Avivah Werner

Category: Intentional Spending

  • The kitchen is finished!

    Remember way back when I posted that we were totally renovating our kitchen?  We got most of the big stuff done within a week and a half, but lots of small things (and not so small things, actually) were left.  True to the 80/20 rule, which states that 80 % of your results come from 20 % of your effort, and 80% of your time will be spent on 20% of the work, is what happened with our kitchen.

    Here’s what we did – pulled out everything but the floor.  Replaced the cabinets, counters, appliances, repainted the kitchen, vented the hood to the outside (didn’t have a vent before), tiled the backsplash along the length of both counters (at least 20 feet in length), and replaced the lighting.  Because we were using previously owned cabinets, there were other things we needed to do to customize them for our kitchen – cutting the microwave cabinet down to standard size, rebuilding the cabinet that was previously above the hood, staining the wood on the exposed cabinet sides, building a desk area using a drawer and leftover trim for brackets, and more. 

    But it’s finally done.  Really, really finished!  And it looks beautiful.  Looking at it is so empowering for everyone in the family.  I kept thinking of things here and there that would improve it, but now it’s all done.  My 13 year old daughter finished the tiling for the final wall yesterday (my neighbor’s 40 year old daughter was visiting today, and told me she couldn’t believe it when she looked outside yesterday and saw her operating the power tile cutter independently – actually, dh taught the 9 and 11 year olds to use it, too :)).

    The kids have learned a lot from this project.  Here are some of the lessons: 1) Living within your means doesn’t mean doing without.  You just have to be willing to find other options.  The kitchen cost us under $2000 (including paying for an electrician, all power tools purchased, supplies, cabinets, appliances and 2 Uhauls rented to bring the supplies home).   

    Lesson 2 – just because everyone else hires experts doesn’t mean that you can’t do just as good a job on your own.  You just have to be willing to learn, and trust your ability to accomplish your goal.

    Lesson 3 –  There’s a huge amount of satisfaction in doing something on your own, and sticking with it until the end when it’s finished.  Every person in this family helped out and has a sense of pride in our project.

    Our only regret is that our digital camera wasn’t working properly when we started, so we don’t have before and after pictures. 🙂

    Avivah

  • Convenience foods on a budget

    I’ve been noticing a trend when I’m grocery shopping – I see many items being packaged for convenience that traditionally haven’t been sold in that way.  Junk foods have been packaged like this for eternity, but now the healthy food is following suit.  Some examples of what I mean are: bags of carrot sticks (not baby carrots), prewashed potatoes for baking, and hard-boiled eggs in a sealed package.   And those things come at a much higher price as a result.

    I dislike seeing everything commercialized, but I also understand that marketers are appealing to the desire of today’s busy shoppers to minimize the time in the kitchen.   And aren’t all of us busy?  I know I appreciate shortcuts that simplify my life!   I’ll share with you how you can make your own convenience foods, cheaply and easily.

    When I buy a few heads of cabbage, I’ll take some time to shred a bunch.  Then I fill a couple of gallon sized ziploc bags, squeeze out any extra air, and keep it in the fridge to quickly use in salads, stir fries, or kimchi.  I do that with green and purple cabbage, as well as carrots.  Carrots – buy a five pound bag, peel them all, and cut them into sticks, then fill a bunch of sandwich bags for your kids’ lunches.  Do you like hardboiled eggs?  It takes less than a half hour for them to boil, whether you make two or twenty, and either way the effort involved is just putting the eggs in the pot, filling it with water, and putting it on a burner.  (That takes all of 1 minute?)

    You’d be surprised at how little time it actually takes to do large amounts.  It’s the same principle that once you’re baking cake, you might as well quadruple the recipe and have four times the amount with just a little more work.  Once you’re doing it, it doesn’t take much more effort to do lots than a small amount.

