Sunday, October 25, 2020

Glimpses of Home Spring, Summer and early Fall 2020

Here are a few pictures that show glimpses of our life and home over the past few months.  I went through my pictures on my computer and picked some to share here on my blog.

This is a common sight in our back yard.  The farmers often leave their equipment right at the edge of our yard when they finish for the day.  Probably to keep it safer during the night.

 

Old frog in a pot that I bought at Dollar General a few years ago.

Some sour dough rising.  Like lots of people this year, I decided to try making my own sour dough starter.  It was a challenge for me, but I kept feeding that stuff and watching You Tube Videos and one day it actually doubled in size. I was so excited!!! Since then I have kept it alive in the refrigerator, feeding it about once a week.  We call it the "hootch", cause it smells like "hootch" sometimes, which is perfectly normal.  I have learned so much about sour dough!


This is a low carb tortilla with an apple filling.  It was a small chopped apple that I cooked with stevia for the sweetener in the microwave.  Then I put that in the tortilla and browned it in melted butter in a frying pan.  That is stevia that is sprinkled on the top.  Pretty Good!   I was trying to duplicate the traditional apple fritter.

Low carb Garlic bread.


Low carb spinach lasagna.


 

A low carb chicken broccoli and cheese dish I just threw together that has become a favorite of mine.


 

Basic Sour Dough Bread right out of the oven.



 

Two year old granddaughter in her Easter Dress. :o)


 

Purple Coneflower.  I grew these from seed picked up on the ground at Tryon Palace in New Bern, NC.  It has taken a couple of years since they were planted to start blooming.  I love them!


 

Low carb Fourth of July Dessert.


 

A couple of fat quarter bundles that I put to good use in a quilt that I am currently machine quilting.



 

I transplanted a bunch of wild petunias this year into this bed.  They come up everywhere in our yard from seed and are mostly mowed down with the grass.



 Lantana and butterfly.


Hydrangeas are a struggle for me, but we had a few blooms this year.

 

These blueberry muffins aren't low carb, but they do have sour dough starter in them.  They have all the normal ingredients like sugar, flour, fresh blueberries and butter in them.  Therefore, they were delicious!

 


More Lantana and a butterfly and a grasshopper


 

We are cool, right?! LOL I've made some masks, but they are so readily available now, I pretty much stopped making them.  My health insurance company sent me some "free" ones (not free considering how much the premium is) that are way more comfortable than the ones I make.


 Lilies.

 

I had a lot of volunteer petunias this year.  I moved them to pots and beds.  This one was so tiny, you could hardly see it in the grass and pine straw.



 Chocolate chip sour dough muffins.  These are NOT low carb either!  But good.


 

Current quilt in progress.  Here I was pin basting it.


 


 

More lilies with a little yard statue.

 


I play Words With Friends with the computer guy, Albot.  I was proud of this word, Siliquae worth 188 points!  My highest one word score ever!  The reason it scored so high is because it touched 2 triple word spots and maybe some other double or triple letter spots.  I usually beat Albot, but I use help from the internet.  I think its only fair since I am playing against a computer! (Not sure what that word means, but its a good word.)

 

Fall towels that were a gift from my daughter.  Love them!  She knows I love Fall.  But she is a summer girl, through and through.


 

One last low carb dish.  These are egg cups.  They are mostly made of eggs, but you can put what ever you like in them such as:  broccoli, tomatoes, bacon, cheese, sausage, salsa.  You can see the broccoli and tomatoes in some of these.


 A doll quilt I am currently making as a Christmas Gift.  I am planning to hand quilt it.


 I hope you enjoyed these little glimpses into my life over the past few months!

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Glimpses of Home - HOOKS!

Now that's an exciting title, isn't it?  HaHa 

While working around the house the other day I realized that I have a lot of over the door hooks.   They can serve a lot of purposes.

This one is in the laundry room.  Its a great place to hang clothes as I get them out of the dryer.  Also, its where I hang clothes from the washer that need to air dry.


This is one type of hook that I use.



These hooks are in the sewing room and 2 of them work perfectly for hanging the ironing board on the back of the door and so its out of sight.


On the back of the bathroom door, out of sight, are a towel and my bath robe.


Behind our bedroom door, out of sight, are my coats.


This one is on the inside of the closet door where I store Christmas things.  When the door is closed, its completely out of sight. 

If you want to create more storage space or get more organized, over the door hooks are a good idea.  Truthfully, I need to do a deep purge in all our closets to make more room.  Then I wouldn't need as many hooks.  Still, I love the convenience and usefulness of over the door hooks.

Friday, February 21, 2020

Frugal Friday - Saving for Christmas 2020

(Note 1 :  my referral codes/links for grocery apps and Swagbucks can be found at the bottom of this post for anyone who might be interested.  Thanks)

(Note 2:  These are not for earning fast money, but consistently using them over time will add up!)


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Beginning on January 1st, I decided to see how much money I could earn using Apps on my phone, Swagbucks, selling on EBay, Pine Cone Surveys, etc.  The purpose of this is to save toward the cost of Christmas gifts in 2020, or at least put a chunk of cash toward it! 

In my planner I assigned a page to each source of income.  My plan is to update the page with the amount earned each month in 2020, so I can track the figures and also get an idea of what's worth doing and what's not worth doing.

Here are my current planner pages and the categories:

1.  Paypal

I started out with a balance of $198.53 as of January 1st.  I don't spend the Paypal money too often and it reached this amount over a long period of time.  Things that go into my Paypal account include things like payment for doing Pine Cone Research Surveys and an occasional sale on EBay or Etsy.   

