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Small Projects: Recycling Wooden Crates
Right now is officially an In Between time. We’re still living in our current rental home. But we’re mostly packed and we’re anxious to be living in our new home. And it will be time to move soon enough, that’s true. Unfortunately, I have never been good at limbo. Waiting is not what brings about the best version of me. (Which is unfortunate because if it was, I’d be my most awesome self by 45. Because I’ve waited for a LOT of things in my life.) I like beginning the new thing but I don’t like hanging out in the old thing. Rip the band aid off, right? Don’t…
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Little Ways to Save Money for Trips
I have five kids living in my house. Three of them are teenagers. The food consumption alone in this house is outrageous. Our house is over one hundred years old. The heating and cooling bill take a gigantic chunk of the pie every month. And pie – well, if we want that, we can’t even share just one any longer – we need two! This month my car needed a new oil sensor – whatever that really means. Its gas guzzling capacity rivals that of my son’s cereal eating capacity. Yesterday that car died in the parking lot of Wal-Mart. It has since been revived but there are no guarantees…
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How To Afford Adventure (When You Don’t Have a Fat Income)
There was a time, a very tiny sliver of a window of time, after college and before the onslaught of adoptions and births, that I was living in a two income, two full time employed people, home. Two incomes is a pretty sweet deal. Especially when the two incomes were both fair and generous and the debt ratio was nearly nil and the tiny home we were renting was quite the deal and our expenses were oh-so-low. During that time we could easily afford to travel – and we sometimes did. That was the year we made it to my only trip leaving the country (just barely) – Cancun,…
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what to give a seven year old for her birthday
Knowing that our little friend Hanna was leaving the country soon made the choice of a birthday gift harder than usual. No one wants to receive a toy you can only play with for a month or two before you have to give it away or sell it at a yard sale. And there just isn’t room in the limited luggage for another stuffed animal or book or Lego set, no matter how cool it really is. So I asked Piper what she might like to give Hanna. And she suggested an experience. I loved that idea. Another night of fun, a fabulous little memory, to share with your friend…
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a little something something
Did a little front porch rearranging recently. (I like to shift what I already own so I trick myself into thinking I have something different than I had before.) I had Kevin draw an artsy chalkboard sign for me. I strung it up with a swath of red burlap. I grabbed an old favorite hand-me-down enamel basin, a star crafted by my mom from tobacco sticks from the farm, a collection of shells from our beach trips, a wooden pulley, fresh flowers in a Coke bottle and a small bar of soap. Added a broken down chair that’s been around our house for a decade. (Kevin said I needed…
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Groceries: Another Challenge for the Revolution.
Who wants to start a conversation about money? And food? If we were all seated together at a table somewhere it would either get really loud right now or uncomfortably quiet. It just depends on how you roll, I guess. Our family has been on the Low to No Revolution for manymanymany months now it seems. I haven’t been continually writing about it, but I have been continually living it. We’re still using that homemade laundry soap. It’s definitely cheaper. And I made our own hand soap and bath soap a while back and it’s super long-lasting and fragrant. As for the shampoo – well, I don’t know. I used it…
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add more red. and use hot glue.
If I’m not teaching school or cooking some type of food for the hungry mouths at this house or sweeping the dirt-loving wood floors or staring aimlessly into space as I try to remember what I was doing to begin with, then I’m probably thinking about my next project. Sunday afternoon I found myself standing in the kitchen alone. All family members occupied in some form of play or amusement not requiring attention from me. And I started thinking about how the door in our kitchen leads to our laundry room/back porch. And about how that door has a large window in it. And how that large window often…
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those old windows
Hi. My name is Lacey and I like old windows and low-cost decorating ideas. And, not that it matters, but for some reason it sort of feels like it does to me even though I know it’s petty and silly, I just want the world to know that I liked old windows before I ever saw them used in a hundred various and clever ways on Pinterest. It is a great way to repurpose and recycle any old window frames that you have once that you have had brand new ones fitted by a reputable window company. After all, we are supposed to be doing what we can to help…
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it has begun.
I love the ideas you guys filled the comments section with after my last post about the Low to No Cost Revolution. You guys had ideas for low cost shampoo, tips for the laundry soap making experience, cheap wipes and low budget meal ideas. I really wanted to try some this weekend. (I probably should have been packing or cleaning, but I was not. Just ask Kevin – I usually start the biggest projects at the worst possible moments. It’s true.) After reading your suggestions, I decided I would start with Stacy’s shampoo idea. Stacy said she used baking soda to wash her hair. At first I was hesitant because…
