Good morning!

We are home. We made it back just before the first snowstorm of the year. We have 4 inches. Where my son lives, four inches of snow was nothing (we got nine there on Saturday and some outdoor things opened late or got rescheduled) but here it shuts everything down. I'm sure Tatoulia would be amused.

Dd is home with her family today and Dh is working from home. He will plow our drive later and hopefully the roads will be clear tomorrow for school.

We have a problem with our heat. I thought I would be home all day waiting for the technician to come look at it, but now he is not coming, so I will just be home keeping the woodstove going so we aren't spending a fortune on the emergency electric back up.

I will also be getting lesson plans done for tomorrow and Friday, prepping for my class on Thursday, and switching over the decorations in my house to winter/christmas. Possibly purging as I go. My ddil has me very inspired.

Lila, congratulations on making it to December with your no-spend on food!! What an amazing month you created! What creative dishes you made! It is quite the feat you have achieved. Well done!

Good afternoon.

I have been having a really good time with my family.

I even helped ddil and ds sort through their storage area and evaluate all the hand me down toys. It helped me get a much better idea about what to save for or pass on to Birdy.

Lila, I am really proud of you!

I have been ordering things for Christmas and throwing in a couple of add-ons for me to make up free shipping because they end up costing nothing or a few dollars more than shipping. I am trying to make good choices though.

I am feeling inspired to go back and work on my house more.

Success of the day:
I have been looking at blankets and bedspreads and comforters online since Black Friday sales came on because I have been cold at night.

Today, I decided to just wash the one I have tossed in the guest room and use it. I had it on my bed for awhile, don't like it that much so almost donated it, but put it on the guest bed, and then a guests slept with it.

Now it is washed and on my bed, cost me nothing, looks kinda nice even, and I think I should be warm tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

I am doing great, enjoying the time off. I am still using up the food I have and not buying any food. We had our Thanksgiving dinner. My ddil made a turkey, rolls, and potatoes. I made green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and corn casserole, all from foods I had in my freezer and canned. Son brought pie. Everything was yummy.

Yesterday I raided my pantry and freezer again and found some frozen hash browns which I had this morning with an egg and plant sausage. I found some other frozen stuff I brought up.

I have to admit I am getting sick of it, finally. It has not been hard, and has been kind of a fun challenge, but I am starting to feel "over it." I am determined to make it to Dec 1 before buying any food, but I was also encouraged to make it to 40 days, so we will see if I decide to do that or go shopping. I miss simple things like creamer for my coffee, better cheese and crackers, bakery bread...I dunno what else, probably chocolate and cookies but ugh. I don't really need anything. I want pudding tho. And fruit.

I need to declutter and stuff.

Good morning!

Aww, thanks Messi.

Happy buy nothing day!

I'm drinking coffee in the hotel waiting for Dh to wake up.

I've been sleeping ok. Still waking up in the night, but going back to sleep and getting up later with no chores or tasks on my plate.

The boys have been wearing me out daily though.

Ironically I pulled something in my hip leaning over the chair to turn on a light in the hotel room last night.

Today we are planning a trip to the children's museum.

There is supposed to be a lot of snow here tomorrow and Sunday but hopefully the roads will be clear when we drive home on Monday.

I am eating too much.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!

I am so grateful for your lives and for your willingness to share.

Hoping this day and all days to follow are filled with happiness, love and appreciation.

SubC, I hope you have caught up on your sleep.

hi, messi!

I am enjoying my work from home day, which I did very little work, and I then get 3 days off in a row! So happy! I ran errands today and enjoyed time at home.

I made a half recipe of baked oatmeal this morning from the one and a half bananas my son bought that are so over ripe no one wanted them, plus oats, almond milk, sugar, an egg, cinnamon, and walnuts. It is sooo good. It is enough for probably 3 or 4 breakfasts.

