Hannah left this morning for 9 days with her boyfriend’s family in Arkansas. Since I hang out with her so much I already miss her, but this gave me the opportunity to go in a REALLY clean her room. It wasn’t a complete disaster, but behind the bed, the closet and her art drawers were getting a little out of hand. I know, I know, she’s old enough to do it herself and she is, but if I get overwhelmed I know she gets VERY overwhelmed. I have no before pictures because that’s not important. I’m just happy that I know coming home to a nice restful space will make it that much sweeter.
I found 7 missing brushes. I found another one after I took this.
I organized her closet so that she can find what she is looking for much easier.
When we took the kids to the concert in Dallas Hannah picked up some clothes and jewelry. I found these earrings in the shopping bag that she had forgotten about. I know she’ll be excited to see them.
She had way too many stuffies so I bagged the older ones up in the sucker bags.
We still have the gigantic teddy bear in the corner.
Gavin is forbidden to buy her anymore.
She has the smallest bedroom but she loves it because she is the queen of cozy.
I also snagged this cute top for myself because she has never worn it. We can share it if she decides she finally likes it.
Doesn’t it just feel good to do something for someone else that they don’t expect? These 9 days are going to be long.
I normally have one day a week where I rest up and recharge my batteries. Since Hannah is leaving early tomorrow morning for a 9 day trip to Arkansas I figured that today would be a good day to take that rest. I still needed to color her hair and help her get things packed, but no outside our heavy housework was on the list for today.
I did have to clean out the Jenga fridge because it was getting a bit frightful when I tried to find something particular or even get something out.
Much easier to find what we need now.
While I was at it I decided to go ahead and clean out the pantry cabinets.
So I guess it wasn’t a wasted improve my life by 1% day after all.
While I was busy in the kitchen Donny put on the Animal Babies documentary series for Ruth. I’ve never had a cat that actually watches TV.
What was on when I snapped this pic.
Then it was time to relax. Hannah had already binged the 3rd season on Squid Game yesterday. We were planning on watching it together, but she prefers to watch it in Korean with English subtitles. I like the dubbed English. I had started it last night and fell asleep so today I got to finish it with Hannah and Donny coming in at the last couple of episodes.
I enjoyed all 3 seasons. Does anyone who has watched the last episode feel like they are going to bring another season in but in the US this time? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I am looking forward to the final season of Stranger Things. I wish they would have not had so much time in between seasons though. The kids are about ready to collect social security it feels like. Fingers crossed that they do the ending justice.
Although it was very hot and not Monday, I decided to go ahead and mow. While I was mowing I noticed that the algae was back on the front of our house. All the houses that are North facing get algae growth when it has been raining a lot and then the days heat up. This means I end up washing my house a few times a summer.
I just used a rag and a squirt of dish soap and it took it right off.
Because we live in an old house with old siding we sometimes get holes in the siding. Drives me crazy so I decided to try a cheap fix. Here’s one of the holes.
I just used some white duct tape and, unless you absolutely knew where to look, you can’t even tell there was a hole there. I did a test one months ago and it’s held up in all the rain we’ve had.
I wanted to do the back side of the house, but it was just getting so hot that I’ll just save that for a day this week.
Our grass used to be so weedy and had bald spots and I’m very happy to report that the front is now almost all St. Augustine. My little front garden is doing okay. It gets weird sun so although I have cucumber blooms I don’t have cucumbers or tomatoes yet. Fingers crossed they come in.
I’ve been finding out lately that it’s the little things that I can do everyday that actually makes a big difference. It’s been so incredibly hot here. If it’s not a day where I plan to be all out sweating I have to outside stuff either early in the morning or at dusk. I decided to clean out my car and get a chore out of the way that I’ve been putting off for a long time.
I had purchased this CD holder ages ago and it’s just been sitting in my car empty. Yes, my sweet little hatchback has a CD player. I was so tired of the CDs flying around the car. I even had a little helper. It’s going to be so much easier for me to pick out what I want to listen to and not have the bulky cases to deal with.
