Baby Turtle

Tim found a baby painted turtle in the garden yesterday when mowing with the scythe-  he was pretty tiny!

 

With finals this week and all of the final projects that had to get done for school, I haven't been doing much knitting, but I did start a new sock during the royal wedding for myself-  made with my bamboo yarn, I wanted something I could wear in summer, and wouldn't get too hot-
Pattern is Roza's socks from Spring 07 Interweave Knits-  I made these before and really liked the pattern. but the socks wore out superfast-  either I wore them all the time, or...

But anyway-  here is the new sock

Rather than Study

So I mentioned 10 minutes ago that I have two midterms left and I would rather do anything than study, so I thought I would procrastinate a little longer and tell you about the new household experiment we have started this week.

Inspired by Stanley Family at http://www.savingsandstewardship.com/search/label/Eat%20from%20the%20Pantry, we too are going to Eat from the Pantry/freezer for March.

Our Pantry-  only a portion of the stockpile!

I have been stockpiling since last October and the grocery bills have been going down, but we still spend too much at the market and the pantry shelves keep getting fuller and fuller.

So, other than fresh produce and dairy (and coffee*) I can't purchase anything at the market.  I'm trying to keep the monthly grocery budget to $50.

So, I need to come up with some recipes that use what is in the pantry-  a new one to try this week
http://www.womansday.com/Recipes/Tuna-Stuffed-Shells
I'm not sure what the kids will think, but they can stand a shake-up once in a while and stop being so picky.  
 

*We are almost out of decent coffee and that is a staple I refuse to live without.  All I have left is one bag of the Eight o'Clock bogo coffee I got last Fall, Eight o'Clock is not my favorite, so I usually mix it with my favorite Green Mountain Dark Magic Espresso.  That makes it drinkable, and helps the Green Mountain go further.

I do have a couple of loopholes,
1.  if there are freebies this week at Price Chopper that I can get, so if it is free/nearly free I can purchase those.  What I will need in dairy/produce should help cover the 50% I need to get the double coupons, so we spend enough at the market.
2.  I can still get the papers as needed. 
3.  Over the weekend it was my Mom's birthday and she likes Carvel ice cream cake, so I went ahead a bought one of those ($18.99!!!!).  She is worth it and I can't make those chocolate crunchies like they can.  So that doesn't come out of my budget as it is a special occasion purchase and happened before I decided to do this anyway.

Midterms Already!

I can't believe we are at midterms already for this semester.  I guess that means the job hunts really needs to get kicked into gear!

Met with Deirdre yesterday and she gave me some great ideas, and she will be sending my resume onto some people she knows.  I would still like to work at the University again, but I'm not sure that opportunity will ever come through with the NYS budget situation.

Two exams down (both A's!!!!!!!   -  even in Intermediate Acct II!!!!!!!) and two to go this week.  And this proctoring has got to stop, what a waste of time watching undergrads taking exams in huge rooms-  I understand the need for proctors but why do they need so many of us?  3 people to watch 30 kids, really?

went to the market

I went back to Price Chopper yesterday and scored a few things with double coupons

Some types of Ronzoni Pasta was a on sale for $1 a box, I have six coupons for $1 off of 2 boxes so when the coupon doubled they were all free.  I scored 12 free boxes of pasta.  (it will last a long time, we don't eat pasta more than once a week)


The large bottles of Gain were on sale for $2 a bottle, I had 2 $1 off coupons from a P&G mailer, so they were both free. 
Betty Crocker Potatoes (in the box) were also free after the sale and doubled coupons, so I got 4 boxes of those (they also will last  forever, we rarely eat them)

I got a 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk for $.25 with a sale and double coupon.  There was more, but I can't remember them all without my receipt in front of me.


I ordered a few coupons from the coupon clipping people, and will go back on Friday to score some more freebies!  For the things that remain after a few months, I will donate to the food pantry in town, so I can make more room in the pantry and keep my stockpile fresh. 

Cloissone Jacket

Last summer (Spring?)I started working on the Cloisonne Jacket from the Fall 2010 Interweave Knits.  It is a really pretty lace edge, colorwork cardigan. 

I hate doing colorwork flat and I can't figure out why Interweave thinks that its readers can't do steeking.  Why on earth would anyone what to do colorwork while purling?  It doesn't make any sense to me.  Learning how to steek is far easier than trying to handle 20 odd rows of back and forth colorwork while purling. 

So anyway, here is how I did it
 I knit the bottom lace like normal, then added six stitches to the count and joined the sweater in the round

From the six additional stitches, I made 1 purl, four knits 1 purl.  I added the purl stitches to have a nice turning round once the steek was cut and turned back.  I plan on cutting up the center of the knit stitches

when knitting in the round, just add these in, carrying the floats along like normal.

