Thanksgiving 2020

On November 27, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Every year, except for a very few, we have gone to Cracker Barrel for our Thanksgiving meal. There’s no stress of cooking, no clean up and seeing all of the Christmas decorations in the country store, just puts us in the holiday mood.

This year we went online and put our name on the wait list so we only had about a 30 minute wait once we arrived. Perfect amount of time to browse around.

We look at everything in the store, but always gravitate back to the candy

No one orders traditional Thanksgiving food. I don’t because I dislike turkey in all forms so I get my yearly chicken fried steak. Hannah loves their chicken and dumplings and the guys got the grandma’s sampler breakfast.

I don’t think you have to necessarily eat the turkey and all the trimmings as long as you’re with the people you love, that’s Thanksgiving right there.

P.S.

We loaded up on candy on the way out and this is one of my favorites. Brings back childhood memories

Silver Linings

On November 11, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I had a surprise phone call from an old friend from high school this past weekend. He’s the kind of friend that is one of the nicest people you will ever meet and can make me laugh so hard my stomach hurts. He is a caregiver for his ailing mom, so has had to be quarantined for months.

We talked about how the situation in the world right now could really bring a person down and how negative people can suck you into their vortex, because let’s face it, misery loves company. It’s hard right now, but we both agreed that finding the silver linings in each day and concentrate on those blessing big or small can change your whole outlook on life. Even if you’ve had a rotten no good very bad day, finding even one small glimmer of good can turn it around, even just a little bit.

So I was thinking about that and there have been some really good things happening when I think about it.

School, for my kids, is weird this year. Mask wearing and social distancing has become the norm. They were quarantined for 2 weeks when Donny and I came down with covid, but we are finally almost back to normal.

Hannah had homecoming. Just the football game, no dance, but we made the most of it.

I turned this into this

We live in Texas where homecoming mums are big. This is actually relatively small.

Hannah is in color guard and not only do they have to apply elaborate makeup they use this magic curl sucker machine that creates the perfect curl. I searched Google for reviews and knew I wanted the babyliss one, but was not thrilled with shelling out almost 100 bucks for one. I ran into TJ Maxx and found the exact one I had been looking at for $39.99.

We can always be thankful for Friday night lights. The weather cooperated and it truly felt like Autumn! I’m proud to say our team is still undefeated and pirate stadium has the best popcorn.

Gotta show support. How cute is this shirt?

Not only have we been shuttling back and forth to flag practice, Hannah has had theatre practice. Although we thoroughly enjoyed the play I am grateful it’s over so Hannah can slow down a bit.

My silver lining from yesterday is this.

I LOVE coming here. It smells like Mexico. That is not an insult. I grew up in Corpus Christi and spent so much time across the border that when I walk into the store it brings back such happy memories. And of course, this makes me happy too:

Fresh, still hot, homemade corn tortillas

These, plus a few more ingredients turedn into a dinner I’d been craving.

Grilled chicken taco! In case you’re wondering what all is on it, it’s chicken, avocado, lettuce, tomato, purple onions, cilantro, cotija cheese and fresh squeezed lime.

Seriously one of my very favorite meals

I can’t forget to mention the pumpkin we’re growing. It finally has some orange. I think by next Halloween we’ll have a mighty good pumpkin. I’m all seriousness, it should be ready for Christmas. 😀

We actually have two growing. The seed packet said in 100 days we’d have pumpkins. It’s been over that, but we’re not giving up.

I hope everyone can find their silver linings no matter how small or silly they might seem to other people.

Halloween 2020

On November 1, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Halloween 2020 is in the books. This is the first year my kids haven’t wanted to go trick or treating. They’re getting older, plus we are just now recovering from covid. We aren’t contagious, but the lasting effects seem to never end.

I LOVE Halloween! It’s just such a fun spooky holiday.

One of my coconut pumpkins. The candle holder and pumpkin was purchased at goodwill, for a song, as well as the little signs from Big Lots.