So far since January 1st, I have added $12 from Pine Cone Research and $16.93 from Ebay sales (net after all expenses) So currently there is $227.46

The surveys earn $3.00 each and I usually do 2 or 3 a month.  Pine Cone Research is a great way to earn a little cash.  They have open applications every so often and you have to be accepted by them.  If I see that they are accepting applications, I will post it on here.  The surveys are easy to do and occasionally  they will send a new product for you to try out for free.  Then you complete a follow up survey which earns another $3.00. 

I don't sell a lot on EBay.  In fact this is the first time in a couple of years that I have sold anything.  What did I sell?  I don't use the conditioners that come in my hair color boxes.  So I had been putting them to the side for quite a while.  I had accumulated 11 of them!  They sell quickly.  Its not a lot of money, but they are out of my house and the money goes toward my goal of Christmas money!








I have some ideas for other things to sell on EBay, such as a dress that I bought a couple of years ago that still has the tags on it and I haven't worn.  It might be fun to see what I can get for it. 


I haven't had anything for sale in my Etsy shop in a very long time.  I would love to though.   Maybe soon!

2.  Amazon Gift Card Balance

This is by far the place that I accumulate money in the most.  I started out on January 1st with a balance of $210.53.  As of today I have $299.48.    The increase is made up of the following:

Fetch Rewards $10.00
Ibotta $20.00
Swagbucks:  $53.00
Amazon refund 5.95

I consistently earn points on Swagbucks which I redeem for Amazon Gift Cards!  Here's my Swagbucks Referral Link if anyone is interested:  CLICK HERE

The grocery apps on my phone are a source of income, but its slow.  Here are the ones I am using:

Shop Kick.  As of today I have 681 points which I earned since January 1st.   I need 1250 to get a $5.00 Amazon Gift Card.  The way it works is that you earn points (kicks) when you go into certain stores.  Then while in stores you scan the bar code of certain items.   Watching short videos earns a few points. You can also buy certain things and scan in your receipt for points.  I haven't bought anything yet that qualifies.  I'm only doing the things that don't require me to spend money.  So, at this rate I should have a $5.00 gift card in a couple of months.  This is REALLY slow, but its kind of fun to do and eventually there will be items that I would be interested in buying that would accumulate points much faster than just the scanning in the store.  So, I am going to continue on and see how much I earn by the end of the year.

Fetch Rewards.  This one is easy to use and earning a gift card doesn't take too terribly long.  You just scan all of your eligible receipts and if you purchase certain items you earn points.  If there are no eligible items on the receipt, you still earn a flat 25 points.  You need 1,000 points to earn a $10.00 Amazon Gift Card.  I started out on January 1st with 1433 points.  I cashed out for one $10.00 Amazon Gift Card, and after earning points since January 1st, I currently have 8,896 points.  I will soon have enough points for another $10.00 gift card.

Ibotta.  This one isn't as easy as Fetch Rewards, but I can earn gift cards pretty quickly.  I enjoy using it.  You need to activate the offers before shopping and I find that I already purchase many of the eligible items.  Sometimes it is for any item, such as any pasta sauce, or any oatmeal, etc.

You have teammates, which for me are friends on Facebook that also do Ibotta.   I didn't do anything to add them as teammates, they just showed up on my account.  To be on my team, use my referral code shown at the bottom of this post.  We can see what each of us is earning and help each other earn more!  I started out on January 1st with $18.71.  You have to reach $20.00 to cash out.  Since then I cashed out for one $20.00 Amazon Gift card and currently have $12.66.  I need $7.34 more to cash out for another $20.00 Amazon Gift card.

Other Grocery Apps.  The apps I am also attempting to earn money are Checkout 51, SavingStar and Coin Out.  I've earned gift cards before on Checkout 51 and SavingStar, but so far this year I have not earned anything.    I started out on January 1st with $9.50 on Checkout 51 and that has not changed.  I need $20.00 to get a gift card.  I started out on January 1st with $13.25 on SavingStar and that has not changed either.  I will keep an eye on SavingStar and Checkout 51, but they just haven't offered any items so far this year that I actually use.  I'm not going to buy something that we don't want or need just to earn a few points.  Coin Out is a new one I am trying and so far have $2.22.  Its easy to use because you just scan any receipt and earn a few points. There are other ways to earn money with Coin Out, but I haven't really tried any of them, other than scanning receipts.    It might not be worth the trouble, but I'll keep plugging away.  I have to reach $10.00 to cash out for a gift card, so at this rate it will take 10 months!

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If you would like to sign up for any of these Apps, I would love for you to use my referral Code.  It would be especially fun to be teammates on Ibotta.  Here are my codes, or links.

For Fetch Rewards use this code when signing up: B4AEN

For Ibotta use this code when signing up:  foujkwh

For Checkout 51 use this link:  https://checkout51.app.link/9JidDdPcg4,   or just click HERE.
 
For Coin Out use this link:  https://coinout.com/referrals/new?r=MGPHCWC   or click HERE.

I don't think SavingStar has a referral program.

I'm off work today, so had time to put this post together!  Have a great weekend!

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Things that make me happy.....





 .... peeking into grandkids' bedrooms and seeing quilts I made for them being put to use.



I hope your 2020 is going well so far! 

Glimpses of Home - first quarter of 2021

I made a list of my 2021 goals that I wrote down in the back of my planner.  Its time to review that to see how I am doing! But, here are a ...