I live in a cozy old home in the Piney Woods of east Texas.
This is my journal
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The last two days have been so windy. So windy, in fact, that one of my wind chimes blew down. I needed to get my seeds started. All I could manage to do were two of them because the seed starting containers kept blowing away.
My planters came in so I started putting them together.
It wasn’t hard, just time consuming.
One down and one to go. I was so excited to see that I could order purple containers. They are so much more fun than the plain silver ones. I can’t wait to set them up and get to planting.
On a good note, Jackson finally cleaned out his closet and got rid of the things he doesn’t wear anymore.
I now have a stuffed bag to donate tomorrow.
There is one shirt that he had in the pile that I’m not going to donate because it has his character that he developed for Tower Heroes game.
The characters name is Hotdog Frank. Yep, I’ll be saving this one.
Thursday was my birthday. Truth be told I have always been weird about my birthday even as a child. I would hide under the table when the kids at my birthday parties would sing happy birthday. My parents used to rent out the skating rink to have my birthday parties, when I was a bit older, and I liked that because everyone was having fun skating and the attention wasn’t on me. One year Donny called ahead to the restaurant we were going to just to make sure they would sing happy birthday. I wanted to die of embarrassment. I’ve been to Kiddie Park in Austin and a night field trip with the kids elementary school on two of my birthdays because that is just how I like to celebrate. I like making sure everyone is having fun and yes, I like doing that kind of stuff myself.
Thursday all I wanted to do was get a head start on the garden and front beds. There is just something about digging in the dirt that makes me so happy. I moved all of the flower pots and got to work digging up the weeds that had started to grow again. Then I used my hand held claw to till it all up.
I pulled out the metal trellis and painted it because I was starting to see rust on it. Donny and I ran to home Depot to pick up the mulch.
I got the cucumber seeds in the ground and planted some lettuce in the bigger pots. I used oil rubbed bronze on the trellis and it looks so much better.
This is not where the pots will stay, but it’s their home for right now. I don’t know if we are going to have another frost or not. I’m hoping not, but you just never know.
Jackson and Olivia gave me a gift.
She wanted to paint something for me and Jackson told her that he knew exactly what I would love and I truly did. It’s my Queso who I miss every single day. She did him in watercolors and I can believe how amazing it turned out. Our neighbor across the street works for a food restaurant supply company and he brought over a 5 lb bag of mozzarella. He didn’t know it was my birthday, but it was a great gift nonetheless.
Hannah has been sick the last few days, so we just got takeout at The Catch. Their seafood is so good. The night ended with a gluten free birthday cake that Donny got me.
Today I had told Donny that I wanted to go to Jefferson, one of my favorite places in the world. Hannah is still under the weather and Jackson was working on something in his room so it was a day date for Donny and me. We got later start than we had planned, but we managed to hit a couple of my favorite places.
We never miss The Old Mill. It’s huge and so fun to look at all the different booths. We didn’t end up purchasing anything, but it was fun to look around.
Next we went to the General Store. They’ve done some renovations and added more rooms since the last time we were there. I loved this groovy room.
They carry everything from old timey candy, novelty toys, goumet food, shoes, clothes and also have an ice cream bar where you can get milkshakes, sodas and food.
We were getting hungry and couldn’t decide where to go so we just went to our fallback, Auntie Skinner’s. The food is pretty meh. I had nachos and Donny got a steak sandwich. My food was okay because how can you really screw up nachos. Donny’s was not as good, so it was a little disappointing.
As we were walking to my very favorite shop in Jefferson we walked by the Jefferson Hotel. It has new owners and they have made this place so gaudy. It’s so sad to see.
Made in the Shade is the best store!
They have a little bit of everything. It’s so my style and I could spend hours in it. Donny found some cute Pol overalls for me. I tried them on, liked them, but just wasn’t feeling the urge to buy them.
It could have been because I felt like a stuffed turkey after eating a plate of nachos. Or it could have been that I was extremely sore from all of the yard work and was grumpy from having to disrobe in the dressing room. The only thing I ended up buying there was some Zum jumbo lip balm because my lips were so chapped. I did try on some Aura Blends perfume oil, but none came close to my Kuumba Made.
I can’t wait to come back during the summer because this courtyard always has so much going on.
It was getting close to 5 when everything closes. We decided to drive around and look at all of the historic houses that are also Bed and Breakfasts. Jefferson’s magic will pull you in and make you never want to leave. I can’t wait to go back. It was a very good way to end my birthday.
I had an hour and a half to kill in Kilgore. Instead of hitting the thrift stores I needed to go to Dollar Tree and Walmart to pick up some items for starting our garden. But first I need to make room in my trunk. I had been hauling around two big bags of clothing donations for months. Luckily for me, there was a donation drop off next door to Walmart.
Because I was picking up three kids I couldn’t use my backseat so I was thrilled to find these bins to make room for my purchases.