    You can use the same approach for less healthy things like snack foods.  If you bake cookies or other treats, put it in small portions in separate sandwich bags.  But it doesn’t matter if you make it yourself (that just means it’s cheaper and healthier).  You can take the big bags of popcorn, pretzels, or snack crackers and likewise divvy them up into portion sizes.

    I have to send my oldest son to school every day with breakfast and lunch (he waits to eat dinner until he gets home), so I use the same approach for him.  (No, I don’t send him processed garbage just because it’s convenient.  :)) I make a bunch of a dish and then divide it into meal size portions, putting it aside in the fridge or freezer for him.  Last night my 13 year old daughter made a huge amount of broccoli lo mein – everyone said it was delicious!  (If you tell me you’d like the recipe, I’ll share it here with you – it was a big winner in our house, including the friends of the kids who ate over last night.)  So we put aside several containers for my son to take for lunch. 

    Since I often eat a different meal than my kids (because of my food plan restrictions), I do the same thing to keep my life simple.  At the beginning of the week, I will chop up a bunch of veggies for salads, and place it into separate containers so I can just grab one each day for lunch.  (If you use grape tomatoes or keep the chopped tomatoes at the very top of the salad, the salad will stay fresh through the week- this was a very helpful tip for me when I finally figured it out!)  When I make my chicken, meat, salmon patties, or whatever, I make up a bunch, and then package it in a meal sized amount and put it in individual bags.  It makes my mealtimes much faster when I can just grab a bag out of the fridge or freezer.

    Avivah

  • Once a month shopping

    Have you ever heard of once a month cooking?  Basically, you prepare a month’s worth of meals in one day, then stick them in the freezer and just pull one out every night.  This isn’t realistic for me because of the logistics of doing this on the scale necessary for a family of our size, but a couple of months I started doing something different with my shopping that reminds me of this basic idea.

    And that is – once a month shopping!  I’ve drastically cut down on my shopping by only shopping at the beginning of the month for staples, plus once every two weeks for veggies.  This has been great!  Here’s how it works: I start the month by buying all the chicken and meat I need (whatever is on sale that week is what I use for the month).  Then when I get home I roast all of the chicken and freeze it in meal size pans.  I bag the fresh meat into meal sized portions and put that in the freezer, so I can pull out one package to prepare a meal without needing to defrost the entire family pack.  This is where the biggest part of my food expenses go.

    I buy a month’s worth of eggs (around 18 – 20 dozen) at the beginning of the month, and keep it in an unheated room in the basement where they stay very cool.  This might not work as well in the summer, but for now it’s good.  I go to as many as 3 or 4 stores in two separate shopping trips within the first four days of the month, and buy lots of whatever staples they have on sale that week, so that eliminates the need to keep a weekly eye on the sales flyers.  I suppose basic staples are always on sale, because I haven’t had a problem finding what I need at sale prices on this schedule, with the exception of cheese.

    As far as vegetables go, I can’t do all of that once a month for obvious reasons.  So I go twice a month.  I get about 100 lb of potatoes, a bunch of onions, and maybe 30 lb of sweet potatoes close to the beginning of the month.  Then I buy the perishable type veggies like tomatoes, peppers, cukes, and I use them within the first week after I buy them, since they don’t stay fresh very long.  I also buy lots of squash and cold weather vegetables (carrots, turnips, rutabagas, beets, turnips, parsnips, cabbage) that stay fresh longer.  These are also kept in the basement room along with the eggs.    I make some of these into jars of lacto fermented veggies, and I use these more the second and fourth weeks of the month, when the less hardy veggies are used up.  I buy several bags of romaine hearts each time and find that they easily stay for two weeks, so I use that as the basis for daily salads with whatever veggies I want to throw in.

    Cabbage has become very popular here because it’s so versatile and stays fresh a long time; I can do so many things with it!  (And at 3 lb for a dollar, you can’t beat the price!)  Lacto fermented sauerkraut and cortido, coleslaw and other salads, sauteed in stir fries – today I made a lunch dish called colcannon that the kids enjoyed.

