Month: January 2026

Snowmageddon

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

I am so happy that the snow and ice is starting to melt. I don’t mind the cold weather, it’s just the snow and temperatures in the teens that I don’t like. I worry about our feral cat colony. I put out more food than normal because they need to eat more when the temperatures drop.

Mr. Whiskers came for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would bring him in if he would let me. He will let me pet him and sometimes hold him on my lap, but he gets very nervous. The feral colony actually lives across the street, but I made them a bed just in case they wanted to warm up before they headed home.

My cat was the only one that used it, but he loved the heating pad. All of my cats have the ability to go out and in when they want to. All except the kitten and she has no interest to go out into the cold.

We were going slightly stir crazy since we were iced in and couldn’t go anywhere. We did watch this guy free climb to the top of a building in Tai Pei . I am deathly afraid of heights but I had no trouble watching him climb. Donny is not afraid, but he did not want to watch it. We were watching it live and it was a bit nerve wracking.

My favorite part of being snowed in was how quiet it was at night. No owls, frogs, insects, nothing. The snow made it so much brighter. This was after 9:00 and the street lights didn’t even come on. It was both beautiful and eerie at the same time.

We were very relieved when we were finally able to get out and do things again. Hannah and I ran some errands. When we were in Aldi we saw the saddest Valentine Day decor.

Doesn’t everyone want a colorless concrete heart bookend? And I’m using heart loosely.

But wait, you can also get X’s and O’s bowl filler that look like cat toys. I have no words.

When we got home Gavin was waiting for Hannah. I looked out the window and saw this snow thing in the yard.

Gavin had built a little snowman.

Ok, it doesn’t have a face or arms, but I still thought it was so cute.

Hannah had been wanting me to go to The 504. It’s a 6000 sq. ft. thrift store. There are 9 rooms and every room is filled to the brim. I got lost from Hannah and Gavin because this place was a maze. I could spend hours looking through everyone’s booth. It’s funny because I have two framed pictures of antique sheet music and the day before we went to this store I was thinking how I really wanted to change them out. One of the booths had antique sheet music and I found 2 that I really liked.

Donny still hasn’t noticed that I changed them out. I like these so much better than the ones I had in.

The only other thing I got were some matches.

There is just something so special about lighting candles with matches. The store had so many to choose from and I think the next time I go back I’m going to pick up some more. These were my favorite because, well, I love celestial anything.

That face!

Brand Loyalty

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn product reviewsLeave a comment

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it pretty much describes why I just love certain brands and products. If they work for me I just keep using them. This dawned on me when I went to get more of our body wash. Jackson and I went to Drug Emporium to pick up another bottle of Dr. Teal’s Lemon body wash. We have been using Dr. Teal’s for years but the lemon scent was new and we just loved it. I had gotten our last two there and was sorely disappointed when the body wash shelf was extremely empty. We went to Walmart to see if they had it there. No luck, so we just picked up the magnesium one. A week later I was a Drug Emporium and just decided to see if it was back in stock and it was.

Another brand that I have used for years and will continue to use is Mad Hippie. It’s such a good skincare line and very reasonably priced.

I have been using Zum products for over a decade. I love the laundry soap and am so happy several places here carry it.

This is my go to scent although I have tried the patchouli and I really like that one also. The body mist/room sprays are amazing.

I mainly use these in the hotter months because they act as an allover frangrance.

The only “perfume” that I use is this. I’m over the moon that Sprouts carries it and I don’t have to order it anymore.

I don’t like flowery scents. I really like more of the earthy spicy scents. This oil goes with the hair mist/body spray that I found at Dollar Tree. I’m always hesitant to buy beauty products there, but I scanned it through Yuka and it got a very good rating.

This leave in conditioner, also from Dollar Tree is so good. It’s not heavy and I normally just spray it on my ends after a shower.

I love lotion and actually go through it pretty quickly. These are my favorites that I use.

The Patchouli Buritti and the Raw Shea Butter are both so thick that they have to be stored upside down. Of course, I will always have the Zum on hand. Eos lip balm is the only lip balm I use and I love it. With the heater being run now my lips can dry out at night if I don’t apply it before bed.

