Staying On Track

Girlie fabric for Birthday place mats
Tyler's Birthday place mats

How cute it this, see the sticks with the roasted marshmallows!

I was able to get to the fabric store to pick up some coordinating fabric to go with what I already had on hand for Birthday place mats Wednesday, I scored the deal for under $20.00. I had Kara along for the adventure so I forgot to hang on to the receipt. I have the little girls place mats finished and Tyler's well on the way to completion, another hour or two should do the trick but I have Kara for the day so it may have to wait until tonight.

I have been wrestling with the frugal devil this week. One of the hardest parts of this living more frugal deal is staying on track, month after month, week after week, day after day. This week has been on of those weeks, you know where if it can go wrong it does, unexpected problems seem to keep popping up. It can be very easy on weeks like this to say to heck with the spending plan, I'm gonna clean my chunky butt up and head outta here for some fun, the spending plan.... I'm over it. But then the guilt sets in, thankfully before I head out the door. What if this paycheck turns out to be the last one, how will I feel after my spending temper tantrum is over? I start questioning myself, where are you headed with your pocket full of cash? The fabric store of course and maybe some baby stores. If I can hold off one more day the chain fabric store has a 50% off Saturday one day only batting and thread sale, OK, OK I will wait. Why not go on an adventure to the fabric outlet and check out the $3.99 a yard fabric instead of the $11.99 they have at the cute store. I need 6 1/2 yards of fabric for a rug class I am taking next week, do I really want to spend $78.00 on fabric for a rug. That's not figuring in the $40.00 I already paid for the class. I don't need to be walking around on a $108.00 throw rug, get a grip!! As far as clothes for the babies, no way no how the girls have more things than 10 kids need, besides the fact I am taking a reversible dress class next month for them. The mood is passing for now but I still feel the need to do something totally irresponsible and exciting.

After dinner Rambo man started the weed eating while I did some gathering in the garden, we pulled in more zucchini of course, a few more jalapeno peppers and a dozen cucumbers. In another day or 2 we will be getting enough cucumbers to finally get busy on pickles. We are totally out of bread and butters. I can feel the excitement build, I could even run over to the local farm and pick up enough to do a batch tomorrow, humm that might take care of my itch to spend and it wouldn't cost much.

After we finished our work Rambo man suggested a ice cream trip, hey I'm all in. Then again I started thinking of our last ice cream run that cost over $11.00, he had a banana split I had a single dip, how about we just go to the store and buy our own ice cream and all the fixins. I'm coming back to my senses now, ice cream is $6.99 a 1/2 gallon...grrr thankfully they had a BOGO free sale, we bought wet nuts, pineapple topping, chocolate syrup, banana's and hot dog buns for supper tonight. We already have strawberry topping (canned strawberry preserves), maraschino cherries (canned sweet cherries) and whip cream. Total cost $23.00, this should last us many nights of an ice cream fix but still. I started thinking, wonder what it would take to can some pineapple preserves, what about wet nuts, how do you make chocolate syrup would dehydrated banana's work the same if I rehydrated them? Rambo man must have been on the same wave link, he was playing around on the PC when he yells in to me "we need to get a new ice cream maker". He now has a new research project, find the best American made reliable ice cream maker at a good price, none of that disposable crap. So I am feeling the ugly mood passing, the spending plan might just make it for another week. I don't have time to shop I need to find some recipe's for canning pineapple, walnuts and chocolate syrup.