Just some of our indoor decor. I move the outdoor decorations around on the actual day of Halloween to make it spookier for the trick or treaters. My favorite houses were always the ones with spooky sounds and decorations.

Luckily I didn’t buy anything new because we only got two trick or treaters. We still had fun. The kids came outside to sit with us and we had Alexa playing creepy sounds and music. At 8 we headed inside, popped some popcorn and watched the best horror movie that I’ve watched every single Halloween season.

The original 1978 version. No other will do!

I can’t believe Christmas is right around the corner! See ya next year Michael Myers 🎃

Saturdays Round Here

On October 11, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

By Saturday evening, we are all pretty much worn out. Donny works until 3. Hannah has theatre practice until 1. Plus just the whole wind down from the whole week especially if there was a football game on Friday.

I normally don’t feel like cooking on Saturdays so we try to make it some kind of make your own. Yesterday it was nachos. I LOVE nachos. They are easy, versatile and everyone can make them exactly how they like.

Everyone gets a foil lined baking sheet, loads on their toppings and pop it into oven. Mine had refried beans, sharp cheddar, cotija cheese, bell pepper, onions, tomatoes, lettuce and avocado. Everyone else had chicken on theirs, but I’m not a big fan of chicken. I mixed some taco seasoning in sour cream and it was the perfect easy meal.

It’s also the perfect time of the year for scary movies, couch laying and blankets. So that’s exactly how I ended my night. We’re rewatching Stranger Things again. Not super scary, but oh so good. Two more movies that get a thumbs up are The Lie and I Can See You. Both are on Amazon Prime. If you’re into something a little weird and sci-fi-ish check out the series Utopia on Netflix.

This is my very favorite blanket. We jokingly call it my baby blanket because it literally puts me to sleep. This is going to sound weird, but I love the way it smells. I can’t describe it, but if comfort had a smell, this would be it. I now get it when babies get upset when their blankets get washed because it doesn’t smell the same for a while. I recently spilled salsa on mine and it completely changed the scent and took a good week to get it back.

Also, I’m not a fan of pumpkin spice, so I’m not sure why I picked this up, but it’s so good! Not too pumpkiny, but just right.

Hope you too had a relaxing Saturday

Bargain Time

On October 11, 2020October 11, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A few days ago I was looking on offerup for a desk chair. Jack broke the one he was using. We replaced it with the only extra chair we had, which was a living room chair. He broke that too. He likes to lean back and it snapped one of the legs off.

I didn’t find a desk chair, but I did find this awesome cabinet. It had only been listed for 5 minutes. I messaged the seller and told her we could be there in a few minutes. That’s one of the perks of living in a small town, you can pretty much go from one side to the other in about 10 minutes.

We have little to no storage in our home and we can’t have anything too big because there is just no room. I thought I would repaint it and it would go in our bedroom, but the colors are perfect in our living room.

I was able to move the candles out of the tv stand and actually put the electronics back in the drawers.

Now it’s decked out for Halloween.

That’s a Jack’o lantern made out of a coconut

We did end up finding a desk chair for Jack. Not the $300 one he was looking at. We bought it at Wal-Mart and like my friend Cindy always said, “don’t buy the cheapest or the most expensive. Just get the one in the middle and it will work out just fine”. That’s exactly what we did and it has.

It’s Been Awhile

On October 9, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I think my little blog has been feeling neglected. Between my daughter’s laptop charging port being broken TWICE (she commanders my laptop when this happens) and life in general, I haven’t been on here much.

This evening, however, I thought that if I don’t attempt to jot down some of the good things that happen, no matter how mundane they may seem, I might forget the small awesome moments that I’d like to look back on in the future.

Like today. The weather was beautiful. The kids have a 4 day weekend starting tomorrow, so I decided to make some bread to go with dinner. I found the absolute easiest recipe on Pinterest. It only took and hour start to finish. But my home smelled amazing while it was baking and everything just felt right in the world. Cheesy but true.