In Walmart I picked up the seeds I needed. We decided to only plant crops we would actually eat. I also found a good deal on a huge bag of potting soil.
Didn’t realize that the picture came out upside down, but you get the gist of it.
I was also out of bird seed for my feeder so I needed to pick that up also.
At Dollar Tree I picked up these baking pans with lids. I’ll put the seed starter pots in them to act as a terrarium. I have had the seed pots since last year. I got them 90% off at Dollar General.
Dollar Tree had some cute flower pots. I needed some for herbs.
My best finds at Dollar Tree were these celestial metal art. This one is the exact color of our front door.
I loved this one, just not the color.
Nothing that a little spray paint won’t fix. I left the can so you can see how big these actually are.
It looks so much better.
I also did some weeding and looked to see if any of our plants are worth saving after going through winter. The hydrangea is budding. I was worried about that one.
The mint comes back every year.
My mums actually survived being dragged from the laundry room to outside about a million times.
I brought my peace lilies outside to do a little trimming on them, add some more soil and give them a good soak.
Also, here is a cost efficient, easy to make dinner.
If you don’t like Italian sausage you can substitute whichever kind you like. I took this picture before I added the parsley. Donny thought that the potatoes were pineapple. The whole dish was really good and it made enough for me to pack leftovers for his lunch today.
Today started off rough. It was so foggy. It wasn’t too bad in town, but once we got on the road it was like I was driving in a cloud. It got so bad at one point I just turned on my hazards and tried my best to see the road. I white knuckled it until I got back home.
Hannah wasn’t feeling well when she woke up so she didn’t go to class today. She started feeling better so we went to the gym for about an hour. I like working out at night so much better than the daytime. It’s so busy and just has a whole different vibe. Lucky for us Sprouts is in the same parking lot so we decided to treat ourselves to some sushi.
I haven’t really felt like cooking lately. It was feeling like I was just making the same things every week. I decided to get out my binder and do a little meal planning. I found 4 recipes that I wanted to make this week.
I made my list and headed to Aldi. I was pleasantly surprised when I found a parking space near the door and it didn’t even look too crowded. It started off bad when I walked through the door. People were not moving and going in all different directions. I finally got through that mess. The next issue was that there were older couples, like 5 of them, that were walking side by side and just randomly stopping. No one was smiling. Everyone just seemed so grumpy. One couple, who I kept having to say excuse me to, the woman was just mean mugging me the whole time I was shopping. She reminded me so much of this woman that I had an interaction with when I was an embalmer.
I worked the overnight shift at a funeral home in Austin. It was just myself and my embalming partner. We got a call to make a removal at a nursing home. He always liked to deal with the families and the paperwork while I did the embalming. Anyway, this was a very nice nursing home. It was very stately with dark wood and jewel tone colors. There was a woman sitting in a wheelchair in the reception area. She called me over. I always tried to be very nice to anyone I came into contact with on a call. She took my hand and told me that I reminded her of her daughter. She said it several times in a very sweet voice. Then she said, in a not so nice voice, I want to kill my daughter in the library. That was very unexpected and needless to say I pulled my hand away and went on my merry way. Working in the funeral business I have so many crazy stories.
Back to Aldi. I finally got checked out and was so happy to be out of there. It was just a strange day all around. People were driving crazily running red lights and not looking where they were going so I was happy to be headed home.
Since Donny has to work until 8 tonight I thought I’d make something super easy.
I would definitely bump up the temperature to 350.
I added onions because we just like them. I browned the mushrooms and onions in the skillet after I’d cooked and removed the meat.
It turned out good except for my wonky looking crust. After this very weird day I needed something easy.
This morning when I went to unload the dishwasher I realized that I needed to organize our cup cabinet. We had some wine glasses and other coffee cups that we just don’t use on the regular. I got that cabinet done.
When I started putting the glasses on top of the cabinets (it’s where we keep the bar ware) I noticed that the glasses and other items that were on there had that greasy film. I pulled everything down off the top of the cabinets and got to work scrubbing the top and the walls.
After everything was washed I realized that there were some more canisters that I wasn’t using that needed to go up there also. That lead me to cleaning out the baking cabinet.
I also found some foodie magazines from 2018 that I had stored on top. I wanted to go through them and tear out the recipes that I wanted to try.
I’ve had this binder for almost 20 years. I worked for a catering company and kept a lot of the recipes we used. I also added recipes from magazine and some I had printed out. I use sheet protectors and it works pretty darn well.
There were so many that I removed because I knew I wasn’t going to be making any of those recipes.
I have a thing for cookbooks. I prefer them to using online recipes. I had almost forgotten about my binder. It doesn’t really fit anywhere so I just put it on top of my cookbooks.
And how cute are these vintage bowls that we use for our cats water?
Since it was a short work day for Donny we went to the gym after he got off. I have found that if I just ride the bike my legs don’t hurt at all. That’s a win.
