It’s been six weeks since our last update and I should have completed Joyce’s Rose but I didn’t even pick it up until two days ago. I just didn’t feel like stitching. We have had a rough few weeks with Bob and Joyce and sickness for my hubby. But we carry on, right? How was everyone’s holidays?
Here is where I left off last update:
And here is where I am now.
This bud is now done.
This is the last photo of when I worked on the buds on the left. And below is where I am now on them.
Here is a photo of the whole project now.
We are in the middle of a snowstorm right now, so I will keep working on this throughout the rest of the day today.
Thank you, Avis for all you do for our group! Please visit the other stitchers in our group by clicking the links below. They are working on some lovely projects!
Week 1 we did pretty good in the meal dept. We only went out once and that was on Friday night because I am not cooking on a Fridays after a long work week. Period.
Finger food plate for lunches
Salmon this past Saturday night
For week 2 our groceries cost us $83.37 and I did my entire shop at Caledonia Marketplace.
On the menu this week is homemade Italian wedding soup, spaghetti and meatballs, fried chicken cutlets, grilled thick porkchops, and beef stew. I am going to wing it otherwise.
Out of everything I bought this week, (other than the meats) the apples and milk were the most expensive items.
I need to share the recipe I found for Italian wedding soup. It is amazing!
It’s from Cooking Classy and although a bit labor intensive because of the tiny meatball making and the finely chopped carrots, celery, onions and garlic, it’s totally worth it. One change I made was instead of using chicken broth, I used 5 chicken bouillon and 64 ounces of water. I can see making big batches of this soup and freezing it. Hope you give it a try!
Total spent on groceries so far in 2024 – $170.48
What are you all cooking up lately? Until next week! – MM
Home repairs professionally done – New kitchen countertops, rip out over-the-oven microwave and replace with new exhaust hood, trim all fruit trees and cut down all sumac in the hedgerow. Nothing yet on this goal but I have an estimate coming for the new counters. Yay!
Home projects done by us – Paint all trim in kitchen, re-paint upper kitchen cabinets, paint ceiling and walls in hallway, finish painting and put up picket pallet fencing, finish painting master bedroom and hang mantle over bed, front porch stained or painted, new brick patio in the backyard. Nothing yet!
Sewing projects – Finish Joyce’s Rose, New curtains for kitchen window, new seat cover for kitchen chair, new curtain over cat’s window seat, Christmas tree skirt, finish winter and summer season x-stitch projects. I am so bad, I haven’t felt like doing anything with my stitching lately
Read 30 books(It’s my goal every year) I finished “Buttercups in the Basement” by Jane Harvey. I have really enjoyed this series and Ms. Harvey’s writing style.
Take at least 2 mini vacations and see my step-daughter’s new house in NC. This is a goal for warmer months.
Garden goals – raise 500 lbs of produce, new kitchen garden in front and new fruit garden in back, compost all dug and reset, raised bed garden re-imagined. I need to start planning.
Exercise somehow every single day concentrating most on core and pelvic floor and mobility. I exercised 3 days this week and boy did I forget how winded I get with cardio!
Get all of my Etsy listings listed by March 31st so I can enjoy my garden in the Spring and summer months. This is what I worked on the most this week. I got 7 listings up. That may not sound like a lot but they were massive listings. Five large sets of dishes and 2 small listings. The sets take me a long time because I have to inventory and inspect all of the pieces, wash and photograph them, and then measure them and list them. The listings take a while to write because with these big sets, each variation within the listing has a different size, price and quantity. Pretty mind exhausting if I am being honest.
Explore the Western NY Antique Trail (Yes, there is such a thing). Hopefully in the next few weeks we can explore this trail.
Explore at least 3 local walking/biking trails. Warm weather for this goal.
Sell 300 listings on Etsy this year. Sold 5 last week, only 295 more to go!
Church goals – Six thrift sales this year, Work on baptism records and historical info, work on getting our church info out there for weddings, one historical themed event/fundraiser this year. Our next thrift sale is Feb 10th!
Pay off one of the two credit cards. Check out my Not Impressed with our Debt post later this week.
That’s it this time! How are you doing with your goals? – MM
Here we are again ushering in another New Year! I didn’t do much with my goals last year. I had a feeling it would be a tough year and it was. I am hopeful for a better year this year but I already said to my husband he better buckle up because 2024 is going to be a roller coaster with his parents. Both of my in-laws have dementia and have had it for about five years.
I do have quite a few goals I want to get accomplished this year, God willing. Below is the list.
Home repairs professionally done – New kitchen countertops, rip out over-the-oven microwave and replace with new exhaust hood, trim all fruit trees and cut down all sumac in the hedgerow.
Home projects done by us – Paint all trim in kitchen, re-paint upper kitchen cabinets, paint ceiling and walls in hallway, finish painting and put up picket pallet fencing, finish painting master bedroom and hang mantle over bed, front porch stained or painted, new brick patio in the backyard.
Sewing projects – Finish Joyce’s Rose, New curtains for kitchen window, new seat cover for kitchen chair, new curtain over cat’s window seat, Christmas tree skirt, finish winter and summer season x-stitch projects.
Read 30 books(It’s my goal every year)
Take at least 2 mini vacations and see my step-daughter’s new house in NC
Garden goals – raise 500 lbs of produce, new kitchen garden in front and new fruit garden in back, compost all dug and reset, raised bed garden re-imagined.
Exercise somehow every single day concentrating most on core and pelvic floor and mobility.
