Saving Money On Meat & More! Dining Room Refresh- DIY Reupholstered Chairs & Paint

 

 Saving Money On Meat And More!-

As we all know grocery prices get higher and higher. While we don't eat meat everyday we do eat some. I was recently at a Fred Meyer grocery store. I browsed around and stumbled onto some huge 9 lb. pork roasts. They were $24.00 each. I read down on the sticker at the bottom (we are members of the Savings Club) the roasts were $8.00 each. That's about $1 a pound! 

 

I decided to buy two for that price! When I got home I cut both of them in half. I created two boneless roasts and two bone-in. I used my Food Saver bags and froze three of them. I roasted one of them with the bone in, low and slow with herbs. The meat came out fabulous! Very juicy and tender. I served one meal with fresh veggies. Another meal with roasted yams. A third meal I did shredded pork with barbecue sauce and Memphis style coleslaw on top, WONDERFUL! Recipe here Memphis Style Coleslaw-

What a deal! Good reminder to keep your eyes open when shopping and try different stores. I have heard recently there is getting to be a shortage of Baking Powder. Buy some! It's cheap and can be used for all kinds of baked goods. This is a really great preparedness item. 

I love Starbuck's Strawberry Acai Refresher, but they are just too expensive. I found a copycat recipe and made my own! Pretty close! Recipe here Copycat StrawberryAcai Refresher

First you simmer white grape juice and strawberries to create a base concentrate, then strain to get the berry juice-

 

 

 

 

Last I added the powders listed on the recipe, stir and refrigerate. It keeps for about two weeks. You use 1/2 concentrate and 1/2 water. I found some freeze-dried strawberries at Trader Joe's for $3.00 and I topped with those just like Starbuck's (a little darker), but much cheaper! I bought the powders listed on the recipe. Those will last a LONG time and you could use in smoothies. You could play with this recipe and use other fruits if desired. Fresh strawberries here are terrible so I bought frozen. Worked great!

I bought two totes of organic mushrooms at Costco, will dehydrate most of them for storage, $5.00 for a 24 oz-

Not to forget pets, bought a big back of cat food for Bonnie to go in a tote with oxygen absorbers. I still have two extra bags of chicken feed.  Now if they would just start laying!!! Should be any day....

Dining Room Refresh- DIY Reupholstered Chairs & Paint- 

Years ago I bought two used French style chairs for the dining table. The fabric was worn so I had them reupholstered for about $40.00 each. Over the years they got food stains, shampooed them and spot treated them I could never get them really clean-

 

They were just past the point of no return. I saw YouTube video on how to reupholster these kinds of chairs. I knew that I could do it myself and save a ton of money! I looked around for fabrics, did not want to do plaid/stripes since it has to really aligned to look good. I stumbled onto some denim fabric with embroidered dragonflies at the checkout stand at the local fabric store-

 

I had planned on getting just plain navy blue playing upholstery fabric. When I saw this fabric I knew this was the right one! To start I used a blow dryer to soften up the glue stick material that the upholsterer had used to attach the trim and removed all of that-

 

 

 

Next I cut out large pieces of fabric to cover the chairs and ironed it. I read it's really important always iron it before you start stretching it to get it really flat. Dave helped me in a few spots and I stapled it around really well. I did this on top of a card table, helped a lot to have it UP-

 

So clean!

I was not able to find any trim locally so ordered some on Amazon in Navy. I wish I had gone a little bit lighter on the color but it's really hard to see on a computer. After I got everything upholstered, I trimmed off the excess, and then hot glued it all the way around with the trim. It looks so much better! 

 

 

 

Clean and will last for quite a few years. Not perfect but works for me. The total for the fabric was about $25, the trim was about $8.00, I have some fabric and trim left over. I might do some kind of a fun pillow for the summer.

