Works For Me Wednesday - Thrift Store Shopping

Post partially recycled from July 2008


I LOVE thrift stores!

I mostly buy fabric at thrift stores. I find brand new fabric. I have gotten some really good deals.

Check out my finds here, here, here and here!

This quilt is made completely from fabric I got at value Village. Total cost of fabric is approx. $13.

Last week my sister and I made a trip to two different Value Village stores. I was looking for fabric and wool for my granny squares. Neither was to be found this time, however, I did find these two fabulous table cloths.

The beige one will be used as a topper over my current dining room table - it isn't large enough to be used alone. It was $4.99.

Please note, those are water marks from my
not-supposed-to-leak iron, not stains of any kind

I'm not sure what I will do with the second one. I don't have a table it will fit - it is a small square. But for $3.99 I couldn't pass it up.

This photo doesn't do the tablecloth justice -
it really is a nice white on white embroidered pattern
I didn't iron this one yet as my new iron has some gunk
coming out of it and I didn't want it on the cloth - why
can't they make decent small appliances these days?

When my son was younger I was able to get him clothing in good condition - but now that he is older, not so much.

My sister buys most of her wardrobe at thrift stores. She often finds item with tags still attached for only a few dollars. She is able to update her wardrobe each fall and spring due to the savings.

Even if we don't find a good deal at a thrift store, we always have fun checking out all the stuff and saying "wow didn't Mom have one of those?" or "I remember that!"

It's also a great place to buy books.

So if you haven't recently, go check out your local thrift store - they work for me!

For more great Works For Me Wednesday tips, stop by We are THAT family.

Branching out

I've recently joined Today.com as a paid blogger. It's more like article writing than blogging actually and I don't think there is that much pay involved, but I needed to get my creative juices flowing again, so thought this may help.

I won't be giving up this blog though. I still need a place to blog about my crazy life and I doubt anyone over there wants to see photos of my adorable kid and puppy :)

My first post there is about the poor writing I found all over the place there...ya I know, it's going to make me REAL popular :)

If you want to check it out, go here.

Thanks for reading.

Kitchen Tip Tuesday - New use for an old tool

One day last week I was cooking a roast and making a bunch of sauteed mushrooms to go along with it. I was slicing away at the mushrooms when I realized this was going to take a long time - I had two containers of mushrooms to slice.

A light bulb went off and I started searching the back of my utensil drawer. I found my egg slicer and stuck a mushroom in and pushed down the top. It worked like a charm! I finished slicing all those mushrooms in no time.

I just have to remember it for next time.

For more kitchen tips, stop by Tammy's place.

Bits & Pieces

What I've been up to:

Not cleaning - MIL is not coming to visit cause the kid and I have a cold and her immune system isn't very strong. I suppose I should still clean though...

Working on the crocheted striped afghan.

Made Peanut a little quilt for her crate out of baby flannel scraps and wanted to try out my free motion quilting - not too bad

until she started chewing it!

Here are some recent pics of the lil chewer.

Funny Story

A few years ago I was working a contract for the Ministry of Health.

For the first week or so, I used someone else's computer (they were on vacation) as my laptop wasn't ready yet.

Once I received my laptop, I started working away. Happily humming away and typing, I noticed something odd. Even after I stopped typing, words would appear on the screen...words I did not type.

I pondered aloud how odd that was and more words appeared on my screen...real words, not just gobbly gook, but the sentences didn't make any sense.

The IT guy was only a couple cubes away so I went over and asked him if my laptop had virus protection installed and had it been run lately as the laptop was now typing by itself.

As we walked back to my cube, chatting about the weirdness of it all, we both saw more words magically appearing on the screen. "Look!" I said excitedly, feeling validated that I wasn't crazy.

He didn't have a clue, he hadn't seen anything like this before either (he was relatively new to the job). He checked a few things and as he told me what he was doing, more words would display.

He finally had to call his boss, to see if he knew what was wrong. While on the phone (and words still being typed) he says "Oh!", clicks a small icon in the task bar, selects disable and hangs up the phone.

It turns out that the voice recognition software was turned on. The previous user of this laptop had been handicapped and used the software and had also been male. So the software didn't recognize the words I was saying and just typed what it thought I was saying.

We all had a good laugh, but a while there I thought my new laptop was possessed.

Kitchen Tip Tuesday - Soup's On!

While it did warm up here for a few days, it is back to being frigid again. During these cold spells, I really enjoy a good hearty bowl of homemade soup.

Today, however, I am not going to talk about homemade soup...I'm talking about canned soup.

Last week one of our grocery stores had a dollar sale. They had Campbell's Ready to Serve soups on sale for $1 each. We picked up a LOT of them.

Now for easy no-fuss meals when we are in a hurry, we can simple heat up a few of these, serve some easy Focaccia bread or a side salad and we have a meal!

As these are not condensed soups, even if we had to use 3 tins, the cost is only $3 plus whatever we serve with it (bread, crackers or salad). That's a nice inexpensive meal and it is also nice and light.

For more great kitchen tips, check out Tammy's website.

Late Monday Musings

What I have been up to:

• Playing around on my new-to-me sewing machine - free motion quilting is FUN!
• Crocheting on my striped afghan - pics coming soon
• Baking nana muffins to use up dead nanas
• Should be cleaning but I'm not
• MIL may be coming back this week for another stay - must get cleaning soon
• Tending a cold ridden kid (he feels fine when playing Xbox though)
• Trying to figure out ways to make money online - nothing yet :P
• Daydreaming about winning the lottery
• Lots of planning - not so much doing :)