Category: Uncategorized

The Menagerie

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home life, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sometimes I feel as though we have a small zoo. I feed 3 young skunks. They have gotten so used to me that they just walk right by me and I can walk around them without them running away. We started seeing them when they were very young. Standing with their front feet in the bowl was a normal occurrence.

They are getting so big.

Mr. Whiskers, who at one point looked like he was near death, is doing so well. His coat has filled out. There are no wounds on him. He eats at least 2 soft scrambled eggs a day cooked in coconut oil. In fact, he’s eating one right now.

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He now allows me to let him sit on my lap, but he still refuses to come inside. On my walk the other evening I happened upon an almost new two story cat house for outside cats. I knew the people that left it on the curb, but when I knocked on their door they weren’t home so I dragged it up their driveway and went and got the car. This will ease my worry a bit about when it gets cold. I don’t know if they will use it or not, but it will be there for whoever will. I’m going to put it on pavers and make it a little more homey.

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Every morning I wake up, start the coffee and then go outside to feed and water the cats. I heard this strange meow coming from behind the potting table. I thought it was Mr. Whiskers and that he had been in a fight and was hiding. I called Donny outside to help me find him. Nope, not Mr. Whiskers.

Meet Koda (if you are familiar with the movie Fern Gully, he is named after Batty Koda. Just look at those ears) I took him to the vet and he is 5 weeks old and weighs 1 pound 5 ounces. Well, last week he did anyway. Donny was not happy with our find, but who can resist that face. He loves Donny.

Ruthie was not thrilled with the kitten. He is pretty crazy and loves to try to wrestle with her. She slowly warming up to him.

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We still have Milo, Malley and Monkey. Monkey will come inside when it gets cold. Her decision not ours. She is a very stubborn little cat.

As far as an update on Penelope our house chicken. There have been a few changes. I got this thing our.

She is very happy with her window.

I also ordered her this wonderful creation from the Tiktok shop.

I take her on a walk every day. She absolutely loves it. Her favorite place is the walking trail.

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I spend a lot of time outside and so does Penelope. She even has her own chair.

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I also bring it inside so she doesn’t have to be in her cage all of the time. I thinks she’s living a pretty good life.

So that’s our little gang minus the 7 chickens in the backyard. I do love animals.

p.s.

I haven’t been writing lately because my WordPress is still messed up. I’ve been working with the help center and we think we have it somewhat fixed. Thank Goodness

Day Out With Donny

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Day Date, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Donny lost 2 salespeople which means his store is very understaffed. This means that he only gets one day off a week. Yesterday was that day. We knew that it was going to rain sometime in the late afternoon. I had seen two estate sales put on by our favorite company so we decided that would be something fun to do. I hadn’t even looked at the pictures on the website so I had no idea what was even for sale.

The first sale was in a very nice neighborhood. This was the second day of the sale so we didn’t know if there would even be anything left. People here are serious about shopping estate sales. We were told by a few of the people working it that it was so crowded you could barely get through the house. No thanks, I’ll just look at the leftovers on the second day. There was still so much left. I spent $7.00 and this is what I bought.

All of the candles and the body butter were unused. The Winter Candy Apple is not a scent that I would ever buy full price, but it was only 2 bucks and I do like body butter. It will work fine on my legs after I shave. I loved both of the candle scents the smaller one is creme brulee and the Yankee Candle is Italian Christmas Biscotti. Both are going to be good for the cooler months. I am always needing tapers and votives. I had a trivet for over 10 years. It got broken and I just got the first one I found at the thrift store. It had fruit all over it and wasn’t really my taste. I love the fish trivet. It goes so much better with everything that I have in my kitchen. The necklace is for Hannah my goth child. It absolutely is her taste.

I also picked up this candle holder because I love the stained glass look. When we got home I put a candle in it and it glows so nicely.

My very favorite thing I found was just in a a random basket in the bathroom.

