Month: March 2026

Party?

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

Tomorrow Hannah turns 20. She came down with a horrible cold a couple of days ago, so she isn’t sure she is going to be up for her get together. She wanted to sit out by the fire pit, play corn hole and board games with her core group of friends. The way she feels right now would not be fun for her at all. But, things could change in 24 hours so that meant that I had to get the yard ready just in case.

While I was mowing I noticed that the mulch was piled up over my cucumber plants in the front bed. I thought Donny might have done it when he was watering. Nope, it was the cats. I dug them out, measured the length and width, and we headed to Dollar Tree to get some kind of barrier. I had seen some in Kilgore that I thought would work. Our Dollar Tree hardly ever has anything because it sells out so fast.

They had 11 left. I didn’t know if it would be enough. Donny said it would, plus they were all tangled up so I just scooped them all up.

He was right, it was exactly the right number that I needed. I didn’t even notice when I bought them that they have the same curly scroll that the big one has.

While I was waiting for Donny to get ready to go to work I decided to paint the sun on the front of the house gold. It was bronze and teal. I just didn’t like the way it looked. I think this is much better. I am planning on painting the black cord white.

While I was mowing the back I found this hot wheels bread truck from 2014. It’s missing a wheel and was full of dirt, but it’s so cute.

We have a pretty big backyard, but 2/3 of it is wonderful but that other 1/3 is so lumpy. I have no idea why. It makes it so hard to mow that side. Luckily the good side is the side where you walk in.

We are doing a bulk trash pick up because there was a huge pile of branches that had been sitting by the gate (you can see the big dead spot) for over a year. Not only are those on the curb, but the blue chair and some other trash we have will soon be added to the pile.

The fire pit needed some help so I used the hoe to get rid of the weeds. We have had a 50 pound bag of sand just sitting by the patio. It wasn’t going to get used. We got it for the chickens put its not grainy enough. It works great for around the fire pit.

The weather was so beautiful today that I just didn’t want to go inside. My cat O’malley is the chicken protector so we laid on the grass and just chilled with the chickens. I did try that thing where you fall to the ground and play dead to see what the animals will do. The only chicken that had any interest was Penelope, one of our oldest. All she did was cautiously walk up and peck my belly button.

I spend so much time in the front yard and hardly any time in the back. I think that’s going to change because in the afternoon there is so much shade from the trees it makes it so nice to be out there.

And just because, I made a lamp out of my solar lights. I didn’t know what to do with them once I hung up the electric ones. I think it gives off a nice little glow.

P.S.

Even if she is feeling better the party might not be here. Gavin is house sitting for his neighbor while they are on a cruise. They gave him permission to have a pool party which Hannah is more than agreeable to use for her birthday. I guess we will just wait and see.

Estate Sales + Catch Up

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home StuffLeave a comment

On Thursdays Donny and I like to go to estate sales. Today he asked me if there were any that looked interesting. The two from our favorite company didn’t really look all that interesting. There was one about 30 minutes away in Gilmer. We decided to take a little drive and go to that one. The last 4 miles of the trip was a 1 1/2 lane road that had drop offs on both sides. It was beautiful though.

It was unfortunate that the sale itself was not very good. Everything was way overpriced. The company that held it was one we had never been to before and I don’t think we’ll ever go back to one of theirs again.

Last Thursday, however, there was a sale in my very favorite neighborhood in Longview. Nugget Hill is one of the oldest, if not oldest, neighborhoods with the most amazing houses.

This house was across the street from the home where the sale was. It’s always been one of our favorites. I looked it up online and even though it’s not for sale anymore realtor.com still has the photos up. The address is 814 Charlotte if you’re interested.

This was the house of the sale.

I cannot tell you the love I have for old houses. The house seemed like a maze and had some very cool items for sale. Since I have pretty much finished the inside of our home I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular and just actually came to see the house. I did find some flower pots outside in the garage area that I picked up for $2 a piece.

I also picked up this Himalayan salt tea light holder.

The rest of Donny’s time off last week was spent buying some plants, cleaning off the patio and working on the coop.

Planted some lavender and repotted my avocado tree whose pot was broken in the storm.