Donny and I had some time to kill in Kilgore. I had seen this cool antique shop on my Tiktok. I knew it was in Kilgore, but I didn’t know where. Well, as we were driving into town I saw the sign for it. I pass it every time I drive into Kilgore. Like it’s right there off the main road. We decided to stop in and see what it was all about.
It’s called Relictivity. It’s a huge warehouse that has so many fun things to browse through.
It’s not booths, the couple that own it curated everything in it.
The husband said that they just started collecting items until they had enough to fill up the store. We almost bought this wrought iron moon trellis. It was tucked into a corner. When I got it out to look at it I noticed that one part of the iron had come loose and that the legs of it were different sizes because I looked like one had rusted part of the way off. I still really like it, but it was $44.99 and I’d have to get the one part welded. I’m still thinking about it though.
We still had a little bit of time so we drove next door to Atwoods which is a general store/farm store. We picked up a new garden hose and a watering can. I have been using a plastic water jug and the water just comes out too fast.
I am bummed that I didn’t wait and get a metal can, but this one works well so I guess it’ll do.
We didn’t really have any afternoon plans so I found an estate sale that was going on it’s second day. Normally everything is almost gone by then, but we decided to go check it out anyway.
I did find a rubber mallet that I need for my rings. It’s a little crusty, but once I clean it off it will be perfect.
I saw this lantern that I thought was so cool. I had never seen one like this before. The bottom looked like a tin can. When I did a Google image search that’s exactly what it is.
It was a fun day to just mill around doing nothing. The weather was perfect.
Oh, and the kids and their friends went to Dallas for a concert so I took the opportunity to deep clean Jackson’s room. It was so dusty it was causing his allergies to flare up. I cleaned every nook and cranny out. I washed his curtains, bedding and shampooed his carpets.I filled up our trash can and had to load the back of my car to take the rest to the dumpster at Donny’s work.
The weather the last few days have been glorious. The 10 day forecast is supposed to carry it on. I know it could be a false Spring, but I’m just going to pretend like this weather is here to stay. When the weather starts warming up is when I do my seasonal clothes swap out. It’s not time for that yet, put I have been noticing that there are items in my closet that I just haven’t worn in forever. So I did a closet purge.
I’m getting rid of 17 items and I’m sure that by the time it warms up I’ll be getting rid of more. I still need to purge my purses and shoes, but for right now things fit in our shared closet. That’s one of the drawbacks of living in a house built in 1961, the closets are tiny.
By the time I finished with that the sun was shining and I was itching to get outside and start prepping the garden. It has been bugging me for a while because the weeds were out of control and we had dead tomato plants and cantaloupe vines.
I also dug up the weeds around the garden. Next I moved to the baby pools. They took were so weedy.
I got the easier one done first because I have to move the wire fencing around the other one and get the weeds that are growing into it.
We are still debating if we want to till part of the backyard for a bigger garden. What I think I want to get are the oval galvanized raised beds. I just think it will be easier to take care of and the chickens, hopefully, won’t eat everything out of it. Whatever we do, we need to decide soon. With Donny working so much the responsibility will be falling on me so I’m thinking smaller.
By this time I had been outside several hours. You know if you weed it’s a lot of squatting and digging. After I came in Donny said, “let’s go to the gym”. We joined Crunch 1.) so Hannah would have someone to go with and 2.) since we are getting older I want to make sure we lose muscle tone and stay in shape. I shouldn’t have gone after all I did outside. We did the elliptical and the recumbent bike on the Alpine program. When I got off I couldn’t walk because my lets were like jelly. Today my thighs and butt are killing me. I keep telling myself the only way out is through. Guess I’ll be back at it on Monday. Ouch!
I had some time to kill in Kilgore on Thursday. I love Hope’s Closet. It is one of my very favorite thrift stores. We have two of them in Longview, but they just aren’t as good as the one in Kilgore. I wasn’t planning on actually buying anything I just needed to fill some time and this was a fun place to do that. I had walked around the store with nothing really catching my eye. There were some ladies looking through some carts that were just sitting in the middle of the store. I happened to glance in one of the carts and that’s when I saw them. Now, I have been looking for these particular glasses for a very long time. I NEVER see them in the thrift stores and when I find them online they are way too expensive for me to justify buying them because we have some very nice hand blown glasses but they do not go with our vintage dishes.
The first one I picked up didn’t have a price sticker. I just knew they would be pricey because these vintage glasses are hot right now. Imagine my surprise when the next one I picked up had the 69 cent sticker. Y’all, I got all 7 for under 4 dollars!!! Like what????? Finding something that I have been wanting for so long and at that price was unbelievable.
They were made for each other.
These are our other glasses that I still love and still use.
A dear friend who has since passes away gave me a set of them. I love the bubbles and the imperfections in them.
Oh and I took this picture of what looks like a portal that was on my closet door. It was the sun reflecting off the inside of my lamp. Looks cool though.
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.
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.
The Funky Frugalista 