I follow a guy on Tiktok who talks about all of the fragrances from the 70s and 80s. He has mentioned Youth Dew several times. In high school my friends mother used to wear it and her whole bathroom smelled like it. When I opened this bottle and smelled it, it didn’t smell as powdery and old lady-ish as I remembered. It’s actually the bath oil and there was no price on it. When I took it up to pay they just charged me a dollar for it. When we got home I put some on to see how it interacted with my skin. For some reason scents that smell really good on other people don’t on me and vise versa. I was shocked how much I loved this scent. Even Donny said it smells good. I had to run up to Hannah’s work today and a woman who was in line said that she smelled incense and it smells so good. It was me. This Youth Dew smells just like a cinnamony incense. It reminds me of how the incense ball in the Catholic church that the priest waves around but spicier. Best deal of the day right there.

We drove the the second sale and it was pretty much empty. There was a red vintage hutch that Donny thought could go where our bakers rack is but after really looking at it, it was just going to be too bid for the space. It was so cool and would have given us more storage in the kitchen but I think opening the fridge is more important and I wouldn’t have been able to if we had purchased it. Donny was off looking at things in the house and I had walked into the backyard with these two women. They stopped to look at some plants that were growing. Turns out the were Thousand Mother plants so they told me to take some of the “babies” off of the edges because you can plant them and they will grow.

As soon as we got home I watched a YouTube video to see how to plant them. Hopefully they will take off.

By this time we were starving and the dark clouds were rolling in. We had both seen a review on a little taco shop that’s in a convenient store down the road from us. We could have eaten there, but we wanted to go ahead and get home. Donny got a pastor quesadilla and I got the pastor tacos.

Holy cow they were so good! I did try the hot sauce. All I did was lick the top and it burned my mouth so badly I had to chug milk. If you are ever in Longview you need to try the food at Tejas Mart. It will not disappoint.

Since we ate lunch so late we weren’t hungry for dinner. There was a nice steady rain falling. Donny was watching the football game and I had roasted tomatoes that I needed to make soup out of.

It’s still raining today and nothing hits better than tomato basil soup. I need to go have lunch and then work on my WordPress site on my laptop. I had to finish this post on my phone because I’m not able to scroll for some reason. Hopefully I can figure out what’s wrong. Ugh.

A Hot Minute

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home life, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted anything. I’ve been working on a big project that hopefully will be taking shape in June. As soon as everything is a little more finalized I’ll post it on here. But, in the meantime, this is what we’ve been up to.

Hannah and I went to the tattoo expo that happens every year here. It’s held at the Maude Cobb convention center. The grounds are just beautiful so we took a little walk while we were waiting on Gavin to arrive.

When we walked in Hannah found her tattoo artist who she was meeting there to go over the tattoo she was going to be getting the following week. I was just strolling around and met an artist from San Antonio. We started chatting and he asked if I had any tattoos. I said no, but there is one I want to get. I showed it to him and he said, sit down and let’s do it. There were about 15 rows of booths and we had just walked in so I said, let me think about it. We walked the whole place and I decided, why not get it. I loved his work and he wasn’t booked yet. We went back and I told him, let’s do it and unfortunately he was book for a big piece that was going to take the rest of the time that day. He told me I could ask the guy if I could go before him as the guy was walking up. I said hello and he did not seem at all friendly so I told the artist to go ahead with that guy. Doughboy, that’s what he goes by, pulled me in and told me that the group he was with were going to be doing tattoos in their hotel rooms that night and he would give me $40 off if I wanted to do that. I got his card and told him I’d let him know.

Here’s a little back story about weird things I’ve almost gotten myself into. When Donny and I were working for Harley Davidson, I had a customer and his girlfriend start chatting with me. They told me that they had a baby tiger in their hotel room. I was intrigued so they gave me their room number and told me to come by after work. Donny immediately said, no way, after I told him about it. Years later we are watching the Tiger King documentary and the Tiger King’s friend that took over the zoo was the guy who had the baby tiger.

Then there was the time that I was watching a ghost hunter show and they featured guest was a group out of Dallas. Well, I lived in Arlington at the time, so I found them, messaged them and asked if I could go on one of the hunts with them. They sent me over the next case they were doing in Mineral Wells. Donny read it and said, knowing you, you will bring back some sort of spirit. So I didn’t do that one. I really need to write about the haunted house we lived in that actually made Donny a believer.

