Author: thefunkyfrugalista

I live in a cozy old home in the Piney Woods of east Texas. This is my journal Follow me on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/stacy.kappelmanbruce Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefunkyfrugalista

Been A Minute

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home StuffLeave a comment

Truth be told, I haven’t been on here in 2 weeks for 2 reasons. One is that during the day I’m watching the Lindsay Clancy trial. I actually can’t sit still and just watch it so I put on my headphones and actually get a lot done. I think it must be the stress. I’m not going to write a long list of how and why I would vote as a juror, but you know I do not like the color pink but yet here I was last Thursday.

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a pink shirt so I found this huge one where Hannah works. I used the little rubber band trick to try and make it look a little less like a tent. Donny said it looked like I have a giant belly button. He ain’t really wrong. LOL

Reason number 2 is that Donny and I have been watch the series Silo on Apple TV in the evenings. It’s so good and we’re sad that we have caught up and now have to wait until Fridays to watch an episode. We have 2 left before we have to wait until next year for the last season. What a bummer.

Number 3 is that I let Penelope use my laptop to watch a listen to chickens on YouTube. I put up a pen in the living room so that she has a space that’s hers and not just a box and random puppy pads. I don’t know what we are going to do with her. She still cannot walk and just kind of scoots around. It’s not a great life for a chicken but she does seem to enjoy YouTube.

Our garden is on it’s last legs except for the pumpkin and watermelon vines. I’ve been dead heading all of the sunflowers, zinnias and marigolds to harvest their seeds for next year.

So far I have these 3 bowls full and today I have a cereal bowl full of the seeds.

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I am going to have a lot of flowers next year. The white zinnias that came up later are still going strong.

I had a gorgeous basil plant growing in the big garden. Something happened and it fell over and for the life of my I couldn’t get it to stand up again. I dug up as much of the roots as I could and replanted it into a pot. It went into shock for several days, but now it’s looking good.

Hannah and I went to her work on her day off. If you don’t know she works at this really good thrift store that is only 3 minutes from our house. She also got a job at one of the big haunted houses here and it super excited about doing that. She really loves her job and even when we were there on her day off regular customers just stopped her to chit chat. I did find 3 items that I purchased.

Anything with a sun and I’m in. Moons too. This one is slate and hangs by a leather strap.

I thought this amber jar was so cute and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

I also can’t pass up a handmade mug. This one is from Hill Country Pottery.

Can we just talk about the heat for a moment? Our electric bill is 489. We live in a 1008 square foot house. What in the world is going on. Well, it could be that we have the original 1961 windows and I like a lot of sunlight so I raise the blinds and open the curtains. We also had the air set to 73. Not a good combination. Being that I am extremely frugal we now have our thermostat set at 78. I have pulled down all of the blinds and closed the curtains. So basically I live in a cave because I will only turn on a lamp when it’s necessary. Honestly I thought I would be sweating like a pig but other than the windows the house has good insulation and it’s not bad. When I’m in the kitchen cooking I do use this handy dandy device.

It’s getting used to not having all of the natural light. Yesterday I did all of the laundry and folded it in my dark, only lit by a lamp, room. It was actually pretty cozy.

I also have one of the mini swamp coolers in our room.

Since it’s hot as hades (108 this weekend and that’s not the feels like) I’ve been doing crafts. I painted the faded out frog I got from the estate sale.

And I used 66 toilet paper rolls (some were actually paper towel rolls) to make some flowers. I still have to paint them. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow during the trial.

And can I get a big HALLELUJAH? Olivia, Jackson’s girlfriend, took the bear!!!!!!!

They started back to college today so I want to wish them a very productive semester. Not the bear.

Paint It, Find It, Fix It

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Frugal LifeLeave a comment

Remember when I painted the back of my bookshelves to match the curtains? Well, every time I looked at it, it didn’t look gold it looked like a sad beige, which will never be in my home.

It was just so one dimensional and sad looking. I mixed up some paint. It’s the yellow that I had with brown that I also had.

