Miss Bo-zer the pup has an interesting habit. To keep track of the Chipmunk Menace (and other threats), she enjoys sticking her head out of the gap between the glass panels on our back deck. Catch this from the side, and it's unnerving -- reminiscent of heads on pikes during the French Revolution, or gracing the London Bridge.
Weird...but funny.
It has been a busy month. I've had several working gigs, including a lecture and appraising at the La Plata Quilt Guild in Durango. (Thanks, girls!) The Brick attended a national conference for the Convention of the States, a pro-states rights movement that advocates for, among other things, term limits. In between, we sang at church, worked on an upcoming music gig (Oct. 2 at Lu's in nearby Blanca), and started buttoning up for the coming winter. Our first frost and/or snowfall has been in October; we'd be foolish not to plan for it.
Meanwhile, the cooler weather, plus some rain, has been a relief. We've even had a few fires in the woodstove. Lovely. We may not have strong leaf colors this year -- it's been too dry. But there's still enough gold and red to appreciate.
The first snow is starting to decorate the moutains -- but not our Blancas, thankfully. The last week of the month has been potato harvest here in the Valley. People are hustling to get the crop in before it rains/snows. Yes, we need the moisture. But finishing the harvest is more important.
Welcome, Fall. We've been waiting for you.
(This report is a bit early -- but I won't have time later in the week to work on it.)
*Allergies have blessedly eased up. They were extra-heavy this summer.
*Cut the Brick's hair. It was a lot faster than a 45 min. trip to Alamosa, and certainly cheaper. It turned out so well that I may continue it! (Now, if he could cut mine...)
*Mended a pillow. (I wonder why...) Stitched up a favorite tunic's frayed collar and cuffs.
*Found a free channel to watch the Michigan-Oklahoma football game. Go Blue!
*Propane for $1.59/gallon! At nearly 400 gallons to fill our tank, that savings really adds up. I told our friend, and his eyes widened -- he's been paying about $3.69/gal. (The best we could find in bulk before this was around $2.25/gal.)
*Continued to stack July's dwindling pile of firewood...and water the perennials planted this summer. (All but one have made it, so far.) I'll put straw or grass around them -- hopefully that will protect them until spring.
*Plants galore: lavender, Russian sage, a pepper plant and a blueberry bush -- all marked down from Walmart.
*Found Money: 55 cents in the Safeway change machine. Not comparable to the bonanza find -- but not bad, either. No more for the rest of the month. (And yes, I HAVE been checking.) At this rate, I'm not going to get anywhere near what Katy at The Nonconsumer Advocate puts in her Found Change Challenge jar.
Our bank does not have a coin-changing machine anymore. (Booooo.) And I refuse to pay a percentage to the Coinstar ripoffs. In fact, I find a good share of money in their return slots! So for the Durango gig, I gave $5 in change (half-dollars) to one customer, and left a goodly share of nickels and dimes ($4) as a tip in the hotel room. I also have $15 worth separated for the next trip to the Monte Vista thrift shop. (They offer a 4% discount for cash. And last trip, I had little to use. Double boooo.)
*Friends came over for a French-style dinner: French onion soup, chicken fricassee and mashed potatoes -- and cookies bought while we were in Paris. Other friends gave us a sloppy joes supper (she called it 'taverns!') and put us up for the night. Yet other friends invited us to supper, the sweethearts -- and friends from Castle Rock came down to visit during the monthly potluck at church. And our kids took us out for breakfast. (Thank you, Dears!)
*A handful of baby zucchini, beans, plus greens from the back deck bins. Planted rainbow chard -- and picked an awful lot of green tomatoes. (The first tomato didn't ripen until after the 20th. Sept. 20, that is. Go figure.)
*Got myself a birthday present:
*Bought some baby eels for the Seven Fish Dishes. They were delicious in Madrid. (The Brick gave me a birthday tote bag and fan he'd bought there on the sly.)
*Tried hard not to Look for Things on Ebay and Amazon...I did buy a collection of Helen Forrester books (about $3.99 each) and a Charles Dickens collection -- about the same.
*Made $5 on an online survey.
*Kept Freya, our granddog. Every day we do this, it saves our kids $75. The puppies love her.
*The Brick attended the COS (Convention of the States) national conference in Indiana. He paid the fee and covered his food -- but got a scholarship for hotel and travel costs. What a guy!
For my part, I stayed home, worked and took care of the dogs. No money spent, and I ate out of the freezer and pantry.
*The $3 roses lasted for weeks! I have never had this happen before. After they dried up, I made do with wild asters, as well as roses and zinnias blooming on the back deck plants.
*Umpteen appraisals worked on...including a teaching trip to Durango and the La Plata Quilt Guild to speak and do a few days of appraising.
*Little goodies snagged during my Durango trip: some fabric from the guild's giveaway pile. Four apples from the hotel breakfast buffet. (Future apple crisp!) A stop at the local Goodwill -- and a 3-cent-per-gallon discount when gassing up for the trip home. And meeting with some of the kindest guild members in the world.
*No trip to Palisade for peaches this year-- bought peaches on sale (if you want to call it that) at City Market and Safeway, instead.
*Sold some books. Always welcome.
*Thrift shop buys: a floaty white tunic ($5.99) and a frugal living book - $1.99 (Goodwill/Durango). Several Western history books and the final book in Winston Churchill's biography set, The Last Lion ($2 each), eight Calvin & Hobbes comic collections (a buck each!), some mugs (25 cents each), storage boxes ($1 each), a sturdy pair of Riders jeans that FIT ($7.99) -- and a big $2.50 pkg of cards (Nazarene/Monte Vista).
* A Free 40 oz. pkg of frozen burgers from Safeway, thanks to their rewards program.
*Grocery deals: Green peppers (78 cents ea) and Roma tomatoes - 97 cents/lb (Walmart). $1.47/lb chicken breast, $2.50/lb shredded cheese, 99 cents/lb chicken legs, 99 cents/lb strawberries, $2.50 gallons of milk, 49-cent pkgs of macaroni and cheese (Safeway). Boxes of a date/fruit confection (Pharooj) resembling Turkish delight, $1.59 each; 1 1/2 lbs bacon, $5.39 (SLV Amish Grocery).
Am I the only one who thinks pasta has skyrocketed in price?? I used to find it regularly at 79-99 cents a pound -- now the cheapest is $1.59/lb. Ironically, it's usually the imported stuff that's more inexpensive. Go figure.
I also stocked up on peach and pineapple nectars, as well as canned beef stew, for wintertime use. Amazon prices weren't earthshaking -- but not bad, either.
FRUGAL MISSES
*Total cost for the two emergency room visits in July: $125. The actual figure was thousands more, so I guess that's good.
*Some food went bad before we could completely eat it up: sausage, hotdogs, chicken & rice. Ah well.
*Several pee, poop and throwup incidents -- but from Aunt Freya as well, instead of the no-longer-puppies. Go figure. A dishcloth and my nightgown got chewed up, as well. (My guess: that was Tiger.)
*Dickens books - yep, 35 books for roughly $140. (Does it help that they were published in 1911?) I honestly didn't think I'd get them, at this bid.)
Here's last month's report -- and September 2024's offering. The year before that, too.
And on with life.
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