Day #84 – TSITP

On September 18, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I really messed up yesterday. On the way home from Kilgore yesterday afternoon Donny suggested that we stop off at Sonic and get a drink. Well, the kids had been at school most of the day so Hannah was hungry, Jackson said he could eat a snack so we all kind of decided to eat a snacky late lunch early dinner and then just graze when we got home. Here’s the problem with Sonic, they have nothing food wise that I can eat. Did that stop me? Uh, nope. So I had a chocolate banana milkshake and 4 cheddar peppers. I knew. I really did, but I was caught up in the moment of having fun with the fam. That fun led to me not feeling well at all today. BUT, there was a silver lining.

If you have ever read an Elin Hildebrand book and you loved it, you need to watch The Summer I Turned Pretty. I am very late to the trend, but my oldest daughter told me to watch it and now I’m hooked. It’s only 3 seasons and the reason we were discussing it is because the cast was on the today show after the series finale aired. It’s one of those shows where you really want to find out how it turns out but know that when it’s over you will miss the characters so much.

Donny and I have been debating what to plant on our fence line in the back. We had toyed with the idea of a bamboo fence, but there are so many plants that we want to keep that are growing right up against the fence that a bamboo one would be almost impossible to attach. We saw that cana lilies are good because they are so prolific and are the right height that we need. I looked into buying them online and they were $10-$15 a bulb. Donny went to Super 1 today and sent me a picture asking if this is what we were looking for and sure enough it was

These were about 10 bucks a piece, but there are so many shoots in one pot. We’ll hopefully get to plant them tomorrow.

And just because O’malley and Baby Ruth looked so cute together.

Day #81 & #82

On September 16, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

Donny rarely takes vacation days. Even when he does he gets many phone calls and more often than not he has to go back into work at least for a few hours. This week he took Monday – Friday off. We had decided that we really needed to work on the yard, especially the backyard. That’s why these two days are one post.

On Monday I decided to weed the front beds and around the gardens. Luckily when I started it was early and the weather hadn’t gotten to unbearably hot. I still sweat a bit and our cat Monkey loves to rub against me and meow for pets when I’m weeding. Every. Single. Time.

While I was weeding I noticed that the house needed to be washed down. Every north facing house has a mildew problem when it rains and then gets hot and humid. Nothing that a little soap, water and elbow grease can’t fix.

I only have to do it a few times a year, thank goodness.

I had an audience while I was scrubbing.

One thing about Donny and me is that we can’t resist running some errands. We had to go to Walmart for a few essentials and found something that makes me so happy.

We had the carpet type floor mats that the dead grass just clung to for dear life. You can see the dead grass I still need to vacuum out. The blue is the same color as the inside trim on the seats.

I had been desperately needing some new gardening gloves since mine were getting holes in the fingers. Scored these on clearance for a buck.

Tuesday morning I started on the backyard. If you haven’t heard of Poke Weeds you are lucky. They have these berries that stain everything magenta and are poisonous. Well, we had a whole orchard of these beauties that we had to dig up.

I also found out, the hard way, that we had devil vines. That’s just what we named them because they look like harmless ivy vines but they have the most wicked thorns. I have scratches all over me.

With my trusty pick ax we got it all done.

While Donny was carrying all of our weeds to the front I started weeding this area. I only found one snake, it was a smallish grass snake.

Now we can start working on fixing the shed.

It was such a productive day.

Now for the sad news. We had been planning to go away for a couple of days either back to Lone Star or to this cabin I found near Tyler. Something held up back from making reservations and it’s a good thing we didn’t because one of Donny’s sales guys had to quit due to medical reasons. So, guess who goes back to work tomorrow? Which means he probably won’t even get his Thursday and Friday off. I’m trying to show some grace, but sometimes I have to dig deep to find it. It’s not Donny’s fault and he’s just as disappointed as I am.

But we did find this cool wind chime lol

Day #78 – Shakespeare Garden

On September 11, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I’m on day 3 of feeling unwell. Yesterday I had to go pick Jackson up from school and ended up getting there a bit early. He had told me about the Shakespeare Garden that was right by the art building. I decided to take a look while I was waiting.