I find it funny that I worked for Lancome for several years yet this is my go to makeup that I will continue to always buy.

I’ve used the same color eyeshadow for years and years. Maybelline fit (dewy) is wonderful and I love the fit powder. I have used the wet ‘n wild eyeliner and Big Poppa mascara also for years. Same with the covergirl blush. It just makes it easy to know what I like and I can just run into the store and not have to think or guess if it will work.

As far as hair products go, I love this heat protector spray. I rarely actually put heat on my hair, but when I do, this one is great. It’s not heavy and doesn’t make your hair feel heavy or greasy.

After I dropped the kids off I had about an hour and a half to kill in Kilgore. I decided to drop by Goodwill just to look around. I found two cute tshirts that were red tags (half off color) and a olive green cardigan.

I love oversized cardigans. I thought the one I already had was olive green but it turns out it is brown with a green tint so I’m really happy I found this one.

I also picked up 3 gluten free cookbooks. I know I can probably find all the recipes online, but I just would rather work out of a cookbook.

For 99 cents each, I couldn’t beat it.

Also, I don’t just buy myself things. I just never post what I get everyone else because I feel like it’s an invasion of their privacy in some weird way.

Let Each Other Be

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

I saw the best Tiktok video the other day. It was a woman talking about how her marriage works and they believe in letting each other be. By that they mean be themselves and not try to change the other person. Here’s a good example. Donny likes watching the news. I don’t like to watch the news. Instead of complaining to him I just do something else.

He also puts up with my craziness. When we were living in Corpus I had this feeling that this woman (my step sister in law who was an evil person dedicating her life to ruining ours) had put an evil eye on Donny. I made this bath with all these herbs and oils that literally looked like swamp water. He actually got in it. I’m sure he thought I was nuts, but he knew it meant something to me. I don’t know if it even worked, but it did mean a lot that he did it for me. Looking back I can see that it was a totally crazy idea, but I could write a book on what my step father and his family did to us. It was a horrible, terrible, no good time that could have destroyed us but, in the end, made us so much stronger

Donny is 100% better at this than I am. If I want to do something he will just go along with it. Sometimes, until I saw the video, I would harbor a little resentment.

Thursday I decided that i needed to winterize the flower beds. We had dead tomato vines, dead plants in pots and weeds. It was bad. I know that Donny is not fond of yard work whereas I really enjoy it. It was his day off and he was inside watching a program on TV. I could have gotten upset that he didn’t want to help me, but since it’s not his thing I let him be. It looks so much better and he came out to help me put the weeds in the bag, tape it up and carry it to the curb.

That’s just a small part of the beds. My phone died before I could snap another picture.

I’m glad that I’m married to a man that understands me and I understand him. It truly makes all the difference in the world.

On another note, I finally finished my orange garland. I decided to hang it in our dining nook.

Does anyone else see the face on the cookie? So creepy!

Hi, my name is Stacy and I’m addicted to sunflower seeds. These are my absolute favorites.

They are SO good. Sometimes I just have these for lunch.

Groovy Spoons

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home StuffLeave a comment

I finally got my bender mounted. I didn’t drill a pilot hole first and it’s mounted into solid wood this time.

I did one spoon and then messed around with some wire.

I love the little flowery detail.

Yep, I truly needed some hand lotion. Making the rings was really fun. I spent two hours trying to bend a spoon that I knew was really too thick to bend. I finally gave up because my palm was bruised and my fingers were so sore. Hopefully I’ll make some more spoon rings tomorrow. I have quite a few to make.

My cat Milo has finally healed up after having a puncture injury that required a vet visit. Well, O’malley came home with the same type wound. His was between his shoulder blades. I doctored it up and waited to see if I needed to make a vet appointment.

Luckily his wound healed up with no infection. In fact, I heard a crow going crazy. When I went outside to see what was going on this is what I saw.

That’s O’malley up in the tree. He’s fine.