Get all of my Etsy listings listed by March 31st so I can enjoy my garden in the Spring and summer months.
Explore the Western NY Antique Trail (Yes, there is such a thing).
Explore at least 3 local walking/biking trails
Sell 300 listings on Etsy this year
Church goals – Six thrift sales this year, Work on baptism records and historical info, work on getting our church info out there for weddings, one historical themed event/fundraiser this year.
Pay off one of the two credit cards.
I know it’s a lot and yes it may not all get done but we all have to set goals right? I’ll update on Sundays what I have accomplished each week.
New Kitchen garden getting prepared for spring
Have you set any goals for the new year? I have read a few other bloggers’ goals and I even stole one of them! Stay tuned – MM
Happy New Year! I am committed to shopping and planning mindfully again in 2024. I kind of lost steam about halfway through 2023 when I thought I was missing out on buying more fun things to cook with. Turns out I can still get those fun things, I just need to plan better for them.
This year long grocery shopping and meal planning blog series will focus on three themes. One is how much is spent on groceries, the goal being $75 a week, give or take. Food waste is an issue in every home so that is a second theme I will keep working on this year and third will be meal planning and prep. I constantly stress myself out and succumb to eating out because I am not planning and prepping well enough.
This week I spent $87.11 on groceries and I went to Wegmans for all of it. This is a huge splurge for us but since I already have plenty of meats in the freezer, I shopped for fun ingredients to stock up my pantry.
Oh, and hey, just a side note a mini 4th area I want to explore this year is shopping at more ethnic mom and pop stores in the city. We are 30 minutes from downtown Rochester, NY and my Italian and Irish heritages can be better served at Rubino’s, and the like, which I haven’t been to in years.
Ok, back to my shopping today. Some of the fun ingredients I needed to stock up my pantry were balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I bought 2 boxes of Cracklin’ Oat Bran at $5.19 a box. I bought two because you can’t find it in any stores anymore and Doug will eat an entire box himself, so one for him and one for me. I also bought a 2lb bag of fresh green beans at $5.99, that’s a lot of beans! Blueberries and raspberries were a splurge at $4.99 and $4.49 respectively.
Meals planned this week are pan fried pork chops with fresh mushroom gravy, green beans and mashed potatoes, salmon with sweet potatoes, rice and broccoli, Baked stuffed chicken with brussels, tacos, and soup and salad one night and the rest will be leftovers.
So here we go into 2024 with all the hopes of a grateful and humble year.
I can’t believe the last time I wrote a post for this series it was January. An entire year has gone by and we are more in credit card debt than we ever have been before. It is frustrating beyond words.
You have no idea how many times I wanted to post “Hey, I give up!” I can’t control the circumstances or people around me. It just makes me want to scream. I feel like such a failure. But we can’t stop living life, right?
Those are all things I think about on almost a weekly basis. Although the credit card soared again I do feel good about the fact that we paid for 5 brand new windows for our home and a new kitchen floor in cash. That’s something right?
So here is the current credit card balance on the card I was working on at the beginning of the year.
$9,971.14
It was down to $2900 so we have added over $7,000 in debt to it this year.
Last month I called my credit card company and asked if they had any promotions for lowering the interest rate and they said yes! Instead of 26% they lowered the interest rate on my credit card to 15.99% for 6 months. That’s huge! Don’t be afraid to call your credit card company and ask if they can work with you on interest rates. Many times they can and will work with you.
January is always property tax bill month so we have that to pay but I should still be able to pay down another $700 on the next credit card cycle.
I am sorry I just gave up this year. So many things have happened that have taken my spirit away. As a team my husband and I have once again evaluated where our energies should lie and are making the necessary changes.
I’ll keep you updated even if it feels mortifying sometimes. We are all struggling with debt and most definitely need to talk about it.
I made huge progress the last three weeks and I am very excited to show you what I got accomplished!
Here is where I left off last update:
And here is where I am now.
Most of my stitches were concentrated on the top bud but I also finished the top two leaves and worked some on the center.
That’s it for now. Because of the Christmas eve falls on our next three week update we have decided to give ourselves a break and push the next update out until January 14th. That will give us six weeks to work on our projects and I hope to have a happy dance for that posting!
Thank you Avis for all you do for our group and welcome back Cindy!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. See you January 14th.
Still not a lot stitched in the last three weeks, but here’s my progress
Here is where I left off last update:
And here is where I am now.
Most of my stitches were concentrated on the top two leaves but there is close to 15 different colors in those small leaves which makes progress painfully slow.
That’s all I’ve got this time.
This SAL (stitch-a-long) is managed by Avis, and we really appreciate her updates and organization of our group.
Now, I am off to visit the other stitchers in this group to see the delightful projects they are working on. I am sure they got a lot more stitched than I did! See you again in three weeks!
I have been bad at stitching the last three weeks. There was just so much going on that I left it to the last few days to stitch. I did get 200 stitches in, though, so here is how Joyce’s Rose is looking as of today.
Here is where I left off last update:
And here is where I am now.
There, the last rose bud is starting to emerge, and now it is full steam to a finish. I want to get this project done by the end of the year!
Cindy, we will miss you!
This SAL (stitch-a-long) is managed by Avis, and we really appreciate her updates and organization of our group.
Now, I am off to visit the other stitchers in this group to see the delightful projects they are working on. See you again in three weeks!
Join Mavis Butterfield for vegetable gardening and canning tips, easy recipes, and saving money strategies (Rug hooking, too!). Simple living at its best!
The Professional Domestic 