We had a wonderful unprecedented visit with my sister, brother in law and niece the week before last! We generally had nice weather except for a bit of dramatic mist and rain in Skagway and Haines, Alaska.
The baby figured out clapping and took her first stumbled steps while she was here and helped us feel important as we sang and swooped her around and did everything we could to make her smile or keep her attention!
The weather here was hot and wonderful and we enjoyed a series of amazing blended drinks including cafe latte smoothies, strawberry lime and pina colada.
This week's weather has been cooler and rainy again, so it was a brief and lovely moment in time. Truly a visit to remember and maybe someday we will make it so we aren't so inconvenient to get to. The last two times we were all together was during the winter and when the baby was 2 weeks old. This time, we were just super freaking far away. Thanks for coming you guys, that was awesome.
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There's a guy in town here that I met that collects produce from the supermarkets that they aren't going to sell, for whatever reasons. Usually it's because it's getting a bit "mature", or there will be one rotted orange in the bag, but the rest are fine. Anyway, this guy collects the produce, delivers some to women's shelters in Town and brings the rest home. I go to his place every week or so and see what he's got on offer.
Well, I got a couple pounds of organic shiitake mushrooms, gold nugget mandarins, a bag of oranges, a full case of organic pears, 1/2 rotting, 1/2 perfect, some eggplant, a leek, a big box of granny smith apples and a bag of gorganic snap peas and organic green beans. So this week we feast. it took a couple hours but I made 8 litres of apple pear sauce on saturday, with the sweet pears balancing the tart apples. That should do us for a while!
Tonight we'll have a curry with eggplant, leek and bok choi (oh yeah, I got bok choi too).
This is undermining my effort to try and think it is normal to pay for food. I like to pay farmers but not stores. Not sure why exactly.
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My new hobby is couponing. Between sales and coupons I carved $39 off my grocery bill on Saturday. I should mention $5 of that was an ice cream coupon off a cereal box, which I bought for $2. 25 (coupon plus sale), which I might not have bought otherwise. So, money "saved" might be a bit misleading. But really, I think $39 is my best yet.
Also, some of my coupons were for things I don't want, like a free bottle of ranch dressing. I get that dressing anyways and then donate it to the food bank, it's part of my couponing habits. Scratched an itch I have to donate AND it scratched my coupon itch, which I am pretty excited about.
Yes I have seen the extreme couponing show. No I am not a hoarder but you better believe any house I buy will have a spot for a stockpile, oh yes. And now I know you don't absolutely NEED to pay more than 50 cents for toothpaste, if you plan right and don't mind reading flyers. If I were in the south I suspect I'd be in even better shape, lots of stuff doesn't make it up here, like tearpad coupons. Anyway, my new hobby is fun. Hopefully it actually saves us money, we'll see :-)
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Disc golf season is open and we're all considering mosquito suits. Never been so bad but it's been wet, so I guess that's how it is. I missed the game though and I am happy to be back out and about.
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The garden is mostly planted, thanks to my sister walking in with me one night to get it done. I still have not managed to plant potatoes and zucchini, and it may be too late for that. I hope not but can't seem to get organized. Hopefully the carrots get me though instead, and then there's always the cheat of buying the plants, which I might do to fill spaces I missed in the plot!
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No pics, I'm at work, boo. Trust me, it's nice up here, and we've got foil on the guest bedroom window so you can sleep when you visit. We call it the cave and it's sooooo lovely.
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