    Colcannon:

    Simmer 1 1/4 lb chopped green cabbage in 2 c. water and 1 T. oil.  Saute 1 c. onions/leeks in 1/2 c. butter until translucent. Add 1  1/4 lb. cooked potatoes, quartered and 1 c. milk to the potato mix and simmer it all until warm.  Then puree this mix -but I just quickly mashed it because as you know I like to save time – and add it to the cooked cabbage.  Mix it all together, season with salt and pepper and top with some more butter if you like.  Filled with protein, carbs, healthy fats, and veggies -a balanced meal and cheap to boot!

    Carrots are also great – the kids like carrot sticks and I shred and then bag a large amount of carrots so I can add them to fresh salads.  This is in addition to all the other veggies they eat, but carrots are easy to always have around.

    I used to shop weekly to stock up on the sales for whatever the three main supermarkets had that I wanted.  Now it’s just the main shopping the first week, two trips to the vegetable market, and that’s it for the month.  The hard part about this is that I use about two thirds  of my monthly food budget within the first few days and that leaves the much smaller amount for the remaining 27 or so days!  After years of budgeting equal amounts per week, I sometimes feel momentarily nervous.  Then I remind myself that I have lots of food and I’m certainly not going to run out before I replenish my budget.  After my shopping trip last week on the 4th, I had $7 remaining to last for eleven days (my shopping cycle begins the 15th of each month).   As meager as that sounds, my fridge, freezer and pantry are all full, even now, in the last few days before the month runs out – I have at least 50 lb of potatoes, many pounds of oats, rice, wheat, a freezer with poultry and lamb, lots of canned goods, plenty of milk, butter, and eggs, and some root veggies and lettuce so I’m nowhere near suffering any lack!

    I’m very disciplined about sticking to my food budget so I don’t give myself leeway by shopping a day or two earlier or spending a penny more than I allocate each month.    I have had to raise my food budget in the last year, since staples have gone up significantly in price (and my kids keep getting bigger and bigger!), and now spend about $540 a month; that includes everything.  I choose to be disciplined, because I don’t think I could maintain my budget without this discipline.  Since I spend less than half of what is typical for a large family, I know I could easily significantly increase my monthly expenditures without having any qualitative improvement to show for it, and this discipline guards me against that.

    So this new approach has benefited me by saving lots of my time, gas, and energy, leaving more time to enjoy my family, while spending the same amount as before, and feeding my family as well as ever!

    Avivah

  • Vegetable bargains

    I popped out to the store today to pick up some refreshments for our homeschooling gathering tomorrow, and when I was there saw some veggies on sale.  There are vegetables on sale, and then there are veggies that are super cheap.  These were in the latter category – on the reduced rack.

    There was a point that I shunned reduced produce racks, thinking they were semi rotten vegetables that the store owner was still trying to crank some profit from.   But I’ve since learned that often there is just an overstock of a given vegetable and they want to sell the produce quickly before it goes bad.  I stay away from produce that looks really bad, since I don’t find it worth my time or money to cut away all the yukky spots. 

    To find these reduced racks, look for small privately owned markets that discount produce substantially when it’s ripe or a little overripe.  I’ve found a local Asian market and a Russian market both have these, along with another local smallish store.The large supermarkets very rarely have these sections -I’ve only twice in years found reduced produce at national chains – both times ripe (not overripe) bananas.  They just throw away anything with imperfections. 

    The challenge with reduced produce is that it has a short shelf life, and you need to use it pretty promptly.  For a family like ours, that’s not usually a problem, since the kids love fruits and vegetables and go through it fast.  But sometimes I’ve gotten carried away by the super cheap prices and gotten too much, and then had to make a real effort to use it so it didn’t go bad. 

