city wide garage sale weekend

It is my favorite weekend of the year.....city wide garage sale weekend and there were some good ones this year.  Most notably 2 sales were everything was 25 cents unless otherwise marked.  I scored HUGE at these sales.  Jeans for K, a lands end winter coat, shoes, shirts, swim suit (NEW), the list goes on and on.

some pics from my deals

Bike $10 has training wheels but they were still in my trunk, scooter for O $3, in the middle is a patio umbrella for my FIL for $5.

The pile!  YIKES huh?!?!

Hannah Montana Blanket for K, 2 pairs of jeans for R (AE and levis), hat for R, quilting fabirc and sheet sets for me.

9 pairs of jeans for K (arizona, LE, gap, unionbay)

shorts and jammies for K and O...K discovered silk jammies and is in love.

mickey mouse shirt for O, dress for K, Lands end coat for K, shirts for K and O

all this for a grand total of $42!!!!!

~Jess~

O's quilt top and pics of my new baby....Any guesses on it's Year of Manufacture?

Finished O's quilt top today.

~Jess~

K's quilt top

I took this pic last night.  It was almost done.  I still need to do the back and sides but here it is so far....

whole thing

~Jess~

Monday....ugh!

Had another contractor here to do an estimate for our block grant house rehab project.  Once I get a little more into this process and the work actually starts I want to write an article about the process from start to finish.  It has been quite ordeal.  Not bad just tiresome and a lot of red tape to go through.  Currently we are waiting on the City's attorney to send in our current title to the title company.  After that, they will do a search to make sure we don't have any outstanding liens (besides the mortgage).  I am hoping to start our remodeling with the next month.  We'll see what happens though. 

I cut out a bunch more squares for quilting today.  I should have enough now to do O's quilt and have a start on the one for my youngest neice.  I need to wait to start on her's until she outgrows some more clothes because my brother requested that I use a few favorite outfits in it. 

After thinking about it more, I want to do 5 quilts total.  One for each of my kids, one for my neice, one for me and Rodney and one for my mom for her birthday.  It will be difficult to do all these and I am not going to stress myself out about it.  I am getting a sewing machine from my mom later this week and going to sew when I feel like it.  I am not going to push myself to do it.  I want this to be an enjoying hobby and so far it is.  I tend to throw myself completely into something and burn out quickly and I don't want to do that this time. 

For my first 2 quilts I am doing just a simple patchwork type block quilt from old clothes and leftover fabrics from other projects of my mom's and we'll go from there.  Once I get better at it I would like to do some neat designs or whatever. 


~Jess~

update

I got more fabric for the girls quilts today and got it all cut and have 5 rows of 10 done on O's quilt.  Sewing tommorrow!

not professional by any means but

here's my very first quilt with the rows pinned together.  Ready for sewing.

I might be changing around some of the blocks. 

better view of the blocks

ta da!

~Jess~

making a quilt

Last night I cut out squares for making a quilt.  I have a bunch more to go but when I pieced it together last night to check it out, I think it is going to look very cool.  It is going to be a long project but I will update as a go. 

I am using some old fabric mom had in the basement and some of my Grandma's old clothes.  It is just a simple block quilt.  Eventually, if I enjoy quilt making (which I don't know if I will because I actually HATE sewing), I would like to make more quilts using the kids outgrown clothes.  We'll see.  I tend to get too far ahead of myself and I lack patience so quiltmaking may not be for me.


~Jess~

neat finds today

I didn't go garage saling or thrift store-ing.  I helped my parents clean out their basement.  I ended up inheriting 5 handmade quilts.  They were made by my grandmother (my dad's mother).  I love quilts so this was quite the score for me.


I already had 5 quilts of my own, not including some toddler quilts so now I have quite a collection of handmade quilts. 

one of my new quilts.  I think Grandma spent many hours on this one.

this is probably one of my favorites although I do love them all

I think Grandma made this one from worn out clothes

O claimed this one.  It is like her....busy.

this one is my favorite but K claimed it right away. I wish I would have gotten a better pic but K already had it on her bed and was sleeping when I snuck in for this pic.  The Roses are gorgeous and hand sewn.  This pic does not do any justice to how beautiful this quilt is.

some of the quilts I already had.

my mom made this one for R for the first Christmas we were married.

my mom made this one for Josh but i have it now.

this one was given to use by a church group after our house burnt down when I was in high school.

This one was given to us by that same church group for the same reason

My mom made this one for me.

~Jess~

awesome thrift store score...to keep or to sell? *edited*

I bought this today for $2.  It has all the accesories as far as I can tell.  The drawbridge works and it is in excellent condition.  I looked it up on eBay and a restored one is selling for $51 currently.  So do I sell or do I keep?  I originally bought it for K.  I planned to put it up and give it to her for her birthday....