 

 

I started thinking that I wanted to repaint my little shelving unit that hangs on our dining room wall. It was a deep blue. With the new chair and buffet fabric it was a lot of blue. I had seen the PBS new series All Creatures Great and Small and loved the green accents in the kitchen. I also liked the green paint on my antique wood-handled kitchen utensils-

 

 

 

PBS All Creatures Great and Small Kitchen shot

It's called French green or Antique green. Previously I had used spray paint but was not able to find this color anywhere. I settled on a large bottle of craft paint at Hobby Lobby, about $6 each. I bought some new foam brushes, wide ones worked really well for the two big shelves. I knew it would take two coats especially on the metal side pieces. I love the color! I wish I could have found chalk paint in this color, but it does have a satin finish which I like. Took two coats-

 

I finished my thrifted shadow box with the WWII chicken print. I added broken egg shells, wheat and Lavender-

 

Says "I am a brave little WWII hen, don't eat much but produce a lot"

Winter Reflections, My Dietary Shift

Winter Reflections-

Sometimes I just get the blahs in the winter. Maybe it's the shorter days and we had one of our "inversions" this month. Very cold and gray with the stagnant air hanging in the valley. Luckily they didn't last too long! December was busy- right after our anniversary was Thanksgiving, then my birthday, then daughter's birthday, then grandson's, then Christmas! I bought gifts starting in the summer and stashed them. Great way to save $! Our grand kids get plenty of plastic toy gifts from others, so I load up on books and art supplies for them. Lovely flowers bloomed this year in time for Christmas Eve! We had a nice lunch buffet at my house with my two daughters and their children. With freezing rain in the forecast we moved it forward into the afternoon instead of evening. Sadly our one daughter who lives in Oregon was not able to make it since the highways were closed with a terrible ice storm, better to be safe at home. 

 

Dave's gift of a new French butter keeper, made by a local artist in McCall (I picked it out)- 

We've had a lot of medical stuff going on the last several months. Not much time for blogging! Dave had an eye injury, with a horrible ER experience. Short version- they never had an eye Dr. see him or even get a call to one. We were able to call the eye Dr. on call at Dave's eye clinic on a Sunday and he opened up his clinic and saw Dave. What a miracle! We got a good diagnosis and he was treated and recovered.  Dave also had a chronic ankle injury for a few years, wearing a boot for months really slowed him down. He's doing PT now and sounds like he can get a full recovery. I've had chronic leg pain for months, did diagnostics and luckily seems to be ergonomics at work. My chair was cutting off circulation from what I can tell. I elevated my feet and started acupuncture. Getting improvement already! In the fall I went thru some cardiac issues, had a procedure and finally came out the other side. Changing meds was quite the drama. After weeks things finally calmed down! I'm feeling fine now and stable. I am grateful for the excellent medical care I received and my insurance. We weren't able to spend Christmas with our daughter living in Oregon. There were several ice storms and the highways were closed. We told her we missed her but better to stay home and be safe! We did some Facetime with our other daughters and family here for a Christmas Eve early dinner. We got hit with freezing rain too later in the evening, so we changed dinner to late lunch. We loved seeing our three grandchildren! Youngest redhead is walking, and the two six year olds are super fun! So glad we live in the area!!!

I'm very grateful for my family, especially Dave's support thru my cardiac issues.

 

 

My Dietary Shift-

With all the stress of medical issues I was eating way too much junk food. That caught up with me when I had my labs done in November. My doctor mentioned looking at starting the Mediterranean Diet style of eating. I heard about that before but didn't know quite as much as I do now. I've started it and I'm feeling better already. It is much more plant-based than I realized. While I'm not going vegan meat is used a lot less. Dave and I are both very dairy sensitive so we're not eating tons of dairy/cheeses. I got some really good information from this website, and he also has some good YouTube videos. I found this nice assortment of recipes 20 Mediterranean Diet Recipes  I LOVED this video by Greek chef Diane Kockilas Flavors of Greek Ikarian Longevity  Ikaria,Greece is a "Blue Zone" where people live very long, healthy lives. If interested she has some great other videos, very easy to watch!

 

A good video overview  Blue Diet for 90 Days Results  with great info!