You pick up a sheet that’s on the gate and just follow the path.

It’s so pretty and serene. There are benches placed throughout the pathways.

I loved the butterfly house.

Because it is later in the season there is not a lot blooming right now.

I just love that they have this on campus.

Today was Donny’s day off (yes, he did have to go in for a few hours due to some unforeseen issues) but before that we decided to stop by an estate sale that he had seen online. It had a clown painting that he thought I’d like. Oh, and I did. Too bad it was $140. We always go to this company’s estate sales that they put on, but lately the prices have gotten outrageous. We ended up leaving empty handed. However, as we were walking to the car I saw the first Halloween decorations of the season.

I love Halloween, but Fall doesn’t begin until September 22nd. I just cannot get myself to put up Halloween decorations when it’s still technically summer. It just feels so wrong to me. These were really cool though.

Since my pumpkin vine is getting longer we decided I needed some pollinators. We went to Home Depot and picked up some mums and marigolds. My marigolds are still growing and not yet near the bloom phase. I need so insects to have something sooner so maybe when the pumpkin vine flowers it will get pollinated.

I had to get yellow since it’s my favorite color. Fingers crossed I’ll feel well enough to get this planted tomorrow.

Day #54 – Fall Prep + Thrift Haul

On August 18, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

Because the heat index was supposed to hit 105 today I decided to get an early start on prepping for our fall garden. Technically, this is Donny’s garden. Mine is at the end of the front flower beds, but I guess we are now sharing the big enclosed one. It was a mess! We had neglected it once we realized that our huge tomato plants were only going to give us the two tomatoes we had already picked.

I just knew I was going to find a snake, I didn’t though. It took a lot of elbow grease and sweat but I finally got it cleaned out.

I did keep two of the most promising looking tomato plants. They have some blooms on them but if they don’t look like they will be growing any tomatoes, they’re out.

I had a HUGE weed pile and luckily was able to fit it all in one of those big yard waste paper bags.

After a much needed shower we had a unexpected, yet wonderful, rain shower. It cooled things off considerably. I decided I needed to get out of the house so I drove around the corner to Big, our favorite thrift store. I actually took my time today because the kids were busy doing something or other and wanted to stay home.

I have no idea why this is so blurry, but it’s a gray tank top type shirt. It’s the kind I just love to wear on hot days.

Another wonderful blurry pic, but it’s a lacy tank top that will go perfect with this gauzy peasant skirt I have.

They were just putting this out and I grabbed it because it will be perfect for fall and winter. It’s by Steve Madden, in excellent condition and I just love it. Especially because it was only 4 bucks.

Cute little candle holder.

I needed a small lamp because I love the ambient lighting I’ve been seeing in kitchens lately. Of course it was too big to go on top of my cabinets so I just switched places with a smaller one I already had that did fit.

I finally found a butter bell! I have been wanting one for a while now but I just didn’t want to pay full price. The color didn’t come out right, it’s actually mustard yellow which fits perfectly in our kitchen. It was on $2

I love background instrumental music. I found this flute album for 50 cents and it’s beautiful music. (I already tried it out) The kids get restless when I’m looking at book so today I got to peruse the bookshelves to my heart’s desire. I found some good ones, I think. I have already started reading Big Woods. When I was ready the synopsis I saw that it’s set in Longview. I’m 42 pages in and don’t want to stop reading it. I googled the author and she wrote Hunting Wives. I haven’t watched the series on Netflix yet. The funniest part is that it’s about Longview. I found it in a Longview thrift store, but it’s from Eastlake Public Library in Eastlake Ohio. So bizarre.

Now I’m going to clean up the kitchen and get back to reading.

Day #52 – One Thing Leads to Another

On August 16, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I knew when I woke up that I was going to get the weed eater out and finally get the front done.

I wasn’t planning on doing the back, but Mr. Laurence was outside doing the neighbors yard so I decided to go ahead and do the back side of the house, around the shed and around the coop. I guess I never realized how much of an arm workout that is. I figured I’d go inside after that, that is until I realized I had never cleaned out the deck box.