    Now that I’ve learned about making fermented vegetables, I don’t have that kind of pressure anymore.  Today I bought a lot of tomatoes and peppers, and then prepared two quarts of tomato pepper relish when I got home (you’d be amazed how many plum tomatoes you have to use to fill up a two quart jar!).  I also added some tomatoes to the batch of salsa I made, which was way too spicy for my taste.  (My policy is to make a recipe the first time as it’s written, so I know what it’s supposed to taste like before I make my adaptations to it.)  It’s nice that I can just add some vegetables to already fermented vegetables and then put it back on the shelf to ferment some more. 

    My dd13 made two versions of cortido (Latin American sauerkraut), using the pineapple vinegar we made as the fermenting agent instead of sea salt for two quarts and sea salt for the other two quarts.  (The pineapple vinegar was interesting and easy to make – you put the core and skin of a pineapple in a jar with some oregano and water to cover, and let it sit out, covered for 3 days.  Then strain it out and voila – pineapple vinegar!) 

    Avivah

  • Using up turkey bones

    After two weeks of no food shopping, I went out last night and stocked up on chicken for the month, as well as a few other things.  Without checking, I assumed I would have room in the freezer for it (especially since I hadn’t put anything in for two weeks), which is usually true.  Well, that was a mistake.  My freezer is very full, for which I’m grateful.  But since I didn’t realize this until I got home, I put myself in a challenging situation of having alot of perishable food and no place to store it.  Believe me, I’m not complaining about having too much food.  But I was very busy for hours last night trying to find a solution (and I’m still working on it today!).

    I started by rearranging the fridge to make room for the new groceries.  Since earlier in the day I defrosted a large amount of fish to make two new recipes in bulk, I took that out.  Then I prepared two fish pies and several loaves of a three layer fish dish – so there was more room in the fridge – but then I needed freezer space to store it!  It was a classic catch 22 situation, and one that was repeated every time I tried to make more room.

    I realized last night that I had some fresh turkey bones in the fridge so I made a pot of stock (that now needs to go into the freezer).  I deboned it and have a pan full of turkey for a stir fry or pot pie now, but then my kids told me we have more turkey bones in the freezer.  So I figured I would just cook up another batch and be finished with all of the bones at once.

    Because of their shape, they take up a disproportionate amount of room, so even though I would need to put stock and a pan or two of shredded turkey back in the freezer, I figured I would have some space gain.  I asked my ds8 to bring up all the bones – and he brought up three big supermarket bags full!  I didn’t realize they had been accumulating – I vaguely remember dh bringing them home and asking what to do with them, and me telling him to put them in the freezer.  But I didn’t see how much he had, and assumed it was the same amount as usual (enough for one pot of soup).  Usually I don’t  have more than one batch in the freezer at a time at the very most, but there was a lot after Thanksgiving (in case you’re wondering how we could possibly have so many turkey carcasses, we got them for free from a friend who owns a restaurant).  I’m now on my second bagful, so we’re down about 8 carcasses.  Just 10 or so carcasses still waiting to be dealt with!!  My sink and counter are full of them!

    I’ve decided to spend all day making stock and since it’s so concentrated, I can freeze it in small amounts.  When I defrost it, I’ll add plenty of water and each container of stock will be the base for a delicious soup.  Since I’ll have an entire shelf available in the freezer with all of those bones taken out, I’m planning to spend some time cooking ahead all the chicken I brought home and then pans of chicken will replace the bones.  And then I should have a little more room in the fridge – so I can go shopping for vegetables. 🙂

    By the way, do you know how extremely good for you properly prepared bone broths/stocks are (not the stuff that comes in a can from the supermarket)?  I didn’t, until reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon a couple of years ago, a combination of a cookbook and nutritional information resource.  She goes into detail about the benefits – a gelatin rich broth (the gelatin is released by the bones that are cooked for a long time) supply hydrophilic colloids to the diet (you’ll have to read the book to know what that means!), and are protein sparing and thereby allow the body to fully utilize the proteins taken in.  Gelatin also is useful in the treatment of many chronic diseases.   Broths also contain amino acids, cartilage, and collagen, which have been used to treat a number of health ills.  In short, they are very nourishing and if you are on a limited food budget, they are not only inexpensive to make, but can substitute for meat in the diet.  You can cook your grains in them, use it to flavor other dishes, or use it as a base for incredibly flavorful soup.  I always marvel at how everyone seems to think that you need a powdered MSG filled soup mix to give a soup flavor – definitely not!

