French Bread Pizza & other end of January Happenings

Greetings

The weather gave us a few warmed up days.  Kevin & I both enjoyed our walks to work on those days.  I put a couple pieces of left over cornbread out around the birdfeeder for the birds.  I put tator peelings out in the garden.  I noticed a deer was out there munching on those peelings before I got the mashed tators made.

A beautiful frosty morning.

Grandkids

Our budding little artist.

Cooking

Kevin bought a box of individual serving size French bread frozen pizzas for a school fundraiser.  Those little pizzas were good with a cup of hot chocolate.  We split the last pizza & had it for breakfast.  Kevin cooked us eggs to go on top making it a breakfast pizza.  Kevin likes his eggs scrambled.  I like mine over easy.  We had grapes on the side.  We get whatever fresh fruit is on the weekly special at the grocery store to have with our breakfast.  I'm not a big fan of fruit but try to get in a serving most everyday.  

I made antelope steak & gravy in the crockpot.  We topped a piece of loaf bread with tators, steak & gravy then put carrots on the side. The tators & carrots were put up from out of our garden.

Very good grub if I do say so myself.

Gardening

We got our seeds in the mail, so now we wait.  The garden has held a covering of snow when areas around had melted.  Hopefully that snow will be good moisture for the garden.

Cleaning

I finally got the Christmas totes organized & put away.  I done away with 3 totes & a large box that had wrapping paper in it.  I consolidated stuff to go in fewer totes.  I put the Christmas wrapping paper rolls in a trash can that already had other occasion wrapping paper rolls in it that was stored in a closet.

I started working on Income taxes & organizing paperwork.  I also put away some uniform work clothes that I got with my uniform allowance last year but didn't need those clothes at the time.

We saw these deer while out on one of our Sunday outings.

Health & Weight Maintenance

We got the Hershey bars ate up that was left over from when the Grands were visiting, so then we were back to snacking on graham crackers & peanut butter.  

I stretched & walked in the house most every morning.  I walked to work most days & walked some extra during lunch & breaks.  Kevin & I took a hike in the hills.  While walking we saw a coyote & heard lots of others barking & howling in the distance. 

I think I've lost some weight.  My wedding band is loose & I've caught it slipping off several times.  That's right, seems I've lost weight in my finger.  Of all the places I wanted the weight to come off, it was not my fingers.  I have noticed my pants are not as tight around the waist.  I actually have been having to pull them up, so perhaps soon, very very soon I can go down a size in pants, not just yet (I tried them on), but soon.

I've been trying to be more mindful to eat smaller portions & stop eating when I feel full.  I've been drinking water & haven't had any cokes.  (We're originally from the South.  All soda/soft drinks/pop are called Coke whether it's Mountain Dew, Pepsi, Orange Crush or other.)  I haven't been eating snacks between every meal.  If I feel hungry, I drink some water.  If I still feel hungry after a short time then I do eat a little snack.  I snack on granola type bars or graham crackers & peanut butter, sometimes pretzel sticks.

A beautiful sunset one evening after work 

looking out the kitchen window.

Frugality, Savings & Spending

I spent $24.51 at the grocery store buying only one other thing that was not on my shopping list & that was pork chops.  I always keep an eye out for these chops when they are marked down.  Blueberries were the fruit special on my list.  They are one of Kevin's favorite fruits, maybe even his favorite overall.  The grocery store didn't have the blueberries as advertised in their sale paper.  Since we're eating mostly from our panty & freezer this month, we ate blueberries in our freezer put up from previous sale price specials.  I got Valentine candy & popcorn for the Grands Valentine care package.  We were almost out of peanut butter, so I got the store brand largest over $5 size jar.

Even though I saved money at the grocery store this month by eating mostly out of our pantry & freezer, January was a big spend month in other ways.  The vehicle & 4-wheeler insurance was due along with the last payment for 2019 expected income taxes.  We paid Lions Club membership dues & got our vegetable seeds for the garden.  There was medical bills to be paid after insurance paid their portion.  I had my well women check at the end of last year & had to have more blood work done to rule out aliments causing some of the numbers to be slightly above average.  The verdict is still out, though I did have a phlebotomy to see if that helps. 

I didn't have to get any gas for my car this month due to walking to work.  When I have to drive out of town to work in another office, I get reimbursed for the travel.  I took all the drinks & food I needed while working, so I didn't spend money on eating out for lunch.  I participated in the January Uber Frugal Month Challenge.  The only unplanned extras I bought this month were DVDs for the Grands.

I found this heart shaped rock on one of our hikes in the hills.

Social & Community Service Activities

Kevin & I went to the Lions Club regular scheduled 2nd meeting of the month with supper provided.  After the meeting the women washed dishes, cleaned up the kitchen & chatted.  The men played cards & chatted.  Us women finished cleaning the kitchen & the men thought we women needed to clean some more stuff, so they could play cards longer.

Our Lions Club service project was to invite someone to the next meeting to encourage & boost club membership. 

Other Activities

I continued working on the holiday postage stamps 500 piece puzzle.  I continued reading in the book On the Banks of Plum Creek.  I searched for words in my giant word search book, read blogs & organized pictures on my computer.  I'm trying to keep on top of my pictures this year, to delete the not so good ones as I download them to the computer (so far, so good).  We watched DVDs from our collection.  Several of the movie choices were Nell, Baby Mama & Monster-In-Law.  We started watching the series of Medicine Woman.

Sunday evening hike.