Hi everyone! I have a few things to share this week.
1. Reorganized upstairs area. I brought a child's school desk and chair into my study/library so I can have a child working with me as I'm writing or researching. I've been looking for time in my day to do more writing, asking myself why I haven't finished a book since last year; not even a small book. I think part of the answer is that I'm working on several book projects at once, and the other part is that I have to have content in order to keep putting out books. I have to keep reading, keep getting new ideas, and keep trying those ideas. If I don't have any experience to draw from, I'm just gathering up information from other books and reassembling it into a "new" book. I guess you could do that, but there's no flavor to a book like that, and it's not quite as satisfying to write. 2. Oh yes, I forgot to mention—the desk and chair were free, left behind by the previous desk owners. It used to be that I had to travel in order to acquire free stuff, but between having renters and having bought your house from a quasi-hoarder, there's hardly a need to travel anymore. 3. Harvested beans, cucumbers, raspberries, beets and swiss chard from the garden. One of my favorite meals this month has been chicken salad wraps with swiss chard. 4. Started cleaning up some of my strawberry patch. This needs to be done asap! I should have had that thing mowed a month ago. 5. Finished watching the Basic and Intermediate disks of Mosby's Nursing Skills, as well as Mosby's "Physical Examination & Health Assessment" Skills. I still want to watch the Advanced Skills disc before the end of this month. I know I didn't retain everything just watching them in a blitz, but I did learn several new things, and I have a reference of what is "normal" for your body. The Nursing Skills disks had some good information, but not very much of it was usable for me; for example, a majority of the skills involved the use of specialized equipment that you'd only have in a hospital. Other skills were things like pouching a colostomy or inserting a catheter. I find that DVDs or video is a lot easier to learn from than a book, although books are easier to reference. The DVDs I bought cost between $20.00 and $40.00, but if you can save even one doctor's visit, the purchase will more than pay for itself. The skill of ruling out medical problems is so thrifty. You don't have to diagnose WHAT a problem is, as much as diagnosing what it is NOT. I've gone to the ER for pleurisy (which is treated by ibuprophen) thinking I had heart trouble, paid a doctor to remove earwax (I thought I had an ear infection), paid someone to take X-rays on a perfectly good foot. I've known others who went to the ER for the doctor to diagnose colds or bruises or a virus. Knowing the difference between "I need a doctor to fix this" and "I can handle this at home" can often save hundreds of dollars. That's about it for this week. See you next time! ~Prudence~
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I hope those of you in the U.S. had a wonderful Independence Day! We spend the evening at a local lake to watch fireworks with family. Here are a few thrifty things I did this week:
4th of July decorations: I used things we already had to decorate with. The wreath pictured above was made with a stripped-down, free grapevine wreath out of someone's trash, plus some Dollar Tree items I had from previous years. I also hung out some bunting flags I bought on sale several years ago. The flags are beginning to fade (they were just cheap vinyl ones... something like $1.50 each) so I moved the faded ones to areas that were less visible. I also stuck two miniature flags in a potted plant. Garden: We harvested the first cucumbers this week off of the trellis! I also harvested raspberries, swiss chard and beets, which where delicious. I also froze some black raspberries picked on the edge of our property. Weather: we narrowly avoided a tornado this week, which was a relief. It was extremely hot for our area, plus humid. As I mentioned last week, working with the heat and humidity required a tricky routine of opening and closing windows, along with turning the dehumidifier and air conditioning unit on and off to save money on electricity while also keeping the house at a reasonable temperature. Now that a cold front has moved in, we'll be fine just running the dehumidifier. That's the good news: the bad news is that a swarm of mosquitos have hatched out of their watery nests. They're awful! One cannot step outside for 30 seconds without attracting a cloud of them. My challenge for this week will be trying to strike a balance between mosquito bites and DEET. I bought a repellent lantern, thinking it would be a good investment at $20.00. What I didn't know is that the lantern requires refills every 12 hours, and the refills cost between $3.00-$6.00 each! A whole can of mosquito spray costs between $6.00 and $10.00, and that will last from 3-6 months. The only advantage I can see to the lantern is that you don't actually have to spray your skin, which could be healthier. The other thing would be that you can cover two or more people with just one device. I'm going to try it and see how well it works before investing more money in refills. Books: On our trip last week, there was a cookbook I considered buying, but it was $20.00. Instead, I waited until we got home and bought it for $6.00 on Ebay. I've been trying to buy most of my books on Ebay rather than Amazon, for political reasons but also since they seem to be less expensive in general. Along with that book, I also bought Pilgrim's Progress, the Screwtape Letters and Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin. I know you can probably borrow all of these books for free from the library (at least, through the interloan system), but I like having them in our home. I grew up with an extensive library at home, and it was those books that shaped my beliefs and interests, rather than the ones I borrowed from the library. Speaking of borrowing from the library: I borrowed an obscure book about death to read as research for my local history fiction. I found what I was looking for, which was the burial process prior to 1870. As it turns out, local carpenters or a family member would make the casket, which wasn't even