A Resourceful Tip - Loose Buttons

Do you get tired of sewing buttons back on shirts? Or like me, do you just ignore loose buttons because it'll just come loose again and I don't have time to waste sewing on buttons?

How about using dental floss to sew on a button? It would certainly work with the million-ish white cardigan sweaters in my girls' closets. It also is certainly sturder than thread so maybe one of these days I'll give it a try.

I saw this tip in a "Tips for Busy Moms" calendar I have on my desk.

Katie

PSE Home Energy Report

I was so excited to receive my PSE Home Energy Report last week. I am a moderately competitive person and was irritated that in the last report I only got a "good" rating. I blamed my mom who was here running the dryer all week after the baby was born, I blamed the fact that we're home all day compared to neighbors who work away from home, I blamed the unusually cold year, and I blamed the amount of laundry I have to do (between 12 and 15 loads a week). But Good News: I've improved! I got a "Great" rating (the highest) and was well below the average of the 'most efficient' neighbors. PSE gets these ratings by classifying homes into similar size categories and similar location. I still use a lot of electricity. The computers are on all the time, lights are accidentally left on, the babies sleep with a fan on all night and at naptimes and I run the dryer up to 15 times a week. I use more electricity than the most efficient neighbors. The gas however made all the difference. We keep our house at 65 during the day and 55 at night. I think that's much lower than most folks. I'm hoping the March/April report shows us doing well again. We've been working on turning our computers off at night and I'll be able to hang clothes to dry again soon. I'm already resisting turning on the heat if the day is supposed to be warm because the house heats up to 65 all by itself if the sun is out. I'll keep you posted. Katie

Moldy Onions?

The other day I was moving my big buckets of bulk food around and pulled a bag or something (I forget - overloaded brain) out of my bin of onions. My first thought was "Please don't be moldy! I need onion for tonight's dinner!" Wouldn't you know it, this is what my four onions looked like. It really does just take one bad onion to rot the whole barrel.


I hate to throw away food and make every effort to waste nothing. My practice when something molds is almost always to salvage what I can. So I thought I'd document it here since it seems to fit the blogs of title of 'A Resourceful Home.'

Two of the onions were really bad. I cut those in half with a 'good side' and a 'bad side'. I peeled one layer of the good side and as many layers as the mold pentrated on the bad side. Then I put them in tupperware and into the fridge. They'll be used in next week's meals. The two remaining onions just had mold smudges on them, basically transfer from contact with the other onions. I just peeled the first layer off each of those, washed & dried my bin, and put the onions back in.




This process seems pretty obvious to me, but I recently had a great conversation with a young woman who is working hard to learn to cook frugally and be thrifty homemaker. This particular woman probably wouldn't know that she doesn't have to throw all the onions away so I thought it was worth posting.

Katie

Naomi's Menu Plan

This week Naomi is my kitchen helper and she helped plan the menu. I use the term 'help' loosely here. There is a big difference between 4 and 5 year old girls!

I reviewed dates in the pantry earlier this week and wanted incorporated older things into our menu so I laid out all the things I wanted to use up including carrots, onions, and a turkey from the freezer. It turned out to be a great visual for Naomi as we plotted out how to use everything on the table. True to her personality, she had to move each item into a new pile as we decided how to use it.

Here's what we came up with:

Dinners:
Sunday - Stir Fry & fried rice (using onions, carrots, expired stir fry seasoning and box rice mix)
Monday - Hamburger Helper (using March expiration mix)
Tuesday - Macaroni & Cheese pie (using onions) (Naomi's choice)
Wednesday - Dinner at church
Thursday - Turkey Pot Pie (Mom won't be home for dinner, easy freezer meal for Dad)
Friday - Cheesy Chicken Casserole (using carrots & freezer broccoli)
Saturday - Turkey

Lunches:
Sunday - Ham Sandwiches & Broccoli Soup (expired mix & freezer broccoli)
Monday - Waffles & Applesauce (Naomi's Choice)
Tuesday - Bagels & Pears
Wednesday - Nachos & fruit
Thursday - Box Mac'n'Cheese & apple slices
Friday - Grilled Cheese
Saturday - Leftoovers