I also got out a can of artichoke hearts and some frozen spinach, mixed in a little parmesan and mozzarella, garlic, pepper, light mayo, and baked it. I had some stale tortilla chips but baked them on a cookie sheet at 350 for 5 minutes and they taste like fresh now. That was my dinner.

I have not even bought anything for Thanksgiving. My kids are bringing and making things. I have ingredients for corn casserole, homemade cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole so I am making those.

I hope you guys have a happy thanksgiving!

I woke up at 4 this morning scorching hot and couldn't go back to sleep. I have far too many things to do today. Unfortunately most of them make noise and will annoy my Dh.

It is still dark so I can't do the outside things. Even if I go in the barn and turn the lights on - the roisters will sing and annoy Dh.

I started a load of wash.

The sale is in the city at the studio where 8 take classes.

I think it went well. I don't have time to take inventory before I leave, but I sold a few of the new things I have been playing with and like and got positive feedback.

Today I bought a little cup, a necklace, and a pair of earrings. The woman who made the necklace gave me some glaze tips I want to try out.

SubC - good luck with today's sale! Where does your sale take place? Close to home? In town? anyway, hope today is terrific.

Saturday night.

Messi - good job on the ice cream.

Lila, good job on the room and housework, and super good job on the food! I am SO proud of you for breaking your fast food habit!

Are you going to wash the inside of the fridge when it is empty? Do you have a separate freezer, or just the one attached to the fridge?

My fridge is getting a lot emptier. I haven't grocery shopped since my big stock up and we leave on Tuesday. I think we will make it. We will take a few things with us to share, and when we get home it will be December and we will not be out of food. Dh did buy a bottle of wine and some bread because I haven't had time to bake. I would love to draw down the perishables as much as possible before holiday baking and cooking the big family meals.

The first day of my big sale for the year was today. I think it went ok. I don't think it is on track to be as good as last year, but I sold a couple of things toward the higher end of my range and who knows how tomorrow will go. I also bought 5 things. One is a gift for my mom, but three are mugs and one is a piece of art. Dh said it was ok. He likes the mugs, but says we have to clear out some of the less good mugs. I will try.

I did take a clearance bin of pots that I wasn't excited about for various reasons - flaws in the glaze or slight warping, or whatever - basically seconds. I marked them $5-10 and stuck a box at an angle under my table with an arrow pointing to "bargain basement" and sold 8 out of 12! I might add a few more tomorrow.

I also broke a little bowl during set up, so that is another one out.

I'm pretty tired. Another day of sale tomorrow, boys on Monday, and I don't know how I'm going to get ready for our trip!

hi again, Saturday now.

It is interesting seeing the fridge get emptied with my no spend on food month.

All that is in there now is
- apples, 1 old-ish lemon
- one red onion, 2 small shallots
- a jar of applesauce, a few fruit cups
- leftover cooked squash, freezer corn for tonight, a bit of lettuce and pomegranate
- pickles, olives, various sauces
- small pieces of various cheese, butter
- a few eggs, half a carton of almond milk

Usually there is easily 10x that much food in there.

I still have plenty in the freezer and pantry.

hi friends! So nice to read and catch up on your progress!

I had one more event and one more class this week, worked super long hours and have not had 2 days off in a row for weeks, but I got off early on Thurs and have today and tomorrow off. I slept for at least 10 hours last night! I really needed it and I feel better.

Today I worked on my room just a little bit, took out some trash and boxes, and put one thing in the donate box.

I also washed dishes and have my sheets in the dryer and clothes in the washer.

I am still doing great 100% on not buying any food in November. The fridge is the emptiest I have ever seen it! The freezers still have plenty and so do the cabinets. Yesterday I baked a butternut squash someone gave me a couple weeks ago, with garlic and some sage from the freezer. Had some of that today too and probably will make soup out of the rest of it.

I also soaked and tore up all the rest of the lettuce and peeled a pomegranate that looked bad on the outside but was perfect on the inside. I have had it a long time. So I have a container of fresh lettuce and a container of pomegranate arils all ready for my salad tonight.