If you live in the south I’m pretty sure you are having a fly problem. EVERY SINGLE SUMMER they are so bad. They love to congregate by the side door so when we walk in they can jet inside. I moved one of my oil diffusers outside and filled it with citronella, lemongrass and lemon essential oils. I’m not very fond of this diffuser because it doesn’t billow out the steam, but I could tell that it definitely kept the little suckers at bay. Tomorrow I’ll try it with one of my other diffusers.
That little helper I had earlier is also a climber. She climbed to the top of our shelves and when she did she knocked off my house hippo. Because it’s gradient shelving the poor hippo hit the shelf beneath him and broke.
I loved that little hippo. I was not going to give up on him. I decided I would glue him back together. One thing about me is I’m AWFUL at puzzles. They frustrate me to no end. The one puzzle I actually completed (with Donny’s help of course) is framed in our bedroom. I was, however, determined to fix this.
I had 2 small pieces left and neither one fit in that spot. I’m pretty sure they were part of the back. So I did what any normal person would do.
I glued a lip sticker on his butt. He needed a little fancying up anyway.
You can barely tell that his has a hole and is missing half his back. Just don’t look too close.
There are days when I want to put off errands and scheduling anything. Today was not that day. Hannah had an early doctor’s appointment. So we were up and out the door by 8. We both love her doctor because he actually listens and talks to us. She had mentioned that she her face was breaking out and that it concerned her. He said, “hold on a second” and left the exam room. He came back with this cream that he wants her to try.
Since we were already downtown I had bagged up some books I had already read so we could drop them at the free library at the train station. It’s my favorite place to bring books because there never seems to be that many, compared to the other free libraries around town, and I know I would like to grab a book to read while on the train. Unfortunately, the station was locked up tight even though it was supposed to be open.
We decided to drive over to the Green, our favorite park, to drop them at the free library there. This park is so beautiful. It doesn’t have the usual slides, swings, etc because it’s more of a Montessori park.
When we opened the library box all of the books were wet. We have gotten a lot of rain lately, but with the leaky roof, I wasn’t going to add my books.
Instead of just leaving and going home we decided to walk the trail around the park. We played some music to sooth our souls.
Hannah was in workout gear and I was in a skirt and sandals. I would normally just say that I wasn’t really dressed for walking around a park so we should just leave, but since I love that park and I’m doing at least 1% effort to better my days, we walked.
There are several fun things for the kiddos to climb on, like this turtle.
We have always loved the mossy pond. But the best thing about just taking a walk for no reason is that we got to have a really good, deep conversation about her feelings, the future, just a little bit of everything. I loved that none of this was planned, it was just a spur of the moment adventure, that to me are the best kind.
When we got home I help Jackson find the right website to make an appointment with the DMV. Hannah got online and finished her college application. She realized that she needed her high school transcript so I called the school and they said they would have it ready for us. Jackson decided to come with us so off we went to their old high school for probably the last time.
It’s so strange to see all of the lights off and no voices in the hallways. The end of one era and the beginning of another.
We decided to try the train station one more time. It was finally unlocked and we ran in to drop off the books.
It might not seem like I got a lot done today, but I really did. Things we had been putting off doing and just being with my kids made it such a successful day. I can’t ask for more than that.
For some reason I woke up again at 5 am. Hannah was also awake so we decided to go for an early morning walk. The weather was perfect. The rain had cooled everything off and it was cloudy so we didn’t even feel like it was the end of June.
We stopped at the creek and actually saw a cool looking snake. We only walked 2.5 miles but it was enough to energize me for the rest of the day.
Today I decided that I would clean the patio. The city is finished with the road work and the walls, corners and floors were a dusty, cobwebby, dead bugs mess.
Our house will never be perfect. It was built in 1961. The patio (it’s actually a carport but works better as a patio) needs a new coat of paint, but it’s not on my “I really need to do this” list. It took a lot of brushing and going up and down the step ladder what seemed like a million times, but I got it done. I vacuumed the rugs, wiped down all of the furniture and Hannah did her summer chalk art.
It was great to not be in direct sunlight for this project. It was still hot and humid though. I think I found my sweet spot of how long I can work outside and then still have enough stamina to get the things done inside that I need to do.
This was just the cleaning day. I still have lights (the ones on the table and in the laundry basket) that we need to put out.