There was so much stuff that needed to go into the shed. We had just gotten lazy and instead of walking it back there we just tossed it into the box.

I still have some solar lights that I’m not sure where to put yet. I moved all the car cleaning stuff in here. I also moved the potting soil and some extension cords. After toting all of that stuff to the shed I decided to clean off the patio of all the random garden tools and pots that we weren’t using. I swept and wiped down everything because even though they are finished with the road there is still so much dust.

I cannot wait to start having dinner out here again. It’s just been so darn hot.

Monkey’s food and water stay on the table because she is so finicky and likes to eat by herself.

We always keep a gap on the plant tables because, well…..

I got some more pothos propagated. I’m hoping they do okay. The sun in this area isn’t bad until about 4 pm and then it’s like a Lazer.

One plant we have no problem growing is grain. This fell from the bird feeder. We thought it was corn at first. We’ve just let it grow to see how big it will get.

Since it was an excessive heat day, I’m exhausted and am going to watch a movie, fold some clothes and just relax. I hope everyone had a good Saturday. Sometimes I feels good just to get outside and sweat.

Day #43 – So Much Easier

On August 7, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

Today was a run around get stuff done. Donny and I ran to the feed store to pick up some feed for the chickens. Then we had to hit Home Depot for sand also for the chickens. I made the kids appointments to get their meningitis vaccines for school. Next we took Jackson and drove up to Kilgore to turn in his transcript. Hannah’s appointment for her vaccine was today so we went to the doctor and that took a long time because her knee was bothering her and the doctor wanted to check it out. Of course, we can’t leave out grocery shopping on our way home. We are going to completely blow the food budget this month because we were all hungry when we were shopping and I had no list because we were only supposed to be picking up a few things. Oops.

But, the very best thing that happened to day was I bought this beauty.

Y’all I finally pulled the trigger and got a weed eater that I can actually use. It feels like Christmas. After dinner I just had to go try it out. First around the pool gardens.

Then around the patio.

And finally around the garden.

I’m still getting the hang of it, but it’s going to make doing the yard so much faster and easier considering I was doing all of this by hand.

I also picked this spray up at the feed store. We have aphids so bad and I’ve already caught them on my pumpkin sprouts.

I didn’t want actual poison, so fingers crossed this works. My poor pumpkins are trying their best to grow.

But the hydrangeas that were rapidly dying in the pot I had them in are getting new growth like crazy now that they are in the ground.

We will see.

Day #40 – Sprucin’ It Up

On August 4, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I had a few things on my to-do list today that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to but they needed to get done. I needed to mow first and because it was 79 degrees at 9 am this morning the morning glories were still open. Unfortunately the humidity was at 73.

I knew I needed to start laying the pavers. First I needed to paint them. I would have loved to do a bright color, but the only paint I had enough of was the warm cinnamon. That works.

Next I had to lay them out and dig out the rest of the grass and dirt to try and get them as level as I could.

This took quite a while, but it was so satisfying when it was finally finished.

I brought some rocks from the backyard to the front to just add that little touch to the all gravel part.

Nothing ever grows in the small pots I have hanging by our front door. Since we’ve had some good luck with wandering Jew I decided to try them there.

While I was planting those I noticed our house numbers were looking a bit faded. Since our house is old I didn’t want to completely take them off because who knows If I could even get them back on so I just used a black sharpie.

So much better.

The last thing I had on my list was to pull out the dying cucumber vine, stake up the tomatoes and plant the pumpkins sprouts and marigold seeds.

See the little cat on the left? That’s Monkey and every time I’m pulling weeds or planting anything, mainly when I’m a sweaty mess, she has to come and rub all over me.