I am not feeling deprived (a friend gave me some chocolates she made the other day, which was so good!) and just have to think about what to eat rather than going to buy everything I crave.

My pastor told me this is a sort of fast, and to think about doing it for 40 days and then taking a break, and if I want, starting again later. So I may do that. I have only told him and one close friend that I am doing this, since I don't want people knowing and bringing me food for that reason. Any food anyone gives me is spontaneous and part of my reliance of God as my provider, which He does sometimes through other people.

good morning!

Nice job cleaning the refrigerator, SubC! Lol.
You inspired me and so I finished the pint of ice cream in my freezer(-: - but this was after cleaning out the rest of the refrigerator and preparing a compost drop-off. so thanks for inspo!

have great days!

Good afternoon!

I am working on cleaning out my fridge by eating the last piece of cake. It is "healthy" cake - whole almond meal, eggs, applesauce, cocoa, vanilla, and hmmm.something else.oh yeah.sugar. MOSTLY healthy cake. No frosting.

I went to my class this morning and I reworked some old pots. One of them turned out really badly so I threw it in the dumpster. Another one was ok, but I wasn't fully happy with it and it cracked - not badly, but if it was refired again the crack would get worse. I was criticizing the pot and commenting on the fact that it cracked, when a classmate said "I don't mind that it's cracked. I really like it." So I gave it to them. Down two pots. (I'll log that in a bit.) I did have other work that came out well.

I also stopped at the offsite craft storage and bought a bunch of stamps. Twelve loose ones and three sets. Is that 15 things? I'm going to call it 15. I might take some to school, but I need to claim them for now.

I picked up the pumpkins at school and got goat feed. I also had to call my bank because apparently someone has been trying to log into my account and it is now locked (good) I need to go change my ID and password in person on Monday.

The heat is on in the studio and the washing machine is running. I'm going to unload the dishwasher in a minute and go out to finish? preparing for my sale once it's warm.

hello! good evening! good morning!
I don't post a lot, but reading your posts really helps me out. I am trying to keep on keeping on but feel like I'm falling behind. Not quite keeping up and not pulling ahead. But, four more square feet of floor empty in the bedroom! The desk gremlins have been back at it, however, so I need to clear space there again.

Lila, I started reading some of the posts on the No Spend chat. You are doing a great job! I had to laugh, though, because as you were describing the few frozen slices of pizza from your freezer, I was munching on a piece of pizza from my freezer. I do need to start keeping track of my budget. I think I need to start logging everything...
You are so creative with your food. I admire all the cooking you do.

SubC - I hope things are going well with getting your sale together. This becomes such a busy time of year. Already I was helping at a holiday program last week. More to come in December, of course. Good luck with the sale.
I appreciated the saying you quoted - "better one good thing that is..." - it's so elegantly expressed and has stuck with me this week. I couldn't find a source for it either, so I will henceforth attribute it to SubC. It is a valuable reflection for all things in life - including thinking of it in relationship to a certain collection of shoes at my house, lol.

I hope you all have great days! more later...

Good morning again!

I have already started dishes and laundry (trying to catch up.) I have my class this morning, then I need to stop by school to collect some pumpkins that are being "thrown out" - free food for me and the chickens.

The rest of the day will be focused on preparing for my sale and our thanksgiving trip, including restocking the goat feed.

Good morning.

Lila, I think you are doing a lot.

I have big plans for today - we'll see how it goes. It's supposed to rain all day, so that will either help me focus on the inside stuff I need to do, or wear me down.. We'll see..

Bean did color his bag yesterday and was very happy with it. Also, he took it home.

Dh has been showing some appreciation for my clean out progress lately, but he has also been inspired to do a big cleanout of his home office space, which is kind of overwhelming me with stuff that has to go various places.

Ok, off I go - my kitchen is a wreck. Maybe I will start there.

post 2 today -

I roasted some squash and the seeds, made a small cake out of leftover ricotta.