I still have plants that need to go out also. The jack o’lantern bucket is for our cat Monkey to drink out of. She’s very picky, only likes certain things and that’s one of them. Another storm was blowing in when I took this.
The sun hits our yard in such a strange was that I’m always moving plants around so they don’t burn up.
I’m not fond of the metal shelves and would love to find a wooden cabinet so everything isn’t all out there, but for right now this works, even if it isn’t very pretty.
By 4 I realized that I had only had some granola for breakfast. If you go to Aldi these chip/crackers are so good, especially with hummus. I used the Yuka app to scan in the barcode to see if they were healthy and they both got good ratings.
The kitten wanted to go outside because the other cats were out there. We can’t just let her out yet so I remembered we had this harness when we were taking care of the baby possum. She didn’t fight it too badly.
I am really enjoying the “do something to improve your life by 1%” daily challenge. Did I really want to brush down and clean every surface today? Not really, but I’m so glad that I did because it just makes me happy to get it done. It makes sitting outside so much more peaceful without looking at the dust and dead bugs hanging from the ceiling. I love the space especially at night.
You don’t need a fancy house to have a cozy, happy life. You just need to make it a place that you love to be.
P.S.
Donny brought home this cool Tshirt for me. He ran to Schlotzky’s to get one of his salespeople a sandwich and asked if the sold them because the workers were wearing them. The owner was there and he just gave him one. I think it’s a pretty cool shirt.
I accidentally woke up at 5 am. I made coffee and waited for the sun to come up.
When I went to let the chickens out I noticed our Morning Glories are blooming.
Since this is day 2 of day 100 doing what needs to be done to make my life better, I started weeding the front beds. We have 2 gardens. We consider the one in the front mine and the side one Donny’s although they are my plants in it.
Donny has been busy, busy, busy at work. That means long hours and getting home every day after 7. So I felt it was up to me to get the side gardens in shape. Plus I googled when to plant pumpkins in our zone and we need to have them in the ground by July. I have no idea where we are going to plant them because they take a LOT of room. This is what I started with.
Such a weedy mess.
After almost 4 hours this was the result.
I twisted dragged the hydrangeas to the front because they were burning up where they were. I moved all of the random sunflowers Donny planted, some of my avocados and plants that didn’t have a home where the hydrangeas were.
I weeded the enclosed garden, but once plants start bearing vegetables they get big and take over. I feel like I accomplished so much today that wasn’t on my normal to-do list. That side garden is looking so much better. There’s still a lot of work to be done in both the front and back, but I feel if I can work on it everyday it will get done.
There was no rain in the forecast at all so I was surprised when the dark clouds blew in and it started pouring. I’m glad it did because it cooled everything off and filled up our rain barrel. I’d used quite a bit of the water in the gardens.
Because I cannot get over how patient O’Malley is with Ruth:
I saw two videos that really made me think. In the first one a man says “If you stop effing around for 100 days and everything you know that you needed to do you did, just think how much ahead you’d be”. Then I saw another video where a woman was explaining that if you just did 1% more every day just think how much everything would improve. I completely agree with both of them. I always have things on my to-do list that I either just don’t feel like doing or I don’t make time to actually do them. So, today is Day #1 of me getting my shit done and improving all parts of my life every day. It might not be something big, it could actually be quite small, but an improvement is and improvement.
Today was an outside day. I started calling them this when I was doing my funeral directing/embalming apprenticeship at a funeral home in a small central Texas town. Every single Wednesday I had to mow, weed eat, blow off the grass and leaves and mow that path on the land behind the funeral home. It was hard work, but as an apprentice you always had to do the not so fun jobs. This is what I always think of when it’s an outside day.
Well, I mowed, which is a normal thing for me to do every week, but today I cleared off some brush that Donny had cut down. I also got to work on the chicken coop’s Johnson grass and weed problem. Y’all, it was HOT. I had to use my pick axe to get to the roots. Some I couldn’t get to due to the board skirting so I had to use scissors to cut them down as far as I could.
This was the mess I was wrangling. It doesn’t look that bad in the picture, but the weeds were taller than I am. I finally got through them after a whole lot of sweat equity.