Katie

Weekend Shopping - $37.79

Here are photos of this week's shopping: I went back to Fred Meyer for the $1 Tillamook cheese and ended up getting strawberries and eggs, too. I found a bag of spinach for $.75 that day to make a spinach/strawberry salad. I went to Fred Meyer and QFC today. Fred Meyer has 2# bricks of cheddar for $3.50 and I needed sugar and figured Fred Meyer would have the lowest 'regular' price. It was $2.99 for a 5# bag - I really can't stand paying regular prices. I found some great deals at QFC in their clearance bin. A small can of formula was marked down to $6.50 and I had a $5.00 off coupon. I also bought those 3 boxes of Pop-Tarts for $.64 each. I would have gotten them for even less with my $1/3 MC, but the checker wouldn't take it and I didn't want to argue with him. He's the same checker who didn't give me my $11 change last weekend, but then called to tell me that his till was off $11 and I could come down for the cash. Whoo! The 6 packs of Pop-Secret were marked down to $.99 each and those are my favorite deal of the day. Lesson Learned: Don't give coupons to the 5 year old to hold while we shop. One got lost and I ended up returning the item it was for while we were in the checkout line. Katie

Garage Clean-Up

Getting the garage clean is another of the projects I've been working on as I am trying to focus on being a better homemaker. DH and I did most of the work in one sunny day as the kiddos rode bikes and played in front of the house.

Here's what we did:

• sorted boxes of stuff into piles to keep, garage sale, or donate
  
• recycled a pile of empty boxes (why was I collecting these?)
  
• found lots of things to take to a recycling event (more on that next week)
  
• sorted canning jars by size and found good boxes to store them
  
• rearranged stuff on shelves to allow better access and make more space
  
• removed everything from the dining set we're trying to sell and polished it up
  
• decided to sell a little table I love but really have no place for
  
• put all the strollers/baby gear together
  
• put all the bikes/trikes/scooters together
  
• cut up a 12 foot plastic pipe (I was sporting some rad safety goggles)
  
• took two boxes of books to the local book exchange

Overall I feel great to have things organized and condensed. I also feel great that DH and I actually accomplished a whole project in one day. This is how I want All of our projects to go!

A few photos:

Canning Jars

Dining Set to sell

Little table to sell

Katie

Thrift Store Finds

I've got the hang of grocery shopping with all 4 kiddos, but any other visits to retail establishments are mostly avoided because I can't really accomplish anything while also enforcing crowd control.


Today I braved the thrift store with all 4 and it actually went OK. I think the timing was exactly right so the baby got a little nap before we left and we got home before the toddler was starving.

Here's what I found at Children's Hospital Thrift Store in Bellevue (my favorite):

I was really excited to find shirts for DH. He is very tall and thin so I don't often run across dress shirts that actually fit him in the thrift stores. Today I found a black/white plaid, a white Pierre Cardin, and a green Van Heusen that should all work! They are all wrinkle resistant (an absolute must for this wife) and cost $2, $3.75 and $6. Definitely a savings from new!

I also picked up the book What's So Amazing About Grace which is on my list for this year of non-fiction. It was only $2. A cute pink jacket for one of the girls for $1.25 and a complete Madeline puzzle for $1. The older girls have just discovered Madeline so this was a just a fun extra purchase.

If anyone is in the market for furniture - there were some gorgeous Ethan Allen pieces being delivered while we were there this morning. About 10 wood pieces were being unwrapped - my favorites were two folding screens.

Katie

You put the dishes Where?

In my recent quest to be a better homemaker and training up my daughters to be keepers of their own homes one day I have been doing more 'projects' than normal, mostly organizing, sorting, and purging many things that clutter up the house.

One organizing change I made was to move our dishes to a lower cupboard where our girls can reach without a stool or a chair. This is for two reasons: 1) The girls can unload 90% of the dishwasher contents into their proper home instead of making stacks on the counter top with most of the dishes. 2) The girls can set the table independently. The sacrifice I am making, of course, is to bend down low every time I need a dish, but it's an easy enough change to make and worth the benefit of better training my daughters.

Here's how the new cupboards look:

Up High
Down Low next to the Dishwasher
Katie