I was going to go to the hotel to get the tattoo, but the expo ended at 11 that night and I fell asleep. One day, maybe.

We now have a part time dog because of this.

I’ve posted about Bingo before. She looks like a coyote and can clean their fence like a horse. We don’t want her to get picked up so when her owners aren’t home and she gets out she just comes inside our house. We’ve even had a slumber party with her.

She is so well behaved and completely house broken. Having her visit us also relieves some of the stress her owners have about her getting out.

Donny and I are forever working on the garden. We hit up an estate sale and picked up this huge galvanized washtub and metal wall hanging.

We decided to plant wildflower seeds in the tub.

We’ve got little sprouts popping up. I can’t wait to see if they all bloom.

My neighbor down the street brought me some gardenia clippings to propagate. I hope I get some roots on them because I love gardenias. The house I built in Florida had gardenias all down the side and went there was a breeze the scent was intoxicating.

Guess what opened right by our house?

Now we don’t have to drive clear across town to get their A2 milk which if you haven’t tried is so good.

I went hunting at the thrift store right by our house to see if we could find her a CD case. Being Memorial Day, they had a fill a bag for $5 clothing. She found some cute tops and I came home with these.

And besides it raining for the last 4 days, that is about all going on here. Oh, except the snack I have been waiting for since they told me it was coming out turns out to be one of the very best flavors.

I forgot to add one of my favorite outfits. I LOVE these pants that I got in Galveston. They are so comfortable. I wish someone around here, besides Earthbound sold them 😉

Road Trip

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Donny and I took a little road trip to the Texas Hill Country. He was just dropping me off at my daughter Bethany’s house because she was going to have her baby girl and I was needed to watch her 4 year old. I was so excited to get to spend some one on one time with my grandson Cassidy.

Donny couldn’t stay long, but after he left we decided to go have dinner at Hays City Store. It is the cutest place with a huge outdoor playground which kept Cassidy busy until the food came. Speaking of food it was so good. I had the veggie poblano enchiladas.

After dinner we headed to the Shady Llama. We, unfortunately did not get to see the llamas as they had already headed down the hill.

The playground was so fun. There was a huge astroturf slide and a regular slide that all the kiddos were clamoring on.

Had to take a selfie

And what we really came for…

How beautiful was this sunset?

Under the Weather

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Last night after we had dinner I felt awful. i had spent over two hours ironing. Why does it seem like I never iron winter clothes, but all the summer ones are always wrinkled? I hadn’t eaten much all day and then Donny went and picked up Jucys. It must have hit my stomach wrong because it tore it up. I ended up falling asleep on the couch and didn’t get a good rest at all.

Luckily Donny was off today so while he took the kids to school and ran by the radio station to record some commercials, I slept.

My thyroid is, as my doctor put it, very serious right now, so I’m thinking a lot of my symptoms are stemming from that.

Around noon I took a quick shower and we decided to get out of the house for a little while. We ended up at an estate sale. The house was gorgeous and since it was the second day a lot has already been bought. I did manage to find this pretty, gauzy, tie dyed maxi skirt and sleeveless T-shirt, so it wasn’t a totally wasted trip.

Donny cooked dinner because I’m still feeling puny. I’m going to try and get a full night’s sleep tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel better.

Thanksgiving 2023

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn family, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a huge fan of Thanksgiving. I hate turkey in any form. I’m not fond of most of the side dishes. Last year I tried to make an effort when we rented an Airbnb in Dallas. That was a shambles that has taken me almost the whole year to get over.

The one thing I do like to do on Thanksgiving is go to Cracker Barrel. It puts me in the holiday spirit browsing the store while we wait for a table.

This year we met Hannah’s boyfriend Gavin, his mom and his aunt there. Of course I forgot to take pictures of all of us, but it was such a fun lunch.

Aunt Betty is so interesting. She has a ranch that has cattle and zebras. She is having the zebras moved to her land here so hopefully I’ll get to go visit them.

I found the candy I wanted and I knew I should have bought it before we were seated because after we ate I couldn’t even think of candy I was so full. Dang you chicken fried steak.

Happy Thanksgiving from our family.