Washed dishes, ran dishwasher, unloaded.

Picked up my room a bit more, put some of the flour into the flour containers and the rest in a cabinet.

Have not done a whole lot else. It is almost 7pm so maybe I can work on my room a little more.

SubC, you ARE making good progress, so don't despair! Be encouraged and keep posting to encourage us! I do hate it when I want to do something with the grandkids and can't find it... they grow up too fast to put things off for long.

messi, I am so sorry about your aunt. That is difficult. I hope your doggy is giving you extra love and comfort.

My dog who I adopted a few months ago is a real cuddly comfort to me. I would like to get a second dog, but now is not the time.

I have finished my biggest work event of the year and now only have... like 3 more events and 3 more classes and then I get a break til mid January. Still will be working and preparing, but nice to have a little breathing room.

Today I felt exhausted and headachey so took the day off. I am trying to do some decluttering.

I worked on my desk in my room for 15 minutes and put 4 items on the Daily Tally thread. Yay me! I will work on my room some more today.

I found some teas, snacks, and a bag of flour and brought them out to the kitchen. (A bag of flour in your room? you ask. Yes. A huge bag. Why. Because months ago when people were coming over I threw everything off the counters into my room. Sheesh).

There are a lot of things I can't find. So I am starting with my room. Will post more later!

Thanks Messi.

I do not feel like I am making much progress, and I have no idea how I am going to get this done in time. But I am not giving in to despair.

I was walking out to fire the kiln this morning, and I remembered a line I read somewhere - I tried to google it for source, but it wouldn't come up. Maybe my brain has paraphrased it too much. It is "better one good thing that is, than two that were, or three that will never be."

I have saved so many toys and materials for projects and mementos for scrap books. Things that were, things that perhaps will never be.. It is foolish to let them interfere with the joys that are available to me right now. My Birdy needs a place to sleep. There are three days with Birdy, at Christmastime, at the age of two! That will never come again.

Also, in June, when Bean and I signed up for the summer reading program, they gave us a tote with a line drawing on it. I told Bean he could color it with my fabric crayons, but I couldn't find them. Yesterday I found the fabric crayons, and this morning I found the tote. It's been 5 months. I wonder if he will care?

You GO, SubC!!

Ok, I found nine more (mostly small) things to let go of. I managed to shift a few boxes, the mats are in place, and the rug is almost dry. I will bring it in tomorrow and give it a good vacuum for any dust that settled.

I have an idea about moving a few things to make a better space for my table cloths, and that might open up room where I want to store games. The shelves where I want to put the table cloths are old, gross, wire. I can't redo the whole closet right now, but I can put a piece of cardboard and a clean old sheet down as a bottom layer.

Good afternoon all,

Hello Messi! I had trouble with that once and I just had to drive to a physical location and sit in someone's office until they fixed it.

Today I started (barely) getting ready for the Christmas visit from the family. All of my beds will be full. I need to clear out the little sleeping porch for Birdy.

I have moved a few things, and I am down one, but the job feels overwhelming. I stopped and power washed six more puzzle mat pieces and another rug to finish off the basement floor. Even though it is cold out and my wet fingertips got numb.

That is how much I want to not have to deal with the stuff. But I need to.

omgoodness. I was going to chat a little but just spent 3 hours on the phone trying to get the login to my bank account straightened out. I've had no problems before, but now they have to send me somwthing by snail mail to straighten it out. Crazy. So now I have to go on to the next thing but will check in later.
Hello hello hello have a good sunday.

Goid morn8ng!

Messi, school was fine on Wednesday. I actually had a challenging student who was absent, and when I went by the office at the end of the day, I commented that "S was absent today - I'm much less tired!" To which she replied "he wasn't absent, I sent him home. (Insert story of infraction) and just so you know, he's on his last chance, so if you send him down, send his stuff with him. He's not coming back." On the one hand, it was nice of her to warn me, because she knows I go to bat for these kids like they are mine, but otoh, now I can't send him down unless I have decided he should be expelled.