~Jess~

edit****  after much internal debate, talking to R and asking some other people I decided to sell it on eBay.  Just after I listed it the only other one on eBay sold for $200!!  OMG!  $200!!!!  mine appears to be in better shape than that one was so wow!  Now to just hide it from K for the next week.  Until it sells and I can ship it.  It already has bids on it so I plan on packaging it up tommorrow night after the kids are in bed and then she will never see it.

a couple awesome thrift store scores today

pair of jeans for K $1. (1/2 off blue tags today and they were a blue tag)

outside little tikes toybox $3
big tote box for toys inside $1
rail for O's new bed. The kind that keeps her from falling out $3
and a couple misc toy things for the girls barbie house.

O inherited a twin size bed from a friend of my dad's.  My dad brought it in yesterday afternoon and we got it all set up.  I am afraid she will fall out and hurt herself so I wanted to get a rail.  K never needed one because by the time she got in a twin bed she was over 3.  O is bigger than K was at that age and about to the weight limit on her toddler bed so it was time.  She rolls around alot in her sleep so she needs the rail.

~Jess~

thrift store shopping

This weekend I had to go visit some family a couple hours away.  They have a couple awesome thrift stores in their city.

I spent $12 at one of the stores.  I bought K a shirt, some pants for me, a Thomas Train for O and a Mickey Mouse with a book for O also.

At the other store I spent $41.  I got K 4 shirts, O 2 shirts, K 2 dresses, R 2 shirts, and this for K.  This was $8.  She LOVES it.  I was going to get her one for Christmas last year but I am glad I waited.  I really didn't want to spend $40 on one.

~Jess~

Proud of myself

The dresser I upcycled looked so nice that I decided to spruce up two of our other painted dressers.  I painted R's which was white with flowers painted on it and porcelain knobs with flowers.  Yeah, soooo not a guys dresser but it worked for him.  He had the least amount of clothes at the time and that was the smallest dresser.  We only had 3 and the kids shared the biggest one, I got the 2nd biggest and he got the leftovers.  Poor guy!

I painted that dresser brown and gave it a bit of pink accent, put the flowery knobs back on and now it is O's dresser.  I brought the biggest dresser downstairs for me and painted my old dresser brown for R.  I put the original handles back on.  However I am going to get new ones for him. 

I realized today that I have never once paid for a dresser!  The biggest one (now mine again) was a gift from my dad's friend's girlfriend at the time.  She bought a new bedroom set and I inherited her oak nightstand and oak dresser.  That beast is HEAVY and I moved it myself today from upstairs to downstairs.  Liv's new dresser was my grandparents' dresser at one time.  I inherited that when K was born and the dresser that is now R's, I inherited from my parents. I don't remember where they got it but I think it was a donation to us after our house fire.  So yep...I have never paid for a dresser and I am 30 1/2 and still haven't started paying. LOL

O's new dresser (used to be flowery)

R's new dresser.  I HATE these handles so I will change them out.  I couldn't get the whole dresser in the pic because they are stacked.  I put his on top of mine since they are both the long type of dresser and take up quite a bit of room in our bedroom.  Having them stacked will work out nicely and give us more space.

~Jess~

upcycling a dresser

On the way home from visiting family Saturday night, I saw a dresser on the curb a couple blocks from home.  I didn't get a good look at it since it was dark.  My brother saw it too and told me about it today.  We went and checked it out.  It was U G L Y!  off white (was white at one time it seems but faded or dirty or smoky), green on the inside of the design and an overspray of gold.  It was missing a track.  My brother checked it over pretty good and structurally it is sound.  There is nothing major wrong with it. $1.39 for a small bottle of paint, 39 cents for a tiny paint brush, some paint we already had here, some wood (for the track), nails and screws we already had and 3 hours of my afternoon, we have a like new dresser for K.

my brother checking it out

before

after

~Jess~

Garage sale scores 4/30

All this and a couple more things not pictured for $12. 

Spongebob shirt, jean shorts, Old Navy tee, butterfly tee, pink tank top, kitty shirt Kait had to have, Nike Basketball shirt, 2 pairs of shorts, one is nike

Hannah Montana Shirt, 3 pairs of jeans, 1 is Gap.