    Last winter I posted instructions on how to make stock from scratch, so if you want to try your hand at it, you can click here.

    Avivah

  • The pantry principle

    I recently shared on a message board some tips for food budgeting (I posted about this here in Feb.), and realized by the feedback there that part of my approach needed to be clarified.  Too often, people will tell me, “Food costs more where I live, I can’t get xyz item at that price here.”   First of all, the point is not to use the items that I use or that my recipes are any more affordable than yours.  Use recipes that utilize foods that are affordable where you live.More important than using economy ingredients is the pantry principle. Many foods are usually pricey, but if you stock up when the prices are right, you can enjoy what most would consider more expensive meals while staying within your budgetary limitations. I use some ingredients that tend to be expensive. But for me, they’re not.  Why?  I don’t shop for ingredients for specific recipes – I shop to fill my pantry.  That means when cheese is on sale, for example, as it was this week, I’ll buy a large amount and put it in the freezer for when I’ll need it.  Peanut butter is on sale, I stock up. Etc, etc, etc.

    If you were to watch me shopping for non perishables, you would notice that though I usually have a full shopping cart, there are only a few different items -thirty of this, twenty of that. I buy alot of whatever is on sale, usually saving an average of 33 – 50% on my bill from what it would be if I just bought the ingredients when I needed them. I try to keep my pantry and freezer filled with staple ingredients that I regularly use.  When it’s time to plan my menu for the week, I think about what I have on hand.  Do I have a lot of pasta, or a lot of potatoes?  Am I running low on canned tomatoes but have a bunch of canned fish?  Did I buy alot of something perishable on sale that needs to be cooked up and put into the freezer right away (this week it was bananas, last week it was cottage cheese)?

    It’s not what you buy that will make the big difference, it’s how you buy!

    Avivah

  • Deck building

    So often I think about posting but life is so busy that I just don’t get around to it!! This is the busiest time of year for me, and this year is busier than usual with our newest arrival taking up time and attention.  🙂

    Today was my official due date – it’s so nice that the baby has been a member of the family almost three weeks already, instead of waiting and wondering when he would be born.   Since I didn’t have to spend energy on wondering and waiting, I was able to move on to something else that I had been thinking about for quite a while. :)))

    I’ve been wanting to build a deck for the past year, and had planned it for a summer project with my kids.  I thought it would be especially nice since we would have a sturdy surface to put up the new easily assembled kind of blow up pool and the kids could enjoy water play in the hot weather.  But when the oldest two kids suddenly ended up going to sleep away camp for a month, I shelved the plans for this year – it seemed like too much to take on in the eighth month of pregnancy, in the heat of the summer, without two of the most capable workers. 

    My husband has been against this idea since I first brought it up, and didn’t get more receptive to it as time went on.  🙂  He felt that I have so much to do that he didn’t want to see me take on another big project.  I explained to him a couple of months ago that I like having something to do, but he was happy when I realized that the deck was too big a project for me at that time and stopped thinking about it.

    What does this have to do with anything right now?  Well, yesterday afternoon I had this sudden idea that we could build the deck (freestanding platform style) before my husband came home today at 4 pm.  I knew he would be happy to have it done, and if he didn’t know we were doing it, he wouldn’t worry that I was doing too much so soon after birth.  I discussed the possibility with the kids, who were very enthusiastic, but told them my concerns about the very tight time frame we would be working under.  When I first thought about building it, I planned to allot a week to get it done – and now I was giving us a day!  I talked to them about what would have to be done in what order, and the importance of being focused on our tasks.  They realized that I wouldn’t be able to physically help them with the building (it being so soon after birth), and the actual work would all be up to them – I would just direct them.  Since I had read books about deck building several months ago, I knew what we needed to do and we didn’t need to spend much time thinking about it or researching – we just had to work out the size and layout we wanted.

