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  

From My Home to Yours: 6/20/25

 From My Home to Yours

6/20/25

~ Hot & Humid! ~ 

It's that time of year when the weather turns hot and humid making it dangerous to be outside for any length of time ... it's my least favorite time of the year!

It's the time of the year when anything done outside or in the garden is done in the early hours of the morning shortly after daylight.  It doesn't cool down until about 8 p.m. but then the mosquitoes are just waiting to have a feast on you if you tarry outside too long!

It's the time of the year when I regularly give thanks to God for our HVAC unit!

In spite of the weather, our sweet potatoes and zucchini are doing well.  So far, they are not showing signs of heat stress. I hope the zucchini can hold on long enough to give us a harvest, they don't like this heat.  The sweet potatoes won't be ready to harvest until fall, so they have a while to go!

This is not a very good picture of our tomatoes, but at least you can see our setup.  We are in the process of setting our pots/containers on concrete blocks for two reasons, (1) to make it harder for fire ants to get into them and (2) for ease of tending to and harvesting from.  We don't have all our pots/containers done yet; in fact, it will probably take the rest of the year to complete this task since I'll be working around the heat and humidity.

We are making big changes to the way we garden this year, and this is one of them.  The changes we are making are in relation to our aging; we just can't do the physical work that we could do even 5 years ago ... but, where there is a will, there is a way!

I shared with you last week that I was using a planner I had purchased on clearance to start tracking our expenses.   The purpose is to make us more aware of where our money is going.  I told you I would update you on how I used it, here's what this week looks like so far ...

Monday was a no spend day

Tuesday, we purchased groceries and gas (for groceries I color coded it green and gave gas a yellow color code)

Wednesday, we spent a little more at the grocery store and recorded that

Thursday was a big spending day for us ... medical (color coded orange); groceries; eating out (color coded blue); and more gas

At the end of the week, I'll total the different categories and record those.  At the end of the month, I'll total up each category for the month and see how it all shapes up.

I can tell you that this is already making me more aware of what we're spending. I'm looking forward to the end of the month ... I think it is going to be a real eye-opener!

For the pantry ... I canned 6 jars of white chicken chili and 1 jar of navy beans.  The jar of navy beans was so I would have a full canner to process and since both the chili and beans process at the same time and amount of pressure, I filled the canner with the jar of beans.

In the herb garden:  the echinacea is ready to start harvesting ...

the Holy Basil/Tulsi is thriving in this pot ...

and finally, the spearmint looks pretty good too!

I love the lifestyle we've chosen for ourselves!  Most nights we fall into bed worn out from the day's activities, but it is a satisfying worn out. 

Our days are filled with activities that keep ...

 our pantry filled ...

our bodies nourished ...

 our bodies moving (this is so important as we age) ...

and our minds busy (an idle mind is the devil's workshop).

I haven't had time to do any sewing or creating for the past 3 weeks and I'm really beginning to get the itch to stitch, if you know what I mean!

Some meals we cooked this week include:

meatloaf, fresh from the garden potatoes

hot dogs, buns and chips and all the trappings that go with hotdogs

smoked sausage, sauerkraut, young green peas, roasted vegetables

haystacks (taco pie)

And finally, ladies, the next lesson (lesson 6) 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 

From My Home to Yours: 6/13/25

 From My Home to Yours

6/13/25

~ He's done! ~ 

What am I talking about?  Hubby finished his doctor ordered 36 weeks of cardio physical therapy this week!  I can't tell you how happy that makes me!  We can return to being masters of our own time ... as much as anyone can.  He has another fitness program lined up to begin, but for this one we can choose the time we go ... which just makes my heart sing!  He is determined to not lose the progress he has made, and I am 100% behind him supporting him all the way.  Whew!  What a journey this has been ... that has ended with the best possible outcome, and we give God the glory and praise.  If you're new and or haven't read our story, you can do that HERE!  Thank you to all who have supported us through this journey ... in so many ways ... we pray God's blessings upon you.