I am not getting much done for my sale because my hand hurts, but I had a good class yesterday. I also swam a mile and stopped at a couple of thrift shops. I'm looking for stocking stuffers, but I ended up buying a stand for my sale display. It's really nice and Dh says I should keep a piece on it at home. I google imaged it and apparently it's meant for a ukulele. It cost me 53 cents.

Dh invited me to go out to dinner last night and I accepted, so that was my day. We had a good conversation. I'm going to try harder to get him to eat without checking his phone at home.

More school today and maybe a little clay work. Tomorrow is absolutely positively the last day that I can make anything new and finish it in time for the sale. Dh told me to stop worrying about the sale and take care of my hand. He reminded me that the pottery is supposed to be fun, and that we entered our "can afford to retire" window last Nov 1. (But not our "can afford health care" window, so Dh needs to work until at least the end of 2026 so that he can stay on the company plan until he qualifies for Medicare.) I'm not sure what we're going to do about me in the gap because I am younger than he is. Hopefully he won't need to work an extra two years for me.

Anyway, I resisted a lot of interesting things at the thrift shop - a giant marble run for only $4 - "subc, you have a marble run." "But this is compatible! Think of how big a run the kids could make!" "Bean isn't very interested in the marble run. The other boys are toddlers. Think of how much space it takes up! Think of how excited you would have been to find this when your kids were really into the marble run and your Christmas budget was $100! Leave it for that mom!" A texture mat for pottery that I already have - "I could take this one to school." "You could take yours to school and share it.". Dress boots "don't NEED these and they have a scuff." A skirt I already have - "but I love this skirt! What if it wears out?" "Then you will find a different skirt." Etc.

I also got overwhelmed by the amount of absolute JUNK that exists in the world. So many low quality plastic toys. So much low quality plastic clothing, so many cheaply made Knick knacks. I don't know if the thrift stores are worse than when my kids were little because of things like eBay and Marketplace, or if it's because the quality of new stuff has fallen so much, or if I just see things differently now that I've cleared out so much.

Anyway, I hope everybody has a good Friday!

good morning. trying to keep on keeping on. there is a clear space on the desk, but many things are lobbying to fill it. I need to turn a "deft" ear and come up with relocation plans. My dog is lobbying for my ear with a little whine to go for a walk. We will leave in a few minutes.
My aunt passed away this week, so I am sad. She was in her nineties and lived four hours away. My cousin is coming into town this morning to make arrangements at the cemetery here, the hometown. I will meet him there before going to work.
SubC - i hope you had a good teaching day and that you get to do more work for your sale.
Lila - thinking of you and hoping to get to cleaning my refrigerator a little.
Ok, my dog is insisting. Have great days!

Good morning.

I guess it's "later"

Beds made. Laundry done and put away except the load that is hanging to dry.

Counter better but not done.

Bins put away.

Planning started

I got a few small pieces made for the sale on the 22 and 23 (I am really pushing it on time!) and aggravated my tendonitis. I bisqued two things I had finished to fire for my class tomorrow.

Dh was off and working on jobs around the house. We took a trip together to a shopping center where he could get paint for the bathroom ceiling and I could use a coupon to get bean a toy he wants for Christmas.

This morning I need to get everything together for school and then I teach. I'm not sure if I'm going to swim after school or try to do more work for the sale.

Good morning!

I have one more bin of Halloween stuff to carry downstairs. I got out the thanksgiving and generic fall decorations. There are a couple of things I might get rid of.

I did laundry yesterday, but did not get it all put away. I have two more loads to do, and I need to remake the company beds with the clean sheets.

I did finish cleaning up the playroom.

I did a little bit of the counter, but not a lot.

This morning I started my planning. In the process I looked in my filing cabinet, and I found a file folder which included a bunch of information for lessons I am not going to teach again - so most of that file is in the recycling (I saved some stuff I might do at home with the boys)

I will report on progress later.