Saturday, January 17, 2009

Cleaning For Spring








No, not the in-home kind this time, but the outdoor kind. It's way past time to have my greenhouse cleaned out, but today Chantel and I went out and got all the pots stacked and sorted, the shelves swept, just general housecleaning, and NOW I'm anxious to get seeds in the ground. I had to go to town today, so got some heirloom tomato seeds and I already have some others to get into the dirt.
Here in Oregon, we've had the weirdest weather. A few weeks ago, we had record snows, then ice, then a quick thaw, and some people got flooded, and now we've been having beautiful sunny days! The whole family was out taking advantage of it today.
I didn't spend the ENTIRE day doing this though. I had to go to town to get some groceries, and happened to check craigslist for sales. I'm having withdrawals from garage and estate sales and today I did find one estate sale. One measly sale, but I found some cool things. I found some neat German maps, a Scrabble game that uses wooden dice, kinda neat, and a few other things. I love the poodle cards, and those high bidder cards are pretty neat, too. Plus, it was half price day, so that was a little extra fun. I can see beautiful things being made out of them all! Sorry the pictures didn't come out very good.

I've been doing my baking for the lady down at "Quincy Store" down the road, not a lot, but just enough to be fun and not a job. I like it. I'm needing very much to work on my Etsy shop and get some things listed. I started another embroidered rabbit which is a fun project, and my other two sold already. What else?? We're plugging away at school of course. Been spending some time visiting with my MIL, as she's not doing real well. I've got to get the whole tamale thing going so I can get the canning class going. Oh yeah, last week, the kids and I are Kristin went to a friends for getting together to do crafts, etc. I was so surprised at the work she put into the day she had planned. I never did get my handwork out! She had gone to a lot of work to make the day fun, she had us enter our names, etc, into her address book, she had some notecards with packets of seed inside. The seed packets had stickers on them and we put our names on them. Later, she had a drawing and gave out prizes! They are vegetarian, and had some really good veggie trays set out all pretty. She even made my kids a frog made out of a pickle!
I told her I felt mesmerized, she put so much work into all it. Do you get like that when someone does something really special? I feel kind of in a daze, just enjoying it all. Kinda like if I was having a message LOL. I know, I'm weird, but I love to appreciate things like that. We all sat around drooling over seed catalogs, too, which was a BIG push for me to get that greenhouse going. Last year, I started my tomatoes in February, and I told myself to start a month earlier this year.
I've been trying to budget, like in having FUN doing a good budjet, getting by on less, etc. I am seriously thinking of going to THIS Frugal Living class this week. I wouldn't ever get "really" serious about coupons, but saving a few dollars is nice. I'd like to hear the tips and tricks of serious budgeteers. Tis the season, right?
What else have I been up to? Well, I did reformat my old lap top for my kids, couldn't find my original operating system disk, ended up using a Millenium disk and upgrading with the XP, and basically, finally got it running, but now am missing some drivers, etc. So of course they're bugging me about that, but it sure is faster now! I just can't for some reason get adobe flash installed and some other things. Well, that's for a day when I have a clear head!
Hope everyone has had a great start for the year! I've got big plans and I'm sure you all do, too!

6 comments:

Olde Dame Penniwig said...

You sure got some cute things from that estate sale, my dear!

SOMETHING is going on, there's an undercurrent in the U.S. and even in the Euro blogs I read, everyone is getting interested in frugal living!!! Good thing, too, because I think we may have some hard times coming!

Hope it stays sunny where you are so you can get that greenhouse ready!

carolyn@simple~primitive~devotion said...

Love your vintage finds. Hope you have a great week!

SweetAnnee said...

I just love finding a treasure
You found some good ones!!!


fondly,
Deena

Laurie said...

Sounds like you've been busy! I'm glad you found a few things at the estate sale...

Michelle, All Home and Love said...

Hi there! I just wanted to come visit you and say thank you so much for coming over to my blog. It's always fun to find treasures like this. Enjoy!
~Michelle

cherry said...

Hi Karen...nah not hummels...just cute little look alikes. I like them! I love all your new finds..and YES Oregon sure is acting a bit funny this year. rofl, cherry