Day #3

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

For some reason I woke up again at 5 am. Hannah was also awake so we decided to go for an early morning walk. The weather was perfect. The rain had cooled everything off and it was cloudy so we didn’t even feel like it was the end of June.

We stopped at the creek and actually saw a cool looking snake. We only walked 2.5 miles but it was enough to energize me for the rest of the day.

Today I decided that I would clean the patio. The city is finished with the road work and the walls, corners and floors were a dusty, cobwebby, dead bugs mess.

Our house will never be perfect. It was built in 1961. The patio (it’s actually a carport but works better as a patio) needs a new coat of paint, but it’s not on my “I really need to do this” list. It took a lot of brushing and going up and down the step ladder what seemed like a million times, but I got it done. I vacuumed the rugs, wiped down all of the furniture and Hannah did her summer chalk art.

It was great to not be in direct sunlight for this project. It was still hot and humid though. I think I found my sweet spot of how long I can work outside and then still have enough stamina to get the things done inside that I need to do.

This was just the cleaning day. I still have lights (the ones on the table and in the laundry basket) that we need to put out.

I still have plants that need to go out also. The jack o’lantern bucket is for our cat Monkey to drink out of. She’s very picky, only likes certain things and that’s one of them. Another storm was blowing in when I took this.

The sun hits our yard in such a strange was that I’m always moving plants around so they don’t burn up.

I’m not fond of the metal shelves and would love to find a wooden cabinet so everything isn’t all out there, but for right now this works, even if it isn’t very pretty.

By 4 I realized that I had only had some granola for breakfast. If you go to Aldi these chip/crackers are so good, especially with hummus. I used the Yuka app to scan in the barcode to see if they were healthy and they both got good ratings.

The kitten wanted to go outside because the other cats were out there. We can’t just let her out yet so I remembered we had this harness when we were taking care of the baby possum. She didn’t fight it too badly.

I am really enjoying the “do something to improve your life by 1%” daily challenge. Did I really want to brush down and clean every surface today? Not really, but I’m so glad that I did because it just makes me happy to get it done. It makes sitting outside so much more peaceful without looking at the dust and dead bugs hanging from the ceiling. I love the space especially at night.

You don’t need a fancy house to have a cozy, happy life. You just need to make it a place that you love to be.

P.S.

Donny brought home this cool Tshirt for me. He ran to Schlotzky’s to get one of his salespeople a sandwich and asked if the sold them because the workers were wearing them. The owner was there and he just gave him one. I think it’s a pretty cool shirt.

Day #2 – Side Garden

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I accidentally woke up at 5 am. I made coffee and waited for the sun to come up.

When I went to let the chickens out I noticed our Morning Glories are blooming.

Since this is day 2 of day 100 doing what needs to be done to make my life better, I started weeding the front beds. We have 2 gardens. We consider the one in the front mine and the side one Donny’s although they are my plants in it.

Donny has been busy, busy, busy at work. That means long hours and getting home every day after 7. So I felt it was up to me to get the side gardens in shape. Plus I googled when to plant pumpkins in our zone and we need to have them in the ground by July. I have no idea where we are going to plant them because they take a LOT of room. This is what I started with.

Such a weedy mess.

After almost 4 hours this was the result.

I twisted dragged the hydrangeas to the front because they were burning up where they were. I moved all of the random sunflowers Donny planted, some of my avocados and plants that didn’t have a home where the hydrangeas were.

I weeded the enclosed garden, but once plants start bearing vegetables they get big and take over. I feel like I accomplished so much today that wasn’t on my normal to-do list. That side garden is looking so much better. There’s still a lot of work to be done in both the front and back, but I feel if I can work on it everyday it will get done.

There was no rain in the forecast at all so I was surprised when the dark clouds blew in and it started pouring. I’m glad it did because it cooled everything off and filled up our rain barrel. I’d used quite a bit of the water in the gardens.

