Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: March 31 ~ April 6, 2019

[ReneeT]

Good Morning, All!

It's another work weekend and I woke up way early for some reason - I'm gonna take advantage of the time to have an extra cup of coffee and enjoy one (or two) of the cranberry orange muffins Hubs baked yesterday afternoon before I head in to work!

I thought I was done stock up shopping last week after I picked up a total of 10 bottles of ketchup, 40 cans of tomatoes, and 5 free cases of bottled water from the grocery store deal; 8 bottles of body wash from the CVS deal; and 10 - 1 pound rolls each of turkey sausage and ground turkey from the local store...... then co-worker Buddy called and asked if I wanted to go to Menard's I managed to stock up on a few more household rebate bargains while I was there - tp, paper towels, and dishwasher tabs for daughter; scrubbies, clothespins, and a flexible downspout thingy that will make it easier to direct rain water into the stock tank for myself.

Somehow a few 6 packs of sweet William followed me home as well; they will brighten things up when I plant them in the old white enamel dishpan and put it out on the porch table. I'll have to ask Hubby to check for potting soil in the shed while I'm at work today; if I don't have any on hand, I will stop and pick some up on my way home from work tonight - besides planting the sweet William, I need to take some cuttings of house plants and divide my aloe - both pots have gone crazy over the winter. My aloe came from my Aunt; I may pot up a bunch of the babies and see if the cousins want them when they come out for Easter dinner.

Speaking of flowers, the daffodil buds are about to break open - they didn't seem to mind the skiff of snow we got last evening. Iris are greening up, as are the daylillies; and the turkeys and owls are calling like mad out in the woods - maybe it really is spring

And if spring is really on the way, I'm going to have to start looking around for a bigger bicycle for older grandson - poor younger grandson will get big brother's hand-me-down bike again this year. I noticed quite a few bikes in the rack outside the Habitat for Humanity store, so may take the truck when I go to the pool on Tuesday and see what they have - replacing a seat or a chain is cheaper than buying a new bike as quick as the boys outgrow them. It's funny - I remember having a (big) hand-me-down tricycle and then a full size bike (also hand-me-down) but not all these in between sizes that the boys seem to have.

The two grocery store ads for this week that I've gotten so far are meh... Or, at least they are unless I discover more holes in the pantry.... CVS and Walgreen's have Easter stuff on sale; I will probably pick up a few things for the boy's Easter baskets. I'm still watching for a good sale for soda pop to pick up a few 12 pks for the family Easter dinner - the last few pop 'sales' I've noted in the ads have been laughable.

Well, my alarm is going off; guess it's time to get up and get moving - at least as far as to the coffee pot for my second cup

Take care all; have a safe and happy week!

 

[Deena in GA]

Hope work goes well for you, Renee!

Yesterday was gorgeous here, absolutely gorgeous! We worked out in the yard and garden all day doing things that we've put off all winter or that came down in the recent storms.

The grocery ads here are not good either, so we don't need to get anything, especially after last week's stock run.

Btw, I'm curious if Goodwill and other thrift stores in y'all's areas have gone up in price. Ours have become absolutely ridiculous in their pricing. I can buy brand new yarn from regular stores for cheaper than they are pricing it, most other things too. The only things that I haven't seen go up dramatically in pricing, so far at least, is books.

 

[Old Gray Mare]

I finally got most of the fruit trees pruned and it's time to start the starts for the garden and plant the onions and garlic. I picked up a few heads of organic garlic at the supermarket for that purpose.

 

[Journey]

Deena, I haven’t set foot in our local Habitat thrift store since an employee made a smart aleck remark to my question about the price of some reusable shopping bags that weren’t marked. Their clothes were overpriced at that time anyway but maybe they got away with it because they’re the only thrift store in town. I volunteered there for one afternoon and every employee I was introduced to wanted to know if I was there for community service!

 

[Marseydoats]

Our Goodwill is way overpriced and I don't go there anymore. You used to be able to get paperbacks for 10 or 15 cents and hardback books for 50 - 75 cents. They raised the paperbacks to a dollar each and the hardbacks are $2.50. I buy a lot of used books, but not from them anymore. There is a local thrift store that is the society women's "baby" and they have tons of stuff and decent prices. Constant turn over with merchandise. Just don't dare park in one of the spaces those women think are theirs. I thought a woman in a BMW was going to plow right over me when I was trying to unload all the stuff I gave them when I cleaned out my Dad's apt.
The Habitat store moved to another city, but all that ours had was furniture and building supplies.