We are awful at selfies.

And just to let you know I’m not a complete Thanksgiving party pooper, I wore the earrings Donny got me because he thought it would be funny.

Homesick + Home Tour

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Today I was tired. I went to work for the first time in 6 days. When I got home there was so much that needed to be done. My kitchen was still in disarray because I still needed to paint the wall that was repaired. I had groceries to put up and move the bakers rack back in with all that entailed. The chick pen that is still in the living room needed to be cleaned out. It’s days like these that I miss our house in Baton Rouge.The square footage was only about 100 more than where we are now, but it had so much storage and vaulted ceilings and I really loved it. It was actually the 3rd home that Donny and I have bought and sold during our marriage and it’s my favorite. It’s the smallest and the one that needed the most work, but when I saw it on Zillow that Sunday morning, I just knew that it was the one for us.

I don’t think I’ve ever put an actual house tour of that house on here. I tried to find the before pics, but I can’t find them anywhere. We knew when we bought it that we were going to remodel eventually, we just didn’t expect it to be all at once when our whole neighborhood took on over 4 feet of water. Here is our sweet little home on Holly Street.

Our plan was to paint the brick a charcoal color.

Walking in the front door.

The sliders led out to a little patio.

We completely reconfigured the kitchen. When we bought the house it was a galley style. We kept the upper cabinets, but had to replace all of the lower ones. We did the work ourselves and because we were on a budget we used wood for our countertops which I loved. The island was just a high table that FEMA gave all of the flood victims. I stained it and added the distressed wood to the front.

I found this navy blue oops paint that was perfect for this small area.

This main bathroom.

Our main bedroom. The home is 3 BR 1.5 Bath. The french doors led out to the covered patio. The carpet in all the bedrooms are carpet tiles that I laid myself.

And one of the main reasons we bought this home was the backyard.

Home is where the heart is and we are very happy where we live now, but this house held so many really good memories for us and sometimes I still have homesickness pangs for this sweet little home.

Last Day + Heading Home

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Our train was departing at 1:45. Since Chicago was the start of the line we were told it would leave on time and we would be able to get seats together for the whole trip.

We headed to the little coffee shop around the corner to get our morning cups of coffee.

The coffee was damn fine and I was thankful for it every morning.

Next door was an amazing bakery. Everything looked so good it was hard to choose. This was just one side.

I loved where our Airbnb was located. There was a sushi place on the corner. We grabbed dinner before the concert and it was awesome.

There was a grocery down the street where we were able to pick up some staples like juice, milk and cereal.

Across the street from the coffee shop was a record store that Jackson and I went to a few times where he bought a couple of albums he’d been looking for.

The street itself was just beautiful. There were always people out walking their dogs.

The Airbnb we found was perfect. It was spacious, clean and well, cute as can be.

Our last Uber ride and Hannah’s last time to play trivia games.

It started raining as soon as we got our bags into the station. Union Station is beautiful. We aren’t much for souvenirs, but I did pick up a postcard in the gift shop that I’m going to put in a little frame.

The train ride back was much easier than going there. I think it’s because when we woke up we only had about an hour and a half left to go. We didn’t bring any extra food, just what we had left from the trip there, so we did end up eating snacks, light food and drinks from the cafe car. They were expensive, but not crazy expensive.

We’ve been asked this question so many times.

Why Chicago? Well, the train from Longview goes there. We knew we wanted to take a train trip, so we just looked at direct trips. We actually booked the trip and Airbnb in December.

Chicago is huge. 3 days there is not enough to see everything. We wanted to go to the art institute, but it’s closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We didn’t know that when we booked.

Donny compared Chicago to Luby’s cafeteria. There’s a lot to choose from. Just pick what you like and enjoy it. We didn’t do a whole lot, but we did enough.

People are not as friendly as they are in Texas. You will find a few, but most people look startled when you say hello to them.

we had great Uber drivers. They were always willing to share what they liked best about their city.

We had a wonderful time, but I will say that seeing the hustle and bustle makes me appreciate Longview so much more than I did before the trip. I like our hardly any traffic, slower pace of life.