Because I cannot get over how patient O’Malley is with Ruth:

She’s a little stinker.

Let’s see what Day 3 brings.

Day #1

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I saw two videos that really made me think. In the first one a man says “If you stop effing around for 100 days and everything you know that you needed to do you did, just think how much ahead you’d be”. Then I saw another video where a woman was explaining that if you just did 1% more every day just think how much everything would improve. I completely agree with both of them. I always have things on my to-do list that I either just don’t feel like doing or I don’t make time to actually do them. So, today is Day #1 of me getting my shit done and improving all parts of my life every day. It might not be something big, it could actually be quite small, but an improvement is and improvement.

Today was an outside day. I started calling them this when I was doing my funeral directing/embalming apprenticeship at a funeral home in a small central Texas town. Every single Wednesday I had to mow, weed eat, blow off the grass and leaves and mow that path on the land behind the funeral home. It was hard work, but as an apprentice you always had to do the not so fun jobs. This is what I always think of when it’s an outside day.

Well, I mowed, which is a normal thing for me to do every week, but today I cleared off some brush that Donny had cut down. I also got to work on the chicken coop’s Johnson grass and weed problem. Y’all, it was HOT. I had to use my pick axe to get to the roots. Some I couldn’t get to due to the board skirting so I had to use scissors to cut them down as far as I could.

This was the mess I was wrangling. It doesn’t look that bad in the picture, but the weeds were taller than I am. I finally got through them after a whole lot of sweat equity.

Our coop is made of recycled materials. It has 3 stories in the back and a small run in the front. They are really only in it at night.

It has a latching door, but we fortify it with the screen and boards so that the night critters can’t get in.

The fence line plants are growing back and the chickens are enjoying all of the shade.

We are finally getting cucumbers. The ones I have bought from Aldi have all been so bitter. I’m happy to say that these are so good and not bitter at all. Last night I made a salad with cucumbers, tomato and red onion. Delicious.

When I finished all of the outside work that I was going to do for the day, the weather said that the “feels like” was 102. I could actually wring my shirt out.

I could not wait to jump in the shower. Did I mention that I’m allergic to Johnson grass? Ugh

One of the highlights of the day is that the construction crew is officially finished with our street work. They also did something I’ve never seen before. Because they had to dig up a lot of our yard, they brought a big truck and were spraying grass seed.

Ours was growing back pretty well, but hey, I’ll take it.

Runaway Ruth + Homage

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

On Thursday Donny took our little rescue kitten out into the backyard with him. Not unusual because she she loves to be carried around. He named her Ruth, and like her Ozark namesake, she is a little spitfire. Well, it’s almost like she recognized where she was because she started fighting to get down, jumped out of his arms, and ran into the neighbors that are catty corner behind us. We immediately went to the fence to see if we could see her with no luck. We drove around to their house and began calling for her and looking in everyone’s backyards on that street. Since it was so hot outside we figured that she was asleep somewhere under something in their yard. They weren’t home so I couldn’t go ask if I could look around. When it was later in the day, Jackson and I drove around to see if we could see the litter that she came from. No luck. That’s when I started walking around our block, with my binoculars, looking like an absolute creeper.

By this time we were all getting very worried because she is just so little. When it became dark I walked up and down our street looking for any sign of her. We had all given up. Then at 11:17 I decided to give it one more shot and went outside. I heard this chirp and when I looked down she was hopping around the patio. What a relief and we all cheered when I brought her in. Donny had said that she would eventually find her way back, but with all of the nighttime predators I wasn’t so sure. She got another bath and then happily snuggled up with Donny.

They like to watch videos together.

She slept curled up under Donny’s chin last night. The other cats are starting to warm up to her finally. She definitely brings happiness to our family.

Just because we have 2 newer cats doesn’t mean that we will ever forget our sweet babies that have passed on. I didn’t want the other cats to forget them either so we did a homage to them. I put them above the cats food station and I have caught Milo looking at them.