 

Preparedness 12.0/ Final Harvest, Winterizing The House and Coop

 

Preparedness 12.0/ Final Harvest-

Our first hard freeze is here! Eastern Idaho had several inches of snow two days ago. This is the time of year where you start preparing for winter. As they used to say in Game of Thrones WINTER IS COMING! We wrapped up the harvesting, except the Basil and herbs, covered those with a row cover-

High winds so need to weight it down

Only some small green tomatoes are still outside. We'll check on those this weekend. We picked our last really ripe tomatoes and peppers. With the cold snap warning Dave harvested all the last of the large green tomatoes in advance-

This is only one tray!

The really ripe ones we're using on homemade pizzas this week! Got the dough from a local pizza place. Some of the others I'll be freezing or I may make a big pot of pasta sauce. The green ones we will lay out and let ripen slowly. They never have quite as much flavor but they're good to use in soups and things. I dehydrated lots of dead ripe tomatoes, more coming!

This time of year we winterize the house, doing things like closing up the foundation vents, putting out some fleecy blankets for snuggling. I'll be adding our heavy comforter this weekend to our bed. I moved my summer clothes into our spare bedroom closet. Got out all my flannel blouses and fleece. Luckily I bought more wool socks last month! One of the things we do to winterize the houses is buy some of Costco's amazing chocolate/almond biscotti's! They are so good with a cup of something hot on a cold day. Winterizing the house includes the yard like putting away the hoses, pump is out of the pond and we moved some of the perennials in pots to winter-over in the garage. I'll pack up my garden bench and cover with plastic this weekend. Got out my small space heater for the kitchen. The big sliding glass doors make for a cold spot near the desk-

Link to my post Low Cost Ways to Keep Your Home Warm for more ideas. We got the cars ready for winter- new wiper blades, got out the snow scrapers, added a blanket in the backseat of each car. All those little things in case you get stranded and buried! What I bought this week- more acorn squash, lemons (small amount of pesto to still make), misc stuff.  

FOR MORE REALITY CHECKS- 5% inflation (today), new of possible brownouts/blackouts in some areas possible, droughts equal less foods, last springs freezes equals less foods and feed for ranchers, gas is going up, sizes going down /prices up (shrinkflation), less food in the stores, restaurants having less staffing/ more areas closed off, less available online to buy, trucking shortage, blackouts in China affecting manufacturing. Here's some visuals and links-  

From Wskg.org Supply Chain Troubles

Grocery Stores Food Shortage    China's Power Crunch  Australia Victorian Home Quarantine Selfie App   Natural Gas Prices Skyrocketing

Again- no down side to being prepared 

Winterizing the coop is actually fairly easy. We have a large window on the bottom of the coop that faces East. In the spring we switch it out, put on a frame with hardware cloth for ventilation (Dave built). We also took off the glass panel on the storm door. It was part of our Coop Rehab  Works much better than the old warped wood door, and it was recycled! The upper coop window (recycled) slides and can be opened as needed-

Lower vent on the left

Dave put the big glass panel on the coop wall back on and added the glass panel to the storm door before the freeze hit. They still have good ventilation through the lower vent and the coop itself is not airtight. There's also a vent in the roof. The main thing with the coop is that you do not want to have too much moisture inside. We also have the upper window that we can open if it gets really warm. Will be adding our exterior extension cord soon, to plug in their water so it won't freeze. It also allows us to turn on a light inside the coop if we have to go out after dark. I decided not to add a light at night to get more egg production. We do use a hardwired-in heat lamp and a reptile ceramic disc for additional heat if it gets really cold. Usually that would be in the teens or lower, but it depends. The good thing about the deep litter method is it actually generates some heat in the winter as it slowly breaks down. We love that method and there's never any odor! We'll add the sunroom soon, the new design worked great last year-

Just knocked off the snow once in a while!