(This is one of several marigolds I planted this year ... they are thriving!)

What did our frugal life look like this week?  Let's take a peek ...

I turned some dehydrated onions into onion powder!  It's time to harvest this year's onions and that means it's also time to finish using up the onions we have on our pantry shelves from last year.  'Out with the old and in with the new' looks like 'use the old up so you have room to replace it with the new' at our house.  With limited 'pantry space' we want to be good stewards of what we have been blessed with and use that space prudently ... which means we don't keep stuff in our pantry that we don't or want use or more of an item than we will use in a specified amount of time.

Take a peek at one of my 'drying' areas!  These little red colanders each hold something different:  

mullein yellow flower

calendula flower plantain

oregano

tarragon

sage

yarrow

Whenever possible I like to allow my herbs to air dry naturally and that's what's happening in the picture.  Since this picture was taken, I added mullein leaves and another colander of calendula flowers.

I continued with cleaning and inventorying my pantry this week, but since we were involved with VBS, I didn't have time to finish the area I started.  That's okay, I can live with the chaos another few days, planting seeds about God into the hearts and minds of children is far more important than getting my pantry cleaned and organized.

A friend from church texted me wanting to know if I wanted some cucumbers, that she had a 5-gallon bucket full for me if I wanted them.  Yes, indeed I wanted them and off we went to her house to get them.  While there she also gave me a large cabbage and a large rutabaga from her garden.  Her garden was beautiful, in fact her whole yard was beautiful.  It was a joy just to be able to walk around in it and soak in its beauty.  I came away inspired with ideas for my own yard and garden.

I harvested squash from our garden and used several of them to make up squash casseroles for the freezer.  I recently used the last one we had so it's time to restock!

Here are some things I/we cooked this week:

squash casserole

seasoned green beans

a Boston butt for making BBQ

air-fried seasoned chicken legs

air-fried seasoned squash halves

purple hull peas

fresh potatoes from the garden

roasted vegetables

cheesecake for an event

pig-pickin cake for an event

brownies for us to enjoy at home

 We're getting ready to make our 3rd payment on our new to us vehicle, remember our goal is to make two payments per month, this 3rd payment will be the first one for June.  In order to do that we have to be very mindful of our spending, and I want to share with you today a new tool that I will start utilizing this next week.  It's an old-fashioned pen and paper spending tracking journal.  Back in January/February I found these planners on clearance at the local big box store and purchased two.  I use one of them for writing 'themed' Scriptures and the other one has been sitting on my bookshelf with no clear purpose.  It now has a purpose; it will become my/our spending tracker.  Everything that we spend on any given day will go written down on that date, with the exception of our bills and personal allowances.  I'll share what the first week of tracking looks like in the next post.  By tracking our spending, it will be easier to see where our money is going and the areas that we could possibly cut.  It's a financial tool that I think will benefit us in reaching our goal ... yes, we are determined!  What financial tools do you use to help you reach your financial goals?

You can see that there is plenty of space on each day for tracking where our money is going.

And finally, ladies, the next lesson (lesson 5) 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 

From My Home to Yours: 6/6/25

  From My Home to Yours

6/6/25

~ pantry pic, money talk and more ~

I've been continuing to work on cleaning and organizing my pantry.  I started on this section a couple of weeks ago and finished it this week.  Yes, I'm taking it slow and working it in, in and around our hectic schedule right now ... but I'm determined to get my pantry in tip top shape ... one area at a time.

On the top shelf are beef broth, quilts and a crocheted blanket ...

On the bottom shelf are chicken broth, a quilt and another crocheted blanket ...

In the wooden soda boxes below the piece of furniture there are various soups.

(It was time to pack the quilts and blankets away for the summer and this is how and where I store them during their 'off' season.  Many of our furniture pieces serve more than one purpose, this is just one example!)