I still miss them so much.

On the Hunt

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

I love watermelon. It’s definitely my favorite fruit. I had picked one up from Aldi and it was not good. I find that most seedless varieties aren’t. I googled produce near me and it turned up a produce shop right down the road. Donny and I had actually tried to find it last year, but Google maps took us to a completely wrong place. I found it this time.

They had all of their plants outside.

It’s a very rustic place with uneven floors and no air conditioning, but they sell a lot of jarred goods and they produce looked amazing. I honed in on the watermelons that were in the back of the store. That’s where I found my seeded one. I chose one and put it by the register and decided to go look around for anything else that might tempt me. Now here’s the clincher; there are no prices anywhere. There were a few people shopping and I chose my items and got in line behind another woman. She had a small box, not filled all the way, and the cashier told her that her total was $115. Excuse me? I thought I must have just misheard. I didn’t. This is what I purchased at it was $41.

My beautiful toddler sized watermelon.

5 peaches, 2 tomatoes and a bag of fresh butter beans. That’s it. I will say that everything was delicious.

I had one of the tomatoes for dinner.

I love them with fresh basil, feta, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I’m still debating if $41 was a little too high for what I purchased. I guess you pay for higher quality. I will go back for more watermelon though, unless I can find a truck selling them.

We also had a surprise last night. Donny was going to lock the chickens up when he heard a noise coming from the laundry room. He looked in and a little face peeked around from the back of the dryer.

She’s a sweet little girl kitty. I think she is from a litter that we have seen on our street. Donny went out a got some kitten milk and wet food which she devoured. I gave her a bath this morning because she had fleas on her. So far she is doing really well. We just need to come up with a name. I’ve noticed that when we lose one cat, another one just shows up. We lost Bailey and O’Malley showed up. We lost Queso and this one shows up. What are the odds?

Retail Fatigue

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn thriftingLeave a comment

I do not like shopping. I find this ironic because I worked in retail for so many years. For many years I worked as a retail manager/buyer for a large company. I knew how much the actual cost of an item was and how much we actually sold it for. It would blow your mind to know what the actual margins are. I honestly could not wait to get out of that job. When we would get large orders, the off gassing of the dyes in the clothing would give me sinus issues and headaches. One time we got a shipment of specialty shirts and they smelled so bad, like dead fish. I called the company and they told us to just spray them with febreze and let them air out. Like what??? They sold after about a month of airing out, but I can’t help but think of what awful chemicals were uses to make these garments.

This past week I had to go out shopping for Donny’s father’s day gifts. We don’t really do anything big for each other on these days, but I did want to get him something. I knew he needed tshirts because his were looking a bit scruffy so I headed to TJMaxx. When I walked in it was SO crowded and the place was a mess. I turned around and walked out. Burlington is in the same strip mall so I walked down there to see if I could find anything. It was surprisingly clean and I did find a Tshirt and some snacks. That was enough for one day. I was exhausted just from going into 2 stores. Jackson and I did finish his gift buying in Walmart which wasn’t too bad.

He ended up with 2 tshirts, a ceramic coffee mug and some snacks.

Now here’s the funny part. I can go to thrift stores and estate sales all day long. Doesn’t matter if they are crowded or a little messy. I’m 100% up for it. I’d say that 95% of my clothes are thrifted. I just feel better knowing that I’m recycling and these garments aren’t ending up in some land fill. Jackson and I are working on a little project and needed some 4X6 frames. I headed to the big thrift store around the corner and picked up two for 3 dollars total.

I never look through the clothes at this one, but I had a little extra time and decided to see what they had. I found these super cute Kancan boyfriend jeans for 4 bucks.

I’m still looking for some denim shorts. I saw some cut off shorts at Walmart for $24.98. People, please!!!!! Buy thrifted jeans and cut them off yourself. That’s over 20 dollars you’ve saved.