After I finished this paint job it was still looking too one dimensional. I decided to try wiping stain over it but apparently I had used all of my stain. I found some burnt umber acrylic paint and added water to it to thin it out quite a bit. I just used a sponge brush to wipe it on and then immediately wipe it off. I wanted to give it a “it was used in a cigar smoking room” effect.

This is exactly what I envisioned.

Now it makes me happy when I see it.

I have been missing a 4×4 piece of wood on the corner of the front flower bed for a while. I don’t know what happened to it. Donny might have taken it to use for something but I really don’t know. I have to drive by this empty lot on the corner of the street that leads to the entrance of our neighborhood and the loop every day. I saw a piece of a 4×4 just laying near the curb. One evening when Donny was driving I told him to pull over so I could grab it. He didn’t know what I was talking about so he had to do a u-turn. He pulled into the middle turning lane and I jumped out. He was yelling “hurry hurry a car is coming”. I had on flip flops and was doing my best not to get run over.

It’s a pretty busy intersection but I got it safely.

It fits and it didn’t cost a thing.

Our saucer swing broke. The middle circle came out so it was just the outer fabric circle left. We couldn’t use it because you would just fall through if you tried. I didn’t want to buy a whole new swing this late in the summer so I decided to redneck fix it. I bought 4 rolls of Duck brand tape and got to work.

Does it look exceptionally appealing? No it does not. Did it actually work? 100% it did. It cost less than $12, much much cheaper than a new swing. I’m most likely going to change out the swing next year anyway so this was a quick inexpensive fix. Don’t sleep on the powers of Duck tape.

I have been looking for a table for Hannah’s room to go where the 6ft tall teddy bear resides. I hit up 2 estate sales because on the website both looked like they had something that might work. They didn’t but I did find some candles and a goofy frog for cheap.

When I get some free time I’m going to repaint him. He’s a bit faded.

Last, but not least, it rained on Saturday and a little tiny bit on Sunday.

The temperature dropped when the storm blew in. It rained for several hours and thank goodness the neighbors know I’m a little strange because I danced in that rain. Our grass is getting brown and we needed this so badly. I do love summer so much, but when it nears the end of August I’m ready for some respite from the heat and am looking forward to Autumn.

Garden Update

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

On Thursday I was feeling marginally better thanks to Donny giving me two wonderful back massages. I’m thinking it’s my psoas muscle so I’m just going to have to wait it out and try not to overdo it which if you read this you will know this is extremely hard for me.

On this morning Donny found several chickens in the already damaged pumpkin patch. They were all happily taking dust baths and no plants survived. We headed to Jake’s Feed Store to pick up more pumpkin seeds. I am right at the tail end of them being ready for Halloween, but I’m just going to take that chance.

I zip tied the little fence together to make it stronger and then we put up the hard chicken wire and regular chicken wire and zip tied that to the fence. I replanted seeds, gave them a good water and crossed my fingers that the chickens couldn’t get in.

Because I was already sweaty and gross I decided to go ahead and think out our side garden that had gotten overgrown. Our sunflowers had to be staked up along with several tomato plants and zinnias. As always there was morning glories that had to be taken care of.

It’s always sad when the summer garden is coming to an end.

Even though the tomato and cucumber plants are looking worn out we are still getting produce from them. I found this cucumber hiding in the mess.

We aren’t doing a winter garden so I decided to plant more pumpkin seeds on one side of the enclosed garden just to be able to see something growing.

Watermelons are still going strong. They take up so much space, but we have 4 in the purple bed that are still going strong. We had 5, but Donny was checking one and it fell off the vine.

The two baby pool also have watermelon growing. Donny found one hanging on the fence that needed an immediate sling. I found an old run pad and zip tied it to the fence and our metal rooster.

We’ll see if this will even work. The hot Texas sun may burn up a lot of my plants, but watermelons love it.

