Life This Week

           Wow what a week!  Last weekend we made another trip home to spend time with Beau's family. Beau’s youngest brother is getting ready to go on a mission this next week, and so we had a chance to spend time together which will be the last time we’ll all be together for 2 years.
           While were there I got sick… strep throat or something very similar, so the first part of the week was survival mode.  Try and keep the house cleaned, but not much more than that.
           The end of the week has been the start of canning season.  We’ve been working on getting peaches, peach pie filling, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce and other canning projects finished up before they all go bad.
           My beans are finishing up in the garden so we canned up a few of them, and hope to get some peas in the ground here quickly.  I’m hoping to possibly get lucky enough to something before the snow.
           With a bunch of various fruits laying around, we decided to make good use of them.
           Blend them up good, adding your freezer pectin and sugar. Dispense into freezer jars.  This was a great way for the kids to help make them without a huge mess.  They could fill the blender, turn it on and fill the jars for me.  I love doing the freezer jam too because they are small batches which means I can be more creative in the jam making.  Nothing quite so good as strawberry, blueberry/plum, peach/strawberry, and blackberry/blueberry'/plum jams on some hot homemade bread.
           There really is something satisfying about canning. Knowing your preserving things, being frugal and making things that taste so much better than the store bought versions. There is only one store bought version of peaches that we can stomach, and we are lucky to get it on sale for .79 when the timing is just right.  It made me happy though canning these up and then figuring out that I just saved myself .72  for every quart of peaches. I’ll have saved $3.83 per quart when I finish up the pie filling instead of buying it from the store. (Dutch oven season goes through peach pie filling like crazy when we’re making cobbler.) Roughly $61.00 saved. (Plus they taste so much better!)  I’d have saved even more if I had my own peach tree, which is now a must. When we graduate we can only go to places where I can have my own fruit trees.  That’s not too much to ask for right?  

Frugal Tip: Heating Pad

           So we are trying to save money, cut back, use what we have and just become more frugal. So occasionally when I run into those frugal ideas I thought I would share them with you.
           The other night when Beau had his big back spasm, and was in severe pain, his brother told us to put some hot packs on him to see if we could loosen up some muscles. Of course we don't own a hot pack. It would take me way too long to go to the store to get one, and that would cost money which we were trying hard not to spend. So I resorted to a technique I learned years ago of sewing up a washcloth or hand towel in half, filling it with rice and then sewing it closed. You then put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and you've got one great hot pack.
           It worked great and helped him out a ton! Well he used it so much, and threw it in the microwave a little too long and burned the rice making the whole house stink, so I tossed it in the garbage thinking I'd sew up another one quick... well it never happened.
           So last night he's tossing and turning all night because he can't sleep because of the pain, which means I wasn't sleeping either. In the middle of the night I asked what I could do help him out. He asked if we had another hot pad anywhere? I said no - sorry. Did he want me to get up and make him one quick?
           He said no but I know in his mind he was thinking..."No I won't make you it's the middle of the night, but if you wanted to I won't stop you. I'm dying."
           The thoughts going through my mind were "It's the middle of the night, I don't want to pull out the sewing stuff and throw one together, I'm exhausted."
           So half asleep I'm thinking what can I use besides having to sew something up? I swear the Lord prompted me again, similar to Isaac's bean episode. I instantly had the thought - use a sock. A sock! Ingenious. I jumped out of bed, grabbed some socks from Beaus' drawer, went into the kitchen filled it up with rice, tied off the end, heated it up and was back in less time than it would have been to try to make one, or go to the store. It worked wonderful! It works better than the towels. So never again. If we need an instant heating pad, we're finding a sock.