I also found this cute vintage vest that I can wear over a tank top. I will always and forever buy my tshirts and thrift stores and estate sales. This one says “for everything there is a season” and It’s in excellent condition.

If you want to pay full price, that’s your choice. I saw a quote that really spoke to me. It said, take a look at everything in your house. That was once money.

Garden Growth

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

We did not do a big garden this year. I got the seeds started late, but I am proud to say that everything I am growing is from seeds. Not a big flex to anyone who gardens, but it is for me because I’ve never been able to do that before. Everything I’ve ever tried to start from seeds, except the cantaloupe last year, has died.

This squash is in the enclosed garden. It should be ready in a few days. I’m embarrassed to say that this garden is half empty. We do have tomatoes, tomatillos (they came up from the crop last year) and cucumbers. I finally got around to weeding this area last week because it was a mess.

This is the before.

And the after.

I do love my little front bed, but it doesn’t get as much sun as I would like. The cucumbers are starting to flower along with the tomato plants so that’s encouraging.

Donny planted this butterfly plant a few years ago and this year it has really taken off. I can’t wait for the hot pink flowers to really open up.

I have always bought a basil plant every year. This year I decided to try seeds and they are actually growing.

We even have a corn stalk. A piece of corn from the bird feeder must have fallen down and sprouted. I thought it was funny so I just left it to grow.

Our hostas that did not do very well last year, and we even thought they had died off, are going crazy.

I decided to plant some avocado seeds and I guess now I have a mini orchard.

We had some sunflower seeds that we had harvested from one of our giant sunflowers a couple of years ago. Donny planted them in the backyard and they are doing their thing.

I’m still trying to work on the back corner, but we’ve just been getting so much rain lately, I haven’t had the chance. I did make a little bell wreath for the patio on one of those rainy days.

So that’s the outside update. Fingers crossed that everything grows.

Months ago Jackson asked me to get these two cat pictures from a thrift store. I loved them so it was a yes. Last night we realized that they reminded us of Queso and Bailey so I guess it’s like a little tribute to two of the best fur babies there ever were.

King Queso

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

I HATE writing this post. Saturday night Queso and Monkey did not want to come in the house. It’s not unusual for them to be outside. Queso was my daughter’s cat that we took in when she moved to the Hill Country. Donny and I both fell asleep in the living room watching a movie. I got up about 1 am and since he looked so comfortable I let him sleep. He later told me that at about 3 am he heard a cat ruckus outside. This isn’t unusual because we have a very cat friendly street and there are a lot of strays that we feed. He went outside to look around to find Queso and Monkey to bring them in. He couldn’t find them.

Sunday morning Milo woke me up to go outside at 6:10. I always start the coffee and then go outside to make sure the cats have food and fresh water. When I walked out onto the patio I saw Queso laying under the big table. I called him but he didn’t respond. I got closer to him and realized that he wasn’t breathing. My heart broke. I went inside and woke Donny up. We picked up Queso’s body to see if we could see anything that would explain what happened to him. Nothing. Not a scratch that we could see. He had looked like he was just sleeping. We wrapped him in his blanket and buried him in the backyard.

This was the last picture I took of him. He was the coolest cat. He weighed 15 pounds and would not take no for an answer. He loved HARD. His favorite place to sleep was on my pillow with his arms wrapped around my neck. He loved to give kisses. He wanted all the other cats to be his friend. He would stand guard on our cars or the trash cans. His favorite place to nap outside was the plant shelf.

Taken during a thunderstorm.

His favorite napping spot.

Always wanting to help.

Late night snuggles.

Loving any basket, bag or box.

He and Milo were best friends. They always wanted to be near each other. Milo is having a hard time with Queso not being here. He wants to be in the same room as I’m in and if he’s not he will loudly meow. We are all going to miss Queso so much. He was definitely one of a kind and it felt like he was always more human than cat.

P.S.

