Town House Homestead Tuesday

It is so nice to be able to retreat to blog posting and get away from so much media frenzy, hate, and lies. These girls live without television, but we are constantly bombarded with it on other devices of our choice. We are where we are and have what we have not because of any politicians, but because of hard work and determination, obeying the law, paying taxes, and sharing with all who come and help. No one has ever left without a meal to go, a full belly, or something to help them get ahead too. So, moving forward and speaking of hard work, yes we did more this past week. It's getting harder because we are tired and hurting a bit more, nursing injuries, and sleeping less but in the end it all pays off. 

Again with help from Emily, she and I finished more painting in the basement and have set the germination shelf in place. Next step will be the lighting and then we can start our seeds. What you can't see clearly in this picture is the closet organizer being installed beyond this shelf. It's still a work in progress. My daughter got it free with her Amazon points and it will be used for more storage. Extra parts will be moved around and used elsewhere. This part of the basement is moving out of it's dungeon stage slowly, but the end result will be pollinating flowers, herbs and some vegetable plants. The reward for hard work.

I needed to get a few items at the grocers and after that we took the time to do some indoor walking through a couple of thrift stores. It was too snowy and icy to walk outside. I found close to three dozen more canning jars to add to my "jar" bank account. There are four different sizes and it was orange tag day so quite a few were 50% off. None cost more than $.99.

I continued cooking and baking from scratch. Yesterday's bread was so good and I calculated the price per loaf at $.35 and a little kneading. I also know that I can pronounce all the ingredients. So, here's to all who are working hard to be successful. I hope that this blog is more than an encouragement to you. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week.

Town House Homestead Tuesday

Today is a very exciting day for me. The blog post I have been waiting so long to write is ready. Now to get it out of my head and on to this page. For the past few months I have been posting so many adventures, but the one we've worked hardest for is close to done and more than functional as of Sunday. This is how it began. 

It was a dark and dingy basement. This photo is after we pulled down a drop ceiling and dragged out bags of refuse like old wood, broken cement, and left behind trash from previous owners. The windows hadn't been opened until we opened them, and the breathing status of the basement was very poor. After pulling out a lot of the old fiberglass insulation, after the wasp situation, it was doing much better. As of last week the new furnace was installed, and a dear friend of my daughters spent an afternoon placing the washer and dryer in their proper locations and got it vented correctly.

So this is what all this progress has been for. Five months of hard work with the help of several friends and this is what it is now. This portion of the basement any way.

One up and coming work/sewing studio. Room for growth and more than one person to work, play, create, and imagine. It was a race against mother nature to get most of the boxes out of the garage and unpacked before cold weather, but they did it and as of Sunday my daughter has had a couple of hours to relax and sew. But, all our time was not just spent on the basement renovations. 

This was a side project. We found this vintage cart on Craigslist for $25 and took it apart, and spray painted it. Now that it's cleaned up it has been set in the basement to use for the extra microwave and coffee pot. She will need coffee to keep going while she works and the microwave will be used for projects she loves to do. 

I have been busy during the day time hours taking advantage of sales and enjoying cooking in my cast iron dutch oven. This is a BBQ pork shoulder that I made into pulled pork and there it is all canned for the pantry along with another slow cooker batch of apple butter. 

I also cooked a reasonably priced turkey and canned some meat, made some soup, and put more broth on the shelf in the pantry. We are ready for cold weather when it finally arrives. Can you taste the pot pies and casseroles yet? 

For me canning is never over. There is always something to put up. I went to the farm market for my butternut squash, so next week it will be canned squash, canned squash soup, and for the holiday a squash pie. I was able to stock up on a few jars for the next month or so to insure that I could keep going. With all the expenses fixing up the house it has been a blessing knowing the pantry shelves are filling up. Along with what we did before we moved I think we'll be able to survive the winter. That's what's happened the last couple of weeks here at our new Town House Homestead. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week. 

Thrift finds

So much happening and so little thrift hunting, but we found a couple of items. We've started the house search and process and are making it as much fun as possible. A couple of weeks ago we did a little thrift hunting, but we left so much behind. 

Just couldn't leave behind this half dozen of wide mouth quart jars and three new, never used Raggedy Ann and Andy pillow cases. Not much, but useful and items that can go on the store. Thank you for stopping by and have a great week. 

Thrift finds.

So my daughter's time off from work for her stay cation became a thrift-cation. We had to get out because our townhouse neighbors thought we should live in a boom box. It wasn't very relaxing until we called the complex office. Hours upon hours of loud music and slamming doors and yelling and screaming were more than enough reason to get out and thrift. We were frustrated, but still selective with what we purchased.

