Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Did You Remember to Vote?

If you didn't vote yet, there's still time so get out and do it. 'Nuff said.

I ended up making the leftover black beans and barley with the cornbread topping last night. It was just too convenient to pass up. I did find that I had to cook the whole thing longer than I would if I was simply making cornbread. It took 40 minutes to get the cornbread topping to cook completely. Jim wasn't thrilled with it but he had unwittingly taken the same thing for lunch. I think he was just bored because everyone else enjoyed it.

I forgot that I have to teach a class tonight and unfortunately I didn't set the slow cooker up as I intended. I'll be putting together a pasta and white bean dish of some sort before running out. I've been flipping through The Garden of Vegan for inspiration.

In other frugal news, I've been doing a great deal of mending recently, mostly missing buttons and split seams. Its been piling up for weeks. Its nice to see the pile diminish in size. Of course, with four kids there will always be more on the way.

Jim made a trip to the Salvation Army this morning to donate some of our useful clutter (useful to someone else, clutter to us). To regular readers we must seem like clutter magnets. Its one of the hazards of accepting hand-me-downs. Amy Dacyzyn talks about this in The Complete Tightwad Gazette. She mentions, if you're really picky about what you accept from people, they may stop offering you things and you may miss a real gem. A fairly regular trip to the thrift store to donate the excess seems a small price to pay.

With the weather getting colder, the days getting shorter and my goofy neighbor putting up Christmas lights already, the holidays are obviously on their way. Now's the time for a little frugal holiday planning. I'll begin sharing my holiday ideas later this week.

2 comments:

Ruthie said...

Katie~

I can't wait to hear about your holidays! Soyboy DH and I are doing a Buy Nothing Christmas this year, while we still can! I'm not sure how well it'd work with children. I loved you stories about bath robes last year, your family is just such a gem.

Second, don't feel bad about decluttering! I do it all the time too. In fact, I fear clutter. I sometimes lie awake at night trying to remember what's in the back of the closets. This morning I had to go through piles of paper clutter to find my husbands voting card. I eventually found it under the filing cabinet. Weird. Anyway, we are getting rid of a lot of stuff, too. I realized when we moved into this huge apartment that we love, we immediately bought/scavenged a million new (used, of course, or picked up off the street, etc) things to fill it up with. Now I'm missing the simplicity of our tiny old place with the walkincloset sized kitchen that didn't have room for the giant crockpot, bread machine, dehydrator, baking rack, blender, food processor, etc etc etc.

Katie said...

YOu're too sweet Ruthie.