I didn’t make a fancy dinner, just red beans and rice. It’s the easiest way to use up any leftover meat you have in the fridge. I cut up some pork chops, threw in some hamburger meat and added some sliced jalepeno sausage.

I just used the box red beans and rice mix

If you have an InstantPot, corn on the cob takes 4 minutes.

Here’s the recipe I used for the bread. I added Everything Bagel seasoning on the top before I baked it. It was the perfect addition. This bread is slightly crunchy on the outside and soft and delicious on the inside. I’m not much of a bread eater but I think I could have eaten the whole loaf.

So far, I think it’s been a good start to this long weekend.

Found It!

On June 18, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Longview, txLeave a comment

Donny and I were at Wal-Mart the other day and I saw a guy wearing the coolest shirt. The next day I was in our local Papcita’s restaurant (not part of the Papas restaurant chains) and saw that they were selling the same shirt, but in a bright turquoise. I asked about it and they said it was a shirt family owned restaurants and businesses were selling to make money for the income lost during the quarantine.

I didn’t have time to buy it then, and truthfully, I don’t typically wear bright colors, but they had given me names of other restaurants that were selling them also.

The next day I was planning to run back into Papacita’s to pick up the turquoise shirt. Before I could do that I was at Jucys tacos and just happened to ask if they were, by any chance, selling the shirt. They had one left. It was in my size and it was charcoal grey! I must have been the last person in Longview to know about these. Anyway, of course I bought it.

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It didn’t hurt that I love both Jucys tacos and Jucys hamburgers! I looked online and the Jucys hamburgers shirts were dark green, so tacos it is.

What a great way for our town to help small, family owned businesses recoup some of their losses.

Sms just because, here is a picture of Donny carrying our 3 legged cat. He was taking him into the kids rooms to say hi. So random and yes, the cat can walk and even run just fine. LOL, he just likes to be pampered occasionally.

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❤

Sad/Happy Date Night

On June 3, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Date Night1 Comment

Donny and I decided that we were going to have a date night. It’s been a few months and restaurants are opening again and with it being a Tuesday night we figured it wouldn’t be too crowded.

There are two restaurants I’ve been wanting to try. I work part time for Waitr. It’s like grub hub and door dash. Anyway, it lets me see a lot of restaurants and the food they offer. It was between Roma’s, a relatively new Italian place downtown, and Kumori, a Japanese sushi bar restaurant.

Donny was fine with either, so I chose Roma’s because, although I’m not a huge Italian food fan, I loved the cozy feeling of the inside, and it was popular with Waitr. I thought it would also be fun to take a walk around our downtown area afterwards.

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We were seated in a booth across from the bar. Our server came to the table, asked us if we’d been here before and told us he’d be there to answer all our questions. He took our drink order, gin and tonic for me and vodka cranberry for Donny. We ordered stuffed jalapenos for an appetizer and he brought us the courtesy bread and olive oil dipping sauce. And then we waited and waited and waited and waited. Appetizer was brought out by a different server. Still no water or drinks. We could see our server making drinks for the only other couple at the restaurant that were sitting at the bar.

We finally asked a random server walking by if we could at least get our water. By this time 45 minutes have gone by. I was not a happy camper. Our original guy FINALLY brings our drinks. I am by no means a bartender, but I at least know that a gin and tonic has a squeeze of lime in it. I mean c’mon, how hard could the drinks we ordered be to make? We already knew what we were going to order as an entree, but by the time our server got back to our table, we were done. We asked for the check and he asked us if we would be coming back? Yeah, that’s a big ole nope.

I was not really hungry and was feeling sad because I had been so excited to try this Roma’s. Donny was still hungry so he suggested we go on to Kumori.

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Until I got a Waitr order here a few weeks ago, I never knew Kumori existed. It’s on a little side street with no big sign. And to be honest, the outside sends a little iffy.

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The hostess was friendly and our server was happy and smiling. We ordered sweet tea and it was the BEST sweet tea I’ve ever had. The young woman who was our server turned out to be the tea maker. She said she makes it with sugar and love. I believe her!

