Lessons Learned From A Layoff Part 2, Free High Chair, Fermented Curtido Success

Lessons Learned From Layoff Part 2-

Fall is really in the air! Even with the warmer weather this week, 95 degrees today, the days are shorter. I'll be canning apples this long weekend, with more freezing and other food stashing. I had a volunteer in the garden this summer. I thought it was some kind of edible squash, but it's a ornamental pumpkin! Last year I bought a few locally, then they were composted. We tossed some compost in the garden, now we have free pumpkins! Fall is on the way :) I'm leaving on the vine until it cools a bit since they rot in the heat. I looked up the variety 

Cute

Dave got a check yesterday he didn't expect from his last job. I had had a terrible day at work, so we went out for dinner! We dad a great, relaxing chat about how the layoff went. I mentioned being happy about only having to tap a little savings. Dave said we actually never did that. While he pays the actual bills, I'm in on everything. We have a "savings" account, but we also have a "slush fund" built into our checking. It's a little random money that we let accumulate and don't have listed in our register. When Dave told me a while back he had to transfer a little $$$ I thought he meant from savings. It was actually from the slush fund. So, right now, having been unemployed for 7 weeks, we basically lost no money. Dave said we actually SAVED $1,000. Receiving various funds, cutting expenses, shopping less, and using some of our food stores did make a BIG difference! It wasn't as bad as I thought. Sometimes you just never know how it went til it's actually over.

Free High Chair-

We baby sit one grandchild every other Saturday and had a little booster seat for the dining table, but no tray. A few nights ago I was thinking I should check Craigslist, then I went to the free section and found this highchair! Dave's last day off work was Friday (new job starts Tuesday), so I emailed the person and he made arrangements for the pickup Friday. After basically wasting about 2 hours, since the owner kept getting "delayed", he finally picked it up. It's safe, Dave deep cleaned, but was missing the pad. It has 3 trays, can be put in a recline (for infants) position, has wheels, and folds up slim. New they're about $125.00 on up. I was going to try and make a pad, but realized it would be time intensive, with other looming projects. I looked on Etsy, but too much $$$, looked on eBay and found pad this for $14.00-

I'll modify it since there's a little riser post in the leg area, but it was a great deal! We used it today (without the pad) for Grand baby River, and it worked great! Much less mess and easy to clean and store away. When we're done using it we can sell and get our $$$ back. SCORE!!! 

Fermented Curtido Success-

I recently posted about the messy start of my Curtido making- 

and then fermenting for 2 weeks

Now it's done! We had a dinner of chicken flautas and the curtido. It spicy, full of flavor, crunchy and full of yummy probiotics! The whole batch in the fermenting jar worked out to be 3 1-Qt. canning jars. They're now resting in the fridge, minus what we had for dinner.

It's amazing what you can do with a little salt and veggies! My fermenting jar is now ready for another batch of something, still thinking. I seemd to keep missing the pickling cukes, but will check again...