Frugal Finds

Shopping has gone quite well the last few days! First I went to Fiesta Foods on Friday. I bought the mangos, milk on coupon, radishes and green onions, 2 whole chickens (Northwest grown), and the avocados. The avocados turned out to be quite small, even more so than I assumed they would be. The good news, I wasn't disappointed by the amount of flesh inside. The pits were also proportionately small so they were still a good deal.

We ate Summer Salad that night, and it was excellent!

What I was surprised to find was: Green Peppers 3 for $1, and they were nice and big and fresh! The bottom round beef for $1.78 a pound was "whole" which I thought meant about $10 worth. Nope "whole" as in $20 + for the smallest roast. I just wasn't prepared for that, so I bought 2 packages of beef shank at $1.69 a pound. They are great for soup, and the trick is to cook them first with broth for at least an hour, then freeze. That way when you need them for a meal, it is nice and tender after the second cooking.

While I was cooking, Kaia and Mo played outside and made a huge mess! I might post some photos later, but I wanted to get a photo of my bleeding heart while it is still small. Yes, that's right, in this photo it is still SMALL! For reference, Kaia is 44 and a half inches tall (that's 3 and a half feet)! By her birthday at the end of June, this bleeding heart will be sprawled out across the sidewalk and driveway. What's amazing is it is in a spot where there is no water from the sprinkler system. It's dry powdery fill dirt that they put up against the house after it was built, but every year it comes back!

Last night I had the best find of all! A gift from my dad. I can use his nice Cannon digital camera. I'm kind of a camera dummy, but it's a 10D. The little Sony DSC-P1 will still be good when I need to stash it in my purse, but the Cannon will allow me to really get the photos I want, and that is using the dummy setting (aka automatic). So for all of you that read regularly, be prepared for my photos to improve vastly! I've already taken a great pic of Dana with Esmerelda, but I'll share that later.

Today after church, the kids and I stopped by Rosauer's because we are nearly out of cheese. While there I found non-fat milk on closeout for... 99 cents a gallon! I bought 4 of them. I also found chicken hindquarters for 79 cents a pound on closeout (nice when I don't want to cook a whole chicken) and frozen veggies for $1 a bag. When we got home I poured off a bit of each gallon of milk, added a pinch of salt, and filled the freezer! Mo's napping, Kaia wants to paint, and laundry is calling my name. If my dad and Dana are still on their ride when Mo wakes up, my mom is going to come over and we'll all head over to the nursery to buy some vegetable plants.