We found some coyote tracks in the ditch mud so now we believe that he tried to fight off a coyote and when he howled he scared it off. There must have been damage that we couldn’t see.

Chatgpt

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Room UpdateLeave a comment

I had heard so much about chatgpt and how it could give a person suggestions on decor style. I decided to give it a try. I took two pictures of our living room and asked what my style is.

Chatgpt told me that my style was Eclectic Bohemian with Folk Art Influences. That is completely correct. Here is the picture that “spruced” it up. I love the look, but our front door is off to the left and doesn’t really work with the mock up. Also, I’m not changing the stereo stand, but I totally get what it was going for.

wp-17488026199062381828284743879000

Because I do love string lights, but they aren’t practical where chatgpt suggested, I pulled the ones our cat had knocked off that we had under our TV. Unfortunately, they no longer worked. I remembered that I had picked some up at Big Lots before it closed. They were candy corn colored and meant for Halloween, but I decided to go ahead and give them a try. I was also sick of the frosted covers I had put in the glass front doors of our entertainment center. I swapped the frosted look for the same fabric as the runner that’s on top. Don’t tell anyone, but they are placemats.

It looks really cool at night because of the orangey/yellow glow it gives off.

We’re watching the series Dark In case anyone was wondering what in the world that screenshot is from.

I love the way the clown looks in the light.

I’ve also had this painting for a while. I love it and wanted to use it somewhere so I just decided to add to the gallery wall behind the rocker. I also made the art of the two waiters that I think complements the painting so well.

It’s always fun to get ideas and switch things around in your home, don’t you think?

Whataweekend

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Frugal LifeLeave a comment

On Friday Jackson graduated from high school. I cannot believe how fast time flies by. I know that he will cherish his time at East Texas Charter School and that him going there was the best decision ever. Small class size, teachers that truly care and an amazing superintendent that kept the school in tip top shape made for an amazing 4 years.

The students get to pick their first and second choices of who to stand up and speak about their time at ETCS. Jackson picked his favorite teacher Mr. Damoude.

It’s so interesting to hear about each graduating senior. I’ve never been to another school that does this. There are no valedictorians. Each student has a chance, if they choose, to speak after the teacher gives their speech. Jackson did not want to.

There were a whopping 29 graduates this year.

Group shot before the hat toss.

A proud dad who unfortunately had to go back to work right after this was taken.

Proud mom and sister.

Jackson’s best friends. Two of them will be also heading off to Kilgore College in the Fall.

We have a tradition that when it’s your birthday or another special event, you get to pick whichever restaurant you want to have dinner. Jackson’ picked Rotolo’s. I loved it because they have cauliflower crust pizza. That was the last meal I have eaten because I got sick.

Right before we were about to leave I started having floaters in my eyes. The headache came right after we got home so I went to bed early. Saturday morning I woke up and felt like I couldn’t get out of bed. My body felt like it was made of lead. I still had a horrible headache. I ended up sleeping all day.

Sunday I was feeling a little better so I made a quick Aldi run. When I got home my stomach and back were cramping so badly. I was also coming down with a UTI. The fatigue was also back in full force. I asked Donny to pick up so AZO and cranberry juice. He knew that I was not eating sugar so he picked me up the only zero sugar he could find. I highly recommend NEVER getting this juice. My whole body puckered and seized up. I tried diluting it with water and stirring in some honey. Nope, that didn’t work at all. Hannah didn’t know that it was awful and had the same reaction.

I went to bed early on Sunday night and by Monday I still wasn’t feeling well. Now let’t throw in a sore throat and my TMJ acting up. It’s like my body’s check engine light came on. I slept most of the day, again. Today I feel like I’m at 75% which I’ll take over the previous days.

To make matters worse a skunk sprayed a possum right outside our patio door on Sunday night. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn it had sprayed in our kitchen. It made Donny so sick to his stomach and gave me another headache. So that’s how the weekend ended.

I am ready for some good days ahead that’s for sure.