We’ve had a lot of luck with our sunflowers this year so I also planted some more seeds just to see if they will grow. These are the last blooms of the ones that we grew earlier.

We also cannot forget about our pollinators. They need water also. I had gotten the flower bird bath and over the summer it had gotten rust spots. I spray painted it, washed the stones and put a plastic planter water catcher in it.

Rough Few Days

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

These past few days have been ROUGH. On Tuesday I did something to the right side of my body. Everything was seized up. It was so bad by Wednesday that after Donny got home, at 5 on Wednesdays, I got on our Chi swing machine to see if I could loosen anything up and was in bed by 5:45. I woke up at midnight and went to just lay down on the couch with our tens machine on. I also think that I’m having phantom gallbladder symptoms again because I haven’t been taking my ox bile daily like I know I should.

I swear by this stuff. I’m feeling a bit better today, but the hip and shoulder blade and where my gallbladder used to be is still giving me fits.

When we woke up Thursday morning we found out that we had ants. They were all over the kitchen sink and the countertop next to the sink. We haven’t had a problem with ants since we have lived here. We cleared everything off of the counters and got to work.

After a quick Google search I found this product is safe to use around pets and is non toxic. I honestly think it’s just lemongrass and geranium essential oils. It killed them all off though so that’s a win. Because I don’t want them to come back and so far they haven’t, I mixed in some essential oil with my castile cleaning spray.

I need to move it into one of my amber glass bottles since I added the oils.

The worst thing that happened was to one of my pumpkin patches in the backyard. This is what it looked like on Wednesday.

While we were handling the ant problem, Donny looked out the window and said, “there are chickens in you patch”. I ran outside and one of the brown chickens was having a field day scratching up all of the shoots. I tried to save as many as I could but they were so damaged. I was devastated.

I put screens over the top to see if it will deter her. We’ll see.

On a different note, I found the best watermelon I’ve had all season at Aldi.

I prefer seeded ones but they are hard to find and when you do find them they are so expensive. This one will do just fine.

House chicken has a friend. She likes watching this cat wave its arm. She also likes watching TV and at night I put on the Roku Zen Life channel because she also likes music.

And one last random bit. We only have one this year, but it’s a cutie. Very shy and never raises it’s tail. Its tail is different and looks more like a cat’s tail.

Fix It

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Frugal LifeLeave a comment

My belief is that if it breaks or there is just something wrong you try to fix it yourself. If you read hear you already know about the dryer I got in the storage auction for $23. It’s been over 4 years and I’ve only had to replace the latch switch and belt. As I was putting the final load of towels into the dryer the timer knob wouldn’t turn. I pulled it off and tried to turn it using pliers but no go. After some googling I found out that it could be a cracked knob or the timing mechanism. I removed that and took it to Nipper’s to see if they had the replacement parts.

ALWAYS take pictures so you know which wires connect where.

When I got to Nipper’s Mr. Nipper himself was at the counter. He’s kind of gruff, but is always so helpful and knows his stuff. He had the knob in stock but said he’d have to order the timer. He asked me if he could see the timer and took one look at it and said that it wasn’t the timer because it looked good. He grabbed some pliers and wrenched the part where the knob connects and told me that older GE dryers can sometimes stick but my knob was definitely cracked. Put my old timer back in and put on the new knob and it started right up. $37 spent instead of having to buy a new dryer.

I noticed a smell coming out of the drain on the side of the sink that our dishwasher was on. I had done a drain clean and that worked for a bit, but there was something else going on. I emptied out the cupboard and the hose that drains water from the dishwasher to the sink pipes was SO gross. There is no way that I could stand to know that was there and not do anything about it.

Just look at that hose. Disgusting. I took it outside and used the jet spray to clear out as much as I could. After that I poured half a bottle of mint oil cleaner down into it and left it out in the sun turning it over after about 30 minutes. That got a lot of the gunk out. Next I poured bleach down and left it again. I need to get inside the hose with something to scrub it. I found an old fishing rod and that seemed to do the trick. After several rounds with the rod, more cleaner and bleach it looked so much better.

