3. Gardening: I started the first seeds of the year!! On Saturday I planted chives, tomatoes and pepper seeds.
4. Crafts: I needed a jar for toothpicks, so I used an old glass coconut oil jar from my stash of cleaned, reusable jars. I was proud of myself for finding a suitable container, but the lid was an ugly gold color. I used some chalk board paint (that we already had) to paint the lid. After the paint dried, I used a chalk marker to write on the lid. I really liked the final result:
I also finished painting four new peg dolls for Princess. I started these before Thanksgiving (hoping to use them for decorations), but here we are, four months later. Oh well; I guess better late than never.
5. Time management: I unsubscribed to several blogs. I found myself spending hours of mental energy coming up with counterpoints and arguments to political posts (thinly veiled as "personal finance"). Of course, I never actually comment my carefully thought-out replies, which is why reading those blogs is a complete waste of time and energy.
Many personal finance blogs are written by women who work outside the home. There's nothing wrong with that, but a career leaves little time for the kind of frugality that I'm interested in. Homemaking blogs provide more usable content to me, plus almost none of them have a "housewives are victims" mentality, which is something I can't stand. I am going to be careful in the future to avoid time-sucking blogs and only follow sites that provide usable content.
6. Shed makeover: Hubs and I refurbished my old goat shed for resale. The shed itself was free- in fact, Hubs got paid $250.00 to move it from the previous owner's place! He dug a box of leftover vinyl out of our backyard*, so that was free as well. We ended up putting new doors on ($20.00-$30.00) and I painted the doors with leftover paint. It was a long day, but I think the finished product was worth it:
Til next time,
-Bethany
*Are we country people the only ones who have random junk in the backyard??