I hope the cloches keep the pumpkin sprouts safe until they are bigger. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Day #36 – Unexpected Project

On July 31, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I actually slept in until 9:30. It was much needed because lately I’ve only been getting about 5 hours sleep a night. Donny had been up for a while and was outside starting to bring all of our bulk pickup trash to the curb. We’ve just been piling it up in the back because it took 2 weeks to get a time slot. It’s tomorrow and we didn’t want to have it out for two weeks because that annoys our neighbors. While he did that I decided to weed the front beds. That didn’t take long so I started on the edge of the patio because it had gotten so weedy. Donny suggested putting pavers and I thought that was a fabulous idea. We needed to go get some gravel for this strip around the front stoop. When I started digging up the weeds so I could put the pavers down I noticed that there was SO much gravel under the weeds and dirt. I started separating the gravel by hand, but that was taking forever so I got out a colander and started sifting. 100 degree weather be damned.

Next thing I know I have been out there for almost 5 hours. One thing about me is I love rocks. LOVE them! Ever since I was a little kid and my family and I went to Concan to go camping and I filled the trunk with river rocks. So many that my parents had to remove so many of them because we had no room for our stuff. I’m only about halfway through but I filled 3 buckets with the rocks and have another big bucket full of beautiful sifted dirt.

Luckily I was at a stopping point when this started blowing through. The wind was wicked.

It came out of nowhere. I mean stuff was BLOWING around. Donny and I stood outside for a while watch the clouds swirl around. All of that and it probably only rained about 20 drops.

If anyone ever wonders why Donny doesn’t really help me do my weird projects it’s because he hates being hot and sweaty, where I love it. I would rather be outside than inside any day. But, he went to the grocery because he said since I was doing all of this he was going to make dinner. He did not disappoint.

P.S.

We asked all of the neighbors if they had any bulk items they needed to throw away and if they did, just add them to the pile.

It was unfortunately the dog abusers haven’t been home all day so I didn’t get to ask them, but they need to call and make their own appointment because if I look out my side bedroom window I’m greeted by this.

Maybe I’ll see if they’re home in the morning.

Day #14 – Hard Day’s Work

On July 6, 2025 By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I love a hard day’s work. I sleep better. I feel like I have accomplished what I set out to do. It’s just a good feeling. This morning I got back to work on the windows. I had to sand them to make sure I didn’t have a lot of loose paint. I don’t love painting, but I do love the results.

I didn’t tape off the other windows. This was my last one and my hand was so tired I didn’t think I could free hand it as well.

It’s amazing what a difference a little paint can make. I still need to scrape off the old paint on part of the window, but the new paint hadn’t dried yet.

While I was outside painting Donny was cutting back the Morning Glory and he also cut the giant sunflower off.

Once you remove the outer cover you will find all of the sunflower seeds.

I’ll use them to plant more next year.

By this time I was a sweaty mess so I went inside to cut up a watermelon. The chickens love when I do this because they also get a treat.

I didn’t want to stay inside because I was already sweaty. I cleaned out the grill and started weeding the garden. I found aphids. I cannot stand those bugs so I sprayed them with Thieves and dumped out morning coffee grounds where I saw the little rascals. I don’t know if that will work, but they didn’t seem to like it at all.

My poor hydrangea was not happy in the pot we had her in so I decided to try and save her by planting her in the ground. I hope she lives. She is getting new growth since we moved her out of the direct sunlight, but she still wasn’t thriving. We’ll see how she does in the front.

I have a plan for the planter she was in. It has a trellis because Jasmine was originally planted there but it died during the winter.

I finally hung up our flags. I think they are perfect for Summer.

We had to run to Walmart when Donny got home and although they did not have pumpkin seeds, I did find this poor unloved plant for $5. Let’s see if I can nurse it back to health.

Two completely random things that happened today. I found that Walmart makes gallon sized tea bags. I make tea almost everyday and these are going to make it so much easier.

I’ve also never had a cat that likes to watch TV. We had the soccer game on and as soon as she saw what it was she climbed her little butt right up to the screen and tried to get the ball.

My thoughts and prayers are still with the people affected by the floods in the Hill Country. I heard that Kerrville and Hunt are being evacuated due to more rain coming. It’s such a devastation situation.

Day #3

On June 25, 2025 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.