There were some areas that I think were just stained because I could not get those parts clear but I’ll take it because it’s a vast improvement from what it started out looking like.

I will always and forever try to fix something myself because YouTube and Google are pretty amazing.

Refillery + A Little Thriftin’

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Longview, txLeave a comment

Longview has a new store near downtown. It’s called Good Steward Refillery. I have been hoping that this type of store would open in our town. Donny and I drove over to see what it was all about. I also wanted to speak to the owner about the company she rents from. She rents from the same company that Jensings does. I heard that the company bought all of the old buildings around both Jensings and the Refillery. I left my name and number so that I could speak to them because this is exactly where I want to open a little shop.

Okay, back to business. I love the idea of bringing your own bottles in a filling them up. They actually had bottles that customers had brought in for others to use. I wanted to try the shampoo and conditioner but I wanted it in one of their pump bottles.

I chose the Milk and Honey. I chose my bottles. Weighed them to get the tare and then myself and one of the workers helped me fill them up. They have body wash, hand soap, laundry products. They also carry teas, holistic body care, just a whole range of different products.

I put a sticker on the shampoo because it’s almost impossible to tell which one is which. I used them last night and my hair feels amazing and smells amazing, like creamy honey. I can’t wait to try more of their products.

I haven’t really been thrifting much lately, but I did pick up a few things here and there over the last few weeks.

I loved this mug. I’m slowly getting rid of the mugs I don’t really like and replacing them with ones I do like. I thought this one was perfect.

On that same trip I found this elephant tea light holder. I love elephants and this little guy fit right in.

I had just been using jute rope to tie our curtains up. There wasn’t anything wrong with that but I found tassel tie backs for a dollar and they match the curtains exactly.

My favorite find was this lantern.

Right now I just have it on our kitchen table with a color changing light inside.

I have been snipping the overgrown basil plant and putting the cuttings in water. They small good and are actually propagating.

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I didn’t get this lantern at a thrift store, but I just love a lantern. I hung one in our bedroom and this one in the living room.

I need to bring it down a couple of inches but for right now it’s fine.

If anyone was wondering if Mr. Whiskers is still around, he is. Yesterday was two egg day, the last one being at almost 11 pm. He was here bright and early just talking a little rest.

He was laying much cuter but every time I get my camera out, no matter which cat it is, they sense it and automatically move. He is letting me hold him now so that’s a plus.

House Chicken

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn chickensLeave a comment

As I’ve written before, one of our OG chickens, Penelope, got fly strike. She is also unable to move one of her feet. She has been living in our house for a while now. I’m sure she is going to be here until she goes to the big farm in the sky. She had been doing really well. Two days ago I noticed that when I got her out of her night nest there was liquid soaked into the pad. A quick Google search told me that she has vent gleet. That is just a fancy term for a yeast infection.

We got her vitamins and probiotics that you just mix into water. This morning I noticed that there was only a little bit of liquid on her pad which is a huge deal. If she wasn’t getting better we were going to have to tube feed her to make sure she was eating the foods that will get rid of the gleet.

From everything I’ve read, it’s not a hard process but it sounds awful to me. We would have to open her mouth and make sure the tube goes down the right side of her throat and not into her airway.

We give her Epsom salt baths every few days that she seems to enjoy.

This is her night nest. I cover it up with the quilt so that she feels safer.

During the day she prefers this spot. I think it’s because it’s out of the way of the a/c. She can move around. Sometimes she’ll flap her wings and move that way or she’ll just hop.

She’s been eating the plain yogurt that we started her on yesterday so I think that is helping quite a bit. I do take her outside and stay with her but truthfully she enjoys being inside more. She is just such a sweet hen and has always been my favorite so we are going to keep chugging along and hope she keeps doing well.

The Patch

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

I am trying not to make the same mistake I made last year by starting our pumpkins too late. The space that I would normally plant the seeds is where our watermelons are growing now so I had to come up with another plan. Pumpkins, like watermelons, need full sun. The only place I had that I knew might work was the back of the backyard. So I grabbed my pickax and got to work.

