From My Home to Yours: 6/27/25

From My Home to Yours

6/27/25

~ chatting with a stranger & look at that temperature! ~ 

101 degrees actual temperature!  This temperature thermometer is located on our porch where a slight breeze can be felt most days.  I have no idea what the 'feels like' temperature was, the actual was bad enough!  It's been a scorcher of a week ... and it's not even July which is usually hotter and more humid than June!  We've been doing our outside chores early in the morning and then heading back inside!

So far, our apples are looking good ... maybe, just maybe, the intense heat won't ruin them before they ripen.  You can bet I'm keeping a close watch on them!

Roses from one of my rose bushes!  I love having cut flowers available for the cutting to bring inside and enjoy in my home!

One day this week while at the grocery store looking for bargains at the meat counter, a lady started talking to us about meats, specifically about the package she held in her hands.  She commented that it had a lot of fat on it and that she would need to cut it off.  I mentioned to her that she could do that, but the fat was what would help in giving her cut of meat flavor.  She said she didn't know that, and we stood for several minutes talking about meats and how to make them stretch and different ways to cook them that would give them the best flavor and taste.  After a few minutes, she thanked me, and hubby and I moved on to the area where the chicken cuts were.  It wasn't long before she pulled her cart up next to ours and again struck up a conversation on the different packages of chicken, their prices and how to determine which was the better buy.  Once again, we had an in-depth conversation on choosing the most economical package for what she planned to do with it. We enjoyed chatting with this woman and she seemed most appreciative of the things we shared with her.  One never knows where you might have the opportunity to help someone stretch their money ... it's how we'll all get through these tough times ... helping each other ... circling the wagons ... reaching out to help in whatever ways we can.

With that thought in mind, let's see what our week looked like ...

Once again, we were the recipients of free produce. This week it was rutabaga and cucumbers!  We've found that we like rutabaga in a roasted vegetable medley so was delighted to be given more!  Since the amount we were given was more than we can use within a reasonable amount of time, I will be chopping, flash freezing, bagging and freezing them to add to future roasted vegetable medley dishes.  As for the cucumbers, we are enjoying them in a cucumber/onion/vinegar/water/salt salad type dish.  We pray God's blessings upon those who share their surplus with us and in turn we try to share ours with others as well.  That's another way we all 'look out for' and care for each other!

I needed to make a batch of cider fire but had run out of dried turmeric.  So, when I purchased fresh turmeric for the cider fire, I purchased enough to dehydrate some for future use.  Last year, in an effort to have a bigger harvest this year, I didn't harvest the turmeric I grew. I left it to continue to multiply and grow more 'roots.'  Hence, the reason I ran out, but hopefully by not harvesting it I have set the pattern for being able to grow more, harvest more and not run out again!

I harvested rhubarb ... now what shall I do with it!!!  For now, it is being flash frozen, bagged and added to the freezer.  There's not enough to make anything, but after one more harvest there should me.  In the meantime, I'll preserve it in the freezer until such time!

Our cabbage is finally ready, and I harvested this bucket full this week.  The 'branch' sticking out of the bucket is ... are you ready for it .... dried curly mustard seeds that we allowed to dry on the branches.  If you look closely at the branch, you will see lots of small, dried pods that are each full of seeds.  This fall we'll use those seeds to do another planting and then again in the spring.  This cabbage will be used for cooking purposes and for making more fermented sauerkraut.

Some meals we had this week from our kitchen ...

leftover taco pie

air-fried chicken, sautéed cabbage, boiled potatoes

a buffet of all of our leftovers

peach cobbler

(We were treated to a meal out with and by friends one night and another day we ate out because we were out of town.)

I continued logging our purchases this week.  It's telling me a lot about our spending habits, some are good, and some could use some fine-tuning.  The good news this knowledge is bringing us is that there is more we can do to help us meet our goal of making 2 vehicle payments per month.  Sometimes when it seems that we just can't squeeze out another cent, maybe what we need to do is look at our spending a bit closer.  (Maybe, it's not that we need more income, maybe just maybe, we need to be better stewards of what we already have!)  That's what we're doing with logging our purchases.  

Here is something we said 'no' to financially this week ...

Going out to eat for convenience ... 

(this does not include the above-mentioned eating out while we were out of town)

We felt good about our decision afterwards, but during the 'tug of war,' of deciding between doing what our old normal would have been (going out to eat) and what our new normal is of staying within our eating out budget, it was tough!  (Yes, we have an 'eating out' budget.)  Last year we had this all ironed out and we worked our plan to accomplish our goal.  Since then, and once our goal was reached, we slipped back into doing things that were more convenient for us but that also cost more money.  So, here we are again going through the same steps that worked for us last year again this year, experiencing the same battles with our wills all over again.  We are determined and have every intention of getting back to this being less painful, but in the meantime, it is painful!  But then denying self is always painful, isn't it!  When we can't have what we want when we want it, we come up with all kinds of justifications, don't we!  Yes, we can justify anything we want to do ... including wrecking our budgets!  Ouch!

Next week I'll give you our update on how we did for June ... will we ... did we meet our goal of being able to make two vehicle payments?   I'll be sharing that info next week!

And finally, ladies, the final lesson (lesson 7) in our Bible study on Hagar has been posted HERE!  I hope you'll pop over and take a look.

That's all for this week!

I hope you've found something in my ramblings that will help and or encourage you in the upcoming week.

Until the next time ...

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

You might be interested in my other blogs ...

Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine 

From This Heart of Mine