My favorite phrase lately while out riding around is "came upon". We came upon a large yard sale and found these pieces of fabric and holly plate. Great score. All items $4.

At a shop we hadn't visited since before the holidays last year we found a new with the tags flour sifter, a vintage coffee mug that's already been traded on line, a large crochet hook and the most darling glass jar shaped like a honey bee. She will use this for her first batch of harvested honey when she has her own hive.

We planned a trip to a larger flea market and she found the metal shelf, a book, a yellow Pyrex fridge bowl with cover, a partial set of green Pyrex mixing bowls and a blue enamel cooking pot. Our favorite item was the set of Josef Original Santa salt and pepper shakers.

At another "came upon" yard sale we found a Vera scarf, three pint size canning jars and a vintage Avon camper bottle. Total $1.75. Another score. 

This was the most talked about fun find and it is behind locked glass. It is an industrial donut cutter rolling pin. The price...$200, but we figured at that price we could make enough donuts in an hour to recoup the price. Way too much work for me and way too many donuts, but quite an item. No, we did not buy it. Those were all the purchases we made. Some for her future home, some for her collections, some for the store. We did find time for a meal out and another trip for ice cream. We tried a few new things like making cheese and trying new herbs. The week went fast, but we made the best of the time and after the call to the office we didn't get much more than retaliating door slamming and the intimidation team has now become their threat. Believe me we are not threatened, we are motivated to keep going and for some strange reason every time they act the way they do we get many sales on the store. The universe in action. These are the select items from last week. Thank you for stopping by and have a great weekend. 

Thrift Finds

We have been out doing some thrift shopping. Being selective and planning for the future while staying on our time line for a new living situation. Keeping that in mind as we look over what we need and want, this is what we found.

This week we found a new and unused 18 jar vintage spice rack. This is for all the spice mixes I've been making for my cooking experiments. Great find at $3.99. I chose what I needed for canning jars. Only took these five wide mouth quarts at fifty cents each. The large vintage refrigerator dish has a few chips in the cover, but for another $3.99 we decided to get it. What I love about it is that it will make a wonderful all around go with anything serving set. I can use the bottom and turn the cover over and use it as a tray. My imagination was in action.

For vintage and colorful linens we found two floral tablecloths, a bundle of red and brown floral curtain panels and a green print pillow case. The bag of knitting needles was $.99 and yielded 16 pairs of needles including several sets of double point needles. The computer mouse is not vintage, but I have told people that it's for a vintage computer user. Original price was $1.99 but because this weeks color tag was blue we got it for 50% off. It works great and is an HP brand. 

The flower silicone baking mold was purchased for my daughter's soap making and lotion crafting. Wilton brand for $3.99 and new in the package. The angel will go with her collection of angels, the "e" key chain she got for me because we really don't find a lot of different items with my name or initial and the lamp was originally priced $2.99. It also had a blue tag which again we purchased at 50% off. We were also able to use the senior discount at Savers thrift store which gave us an additional 30% off. That's the scoop for this past weekends thrift finds and we are excited to be going to a large flea market this coming weekend. I'll let you know what we find. Thank you for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Thrift finds and freebie economics

Church sales have been plentiful this Spring and early Summer and we have found good, useful items. We stopped at one on the way home from the library a couple of Saturdays ago and did quite well. 

This particular sale was held in the Church parking lot and we rummaged and rummaged. We found some used garden picket fence pieces, a new unopened Scrabble game, a Smurf mug and a bundle of used candles to melt down. Along with our finds at this sale were 30 canning jars of various sizes. We got this total package for $2.10. Yes, $2.10. It should have been more, but the young man returned the wrong change and after we realized what had happened we were well down the road. Probably not a good thing for us to do, but we did not go back and make it good. We may pay for it later.

We visited a Goodwill store and found a few items including some t-shirt style tops for my daughter, a religious figure of Mary, a brass unicorn, coffee cup stand, egg slicer and a wonderful daisy print in a frame. the red candle plate was in the bottom of the box used to get these items home. No bag, a box. We have been a bit selective of what we buy and how much we pay and most of these items were 50% off with the color tag sale.

The week before last I scored what the grocery store claimed were free items if you purchased a family pack of meat, however they manage to raise the price per pound of the meat to cover the price of the free items. I know I probably wouldn't have purchased several of these items, but when money is tight and you need to stretch the budget it was worth it to me and I canned the meat I didn't need right away. 

