Valerean

Since I've learned it's almost impossible not to spend money (although I'm still trying to avoid that whenever I can), I'm changing my tactics to spend as little as possible. Since food is our biggest expense every month, I'm competitively shopping at three different supermarkets and beefing up my emergency pantry. The latter I need to do anyway in preparation for hurricane season, but it helps. I cook at home nearly every night now, and make judicious use of leftovers. We eat well, although beef is out of my budget for the most part. My guy and our nephew eat about twice the amount of food I do, so I'm cooking recipes for basically five. By avoiding convenience foods and purchasing whole foods instead I'm spending about $130.00 or less per week at the market, keeping us at about $500.00 per month for food. I am thrifting or buying at the dollar store everything I can these days: books, cleaners, clothes, certain foods (when they're cheaper...

In the past we've hired Stanley Steemer to come in and clean our 24-year-old carpets once a year, but when Cole and Skye both died right before the holidays I just couldn't deal with it. Then we got the puppies the following year, and I wanted to wait until they were grown and fully house-trained before we cleaned the old carpets. That's why it's been two years since the carpets were cleaned. The price of Stanley Steemer's service has doubled since the last time we used them. We've tried cleaning them ourselves in the past with the rental machine Rug Doctor, which didn't do half as well as the commercial service. My guy did some research, and found out that Bissell also had a rental machine available at Lowe's that had gotten sterling reviews. So we gave it a go right before Thanksgiving. We've always moved the furniture ourselves, even with Stanley Steemer, so that was nothing new. The Bissell machine is big, clunky, heavy and a bit hard...

I don't often design my own quilts (using a pattern is easier), but I'd like to turn these shibori and complimentary solid fabrics into a functional art piece. That means doing the designing myself. At the moment I'm waffling between a card trick design I did come up with some years back, figuring out a new spin on log cabin patchwork, or randomly cutting and piecing the fabrics together ala my recycled linen quilt. I'll probably do some sketching before I commit.

Even before the pandemic I washed my hands probably a dozen times a day. I know that sounds OCD, but I constantly handle pets, food and cleaners, and I'm hyper-vigilant about good hygiene now. I prefer foaming hand soap, as I can rinse it off faster, and keep dispensers by every sink in the house. The problem is the refill liquid (very cheap at Wal-Mart) has been impossible to buy since March, and I'd rather not order it online (I rarely buy anything liquid that has to be shipped.) Yesterday I finally ran out of foaming soap liquid, so I went online and found out how to make my own. Here's the insanely difficult formula: Add one part any liquid soap and four parts water to a foaming soap dispenser. Turn the dispenser over gently from side to side until the soap and water blend. Yep, that's it. I can't believe I've been buying refill bottles all this time when I could have just made it myself for maybe a tenth of the cost. Lesson learned!

Edward finished painting the front porch yesterday, so I can show you how nice it turned out: Now it's time for sprucing up the back porch: With the painting he's also cleaning out the gutters to prep for hurricane season: June is not that far off now, so I'd better get my checklist out.

We're about halfway through our only bottle of hand sanitizer, and there is still none at the stores, so I looked into what I need to make my own. I actually have everything I need according to this Wired article with a quick recipe for making your own . Okay, I don't have the essential oil, but we don't care how it smells. My guy was looking for a small bottle we could use to put some hand sanitizer in his truck, and I wanted one for my purse. While scrounging around my bathroom drawers I found four of these (one is now in his truck): I honestly forgot I had these; my daughter liked them so I'd always buy a couple extra whenever I went to Bath & Body Works. Problem solved. :)