First I had to get all of the weeds and grass dug up and figure out how big I wanted to make the garden. We chose 3 different types of seeds.

It was so hard work and extremely hot. I got as much done that day as I possibly could.

Donny had brought the huge bag of potting soil out to the area when I got home from work so the next morning I was ready to start tilling up the area. I mixed the soil into the dirt that was already there. I decided to make two different gardens.

I had to come up with some type of barrier to keep the chickens out. They love nothing more than digging in fresh dirt.

I used our baby gate that we use when we have new chicks and a tomato cage that we aren’t using right now.

I pulled the garden fences from the front because we didn’t need them there anymore since the plants are big. I always think I can remember where I planted what, but I always forget. I took the seed packets, covered them in packing tape and attached them to wooden skewers. I’ll removed the barriers once the vines start growing. It’s amazing how long they get.

Ever since the neighbor behind us accidentally cut our string lights when they were cutting the trees down, I have wanted to put more lights out there. We found these solar lights at Harbor Freight. They are 66 ft long and are pretty bright.

It’s hard to tell in this picture because my phone takes such crappy night photos, but they look pretty good and stretch the whole fence length.

When I tell you it is EXTREMELY hot and that I’ve been working outside for the past several days, it’s no joke. This is how I have been looking most of the summer. My shirt is soaked in sweat and this is after the second shirt change.

I actually don’t mind the heat. What I do mind is my freaking carpal tunnel. I will be sleeping like this until winter.

My poor wrist brace has been through it. Whatever works.

Fly Potion

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home StuffLeave a comment

We live in the South. East Texas to be exact and it is BUGGY! Especially during the hotter months. One thing I cannot stand are flies. They drive me crazy! Even though I keep everything wiped down and cleaned up they still love the kitchen. I found the best thing ever to deter them. I call it Fly Potion.

You just have to diffuse eucalyptus, peppermint, lavender and lemongrass essential oils. I don’t even measure how many drops I use because no matter what, it works. I keep it going all day long.

Donny decided he was going to go a different route.

He actually didn’t get it for the houseflies. He saw a video on Tiktok where you can wave it through your garden and it kills the bugs that want to eat your plants.

It actually works. You just have to be careful to not get the helpful bugs or lizards. It’s in essence a portable bug light. Since we don’t use any type of poison in the garden it’s been very beneficial to keeping our vegetables bug free.

New Arrival

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Day TripLeave a comment

Life has been lifing lately so it’s been a minute since I’ve made a post. I am happy to announce that we have a new grandson!

Forrest Paine was born on July 9th at 11:55 p.m. weighing in at 7lb 6oz. If he’d only waited 6 more minutes he would have been born on his aunt’s birthday. We were hoping, but the doctor almost didn’t make it in time to deliver him. The nurses had Nikki on her side with her knees together. When the doctor did arrive it was 3 pushes and he was out.

Donny and I didn’t go down right away because dad’s mother was visiting from Georgia and we also wanted to go when Bethany and her two kids were going to be there. So last Thursday all of the stars aligned and we were all able to be there together. We were only missing Nikki’s two oldest because they were visiting their dad.

He is such a little nugget.

Donny makes such a good paw paw.

It was so good to be able to see Cassidy, Rory and Phoebe.

That’s Cassidy on the left. He’s Bethany’s oldest. Phoebe is Nikki’s 3rd baby girl.

Rory is such a cutie. She has the blondest hair and bluest eyes.

My girls with their babies. I hate that there was so much backlight, but I’m happy to have pictures no matter how they turn out.

It was such a good visit. We only stayed about 4 hours because Mom and dad were very tired and needed to get settled into a routine without so many visitors that have been coming over to see the baby. Can we just get a shout out for face time? Even though we all have busy schedules it just makes it seem like everyone isn’t so far away and I’m very thankful for that.