1. In my grocery order this weekend, I purchased a chicken to stew, forgetting that we were going to be gone for a few days of the week. I didn't want to leave it in uncooked in the fridge till we got back, so Sunday night I put it in the slow cooker at midnight, and Monday morning I boned it all, put half in a Ziplock bag and placed in the freezer for later. With the other half I made a batch of Chicken Salad to take when we visited mom-in-law. She doesn't always like to eat in the dining room at the assisted living facility, so I'm packing a picnic that we can all share if she would like it. I'm so glad that hotel rooms have refrigerators. :)
2. I remembered to pay bills on the due date before heading out of town. I would have been kicking myself during the entire trip if I hadn't thought of it till after we were on the road.
3. I took library books on the trip. Only got about 1/3 read of one. That was about the only frugal part of the trip.
4. Mom-in-law loves photographs and wanted more hung on the back of her assisted-living apartment door. She has each of her five children's graduation photos hung near the door, and she wanted 8x10 photos of them as young children hung on the door. The photos have been in an old photo album for ages...the kind with sticky pages. It was quite the job to remove the delicate 60 to 70 year old photos from those sticky pages (more on that below). Once I determined exactly what she wanted and what was needed, I made a trip to Office Max to purchase flat acrylic 8.5"x11" frames for the photos, and they came with strong adhesive-backed magnets. I also purchased dental floss.
With supplies in hand, I placed the open photo album on a table top and set to work on the first photo. I removed the plastic page cover, and I used a long length of dental floss and worked it under one edge of photo, then with Carey holding the page firmly in place, I pulled the floss side to side and down under each photo until I was able to get them released from the sticky page. Deep breaths of relief were taken when all of the photos were able to be freed without damage to the images. Two of the photos did suffer very small tears at their margins when trying to work the first edge loose to get the floss under.
This was not my favorite wish to grant...I'm not a big fan of photos lining every blank bit of wall (and definitely not door) space...but she does, so I was happy to make her happy. The welts on hands from pulling that dental floss faded quickly. And we tested banging door closed and open repeatedly to make sure that the frames wouldn't be going anywhere. None of this project was very frugal (other than saving photos from damage with the floss trick), but it was priceless to m-i-l, so worth it.
5. On this visit to see Mom, Carey and his sister discussed taking a road trip of their own in late summer as they are both baseball fans and would enjoy travelling to see some together. I'm cool with that, but not sure we can accomplish it financially considering he and I have a trip planned in May which will mean outfitting car with new tires (estimated $1,000) before the trip, and lots of hotel and meal expenses. On the six-hour trip home, I suggested cancelling our trip in May, and flying alone to visit a friend for a few days instead. (Visit with that friend was intended to be included in the vacation.) Also suggested the possibility of he and sis renting a car to make their road trip, so we can forestall the need for tires for awhile, as they aren't really necessary when we are only driving locally and not on long out-of-state trips. We will have to discuss further, and do more research on costs, but it's on the table.
On the menu this week:
Saturday: Sunday supper at Kasey's (on Saturday)
**Sunday: Spaghetti Squash with Roasted Vegetable Sauce
Monday: Subscription meal from freezer that needed using
Tuesday: road trip meal out
Wednesday: road trip meal out
Thursday: road trip meal out
Friday: Chili and Tamales
**designates meatless meal
A road trip is never an inexpensive venture. We've always been reimbursed by the Navy for our cross country moves but this last one, when Vic was able to come to Washington to work, was on our dime and that was a lot of dimes!
ReplyDeleteThat is very true!
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