On a gluten free note, I found some strawberry GF pancake/waffle mix. We decided to have breakfast for dinner Saturday night and everyone loved them.

img_20260109_1919565086329005888067474263

The picture is a little steamy because of the waffle maker, but I found it at Walmart.

I made homemade whip cream and strawberry sauce. We also had eggs and sausage. There’s just something so comforting about breakfast for dinner.

Tonight I made crawfish etoufee with the GF all purpose flour. I am so glad I found it so I can actually eat flour based things like the roux in this dish.

It was so good!!!!!

Donny and I have started watching The Pitt. We really like it. If you need a good medical show to watch I highly recommend it. Each episode is in real time and it’s intense. Plus I just love Noah Wyle.

A Little Shopping Time

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn thriftingLeave a comment

I decided to take most of the day off. I don’t have an actual “job”, well at least I don’t get an actual paycheck, but I take care of everything around our home. Monday I had deep cleaned the house. Yesterday I did mountains of laundry.

img_20260106_1032477279120164602738897046

I thought after all of that I needed a little break. I have been looking for a frame for Hannah’s Girl with a Pearl Earring adaptation that was one of her art projects. I had found several, but the frames ran vertically instead of horizontal. I could have changed the hanging mechanisms, but since the ones I liked were all professionally done I really didn’t want to mess with it and have it fall off of the wall. Today I hit the jackpot and found exactly what I have been looking for.

I just had to take the backing off and her picture fit perfectly.

It’s big and I have hardly any wall space left. I took down my jester picture and I think it looks mighty fine in its place.

I couldn’t not find a place for the jester so I moved some things around and now he’s in the dining nook.

img_20260107_1723338158184557369798351331

I picked up a few more things from the thrift store while I was there.

I couldn’t pass up this wooden shelf. I needed one for above my nightstand and this one was perfect.

I also found some cute shirts in my Fall colors.

Both of these look grey for some reason but they are actually olive green.

I absolutely love this mustard yellow blouse.

Couldn’t pass up this candle. I have a couple of this brand. It’s made here and the smell is amazing.

Donny needed me to run to Office Max to pick up some desk calendars for his work. I needed a new planner. I’m so picky about my planners. Office Max had no cute ones and they ones they did have were SO expensive. I walked down to TJ Maxx and they had no good planners either. Books a Million is in the same strip mall so I checked there and I did find one I loved but it started in July 2025 and ran through December 2026. I cannot stand to start a planner in the middle so that was a no.

I decided I would go check in Ross and no matter what, I would have to just take what I could find there. Ross is where I got last years planner that I absolutely loved. I found the exact same brand!!!!!

This is 100% my favorite planner.

This is the brand and you can’t beat the price. All-in-all it was a good day to get out and get stuff done. It was also in the mid 70’s. I don’t think we’ll get to wear any of our winter clothes very much this season.

Oh, and my second daughter let me know last night that she thinks she was a ghost baby because there are no pictures of her when she was a baby. I sent her over 20 this morning and have so many more. This is one of my favorites.

It’s hard to believe that these little pumpkins have kids of their own now. Dang how time flies!

Mounting Problems

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn CraftingLeave a comment

I got a metal bender for Christmas. I have been collecting spoons to make rings. I knew I had to find a way to mount the bender and I thought I had the perfect solution. I told Donny I was going to mount it to one of my big thick cutting boards. He looked appalled at that idea so I searched around the house and found a shelf that wasn’t being used and decided that could work.

I drilled the pilot holes, got my drill out and it seemed sturdy. I tried it out on an earring my mom had gotten in New Mexico that I didn’t like as an earring and had always wanted to make it into a ring.

This was super easy to bend because it was sterling silver and thin.

I had another earring that was also sterling that I thought would make an awesome ring.

I then got out my bolt cutters measured and cut a spoon. When I went to bend it the whole apparatus pulled right out. I tried screwing it in tighter but the MDF board just couldn’t support it.

Back to the drawing board. I think I just need a good hardy wooden plank. At least I got two rings out of it for now.