lined. After the person died, a family member or neighbor (usually female) would prop a board on two chairs to make a sort of table, and then they would lift the corpse on top for burial preparation. The makeshift "undertaker" would wash the body first. Then they would use a coin on each eye to close them, and use a forked stick between the chin and collarbone to keep the mouth closed. The final task was to wrap the body in a shroud or winding cloth before putting it in the casket. I was surprised to learn that people were not buried in their clothes; at least, not according to this book. That didn't happen until the late 1800s. Another interesting tidbit I learned was about gravestones. In our local cemetery where most of my characters are buried, there are a few plots that are surrounded by post and chain fences. One of my characters has a plot like this all to herself. Not only that, but her gravestone itself is unique; it's called a "cradle grave"—a large headstone on one end, a smaller stone on the foot end, and sidewalls so it looks like an actual bed. The grave is essentially a large flower planter, and at the time it was planted and cared for by family members. Of course, Maggie (my character) died in the 1870s, and it's likely that neither her grave nor the other two cradle graves in our cemetery have had flowers for over 100 years. At some point I may ask the sexton if I can clean up the grave (or, all the graves of my characters) and replant it with flowers. They did this in Philadelphia, and I think the result was very honoring to the occupant. Fitness: I haven't given a fitness update in a while. I stepped on my Renpho scale this morning, and it said the exact same thing it did at the end of April. I quit intermittent fasting for a while, and now I've attempted to start it up again, but I don't know if it has any effects or not. I spent $80.00 on a good quality but inexpensive rowing machine to help my posture, which has always been kind of slumpy. I've been watching nursing skills videos on my laptop while rowing, which is nice because I'm making more use of my time that way. I wish I had more to update you about on this journey, but I haven't got very far. At least I haven't gone backward at all in the past several months. Well, that's about all for this week. I have some chores calling my name. Blessings, ~Prudence~ Hi everyone! I hope you've all had a great week.
Over the weekend we were able to visit a French colonial fort while travelling. I loved it! The gardens, above, are very much like my own kitchen garden, but bigger, and many of them were planted with perennial herbs (of course... easier to take care of) whereas mine have vegetables. But they were so beautiful. I snapped a ton of pictures for inspiration, not only of the gardens but also the interiors of the homes. I love the colonial décor- not only French, but also British. I love all of the glass, cast iron and other natural materials. Free books: Our trip to the fort coincided with my reading Jocelyn Green's Between Two Shores, which is a novel about the daughter of a Mohawk mother and French father. The setting and time period is much the same as that of the colonial fort we visited, which was pretty cool. I still haven't finished the book yet, but most of Jocelyn's work is fun to read and I always come away with a better working knowledge of history. While picking strawberries for the past two weeks, I put in many hours of audio book time and read 3 out of 4 of her "Heroes Behind the Lines" series, set during the Civil War. Then I started A Refuge Assured on audio (Scribd), and discovered that many of her novels are also available for free if you have Amazon Prime. Thus, I'm listening to one story and reading Between Two Shores on my Kindle. Several years ago I read Mark of the King, which was good but it took me forever to read on paperback. If I keep going the audio and Kindle route, I'm guessing I can finish most of her books by the end of the year, having not paid a penny for any of them. I've not read much fiction since I was a teenager (and that was a LONG time ago!), but I want to write a book about our local county history, and there is just not enough information or market to sell a non-fiction book about it. When you dig deep, there are plenty of characters, plots and events from real life that just need some blanks filled and a storyline made in order to be saleable. So I think that's the route I'll be going, but in order to do the job right, it might take me five years to get a good work of fiction out there, since I've only written and published non-fiction. Strawberries: we finished up our market strawberry season and now I'm just picking some for our own family use. I've dried some and frozen some, but we don't go through many strawberries out-of-season. I've just burned out on them, I think. I figure that I earned about $700.00 this year on berries. I tweak the business model a little bit each year, but it's still not good, financially, for something more than a hobby. If I were to expand the business, it would have to be a U-pick operation, since if I hire helpers to pick, neither them nor I make enough money. Garden: I've been harvesting lettuce, turnips and spinach seeds this week. I need to find a faster way to collect the spinach seeds. Cooking: I made bread and tarts this week, in addition to regular meals. I've been trying to use a lot of eggs, since that's what we have most of. Electricity: As with many areas around the country, our electricity rates have gone up and I'm trying to use less of it. It's very difficult, though, when it gets so hot and our house is so humid. At times, we've had to run the dehumidifier in conjunction with the air conditioning unit, just to keep things from sticking and molding. One thing I've done is to move my clothes drying racks upstairs, where it's warmer and dryer. This move saves at least $1.00 per load, and it's something I don't mind doing. I've also been more mindful to bake two things at once and keep some things on timers. That's about it for this week! Hope you've all be staying cool, well hydrated and thrifty. Blessings, ~Prudence~ |
About PrudenceI am a Christian homemaker who lives in the Midwest. I enjoy sewing, gardening, reading and thrifting. Archives
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