But, I still have work to do on this, I got through all of the interesting parts of the colorwork and I stopped at the armholes.  But February break is next week, who knows I may get inspired and pick it up again. 

Currently, I am working on a mobieus scarf for my Aunt's 75th birthday party on Saturday.  I need to accomplish six inches of knitting a night to get it done in time.  As it is knit on size 11 needles, this shouldn't be a challenge, but oddly when I have a deadline, it always is a challenge. 



Will I be jinxing myself if I say school seems easier this semester? 

I love to save $$

Last October I read a book called "Be Centsable" by Chrissy Pate and Kristin McKee.  I was really surprised how much money they saved by using coupons.  So, I got interested and started looking online and reading other peoples blogs and found out that you can use coupons to get stuff for free!
So, today was grocery day, and since learning how to use coupons, it has become a game and not so much of a chore.  I go to the Bennington, VT Price Chopper because they have double coupons, and it is the only store I know of that does in the Capital Region.  Before coupons and Advantage savings, I spent 364.09, but I only paid 245.86.  A good part of that was Advantage savings, but over $50 was in coupons.  Here's what I did really well on


Colgate Wisp-  I have no idea why anyone needs these, but they were on sale for $1.50, I had a $.75 coupon that doubled for $1.50 so they were free.  I assume the kids will have fun with them.

Friskies Cat treats-  Again, I don't buy too many treats for the cats, I mean Chubbs is gigantic, he doesn't need too many treats.  These were $1.69 a package and I had a $1.00 off one coupon so once it doubled  these were also free.

Hood Sour Cream 16 oz.  This was on sale for 1.89 each and again I had a $1.00 off coupon that doubled  to make them free!

Heluva Good Dip was on sale for $2, and I had a $1 off of 2, so when it doubled. they were only $.50 each. 

There were more-  but the best deal was Unilever products were buy $30 worth of products (before coupons) and you got a coupon for your next visit for $10.  There were tons of Unilever product coupons last Sunday in the paper, and Price Chopper had a ton of these products on sale, so I was easily able to get my $10 coupon. 

So, we have lots of food for our first annual anti-SuperBowl Party-  I'm so excited!


It was a good day.  I then came home and cleaned the house.  We are all ready for the weekend.

Snow Day

Jake doing his impression of a teddy bear

I can't believe I went through the whole Christmas vacation and never posted anything. Returning to grad school has been overwhelming. But, I'm happy to say I passed all of my courses and have started the Spring semester.

I'm back working at Pineridge X-Country ski area a few days a week. It is fun to go back to something you did ages ago and see changes (and what hasn't changed!) The conditions this year have been the best in the past 10-15 years! And still we get people who complain. It's groomed too much, groomed too little, too cold, too warm. While Tim and I always talk about owning another business, I'm not sure I can handle the whiners.

So, we got about a foot of snow between yesterday and today, and the University canceled classes, so I get an unexpected day off. No time for knitting however, homework and baking are the tasks today.

I remember my mom always liked to bake her Portuguese potato bread when we had snow, and I have tended to keep up that tradition, snow days usually turn into baking days. So, today I made pain au chocolat from the King Arthur Flour catalog Winter 2011. I made a few modifications to fit my budget and pantry:
-We were nearly out of white flour, so I used all White Wheat flour (King Arthur Brand)
-I used Idahoan Yukon gold instant potatoes I got free with a coupon stack ages ago. We never eat instant potatoes, but it was free, and they never go bad, so I got them anyway. They are a great addition to bread recipes.
- we didn't have any grapeseed flour, so I left that out.
I also made the dough in the bread maker- (I really love that thing $5 at a yard sale!) almost thru through the first rising, then I took it out and put the dough on the woodstove to rise further. One thing I noticed, this dough doesn't rise a lot, but it should be puffy. I then followed the followed the directions in the recipe from #4 on

- I couldn't afford the chocolate sticks from King Arthur, so I warmed up some Nutella, spread it on the dough and added some semisweet chocolate chips (10-12 chips) to each roll.

They came out great and are a nice snack with a mug of hot Ovaltine! Mmmmm!


Knitting

Not a whole lot of knitting going on- I started a new sweater and got bored with it. The Cloisonne I started in the Fall needs some work, so that is on hold as well. Lately I am doing some plain toe up socks using stash yarn I got in a swap ages ago. It seems like all of my socks are wearing out at the same time. I am doing both socks at the same time and am ready to do the leg portion, I just need a find an interesting pattern to use to get this project done.



But I did make Tim a new hat to his specifications-  he wanted a chullo type hat with no ties and with pine trees on it.  I used yarn from Stonehedge Fiber Mill, Shepard's Wool.  This is seriously nice and soft and it was great to work with.  We bought our mill equipment from Stonehedge years ago, so I have a soft spot for their mill. 

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