Savings and Goals Journal #30

We had snow early this week, and we are expecting snow or rain for the weekend. This is a good reason to stay indoors and work on projects!

In the Kitchen

I am still planning meals from the pantry and freezer. I’ve noticed that our meals are lasting longer lately. My daughter often cooks for herself and the grandkids, so there are lots of leftovers if just Grampy and I eat something I’ve made. I’ve frozen some of the chili I made last week for later. And I’ll be moving a meal to the upcoming week, as I didn’t make it. I’m thinking about starting to cook on a smaller scale.

One evening nothing sounded really good for dinner. I’d always wanted to try making a Dutch baby pancake. I used this recipe. It was delicious! I will definitely be making it again.

This week’s meal plan

• Sunday: Leftovers
• Monday: Shake-n-Bake chicken, green beans
• Tuesday: Leftovers
• Wednesday: Hamburger patties, rice, mixed veggies
• Thursday: Leftovers
• Friday: Chili dogs, chips, fresh veggies
• Saturday: Scrambled eggs, ham, biscuits, fruit

In the Garden

The lettuce and greens project I had started some time ago did not go as I had planned. I usually don’t have a lot of problems growing things, so I was disappointed. All of my seedlings died. I have a package of microgreens I’m going to try growing. I’ll start lettuce and spinach in the greenhouse a little later.

Grampy and I have decided that we will be purchasing the few chile plants we will grow in the garden from the nursery, instead of starting them from seeds. We will also purchase two Chocolate Sprinkles cherry tomato plants. I will start some slicing tomatoes, some jalapeno plants and some bell pepper plants from seed in late February and early March. We put our plants out in the garden at the end of May. I will direct-sow the beets, corn, green bean and squash seeds in May. We will plant red potatoes in late April.

For flowers, I plan to relocate several perennial plants. The only flowers I will start from seed will be zinnias. They are beautiful, easy to grow and I like them.

Our gardening expenses will be minimal. I have a large pile of compost to add to the soil in the east garden. I will not need to purchase any seeds. I will need to purchase seed starting soil and the chile pepper and tomato plants. I have some of the soil I will need to fill the raised bed we are going to build, but we may need to purchase a bit more. We should not have any expenses for irrigation supplies as we made our irrigation system last year, using this idea.

I hope that with having less garden to tend and less preserving to do, I will have time to accomplish some of the long-neglected outdoor projects this spring, summer and fall.

Home and Family

After reading reviews for the cabinet knobs I’d found for the laundry area, I am now searching for something different. I have to remind myself sometimes that the most inexpensive thing is not always the best value. I would rather spend a little more and get something that will last.

In the upcoming week, I will be completing the laundry area makeover. This project is taking much longer than I had anticipated. But that’s okay! I’m making slow but steady progress. I’d bought a light fixture for Grampy to install, but it was going to be a lot of work since there was not already a light on the ceiling. We decided to go with these under-cabinet lights. They look simple enough to install that I can do it myself.

Have a wonderful week!