Over The Hump

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

Yesterday was the first day I started feeling better. My joint pain had eased up. My leg muscles still felt like I had tried to run a marathon, but it was manageable. I went shopping at Aldi because we had almost no food in the house due to my being sick. Look what I saw.

Gas is under $2!!!!!

This morning I actually felt like taking a nice long walk. It was a gloomy morning, but it felt so good to get outside.

From New Year’s Eve until just yesterday I have been bed rotting. Donny has been sleeping on the couch in fear of catching this demon virus again. We had heard that it’s very easy to relapse and no one wants that. I didn’t even pull the covers down. Nope just moved some pillows, grabbed a blanket and would pass out.

img_20260103_0537028351918797110985760752

It feels so good when a body starts feeling better.

I’m also very thankful that we got the Roku tv for the bedroom. Now I can watch all of the streaming services instead of our old TV only letting us get Netflix. I think one of my favorite features is that you can pick different art to display when you’re not watching.

img_20260103_1148263513662767537215728231

I am also getting my appetite back. One of my favorite breakfasts is an apple and peanut butter. I used to always hate mixing up the peanut butter until I realized I could just shake the heck out of it to mix it up. SO much easier and way less messy.

Now that I’m on the healing end I needed to get some things done in the kitchen. We love pomegranates. To buy the seeds ready to go is SO expensive. I did a quick Google search and they cost around $4.97 for 4 oz. That is ridiculous. I bought 3 pomegranates for $1.57 each.

It is so satisfying to pop out the seeds. If you have never done it you should give it a try.

For a little over $5 we got a large jar filled. Plus there are no preservatives to worry about. Just plain ole seeds.

Yum!

Oh 2026

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

Well, our 2026 started off very weirdly. Donny called from work telling me that he had found a snake that had gotten wrapped up in some packing tape. Did I want to try to save it or should he just put it out of its misery? Of course, we wanted to save it. I let Hannah know and she was up to the challenge.

img_20251228_1737274333200855337616625901

We used a q-tip and avocado oil. The tape just started sliding right off.

img_20251228_1740102038899561864563716440

Before we knew it, he was free.

img_20251228_1756196283217264545558056383

Donny released him into the tree line.

On actual New year’s eve, Donny was supposed to get off at 12 which ended being closer to 4. The kids had left to go do a Christmas exchange with friends. I hadn’t eaten all day because I was waiting on Donny to get home. I’d planned to do hamburgers but when he got home a I had texted Jackson to see if they were going to have dinner out and he said yes, we decided to order Don Benito’s. Then Jackson texted back saying they were not eating out and were on the way home. Then Hannah texted me asking if I wanted to watch the Stranger Things finale with them. I asked, well, who is them? Gavin was meeting them here and Olivia wanted to come over also. So we just waiting for them and put in an order.

img_20251231_192317314_hdr3829705482350251195

Donny went in to pick up the food because my whole body was aching. I thought it was because I might have lifted something weirdly, but it was every single joint in my body. I’d also been fighting a headache all day.

img_20251231_193836947_hdr7213848762820250523

Everyone ate and we started the finale. Donny has never watched it so he was watching something in the bedroom. Olivia and Jackson don’t watch it either so they went to go see the Spongebob movie.

img_20251231_2009307808420466310861532034

It ended up just being Gavin, Hannah and myself. I thought it was good. I didn’t make it to midnight because, as it turns out, I’m sick.

I woke up on New Year’s day feeling so weird. My limbs felt like they were made of lead, my head was killing me and I was so congested. Donny made burgers and I fell asleep around 5. I woke him up at 8:30 and asked if he could please go get me some NyQuil and a coca cola. I never want any soda until I’m sick. He also ran by Sprouts and picked me up my favorite smoothie and some coconut water.

img_20260102_10320181872171289967534445

I am still feeling bad today. I’m thinking it’s that strange virus that is going around. I do have tamiflu, but am resisting taking it just due to the side effects that come with it. Hopefully it will run its course quickly and I’ll be back on my feet. I hope everyone else has had a healthy new Year’s because this stuff is no joke.