I've started working on inventorying and cleaning another area of my pantry and things are topsy-turvy!  You know what it's like when you empty everything out of something, clean it and then put everything back together???  I'm in the emptying out stage, enough said!!!  Maybe by next week I'll have it in some kind of order that I can share it with you ... but I'm not promising!  

(pictured:  a cluster of elderberry flowers on our property)

Looking back over last week's post in which I shared that we had been able to make 2 payments on our new to us vehicle for the month of May, I want to clarify something.  Just reading the post made it sound so easy; however, it was anything but easy.  We had to work hard not to spend, cut corners when spending was necessary and decide to be content.  Having said that, I also need and want to say that we are in no way depriving ourselves of what we need, we did reduce our personal allowances, but since this is a long-term goal, we opted not to cut them out completely as we did for a time in our hunkering down journey last year.  In order to stick with the goal, we've chosen, we decided that a little 'pocket money' for each of us every month would be beneficial in the long run.  Our thinking is that it will cut down on the urge to go on a spending spree because of our self-imposed budget.  Let me also make it clear that we've set this goal because we want too, no one is making us, it's something we want to do.

Along the same line, I have had my eye on a quilt pattern for quite some time.  This past week the owner of the shop had a really nice sale on all her patterns in her shop.  I had been waiting to purchase the pattern because I knew this once-a-year sale was coming, I had saved enough of my personal allowance to be able to purchase it once the sale started.  I would visit the site and look at the pattern, I really wanted it and since I was going to use my personal money to buy it, I knew it was just a matter of waiting for the sale!  And then life happened, and we needed both of our personal allowances ... and I didn't purchase the pattern.  I made up my mind not to be a 'debbie downer' about it and looked for a free version that was somewhat similar or had the same 'theme' to the pattern I wanted.  I found one and started on it this week.  No, it's not what I originally wanted, but it will do.  I decided to share this so you can see that when we set a goal that we are committed to meeting, it WILL require sacrifices.  This week for me it was the quilt pattern I had been saving for ... I just couldn't bear not meeting our vehicle payment goal the very first month and for such a trivial thing!  Please do not 'feel sorry' for me, I don't!  This is called 'adulting!'

(pictured:  a second planting of tomatoes ... succession planting if you will ... the goal is to have fresh from the garden tomatoes to eat all summer long.  This variety is old fashioned German pink, and yes, they are heirloom.)

(pictured:  purple majesty sweet potato slips)

We were given 'purple majesty' sweet potato slips this week by a gentleman and fellow gardener from church.  I didn't have time to plant them immediately so put them in a jar of water.  Soon little roots will start to develop, and I'll get them in the ground then.  Just as a sidenote, I have planted both rooted and unrooted sweet potato slips with equal success.  Because of time constraints right now, these will have the opportunity to grow roots and with any luck we'll be eating purple sweet potatoes this fall and winter!

We harvested our first squash this week and from the look of the vines, will have plenty by next week to preserve.  We also dug more blue potatoes this week and enjoyed them in a meal.  It's really nice to be able to start eating fresh from the garden produce. 

As part of my daily garden walk right now, I'm harvesting both mullein flowers and calendula flowers before they either drop off (mullein flowers) or dry up (calendula flowers).  They both do their thing regular quickly, so diligence and daily harvesting is the name of the game if I want them.  These are seasonal for our area, and one has to be on top of their game if they're going to get the flowers.  I use the mullein flowers in herbal remedies and the calendula in herbal salves.

In addition to mullein flowers and calendula flowers, I've harvested yarrow, oregano, sage, tarragon, elderberry flowers and plantain.  All of these will be used for herbal and or culinary uses in my kitchen.

I did some crocheting while we were traveling.  You can take a peek at one of the items I completed over on Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine.