Liv's Train

my baking dish

~Jess~

garage sale list 2010

My 2010 garage sale wishlist

sofa (has to be just right though so I doubt this will happen)
kitchen chair (I don't have matching furniture now so I don't care that it matches anything)
computer chair (then we wouldn't need the kitchen chair)
jeans and t-shirts for R
jeans for me
wafflemaker *found at Goodwill*
eccentric plates and glasses
yard tools (shovel, hoe, etc)
bigger wheelbarrow
good clothesline poles (I am thinking metal)
size 7 and up girls clothes
summer dresses for K and O
handmade quilts




~Jess~

back on the wagon

With the kitchen remodel and R's OT we got a little stupid and got a little bit off the thrifty wagon.  It turned out to not be as bad as I had thought however.  I sat down last Friday and balanced the checkbooks and it turned out that we only went over budget by what R's overtime amount was so in all actuality, we did not go over budget.  This week we are somewhat back on track though.  I say somewhat because there were some things I bought today that we didn't have the cash for but needed so it came from savings but will get put back when R gets paid on Friday.  Next week will have to be a very low OOP week for us grocery wise. 
***
I have been a SAHM for almost 2 months and we are still adjusting to a new routine.  I am trying hard to get the kids on a somewhat regular routine...grocery shopping this day, fun day this day, laundry day this day, etc etc etc.  It has been somewhat difficult because we have had rainy days and colder days which screw up the routine.  So I am still trying.
****
Saturday O and I went to Aldi.  I got a couple boxes of frozen waffles because the kids like waffles and pancakes just about every morning for breakfast and honestly I get so sick of making them EVERY.SINGLE.MORNING.  I decided on the way home that I would just buy a dang wafflemaker and make a huge batch of waffles, freeze them and then just pop them in the toaster when the kids want them.  I looked and the 2 thrift stores in town today for a wafflemaker but they didn't have any.  Then, silly me, I remember that oh so many years ago (I think I was 19 at the time but it could have possible been when I was still in highschool....whenever the Grinch was last really really popular and they had a ton of Grinch related items on the market at Christmas time), my parents gave me a Grinch wafflemaker for Christmas.  I still have it.  It has been sitting on a shelf in my kitchen for many years.  I just can't bring myself to part with it even though it rarely gets used.  Well I pulled the ol' Grinch out of the cupboard today and used it.  I intend on making some giant batches of Grinch waffles and freezing them so I actually should only have to make waffles once every week or two.  HA!  It works out to about 6 cents per waffle using Aldi pancake and waffle mix, water and a little bit of oil VS. almost 12 cents per waffle to buy the already made ones.  Yeah, with the time involved it probably works out the same but I have the time so it is not a big deal and the kids LOVE the "crazy waffles".

cute huh?

inside...Crazy waffles as K calls them.

finished waffle

~Jess~

my recycled (and THRIFTY) brick walkway $5.30 total cost

2 bags of sand @$1.65 each and 4 patio bricks @ 50 cents each. The rest of the bricks were from different landscaping things that were here already when we moved in or stuff I had done that I didn't like after a year or two.




It is by no means finished. I have to backfill and I have to level it out a bit more and fill in some more sand in spots. It looks uneven because it is. I had to slightly slope it toward the driveway so the water doesn't pool up and wash away all my sand below for leveling. If the very first part of it is any indication it will correct itself over next winter and be perfectly set by next spring. The section I did last summer settled over the winter and is now flat and level and sunk it perfectly. It annoyed me last summer but now it is perfect.

K wants to plant some tulips around it and that would be ok because this particular walkway sees very little traffic...me once a day to get mail and the mailman. Anyone who comes here uses the side door to come into the house. but I was thinking of just doing grass around it but IDK..what do you think?



 



~Jess~

couple dollar tree things

I stopped at Dollar Tree last night for sand pails for the girls Easter Baskets and a few other things.  I found dish soap, a 50 oz bottle.  Of course it was only $1 so I was skeptical but I bought one anyway and it is actually pretty decent stuff.  I went back today because we had to go elsewhere in the same town and got a couple more.  I am always on the hunt for a cheap decent dish soap.  I can get a 28 oz bottle here in town for $1 (sometimes 2 for $1 if they put it on sale...which has only happened once in the last year)  and I really can't do much better than that even with coupons so I use that kind generally.  I saw this 50 oz and thought it might be ok and it was.  It didn't suds up the greatest without using my sprayer but neither does my normal stuff.  I use the sprayer to get it good and sudsy and that has become a habit now and is no big deal.  This stuff actually smells pretty good too.  I got the fresh scent.  The true test will be when I pretreat some of DH's greasy work clothes with it.  Dawn is an excellent pretreater for greasy clothes and my other usual dish soap worked ok too.  I hope this does as well.  Then I will be sold on it.  I only hope it is something Dollar Tree intends on carrying all the time.  Otherwise I will buy a bunch and keep up the hunt when that runs out.

I also found bigger scour pads (5 in a pack).  They are easily cut in half so 10 for $1.  I use them on the stove and in the oven mostly but they work well so I got a pack of them. 


~Jess~

sweet onion sauce...like Subway's!