My little cilantro seedlings and some rosemary have new homes.

I used some of my propagated pothos to plant in the wall pots.

The bird feeder that I had in the garden area was not being used by the birds as they preferred their hanging feeder. I decided to turn it into a bee watering bowl instead.

Wiping down the patio was my baby. Pollen is heavy and the dirt that blew in with the storm was making everything a real mess.

This is what was covering EVERYTHING. It took several hours to get all of the fabric and rugs washed and pollen gunk cleaned off. I found the lemon sage castile soap at Drug Emporium. It got an excellent rating on Yuka and was 1/3 the price of Dr. Bronner’s. Plus the smell is so yummy.

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It was so worth all of the hard work.

We have a trunk on the patio that we picked up at an estate sale several years ago and had never really paid attention to what was inside.

We soaked everything in vinegar and cleaned them up.

I feel like I’ve been burning the candle at both ends so today after we got home I watched a lifetime(ish) movie, complete with a unbelievable plot and bad acting, and took a nice long nap complete with Milo and Baby Ruth.

A Wild Hair

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Outside StuffLeave a comment

Donny and I have been busting our butts in the garden and just outside in general. He went back to work today. Turns out the twang in my ankle didn’t miraculously heal overnight so my day started like this.

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There was one project that I had on my list that I really wanted to get done today. I had already painted one tire and planted my cucumber shoots in it, but since I seemed to have WAY over planted seeds and have about 21 tomato plants I needed another container to grow them in. That meant I needed to paint the other tire. Thankfully Donny had brought it into the front yard and had washed it down so it was ready to go with minimal walking for me.

I thought I wanted to paint it red, but once I had finished painting it I didn’t like it. It was just TOO red. I had a thought and mixed some of yellow and red together. I liked the outcome.

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It was a kind of flamingo orange and was much better than the red.

Ever since I painted our shutters I have not liked the color. Our door is a dark turquoise/teal color and the shutters were a baby/light blue. Every time we went into Home Depot I would gravitate toward the paint samples and bring home the ones I thought would work. Several years of doing this and I still couldn’t decided. After I saw the tire I knew the color I wanted. Not the flamingo pink because it was too “Miami vice” for me, but I had some of the brown exterior paint that I thought would darken the salmon color up to where I wanted it. I dumped the rest of the tire paint into an old coffee can, added yellow, red and a couple of dollops of brown.

I did not plan to paint my shutters, but once I mixed the paint I couldn’t wait to get started and get rid of that horrid blue.

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It is exactly what I had in my mind.

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Can we just take a moment to realize that the blue was in fact awful.

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The blue color clashed horribly with the front door. Now the colors work so well together.

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It was worth every painful step up and down the ladder. I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. I also didn’t have to buy any more paint because I just used what we had and was lucky that it was all exterior paint. And yes, I have no patience so when I have a project in mind I need to get it done then and there.

Frazzled

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn thriftingLeave a comment

A new semester started at Kilgore College. They have some classes that run for 8 weeks and some that run for 16. Jackson has 2 that run for 8, but one is online. Anyway, I had asked him what time his class started and he told me the same time as the last one. Okay, perfect, 11:30. He texted me his schedule, but I didn’t look at it because he had already told me the times.

Yesterday I decided to have a slow morning since we didn’t have to leave until 11:05. I took a shower and had just gotten out and was in the kitchen eating a banana. Jackson walks in fully dressed with his bag. I said, You’re ready early. He said, yeah, we have 10 minutes until we have to leave.

Excuse me, but it’s only 9:22. Then he tells me that his class starts at 10. This is the class where I just stay in Kilgore because it doesn’t make sense to drive back because it takes 20 minutes each way. And that’s hitting all green lights. To tell you that I have never gotten dressed so fast. I threw on the bare minimum of makeup, took my hair out of the towel, grabbed a clip for it and we rushed out. We left at 9:37 and got there at 9:58. When we got there I realized that I had left my phone at home. I was not going to just sit in the parking lot so I just told him that if he got out early to just wait.

I actually did find some cute things while I was there.

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Even though I do not like wearing black, I tried this on anyway and it is so cute on. Plus Donny and I are planning to go on a mini vacation next month and I think it will be perfect for dinner or something.