 

[ReneeT]

There are no thrift stores in our little town. There are two thrift stores in daughter's town; one is a little bit higher end - which means they carry brands other than Wal-Mart I shop there for my tops, and occasionally for clothes for the boys but their kids stock is limited. They actually donate items to the other thrift store - it's not as clean and accepts out of date/style items and puts out things I'd have cut up into rags.

Pool town has a Habitat for Humanity - no clothing there; furniture (prices high), books (cheap), household stuff (reasonable), and lots of doors, windows, trim, etc.. The lady that runs it has a very unpleasant personality. That town also has a reasonably priced general items thrift store - it has lots of formal dresses, good coats and jeans, books, DVDs, kitchen stuff, and general run clothing. I hit it for backpacks to donate to work (lot of homeless peeps at my job), and clothing for the clothing pantry at work as well.

Work town has a Catholic Charities that has a no guns sign on the door - nuff said? The Goodwill gives me hives - once you get past the baby clothes into kid sizes, they aren't sorted by size, but by color - you have to search through long racks to find things in the size you need; annoying as all get out. The Salvation Army is okay for adult clothing, but most of their kids' stuff isn't anything I would put on my boys if I was planning to take 'em out in public - faded, snags, holes in the jeans, worn out, etc... They also have some higher end consignment clothing stores.

Today will be an on-the-run day - 2nd load of laundry is in; first is out on the line. I'll head out to the pool around 9:20, leave there 11ish to head to work work town where I will try to hit Rural King and Aldi before I head for the local community college where I have an appointment at 12:30. One of my co-worker's daughter's is in the cosmetology program and needs victims - errr...clients - so I will get a hair cut and deep conditioning on my hair; maybe a facial too. Since I qualify as a 'Senior', my shampoo, cut and style is $8, ditto the deep condition. Brow wax is $5, facial is $20. There is also a dental hygienist program at that college where people can get their teeth cleaned and other services; pretty good deal though of course it does take longer than at the dentist's office.

Once done at the college, I will be heading to daughter's to drop off her Aldi order, then home to do a little work in the yard before it gets too dark. I also want to bag up some of the boys' stuffed animals to donate, along with some of the toys that they've mostly outgrown.

Tomorrow is another day off and it's supposed to be pretty - Except for running a few loads of jars from the shed through the dishwasher, I plan on spending most of it outside cleaning up gardens and flower beds, etc...

Well, gotta head out in about fifteen minutes; better power slurp the rest of this cup of coffee and get everything I need to take with me gathered up!

Take care all; hope it's a beautiful Tuesday where y'all are!

 

[moldy]

I love hearing about y'alls' days, even if i rarely have time to respond on here.... maybe after May!! I have a day off which will be filled with finishing homework (12 cases to review, 1 case to finish writing, and a short paper to write). I finished my last thesis Sunday, and it is now in the instructor's inbox for her to grade. The whole MLA format (and others) is much different than what i did in high school. Thank goodness for easybib.com!

I need to soak DH's FRs - working the oilfield is dirty greasy work - and do more laundry. then off to the bank to get the accounts for our LLCs set up.

I just want you all to know, getting on this thread is like visiting friends that encourage me to keep on keepin' on. Thank you.

 

[SouthernBreeze]

I just want you all to know, getting on this thread is like visiting friends that encourage me to keep on keepin' on. Thank you.

I feel the same way. I may not have much to share, but I do enjoy coming to these threads. It not only relaxes me, but also encourages me.

As for thrift stores in my area, there is only a Salvation Army. I've gone in there a few times looking for "nic nac" stuff. Old ceramic tea pots, mostly. I use them to decorate my flower gardens with. Mostly, our store carries clothes, so I donate a lot to them.

 

[Deena in GA]

I love these threads too! Much more pleasant than reading everything that's wrong with the world. Of course, we need to know that, but I like coming here for a break from it.

Thanks for all the info on thrift stores! I posted about it on IG as well and it sounds like thrift stores everywhere have raised their prices quite a bit. What a bummer!

I've managed to hurt myself and am taking it easy trying to recover. Sounds crazy, but the only thing I can think of is that I must have overdone the raking and digging outside. Tremendous pain in my left arm and chest area for several days now. I've been living on Ibuprofen lately and that is SO not me. I hate taking medicine for anything! And it's the craziest small things that hurt - I can blow my nose, but not sneeze. I can drink from a straw, but not from a glass. Weird! Anyway, no more outside work for me for a while and very little indoor stuff too.