I used a gift card to purchase the two bags of chicken breasts and the one pound of ground turkey. Final price to me was a few cents. As close to free as I could get. I made bourbon barbecued pulled chicken and ate some and canned some for future meals. Total servings for two pounds of chicken was 12 and I could not have been happier. I've stretched two other chicken breast into a wok full of chicken, broccoli and carrot stir fry and another into chicken wraps. Slowly learning to make it all count. The pound of ground turkey will yield 6 servings. Three beef, bean and cheese burritos and three servings of goulash. 

I think for this summers growing season I have acquired all the canning jars I need in quite a variety of sizes. Any more now would be used, but as far as purchasing they will all go to a friend who needs them and we will concentrate on purchasing lids so we have a good supply on hand. Here at the townhouse we are doing what we can to stretch the budget and do the best we can with what we have. We wish everyone a happy 4th of July and please stay safe.  

Thrift finds and thrift economics.

To start this blog out I'm going first to thrift economics. I received a pressure caner for Christmas and it has earned it's keep already and it's only April. However, it did not come with a second shelf so that I can stack jars. The manufacturer says that it's okay to put the jars directly on top of each other, but that wasn't pleasing to me and I wasn't spending $12 plus shipping to get one. I searched high and low at all the thrift stores we went to and kept hoping I'd find something that would work even if it was a small pizza pan that needed holes drilled in it. Well everything was too large or too small until...

some imaginative sorter at a VOA thrift store put this wire rack together with a Pyrex pie plate. It was the correct diameter, but I only wanted the rack, but for $4 I took them both home and rushed to see if it would fit the caner. Needless to say it did. The rack has a one inch rail on one side and a half inch rail on the other. I used it in the caner with the one inch up and could put 7 wide mouth pints on top. One short but that was okay. I now had my extra rack, a holder for the pie plate and when I took the jars out of the caner I reversed it so I had a cooling rack one inch off the counter for my jars. I think I got my $2 out of the rack and imagine using it with vintage glass for a table centerpiece. Now about the pie plate. Yes it's Pyrex, yes it's vintage and I didn't really want it, but it happens to be an 11 inch pie plate. The retail value on line runs between $8 and $24 dollars. I'd say that this was a great find and I am keeping the pie plate.

After a great early Saturday breakfast out we headed off to spend the day thrifting and having fun. The findings included some doilies, plastic Easter egg rabbits, a stacking doll, vintage snowman and the most important find was the wooden shelf. It's been on the list for months. My daughter wanted something heavy duty enough to hold her essential oils and there it was. For $2.99 and with a little spray paint it will do the job. We also found a vintage red bed cover a very large yellow bath towel and a bright floral bed sheet. The color scheme here is yellow, orange, green and aqua. Can you tell?

We found a few books. The "Putting Food By" book I already owned, but it was 50% off and a big update from my version. We found wooden pant hangers, zippers, iron on patches and knitting needles and that bright flowered scarf. 

We came home with four dozen more canning jars. Here some have been washed, others in the box to be cleaned and as of yesterday and today twenty of them have been used. 

My favorite find was the heavy duty aluminum colander. It was $2 and now I have something to strain large amounts of food instead of a little at a time. There's the pie plate and rack under that wonderful Pyrex Butterfly Gold divided dish with a cover and we found another set of vintage lazy Susan pieces.

And look at the wonderful score of other Pyrex pieces. Cinderella bowls, regular bowls, another cover, and refrigerator bowls. I think it was an awesome day out and I think we found a well rounded assortment of goodies. Thank you for stopping by to visit and I hope all your thrift finds are good too.

Thrift finds.

We headed out to do errands this past Saturday and for a break in the routine we visited three thrift stores. Lots of stuff in the stores but we continue to be selective about what we're buying. It was just a fun hour and a half fit in to a routine trip, but what good finds.

We found this darling set of bowls that are decorated with Shamrocks. We will add them to our St. Patrick's day decor. My favorite thing about them is that they are small and fit right in with our small space. We found yet another lime green Pyrex 024, 2 qt. casseroled bowl. My daughter now has three for her collection, but she may use it to trade for something later.

We found a Pyrex butterfly gold casserole bowl that was in very "baked on" condition, but it got a basic cleaning and is now listed at https://www.etsy.com/listing/229071083/pyrex-butterfly-gold-large-casserole?ref=shop_home_active_5 and we always pick up Pyrex covers for future Pyrex discoveries. The aqua bowl has no name but my daughter has a collection of them that we use for soup and snacks so this one made number nine in her cupboard.