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A pretty top from Maurice’s made it into my cart.

I know that a lot of people don’t like to buy shoes from a thrift store, but when they are in excellent condition I definitely will. I just wipe them with alcohol and give them a spray of Lysol and they are good to go.

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Excuse the unmade bed, I was in a bit of a rush. I have been wanting some huaraches. Growing up in Corpus, we used to go to Mexico and get them. I was so happy when I found these and they are so comfortable.

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These are Pali Hawaii Jesus sandals. They are going to be so great for summer.

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A little ceramic cup to hold either my makeup brushes or cotton rounds. I haven’t decided yet.

I did get a book.

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I was 20 minutes early and so far it’s pretty good.

And because we are always having to run to Michael’s for art supplies, this time I actually remembered that I needed to get some french hooks for a pair of earrings that had broken.

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I need to give them a good clean, but they actually broke over 20 years ago and I have just kept them because they were some of my favorite earrings. Better late than never.

Crazy Storm

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

I check the weather every day. Several times a day on 3 different weather sites. Yesterday there was 20% chance late in the afternoon. Nothing crazy. At 4:45 we got alerts on our phones of a tornado warning. Donny called right after that and said they were closing down early because the weather was supposed to get bad. As I headed up there it started raining. Big heavy raindrops. The wind was also whipping around. When I got to Donny’s work it was pouring so instead of me getting out and going to the passenger side he just jumped in and we left. By the time I pulled out of the parking lot I couldn’t see, even with the windshield wipers on full speed. Then the hail started. We were inching along with all of the other cars. We all had our hazards on because you couldn’t see the road ahead of you. I started panicking. I was in the middle lane with hail, cars and rain I couldn’t even see through. Donny told me to get over and turn into this big parking lot because it had an overhang. Another car was already parked underneath and then another car joined us. Just as quickly as it hit, it went away. This was a crazy fast moving storm.

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Luckily there didn’t seem to be too much damage in the garden.

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The wind was so bad! There were things just flying around. It was a mess.

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We lost power right at 5:00. We didn’t even get hit the hardest. White Oak had thousands without power. I think we had around 800. Luckily we have my candle tray. It came in really handy.

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We finally got power back around 11. The wind was still gusting like crazy. It ended up blowing our backyard swing over which has never happened in all the years we’ve had it.

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It was still going strong this morning. The whirlie gigs were whirling.

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The electric company is replacing the power poles in our neighborhood. We have a transformer on ours so that meant that we were not going to have power for most of the day while they replaced it. I did have fun watching them put the new pole in. It’s fascinating.

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We live in the gardening zone 8. That means that we should have already had our last frost and plants can safely be planted.

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And then Mother Nature said, “hold my beer”. It’s supposed to be 32 degrees the next two nights before we hit the 90’s on Friday. Yeah, that’s not weird or anything. So, I got to cover all of the plants.

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The patio plants went to their cold weather home in the laundry room. The other plants that are just now sprouting and our flowers are all inside along with the seed trays.

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Now to just keep Baby Ruth, our kitten, out of them.

A Favorite Home

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn homeLeave a comment

In our 20 year marriage Donny and I have bought and sold 3 houses. As I’ve written before, the Baton Rouge home was my favorite. My second favorite was our house in Bryan, TX. Donny and I were talking about the garden he had planted there and just for fun I googled the house and found the listing when we sold it. I lost so many of the pictures we took there when our home in Baton Rouge flooded. I’m glad that I have these even if they don’t show some of the best parts like the huge cedar closet, the wood paneled bedroom and the back patio.

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It was in the historic district. We could walk to the downtown to have ice cream and wander around the antique shops. Heritage Park was around the corner where every 4th of July the neighborhood would gather together and listen to the brass band play patriotic songs while the kids walked in the children’s parade in decorated wagons and bicycles. There were hotdogs and picnics. It was truly magical.

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The kitchen had so much storage. There were 2 double pantries and a broom closet. I still have the canisters, pitcher and bowl and the cafe martin art.

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I loved the living room color that was already in the house when we bought it. the dining room had wallpaper above the wainscoting that I didn’t really like so I painted it a light olive green.