Chicago Day 3

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This was our last full day in the windy city. The forecast was sunny with a high of 50. Perfect weather for exploring downtown.

We had several destinations on our list to get checked off. First we were headed to Portillo’s for an authentic Chicago hotdog.

The Chicago hotdog is like nothing I’ve ever had before. It’s an all beef hotdog with mustard, tomato, a pickle spear, raw onions, relish, peppers, celery salt on a poppy seed bun. It was really good. Their onion rings are to die for.

Donny got the beef sandwich. It was huge. I had a couple of bites and it was delicious.

We got there about 11:30. There was no line at all. By the time we sat down there must have been at least 20 people in line.

The restaurant itself is so fun. Her are a few pics.

I snuck some pics of the kids just to prove we did actually bring them with us.

Next stop was a walk to Millennium Park to see the bean.

The kids wanted to find a mall. We were told that Tower Place, on magnificent mile is a good one, so we got on Google maps and headed there.

The river was still green from when the city dyed it on Saturday.

The skyscrapers are amazing! I would have loved to have taken the architectural boat tour, but they weren’t running them because it was so cold.

We finally made it to the mall which was 7 stories tall and pretty amazing.

While Hannah and I were in one of the boutiques, Donny and Jackson went into a jewelry store. Jack has been wanting a watch. He tried one on that he liked. Too bad it was a $1300 Fendi watch. A little out of his price range. Hannah and I did find this very small boutique that had super cute clothes. We actually found her prom dress there.

After all the walking we decided it was time to go find something for dinner. We had passed Giordano’s on the way to the mall. We heard from one of our Uber drivers that it’s some of the best pizza in Chicago. He was not lying.

There was about a 20 minute wait, but what you do is put your order in when you get on the wait list so it’s already being made before you’re seated. It takes 45 minutes for a deep dish to bake.

Jackson got a thin crust because he doesn’t like deep dish. We ended up taking leftovers back because one slice will fill you up.

We took an Uber back to Logan Square to start packing up since we were leaving tomorrow afternoon.

The last night on our quaint little street

Chicago Day 2

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We woke up to 21 degree temperature. It was cold so we decided we’d go to the museum of Science and industry. The problem was, we didn’t really know how to get there. We needed to get our metra cards to be able to ride the L trains. We googled the closest station. It was about a 20 minute walk so we bundled up and headed out.

When we got to the station there was no attendant. Luckily I saw a guy going to catch the train and asked him where to get the cards. It was another 20 minute walk to a bigger station.

We made it the other station, got out cards and hopped on the blue line. I had a map of the routes, but we still didn’t know which one would take us to the museum. We ended up choosing the red line until some man asked us where we were trying to go because I’m sure we looked extremely lost and confused. We told him and he said the bus takes you right to the museum. I said, where do we catch the bus? He said, it’s too late now so when you get off the train you need to walk really fast because it’s a super sketchy part of town. Yay!

While we were on the train we decided the green line would get us closer. So green line it was. Yeah, it didn’t. We ended up walking through some slightly iffy neighborhood, through the University of Chicago campus, which by the way is gorgeous. I’m horrible at remembering to take pictures and Donny had my phone with the GPS trying its hardest to get us there.

After walking 8 miles total we finally made it to the museum. The temperature was 30 degrees.

The museum was huge. We saw as much of it as we could, but what we saw was impressive.

We took an Uber back to the Airbnb and the driver took us by Lake Michigan. Seeing a great lake has always been on my bucket list and of course, I didn’t get a picture. I would have loved to have gone swimming in it, but I’ll save that for another warmer time.

The kids had never been to a concert, so a few months ago we got tickets to see Colony House at house of blues. To say we were a bit worn out with all the walking we did would be an understatement, but we were really looking forward to going.

Waiting for the show to start. If you wonder why my kids are rarely in the pictures, it’s because they are teenagers and don’t like their pictures taken.

Little Image opened the show. They’re a band out of Dallas. I thought they were really good and would go see them again.

The place went nuts when Colony House came on. Everyone was jumping up and down to where you could feel it in the floor. Such a great concert and would definitely go see them again.

It was a full day. We didn’t get back to the apartment until midnight. Time to rest up for day 3.