    The kids really wanted to do it so that we could use it for Sukkos (last year we were on the dirt and when it rained, it became mud; not so pleasant) and eagerly agreed to take on the challenge, and boy, they are an amazing team!  It was very sweet to see all six of them (oldest ds wasn’t home at first) all working together – hammering, unscrewing, etc- even my 17 month old was in on the action – he found a large bolt and used it as a hammer to bang on the wood alongside his older siblings.  When ds14 got home, he jumped right in to help.

    We decided on a deck that would be 16.5 feet by almost 13 feet, eight inches off of the ground.  (Because it is freestanding, we didn’t have to worry about digging foundations or applying for permits, both potentially a big concern.)  Since we were using lumber for the frame that we collected a few months ago from a deck someone was dismantling, it took significantly more time to assemble than it would have if we had just purchased exactly the lumber we needed from the store.  But the boards were already in the yard, and it was a good feeling to finally put them to use. 

    We didn’t actually manage to finish everything before my husband got home, but we did have the entire frame finished by then, and I came home from the lumber yard with the final load of wood to cover the frame with right after dh got home.  He literally was speechless – he couldn’t believe that we thought of the idea and gotten so much done in the day that he was gone.  The kids at first couldn’t tell how he felt about it, because he just kept saying how shocked he was – so finally ds8 asked if he was happy about it.  And dh told him he just couldn’t believe it, that he thought it was amazing.

    Tomorrow morning the kids plan to finish attaching the surface boards – most of them are down, but all of them aren’t yet screwed into place.  Since I have alot of other things I need to do tomorrow (being erev Sukkos), they decided they want to wake up early so they can finish it by 11 am or so before they need to get to their other tasks.  It has been exciting for them to watch the deck take form and know that they have really made this crazy idea happen in time to use for our sukka this year. 

    I strongly believe in giving kids opportunities to stretch themselves.  As parents, we can’t give our children confidence or self esteem, but we can give them experiences that have the potential to build an inner confidence.  When kids successfully accomplish something that feels significant to them,  they feel more confident and that confidence will carry over into many other areas of life.

    Avivah

  • Back from Camping Trip 2007

    We’ve gone and come back from our camping trip, and had a great time!

    The campground we went to was the most beautiful we’ve ever been to, and very private. There was a beautiful stream running through the campgrounds, and we had a fun time climbing the rocks in the river, tubing, hiking, and on the last day, swimming at a nearby thermal lake. And of course there was the usual camping fun of collecting firewood, building fires, roasting marshmallows and hotdogs, making smores, etc.

    We also made a trip out to gorgeous Blackwater Falls (WV), which was only 40 minutes from our campsite. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the camera with us for the thermal lake and waterfall (accidentally left behind at the campsite), since that was a very fun part of our trip that would be good to have visual reminders of. But the main thing is that we had the experience! (Though I’ve often found that what we have pictures of we remember for much longer!)

    When we were packing the van to go there, we were really glad we didn’t need to take tents this time since we didn’t have any extra space in the van! Everyone thought the cabin was cute (I had to take the smaller one since the bigger one that would have been more suitable was taken), but once nighttime came, the four oldest kids had a hard time sleeping because they were so squished.

    And honestly, I usually enjoy the rustic experience, but this time (being six months pregnant), I really wouldn’t have minded electricity or being closer to the water pump and porta potties (the bigger cabin is right next to those and has electricity). Three trips in the middle of the black rainy night to use the facilities wasn’t much fun. And it wasn’t much fun walking ten minutes to get to a bathroom first thing in the morning, either, when the closer one (three minutes away) was taken. But that was really the main complaint, and that’s being kind of nitpicky.