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We put our order in and she asked us if we wanted the complementary soup and salad. Our salad dressing choices were sweet and creamy or gritty (???) and tangy. We chose the former, but next time I’m going to HAVE to see what that grit is about.

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Although the soup and salad were really good, I SO should have passed on them. Our usual sushi place is Fuji. Their rolls are small (and pricey). We ordered 4 rolls. Two Texas rolls, a scorpion roll and a Kilgore roll.

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Yeah, definitely not Fuji size. This is only three of them. The other Texas roll was still being made. It was delicious! So delicious that I ate so much I felt sick. We ended up taking almost two whole rolls home with us. Luckily the kids love sushi. I even scored a to go cup of the love tea.

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After being so sad and disappointed after the first restaurant, we left happy and stuffed at Kumori. Please excuse Donny’s reading glasses. I think he was midway taking them off when I snapped this.

We finished watching season 2 of Dead to Me. I am slightly obsessed with Linda Cardellini’s character’s hairstyle I think a visit to Charley, my hairdresser, is in my near future.

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How cute is she? We’ll see if I chicken out or not.

Problem Solved

On June 2, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

Years before I met my husband, I purchased a piece of furniture that started it’s life as a kitchen island in my Austin home.

It’s moved everywhere with me and even survived almost 4ft of water in the 2016 Baton Rouge flood.

It’s been an island, bar, tv stand and entry table, but the one thing it’s always been is a scratching post for the cats. I’ve tried everything to keep them from mauling the legs, including wrapping the legs in foil. It worked as long as the foil was on, but it wasn’t the prettiest solution.

This is what they’ve done to it.

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It was bad! And made me sad until I came up with a solution that I thought might work. So I gathered up what I needed and spent the entire morning getting busy.

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And guess what? It worked.

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It just took a LOT of jute rope, a staple gun and a hammer to tap in the staples securely. I just wrapped, pushed up and pulled tight. I have a nice friction blister on my finger to prove it. The cats can now scratch to their heart’s content, although now they don’t seem to want to.

On another note, Donny took over cooking for the day.

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That’s over an inch of flies. They just flock to this smelly contraption and once inside they can’t get out. It’s truly been a game changer. A gross one, but hey, I’ll take it. If you have outdoor fly issues, this is 6 dollars well spent.

So after grilling and watching fly death, we came in and Donny made pickles. He makes the best pickles ever! Puts the store bought ones to shame.

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Evan’s Corner

On June 1, 2020June 1, 2020 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn family, JournalLeave a comment

Have you ever read a book that changed your life?

When I was in the very early years of elementary school, we read a book as a class. I loved it. I read and reread it as much as I could. Little did I know, at the time, that this little book, would stay with me forever.

Even as I grew into an adult and had children of my own, I always referenced this book. I couldn’t remember the name of it, but I knew the story by heart.

Today while I was in the shower the story popped into my head once again and I knew I had to find out the name of this book.

And, thanks to an extensive Google search, I found it.

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It’s about a little boy living with his family of 8 in an overcrowded apartment. He just wants a place to call his own so his mother lets him pick out a corner that he can call his. He finds some old crates to use as a desk. He paints pictures to hang on the wall and even gets a pet turtle. He loves his little corner until he realizes he misses playing with his brothers and sisters. He invites his little brother into his corner and they end up picking a corner for him and Evan helps him fix it up. Evan realizes that it’s good to have your happy place but it’s even better when you share it with others.

It dawned on me that my home and this blog is my corner. Just like Evan’s corner, I use what I have to make it work. To make a place filled with the best parts. A small cozy reprieve from the craziness that is happening around us.

I won’t write about breaking news or politics. I’m well aware if what’s going on, but this isn’t the place for it. There are a million blogs out there about those subjects.

When I look back and re-read my posts, I want to remember the good stuff that happened. So yes, if you happen to stumble upon this blog, it might seem hokey and optimistic, but that’s okay by me. I keep it public because sometimes we all need a little hokey in our lives.