 

[Siskiyoumom]

Dear daughter and her fella came out for a few days and burned the slash piles from the winter storms with dear hubby. We weeded the garlic patch and asparagus. As well as the flower beds by the cabin. She and I went over the medicinal herb catalogue. The company use to be called Horizon Herbs out of Williams Oregon. They have a web page linked to their new company name. Anyhow, I had found an old copy of their catalogue and it is from 2002! I had been clearing out my boxes of teaching stuff and found it. I ended up with six pages of paper to take to the recycling center, shredded a lot of stuff and I can actually see my desk top. I plan on tackling the she shed store room to continue getting rid of teaching stuff and get to my canning jars. Since I retired last June I have been whiddleing away and getting rid of stuff and being pretty vicious with old clothes, books and stuff I don’t use or plan to use. Using up our freezer food, cleaninging cupboards and updating our inventories.

 

[ivantherussian03]

Goodwill is not charity in truest sense. They have a CEO that gets compensation based on profits. I avoid it. It has always been 1st thrift store to raise prices.

 

[ivantherussian03]

Winter has finally ended for most part. Tough winter, it took out the cell tower, Internet , took out my snow go, my iPhone.

Things are returning to normal, but it is frustrating and not slow. Parts orders are always two weeks out. Cell service was routed by satillite for weeks and service was so bad ....it was awe full, dropped calls every single call. Having no home internet made everything more difficult.


All winter I made money finding antlers sheds. When snow melted I ramped up search. I found 4 sled loads, so far. I mailed my fur into the fur buyers, and got the payment. Terrible fur prices. I kept some skins to tan and sell, and make into garments.

I am focused on repairing my machines. Polaris dealer wanted 1000 plus dollars for parts, which seemed high.i made phone calls and got them for 340 landed. Hopefully I can take care machine this weekend, replace two pistons, restart engine. Then do regular maintenance and put away. 4 wheeler needs oil change and starter rebuilt. Then, I need to rebuild satillite dish.

I broke down my winter camp, preparing for next year.

I need to be logging, and getting for gathering birch bark for work, making baskets.

 

[ReneeT]

That does sound like a rough winter, Ivan! Thanks so much for giving us a glimpse into your lifestyle; I do hope that you keep a journal of your day's work - it will be so interesting for your little one and down the line.

Today is pool and grandson day - dense fog at the moment but the sun did just break through for a second, so once the boys and I get home it will be time to do some outside work. I've got seeds to start this weekend (moon in Taurus, good for hardiness), houseplants to divide/take cuttings from (aloe, spider plant, wandering jew (sorry, don't know other name for it), African violets, and Mother-in-law's tongue), plus cuttings to take as well. I plan to drag all the houseplants out to the porch - it's supposed to rain starting tonight and into tomorrow, but the predicted low is in the 50's so it won't hurt 'em a bit to stay out there for a few days. I'll give the boys the chores of throwing sticks into the fire pit - Papaw can start the fire once he gets home from his IDPA match - and if the coals are sufficient, we will make hobo packets for supper.

The boys will head home reasonably early tomorrow - I may take them to the pool for an before I take them home; and I will come back home to play catch up on housework. Only 4 more work days - Mon/Tue, Sat/Sun - before I am off on vacation.... SO looking forward to that.... though the first week will be a bear!

Take care all; wishing you a safe and joyful weekend!

 

[SouthernBreeze]

That does sound like a rough winter, Ivan! Thanks so much for giving us a glimpse into your lifestyle; I do hope that you keep a journal of your day's work - it will be so interesting for your little one and down the line.

Today is pool and grandson day - dense fog at the moment but the sun did just break through for a second, so once the boys and I get home it will be time to do some outside work. I've got seeds to start this weekend (moon in Taurus, good for hardiness), houseplants to divide/take cuttings from (aloe, spider plant, wandering jew (sorry, don't know other name for it), African violets, and Mother-in-law's tongue), plus cuttings to take as well. I plan to drag all the houseplants out to the porch - it's supposed to rain starting tonight and into tomorrow, but the predicted low is in the 50's so it won't hurt 'em a bit to stay out there for a few days. I'll give the boys the chores of throwing sticks into the fire pit - Papaw can start the fire once he gets home from his IDPA match - and if the coals are sufficient, we will make hobo packets for supper.

The boys will head home reasonably early tomorrow - I may take them to the pool for an before I take them home; and I will come back home to play catch up on housework. Only 4 more work days - Mon/Tue, Sat/Sun - before I am off on vacation.... SO looking forward to that.... though the first week will be a bear!

Take care all; wishing you a safe and joyful weekend!

I've been wanting to take all of my house plants out to the front porch, too. I'm still concerned about having a late freeze, though. It's been known to happen here. Temps are finally into the 80's, but will it last? I always buy hanging pots of ferns for my porch and back deck each year, and I don't want to buy them too early, either. I've done it before, and lost all of them to a late freeze. If no freeze by the middle of April, I think I'll be safe.