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The top picture is the den and if you could see the other side, that was the kids’ playroom. Our bedroom was on the first floor. There is a cabinet over the white chair that held the TV. We called our bed the mothership because every night we’d all pile into it and watch a movie. Most of the time it was Snow White because Hannah loved it so much. Yes, we did use the fireplace. The kids loved to sit in front of it on cold wintry nights.

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The red bathroom was the en suite to our bedroom. It was also the only bathroom downstairs. Hannah had the largest room. I don’t know why they opened up the futon for the pictures, because we always kept it as her seating area. She had such a whimsical space.

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The first of the two bathrooms upstairs was mainly used by Bethany who loved her wood paneled room that isn’t shown. I’m pretty sure she has pictures of it somewhere. Jackson had a cute room. The door with the curtain led out onto the balcony and roof deck. We had a keyed deadbolt so that door was rarely used. The red hanging shelf between the door and the window is now painted yellow and holds my spices over the stove. We still have the three tiered shelf. It’s in our hallway.

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The top picture was the babies bathroom. It didn’t have a shower, only a tub which was perfect since they were so little. This is the balcony that was right off Jackson’s room.

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The balcony led to the roof deck. I wish there were better pictures of the backyard. The patio was such a great space. There were always friends hanging out back there. The house was on 2 lots so there was so much room for the kids to run around and play. It wasn’t fully fenced when we moved in. We put the picket fence up.

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This is one of my favorite pictures. I love how the light is streaming through the pickets of the fence.

It really was a great house while we lived there and sometimes I do miss it. Bryan was a great place to live.

This ‘n That

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

First I want to start by saying we had a scare last night. Hannah and I went to workout and got home about midnight. I was checking on everything when I heard the neighborhood dogs barking like crazy. I looked up and there were two huge coyotes just walking down the middle of our street. If the dogs hadn’t alerted me I wouldn’t have even known they were there because they were ninja quiet. I start yelling at them to go away because our two male cats were outside. Donny heard me and came out to see what in the world was going on at that late hour. We hopped in the car and started chasing them around the neighborhood to get them to leave. They did not want to leave and kept circling back to our street. We had the windows down yelling at them and honking. They finally left but I’m sure they will be back. We have a feral cat colony across the street and it breaks my heart when there is a missing cat.

Fridays are like every normal person’s Sunday for us. It’s like the end of the weekend because Donny has Thursdays and Fridays off. Since we did all of our running around yesterday today was home day. While he was cleaning out and fortifying the chicken coop (we had a possum sneak in the other night in the wee hours) I was painting one of the old tires that we had in the backyard. Donny had used it for planning potatoes a few seasons ago and I wanted to spruce it up and use it for cucumbers.

My cucumbers are almost ready to be planted. I don’t know how well they will do in the front because it is just so dang shady. I’m going to plant some in the full sun and some in the shad and see how it goes.

That’s some of my tomato plants in the round containers next to the cucumbers.

I may have overdone it with the tomatoes, but who knows if they’ll all live.

I have 3 that I cheated and bought at home Depot. They are still living so that’s a plus.

My watermelon is finally sprouting. Those are my babies because I love watermelon and buy so many during the summer. I would just love to be able to pick them from my garden.

So far everything is going well. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

As soon as the compost is ready I’ll be spreading that all over. For some reason Making compost has always intimidated me. We made it all the time at our house in Bryan. I have no idea why I felt this way. I decided that if I don’t do it right, that’s okay, but so far it’s been really easy. I also found that using the weed weasel thing to mix it up is so much better than the hoe and stick I was using.

Sorry about all of the garden talk it’s just that I am trying to record everything so I’ll have the records for next time and it’s also what took up the majority of our day today.

But, that’s not the only thing. Hannah and I went to Crunch to workout. I absolutely love this gym. No one cares what you wear. Everyone is so nice and helpful. We have started doing the circuit workout and then cardio. Tonight we found the holy grail of working out. It’s the sauna! We sat in that beautiful hot room and when we got out it felt like we had taken a sedative. That will definitely be our ending every time we go. I just can’t even explain how wonderful I feel after sitting on those cedar benches for 15 minutes.