Garden Re-Hab Phase One & Pond Repair, Spring Cleaning Spices & Organizing Kitchen Cabinets, 1949 Step Saving Kitchen Video

 

Garden Re-Hab Phase One & Pond Repair-

We found a pond leak after we filled it last week, one more thing to do, sigh. We had seen some repair products on TV as and decided to do some research. Dave went to Ace Hardware and was able to buy some Flex Tape as well as the liquid version. Since Dave was able to find the exact leak spot (hopefully) he decided to start with using the tape-

Link to the pond (before flagstone install) where you can see the shape Early shot of our pond  He cleaned off the plastic and let it dry and cut a piece big enough to hopefully cover everything and seal really well-

We let it dry overnight. Dave filled it tonight, we'll see how it looks the next several days. If that doesn't fix the leak he's going to coat the entire inside with a Flex Seal "paint" material. If that doesn't work we're going to buy pond liner and do the whole thing. We love the pond so much! Our neighbors do as well, since one of ours told us that he loves listening to the sound of the water running in the summer from his deck. We were lucky enough to get the pond and a pump at a yard sale several years ago really cheap. We did eventually buy a second pump as well as some other sprayers. Once the weather warms up enough we'll buy water lettuce and fill it in.  Nice calm area right by our deck when we come out.

Phase one- Dave and I shopped around and found a great deal at Costco for Emerald Arborvitaes. They were $25.00 each, 4' tall, much cheaper than anyone else. They kept selling out, so we had to go back. One guy in front of Dave bought 12! I had wanted Bamboo but couldn't find what I wanted. While I'm not a fan of these shrubs (WAY overused commercially IMO) I decided they would be a goof fit for the space-

Also bought a Dwarf Alberta Spruce for another spot

The previous shrubs were basically for privacy from the house behind us- 

Before

First we called DIG LINE! You can see the orange paint above on the ground. Luckily we had enough space without killing anything. The new shrubs will get taller and about 4' wide, we can prune if needed. The GREAT thing is they will be green year round! No more brown fence all winter long. Se here was the process. Dave started by pruning the old shrubs down to the ground with hand clippers-

More cutting with pruning shears-

Down to the big woody base. Dave used an ax, a pry bar and then a chain saw on the bigger pieces-

All three planted, will mulch and bark dust soon-

Dave straightened the middle one tonight

Dave will tear out the rest of the cold frame soon. Next will be the new garden. This is the basic garden plan that will be in front of the shrubs-

More info here Our Garden Re-Hab

More coming soon!

Stuff

Spring Cleaning Spices & Organizing Kitchen Cabinets- 

I have been watching some YouTube videos on organization and minimizing lately. It's inspiring! They can also suck you into a black hole as I have found. One woman does videos of mopping her home over and over again. Put me to sleep... Anyway, I digress.  I've been reorganizing a few little areas here and there. One of the things I really needed to do was take everything out of part of my upper food kitchen cabinet to see what I had. I realized that some of my spices were probably old and lost their potency. I also knew I had some duplicates. In the interest of minimizing I decided to take everything out and see where I was at, see photo above-

Misc Stuff 

That didn't take too long and I laid everything out then I cleaned off my rotating Lazy Susan things. Hit them with a hot soapy sponge and wiped down the shelves as well. When it was all over I was able to throw out some old spice's, recycle some empty glass spice jars, and wound up with lots of extra room. Now I can really see what I have! Before shots- 

After- 

I also organized some of our new smoothie ingredients and moved the blender over by the sink. I've tried Goji berries and Beet powder added to fruit and protein powder.  Gave me more energy! Nice to have it all organized to see what's there. I like the jars better than bags. Both of us are wanting to eat healthier and I've been craving more fruit smoothies with protein powder in it. I've got a few extra supplements that I bought that I had heard of add. 

 

I also re-organized the inside freezer (chest freezer in the garage).  I found some things with freezer burn which I tossed and then I re-organized. Everything was kind of mixed together. Now fruits and nuts on the left for baking and smoothies, everything else on the right. Much better!!! 

If video on your side doesn't work you may need to turn off your pop-up blocker

1949 Step Saving Kitchen Video-

I stumbled on this and wow, they had some good ideas back then! Watch for the tilt out bins under the windows, my fave! What do you think?