We found a large bundle of wooden and plastic pant hangers that we will sort through and clean up to list on the store and a vintage Strawberry Shortcake pillow case.

As we walked in the door and traveled to the first aisle of another thrift store there was an abundance of 8 oz canning jars and one lonely quart jar. I walked back for a large shopping cart to put them in. Conveniently there was a very large basket sitting next to them and we loaded it up and set it in the cart. If they are priced right they come home, get cleaned up and put away for when I need them. We actually found more, but didn't get them. We are following the sale tags and will wait for the right color to come up and if they are there when we go back they are, if not they weren't meant to be ours. Not a bad lot of finds for a short time looking. We are going out with friends this coming Saturday to search a few more thrift stores after we have breakfast. This is such an addiction.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope all your thrift shopping is as much fun as ours.

Thrift finds and more great economics.

The snow is starting to melt here in the northeast. The mile high mounds of snow and the ice formed on the roofs are causing flooding and leaking all over the place. To escape on Saturday after all the errands were done we stopped at a thrift store. Findings were slim, but our wants have become slim. We narrowed it down to what we can use.

My daughter makes the purchases and she is addicted to fabric, but so am I and we found a few we could use. There was a gray and green bed sheet, an aqua floral sheet, tan and purple corduroy, a vintage red tone stripe and best of all for the grand total of $1.99 a bed skirt with some wonderful off white 100% cotton. 

We found a deep wire basket that once attached to the back of a door with Command Hooks will hold light weight winter hats and mitten. Also found were two more canning jars at $.29 each, a bag with four boxes of new magic birthday candles, several mini metal buckets that will help with my garden and 20 spools of 100% Egyptian cotton thread. There were several books added this week also. Gardening books we always took out of the library, but now they are growing on the shelf and books to make us more knowledgeable about the little things we can do.

We had two more $10 off a $10 purchase coupons this week. Scott bath tissue is $12.99 for the 20 roll package and combined with a $1 manufacturer's coupon I got it for $1.99 and tax. The second coupon we put towards a $13 package of packing tape so we had it for shipping and packing things up. Lastly a york peppermint pattie free from Savingstar.com last weekend. Not a bad haul for a little bit of work.

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful week. 

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

This past week has been a busy one. I've been listing items on eBay for my daughter. Sales have been better than we thought so all that shipping has to get done. I'm getting ready to start some tomato seeds soon. Still a bit early for our zone. In the meantime I've been making very good use of my second hand vacuum sealer. I live what I call "My Canning Jar Life". We stopped using a lot of disposable plastic bags, however, I do use vacuum seal bags. These can be reused. Another step towards being green. I started vacuum sealing our grocery investment in jars over a year ago and it's paying off in many ways. 

This is our expensive purchase of non fat dry milk, sold in a box, but will keep for quite a while in quart jars. This is why when we see jars at thrift stores we get them. I also use oxygen absorbers in the jars.

I store everything and make use of everything. I make bread crumbs and croutons out of leftover bread, pudding, cornbread mix, pasta and oatmeal to list a few. I even make my cookie mixes ahead of time and vacuum seal them for future use and yes, I vacuum seal candy in jars. Empty spaghetti sauce jars work well also. As a matter of fact any jar with a cover that has a rubber seal inside can be reused with the vacuum sealer. The benefit to us for doing this is that we don't have to spend more money on smaller amounts. We can take advantage of larger sizes and sales. Living in an apartment situation you never know about the critters so it protects our investment and the best part is that we are eating better because we can have a wonderful variety of food ingredients and spices available all the time. So at this point in time my new to me older version of a vacuum sealer purchased on line has more than earned it's keep and still will. 

So on to the socks that I promised myself to learn how to knit this year. Here they are. One for each foot. This challenge to myself was not without a few attempts. I did end up pulling them out in several areas several times, but I got them done, figured out how to make them the correct size for my feet and now I can work on more and move on to the next challenge of making cheese. There's a saying going on here that was actually a comment made by a supervisor at my daughter's place of employment. My daughter was talking about using scraps of fabric to make quilts with another co worker and up cycling items not wasting anything and this supervisor heard the conversation and quickly voiced "like the depression". The saying has stuck because I guess the depression is on a lot of people's minds. My socks are made of second hand yarn, "like the depression". 

Thank you for stopping by and think like you can do anything and you will. Have a wonderful week.

Thrift finds

January and February have been busier than usual thrift months. We've been on a quest to find canning jars and when we have we've either purchased them or followed them according to tag colors and sale dates. 50% off is always better. We've been lucky enough that they've been on the shelf still when we go back as much as a week later. That to me is the universe saying they were meant to be ours.

