that Thomas wanted to build his train set near the kitchen which allowed me to work and play at the same time. Yesterday I soaked and started the sprouting process for a bunch of buckwheat. I was hoping to awaken to see little tails growing on my buckwheat, but alas there are none yet. It took me a while to find a place to hang my bag of buckwheat, I was thrilled when I saw the microwave handle was the perfect height. After they sprout I will dehydrate these and they will be used in homemade raw granola.

Yesterday I soaked to sets of raw almonds. One set I soaked in just water, those are the ones on the bottom tray. The other set was soaked in 1/2 water 1/2 Bragg's Amino. Then this morning I rinsed the almonds and placed them in the dehydrator. The set that had soaked in the Bragg's solution got coated in Brewers yeast and Himalayan pink salt. They are suppose to be a cheesy treat when they finish dehydrating. The plain almonds will get chopped and put into the raw granola.

I made the mistake of placing a ripe peach and a ripe nectarine on top of a bunch of overly ripe bananas. This morning when I went to enjoy a summer treat I realized that the bananas had speeded up the ripening process of my sweet treat! I didn't want to waste my fruit so I decided to make a special treat. I chopped the the peach, nectarine, a whole vanilla bean and a couple hand fulls of Brazil nuts into a basic muffin recipe. I cant wait for them to cool so I can see how they turned out. I have never seen this combination in muffins before so I will see if there is a reason for this!

Here is Thomas' train set up. He finally had enough engineering and decided he needed to watch a little Dora. I am a sucker for his sweet little "pleaseeeee, mommy" so its on as I type this. Now off to my muffins...Yumm!