Because Sprouts is in the same parking lot I had to run in and get some lotion. I am almost out of the patchouli buritti and decided to go with a new scent.

This is my favorite scent. It says floral in the description (I’m not a floral girly at all) but I’m not getting that from it. All of the scents that I have tried are really good, but the lotion itself is outstanding. Non greasy, soaks in and keeps my skin soft all day long. Highly recommend. Natural Grocers, Vitamins Plus and Drug Emporium also carry this brand.

Now I’m going to talk my cat Malley off the ledge because he is wanting to go outside. He can’t meow so it’s the grunting sound. Poor thing. He always settles down when he realizes he has lost the battle of wills.

Estate Sale Day

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Estate SalesLeave a comment

Our favorite thing to do on Donny’s day off is to find an estate sale. The estate sales here start on Wednesdays and that used to me great when Donny had Wednesdays off because things weren’t so picked over. We had run some errands and I checked the estate sale websites and one was close and looked interesting. So we headed there.

The house was huge and there was still so much stuff left. We love the garages because they always have some of the best items. Donny found 2 very old files with an interchangeable handle that he thought would be good for failing some of my jewelry.

Since it was the second day everything was 25% off.

I liked this necklace except for the Christmas theme that it had going on.

No problem, I just used my jewelry pliers and took the charms off.

I am a sucker for a sleeveless all cotton blouse.

The house had the cutest courtyard with a little workshop. I don’t know if people just didn’t go out that door but I found the best thing out there. Maybe no one bought it because it looked a little wonky. It had a lean to it and didn’t seem sturdy. For $25 I knew we could fix it. I have been wanting one of these forever, but didn’t want to pay the retail price.

All it took was a trip to Home Depot to get some rebar and once Donny put that through the pole it was sturdy as ever. I just love it!

Swap Out + Jewelry Making

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

Since all of the trees are blooming we feel like there isn’t going to be another freeze. I was so sick of looking at my sweaters and how much room my winter clothes took up I decided it was time to swap out for my warmer weather clothes.

Bye bye winter clothes.

All washed and ready to be hung up.

I’ve decided that this summer will be the Summer of maxi skirts. I really like skirts in the hot weather because the air flow is unmatched.

After everything was washed it only took about an hour to bag up the winter and hang up the summer.

After many days of waiting for the weather forecasters storm to hit, it finally did last night. I slept through it but when the kids woke up they told me that it was bad, thundering, lightening and pounding rain. The storm stuck around most of the day so I decided to make some jewelry. I wrapped my first piece of sea glass.

I practiced making a few spoon rings.

It takes a lot of arm strength to get a good bend on the rings. I’m getting better at it. They really are a lot of fun to make.

I made shrimp and crawfish etoufee.

I doubled the recipe thinking I would freeze some for a later date.

It was a huge hit and luckily there was enough leftover for Donny’s lunch.

Poppin’

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

It’s only the second day, but this time change is kicking my butt. It always takes me at least a week to get back into rhythm. I couldn’t fall asleep last night and then both Donny and I overslept. Ugh. But on a happier note, the garden seeds are a Poppin. I was a little leery about buying these flower seeds.

I picked them up at Walmart and luckily that had a pack that was for the more shady areas as well as full sun. Every pot I planted them in looks like this.

It’s almost time to start planting my seed trays.

We had to run to Walmart yesterday because Donny’s reader glasses broke. I had seen online how if you put fake snakes in your garden it will deter birds and critters. I don’t know if this is true, but I found these to use.

We’ll see if this actually works.

The one thing I love about the time change is that it gets dark later. I was able to do the first mow of the season at 5:30.

I put one of the snakes where the iron trellis is and it gave me a start when I was mowing.

I’m getting ready to do the winter summer clothes swap out so I was going through my closet to see what I didn’t wear. I had picked up these men’s vintage Dickies overalls a couple of years ago for $1. They were hanging on Donny’s side and I had just forgotten about them. Since oversized overalls are in style now, I just cut the legs off to the length that I like and they are almost exactly what I almost paid over $100 for.

Gotta love a bargain!