It seems that more have been available in January than in past months and we've wondered if it's because everyone was donating at the end of the year to get taxable donations. These are more that we added to our stash and we've found all sizes. The two aqua Mikasa bowls were an extra because they match my daughter's set she has been building.

Another Saturday stop yielded us four dozen more jars including a brand new case of old stock eight ounce jars with lids. Again it was a nice variety of sizes.

Living in a small townhouse apartment doesn't actually give you a lot of room for storage, but my daughter used a target gift card she received for Christmas and bought a shelf that fit in an empty corner. It was perfect for all the jars, crock pot and some of her collectible Pyrex. She made the curtain from a vintage "thrifted" sheet to match her color scheme for the dining area. She says she has enough to add a border to a table cloth she wants to make. I have a good supply of jars to keep me going for a while and yes, I've already used some.

There were other thrift finds too. Candle making supplies, Wilton silicon molds for her soaps and lotions, books on herbs and aromatherapy, double pointed knitting needles, Popsicle molds, fabric, vintage sheets, Vera scarfs and a vintage roll of whimsical kitchen wall paper.

Books had taken a way back seat for the two of us. We both enjoy reading and we had resorted to using the library because storage space for books was scarce. However we have rekindled our love of owning a few good books and started picking up those we can use or read and move on, but some will stay on the shelves here. My younger daughter took me to a book sale and I came home with only 10 books because I was quite choosy. I also have a difficult time carrying heavy items so I limited my selections. My favorite find has been the American Woman Cook Book from the Culinary Arts Institute that was printed in 1938. Found at Good Will for $3.98, but purchase at 50% off. It is a complete encyclopedia for the time. I am enjoying it so much, but I haven't tried any recipes yet.

This cutie is a hand made ceramic. The painting was so wonderfully done and yes he was a thrift store find. His face just spoke to my daughter and his color pallet matched her decor so home he came and sits lovingly on her shelf. I think this may be the first in a new collection of Gnomes.

I say that because of this. She has a vintage shelf with collected and thrift store Angels and several other thrifted collections around the townhouse. The wooden Angels on the bottom are hanging from the shelf and the sign says "Angels Gather Here". Yes they do and it's so wonderful to have simple "small" collections to brighten up our home. 

Wet and chilly day, but we still went thrift shopping.

Here on the southern shore of lake Ontario it's still a bit cool. As a matter of fact we had frost warnings overnight. We are still two to three weeks from outdoor planting, but the urge is there to do it early. I think we'll go shopping while we wait for warmth enough to garden. 

Our search this past weekend found a couple of vintage sheets. My daughter will never pass up any sheet that is aqua and green. Those are her colors. I personally love the bright yellow poppy sheet.

We found some Raggedy Anne and Andy fabric that was reclaimed from curtains. The vintage 1972 linen towel is destined to be a pillow. That was the year my daughter was born and this one was truly seventies. I also found a package of vintage "seconds" clothespins and some strawberry metal trays still in the package that were sold through F.W. Woolworth Co. 

We will never again leave behind wooden pant hangers. The last bunch we listed on the store and they sold within days. If you see them at the right price get them.

A last second find was this bright sun dress. The red on the sides are large pockets. First thought was to alter it into an apron, but we may just sell it as is. It has the elastic bodice and may have had straps, but they can be put back on without a lot of work.

We found a bundle of fabrics for $1 and there are quite a few pieces we will use. The two yellow glass pieces are part of a lazy Susan that were just to bright yellow to leave behind. Set around a cheese board filled with crackers and the party is ready. The tea candles we'll use while sitting out evenings this summer and the bag of candles we got for a project we have been working on. We could have had two bags, but one was marked $1.98 and the other was marked $4.98. Couldn't figure out why the difference in price, but I bet you can guess which one was left behind. 

Just a couple weeks ago I posted about mini muffin tins and how I wanted a couple. Yes I found them then, but this weekend at the flea market I found two more and they were two for 25 cents. Yes that's right and the can opener and Tupperware measuring spoons were also 25 cents. The bread pan was on the list of things I'm looking for. When I downsized I got rid of all my baking pans for sizes that fit in my toaster oven. Now I want to bake more bread and have to replace the pans. One down, one to go. Canning jars will always come home as long as they are less than $1. I use them with my food saver for storage along with my  canning. Not all our finds are for the stores. There are a lot of items we look for to furnish our home and take care of ourselves. It's the way to do it. We call it shopping green.

Linking to: We call it Junkin