Ladies, the next lesson 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 

From My Home to Yours: 5/30/25

 From My Home to Yours

5/30/25

~ it's the end of the month, were we able to do it? ~

I'll tell you in a bit but first take a look at our elderberry bushes.  They completely surround the back side and one end of our chicken coup.  They absolutely thrive in this location!  Some of these are 10 - 12 feet tall!

They are putting on flowers and the whole scene is just so peaceful and beautiful to behold.  God's glorious creation is amazing!

Here are some ways we added to our 'savings' for a purpose goal this week which is to make 2 vehicle payments per month to get the debt retired asap:

Our power bill was a little over $100 less than last months because we were traveling and away from home for 2 weeks.  That amount went towards our savings goal ... 

and we added the unused amount of our grocery budget to our savings goal as well.  Both of these combined are not enough to make that second payment but every amount helps!

Hubby wanted some 'fresh' potatoes for an afternoon meal one day and wondered if our potato plants had any potatoes under them yet.  As you can see there were, we dug up a couple of 'hills' and found these.  He took them back to the house and started preparing them while I finished up outside.   We had stewed potatoes, corn on the cob and steak and yes, it was all delicious and all from our pantry or garden!

Well, well, well ... take a look at the sum total of our carrot harvest!  I planted them last fall like I always do and did everything that I always do ... but this year our winter was quite a bit colder (we even had a snow) and this is what survived!   While it makes me a little sad, it's really not a problem.  Last year's harvest was a good one, so I preserved quite a bit ... I'm glad I did as we'll have enough preserved carrots to see us through.  Thus, this meager harvest is not an issue, and we'll plant again in the fall.  Yes, we could purchase carrots from the grocery store and would if that was our only option, but remember, we are really trying to turn ourselves into a lean, mean, saving machine ... for a purpose!  

What am I going to do with these carrots? My plan is to ferment a couple of jars and turn the rest into carrot sticks using this homemade ranch dressing to dip them in.  Fresh from the garden carrots have such an amazing taste!

In the garden, I planted sweet potato slips that we grew ourselves, the rest of the herbs we purchased while traveling as well as some Amish Paste tomato plants.  All the garlic is harvested and now curing.  I'll start gathering the recipes and methods I'll use to preserve it this week and of course, when it's finished curing, I'll set aside the biggest and best bulbs to replant in the fall.  The cycle of saving seeds, bulbs and planting perennials to keep our food chain going is important and we take it as seriously as we do food preservation.

Speaking of the cycle of seed saving ... my pretty flowers came back this year on their own.

Look at the plants on this end of this raised bed!  They are zucchini, I only wanted a couple of plants but since the seeds were 7 years old, I planted more thinking that few if any would come up.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that they all came up!  I'm going to give them a couple more weeks and then thin them out.  The lesson here is to make sure you test your old seeds before tossing them, they just might still be viable!  (In case you're wondering what's growing in the rest of the raised bed ... it's sweet potato plants!)

I did some more repurposing of clothing; this time a dress I found at a thrift store.  You can take a peek at what I did with it over on Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine.

Ladies, the next lesson in our Bible study on Hagar has been posted HERE!  I hope you'll pop over and take a look.

And finally, to answer the question we started out with of 'were we able to make that extra vehicle payment' this month and the answer is ... YES!  It took some doing and some doing without, but we did it!!!  This month was our test run, as we go further into this journey, we will continue to fine tune and come up with more ways to save and make do in order to meet this very big to us financial goal!  (Psst!  To help encourage us and keep our mind on our goal, I'm working on creating one of those generic 'get out of debt' payoff type sheets where you mark off or color in a circle every time you make a payment.  I'm customizing it for this particular debt and will color in two of the circles representing 2 payments as soon as the 'chart' is finished.  Yep, it's going to be colorful!!!  I will post it in plain sight so that every time we see it, it will remind us to keep on keeping on ... we are really trying!)  Do you have any strategies that help you stay focused on your financial goals?

Ladies, the next lesson 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