I tried the sweet onion sauce recently at Subway.  I know, I know...it has been out pretty much forever but I just recently tried it and LOVED it. In fact I loved it so much I have been having cravings for it.  The nice part is that a $5 foot long feeds both kids and I.  The bad part is that $5 is $5...especially when I am really only craving the sauce.  LOL
 
I looked up a recipe hack for it and found one that I liked.  I read the reviews and did a few substitutions and eliminations and came up with what I think it is a pretty dang good copy.

My version:

Sweet Onion Sauce similar to Subway's
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 tbsp minced vidalia onion (recipe called for 1 tbsp but I used more like 2-3 because we LOVE onions.  The original recipe also called for white onion but I prefer vidalias)
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp white distilled vinegar
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp honey (original recipe called for 1 tsp brown sugar and no honey but I made it this way instead)
1/4 tsp lemon juice
1 pinch cracked black pepper ( I used 3-4 pinches)
1 pinch garlic powder (I used 1 tsp minced garlic...made sure alot of that was juice)
combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Let cool and put in a squueze bottle. easy peasy and soo yummy. Very much like subways!



The original version called for buttermix powder and $4 for a tub of it was too much for me when I really have no other uses for it at this time.  I omitted it and you don't notice as far as I can tell.  It also called for 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon poppy seed.  I left the poppy seed out intentionally and I left out the salt unintentionally and it worked out fine. 

~Jess~

7 1/2 lb ham

Today I bought another ham from Aldi.  They have spiral cut hams for $1.49/lb.  That is a good price considering that one of my local stores has them "on sale" for $2.59/lb.  I bought one Monday and cooked a little bit and it was GOOD!  So R asked me to pick up another so I did.

7 1/2 lbs of ham will make us

6 meals of ham and a side of potatoes with corn or peas or carrots and  6-10 meals of beans and ham.  Mom will cook the ham bone in a pot of beans for me and then can it.  I love beans and ham every now and then especially with corn bread so this will be GREAT!  Lots of meals for $11.  With sides and everything else I will probably get at least 12 meals for $20.  Can't beat that!


~Jess~

a week (5 days) of crockpot cooking

Because I feel like it, I am attempting a week (well a workweek anyway since R wants to grill this weekend) of crockpot cooking.  Monday was pork ribs.  They were so done they fell off the bone so they became pulled pork sandwiches.  They were yummy and I had plenty left over for the freezer.  Tuesday was ham cooked in pineapple.  Delish.  Tonight is salsa chicken breasts.  Tommorrow (thursday) I want to do a beef roast and friday I am not sure what I am going to do yet.  I might cook the 2 pork roasts I got out to make pulled pork for tonight.  I do not want pulled pork twice in a week though.  I intended to have ribs, then ham, then pulled pork.  Unfortunately my plans don't always turn out. 

I have been keeping up with the decluttering.  Albeit slowly lately.  There is only so much I can get rid of.  I will meet my goal but probably just meet it. 

I finished the stair project as much as I could do by myself.  I have the good ones painted and the stair treads on them.  I still need someone to help me tear out the old ones (without damaging the riser part of the stair...this is why I haven't done it myself) and to help me cut the new ones.  I am leery of cutting them myself because of the angles on 3 of the 4 stairs.  Hopefully I can complete that project over the weekend.

We applied for a block grant to do some much needed repairs and maintenance to our home.  Our house is not bad but it does need new siding and some other things.  It is certainly livable as is however the improvements would be great.  I turned in the app last week and am just waiting to hear back.  I probably won't hear anything until the end of May.  I have an acquaintance from high school that I am contracting with to do the work.  He has done other work to our house and does a good job so we will be contracting with him.  It is so nice to have a contractor you have known for many years and someone that you can trust. 

When the contractor comes I have a few other projects that R and I can do parts of but we need to know if they are even feasible.  One is cutting out 1/2 of a wall to make a bar type counterspace for eating at.  It will look into our living room and make for a nice wide open space.  I am pretty sure the wall is load bearing so I need some advice on how to proceed.  The other project we intend to do in a couple years and that involves some major work that we will hire the contractor for.  Our current bathroom is 1/2 the size of our laundry room.  It is annoying and too small.  We would like to A. switch the bathroom the laundry room, with a door in between and keep the entry for the current bathroom, making it the entry to the laundry room.  We would enter the bathroom through the laundry room.  We would make the current laundry room entry a wall and add cabinets and countertop to that corner for the kitchen.
B.  We would keep the rooms seperate but make the laundry room the bathroom and make the bathroom the laundry room.  I am not too keen on this idea as the bathroom entrance would basically be on the end of my kitchen and in the middle of my "work space".  However this may be the way we have to go as I am not sure option A is feasible without spending boatloads of money.  The high point is that both rooms already have plumbing and electric so that would only require some minor changes.

So we are in a holding pattern right now.  Waiting on the block grant and then waiting to see what we can and cannot do with that.





~Jess~