Our coop is made of recycled materials. It has 3 stories in the back and a small run in the front. They are really only in it at night.
It has a latching door, but we fortify it with the screen and boards so that the night critters can’t get in.
The fence line plants are growing back and the chickens are enjoying all of the shade.
We are finally getting cucumbers. The ones I have bought from Aldi have all been so bitter. I’m happy to say that these are so good and not bitter at all. Last night I made a salad with cucumbers, tomato and red onion. Delicious.
When I finished all of the outside work that I was going to do for the day, the weather said that the “feels like” was 102. I could actually wring my shirt out.
I could not wait to jump in the shower. Did I mention that I’m allergic to Johnson grass? Ugh
One of the highlights of the day is that the construction crew is officially finished with our street work. They also did something I’ve never seen before. Because they had to dig up a lot of our yard, they brought a big truck and were spraying grass seed.
Ours was growing back pretty well, but hey, I’ll take it.
On Thursday Donny took our little rescue kitten out into the backyard with him. Not unusual because she she loves to be carried around. He named her Ruth, and like her Ozark namesake, she is a little spitfire. Well, it’s almost like she recognized where she was because she started fighting to get down, jumped out of his arms, and ran into the neighbors that are catty corner behind us. We immediately went to the fence to see if we could see her with no luck. We drove around to their house and began calling for her and looking in everyone’s backyards on that street. Since it was so hot outside we figured that she was asleep somewhere under something in their yard. They weren’t home so I couldn’t go ask if I could look around. When it was later in the day, Jackson and I drove around to see if we could see the litter that she came from. No luck. That’s when I started walking around our block, with my binoculars, looking like an absolute creeper.
By this time we were all getting very worried because she is just so little. When it became dark I walked up and down our street looking for any sign of her. We had all given up. Then at 11:17 I decided to give it one more shot and went outside. I heard this chirp and when I looked down she was hopping around the patio. What a relief and we all cheered when I brought her in. Donny had said that she would eventually find her way back, but with all of the nighttime predators I wasn’t so sure. She got another bath and then happily snuggled up with Donny.
They like to watch videos together.
She slept curled up under Donny’s chin last night. The other cats are starting to warm up to her finally. She definitely brings happiness to our family.
Just because we have 2 newer cats doesn’t mean that we will ever forget our sweet babies that have passed on. I didn’t want the other cats to forget them either so we did a homage to them. I put them above the cats food station and I have caught Milo looking at them.
I love watermelon. It’s definitely my favorite fruit. I had picked one up from Aldi and it was not good. I find that most seedless varieties aren’t. I googled produce near me and it turned up a produce shop right down the road. Donny and I had actually tried to find it last year, but Google maps took us to a completely wrong place. I found it this time.
They had all of their plants outside.
It’s a very rustic place with uneven floors and no air conditioning, but they sell a lot of jarred goods and they produce looked amazing. I honed in on the watermelons that were in the back of the store. That’s where I found my seeded one. I chose one and put it by the register and decided to go look around for anything else that might tempt me. Now here’s the clincher; there are no prices anywhere. There were a few people shopping and I chose my items and got in line behind another woman. She had a small box, not filled all the way, and the cashier told her that her total was $115. Excuse me? I thought I must have just misheard. I didn’t. This is what I purchased at it was $41.
My beautiful toddler sized watermelon.
5 peaches, 2 tomatoes and a bag of fresh butter beans. That’s it. I will say that everything was delicious.
I had one of the tomatoes for dinner.
I love them with fresh basil, feta, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I’m still debating if $41 was a little too high for what I purchased. I guess you pay for higher quality. I will go back for more watermelon though, unless I can find a truck selling them.
We also had a surprise last night. Donny was going to lock the chickens up when he heard a noise coming from the laundry room. He looked in and a little face peeked around from the back of the dryer.
She’s a sweet little girl kitty. I think she is from a litter that we have seen on our street. Donny went out a got some kitten milk and wet food which she devoured. I gave her a bath this morning because she had fleas on her. So far she is doing really well. We just need to come up with a name. I’ve noticed that when we lose one cat, another one just shows up. We lost Bailey and O’Malley showed up. We lost Queso and this one shows up. What are the odds?
The Funky Frugalista 