    Fortunately, we didn’t spend much time inside during the day! The weather was on the cool side – it was rainy and pouring the first night there, but cleared up the next morning and it was clear and sunny. Since it was in the mountains, it didn’t feel hot at all – temps were only in the 80s.

    The modest swim suits I made were really a worthwhile use of time, as it enabled us to have fun as a family in the water in situations that I would usually stay away from. I was working on mine until 1 am of the morning that we left, knowing how disappointed my kids would be if I didn’t finish it. It was worth the effort; they were thrilled that I made it in time for the trip and I had lots of fun swimming with them!

    We decided to leave a little early and not stay for the third night – the larger cabin was available and we initially planned to move into it for our last night there, but then decided it was silly to spend energy moving in there, when we were just going to pack up first thing the next morning and go home. I had terrible back pain from the mattress I slept on (I could feel the metal bars of the futon frame through it) and didn’t want to cut our trip short just because of that, but the second night some kids were so cold that they weren’t looking forward to the third night, either. Part of that was their own fault – three of them forgot to bring the warm clothes that we told them to pack, but part of it was being in the mountains, and it being much colder at night than we’re used to on past camping trips – we would have brought more blankets if we had realized. I can only imagine how cold we would have been if we had camped this year in tents like we usually do!

    We got back at 1 am on Friday morning (it’s always nice to be home!), and when we woke up, got everything unpacked and washed up. Then we had special overseas guests for dinner that I’ve known online for over six years, but never had the chance to meet in person until Friday evening. (We spent most of Monday before we left cooking and freezing food so we wouldn’t be too pressured when we got home from the trip, and were able to just pull things out of the freezer.) They also came for lunch the next day, and we thoroughly enjoyed them – what wonderful people! They also had a daughter 11.5 who both my almost 11 yo and 12.5 year old really enjoyed getting to know. The consensus of all the kids was they wish we could have spent even more time together with their family!

    Saturday was our 15th anniversary – doesn’t that sound like a long time?! The years have flown by! Marriage is an amazing thing, and I’m incredibly grateful to be married to such a special person, who I love more and more every year.

    Today was a really nice day, very relaxed and filled with nice time together with the kids – a movie out (check your local theaters to see if any offer free matinees in the summer – many do), a trip to the library, some special shopping for ds13, and then a trip to friends for another child (and later, swimming there for two of my boys while I got to enjoy time with their mother, a good friend who I never have enough time to talk with :)). We had dinner outside in the back yard where it was cool (the house was uncomfortably warm) before getting everyone ready for bed. Now we are getting looking forward to a visit from a family from Texas who is coming tomorrow. I’ve known them since I was 16, so we’ve seen each other through many stages of life!

    Tomorrow morning the midwife will be here and I’ll finally get the official verdict about if we have one or two babies on the way (these four weeks have dragged by, waiting and wondering). I’ll be sure to keep you posted!

    Avivah

  • Planning our camping trip

    I’ve been busy making plans for our yearly camping trip. Actually, we just call it our yearly camping trip, because that’s how often it’s supposed to happen, but somehow it has so far worked out to every other year. Dh and I put off planning longer than we usually do, which isn’t a problem if you don’t mind camping at busy times in the season when everyone is there, but since we do mind, I needed to do a lot more research than usual. By mid June, the campgrounds are filling up, and we want to go next week.

    Something we love about camping is the peaceful quiet, and it would really take away from the experience for us to go when there are lots of people around. I heard about a new privately owned campground that’s a few hours away. The thought of spending three hours in the van getting there wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for gas prices being so high (and large passenger vans are notorious for their low mpg!). I called the owner to ask some questions, and although the campsites are very large and one could easily accomodate our two tents, we would still need to pay for two campsites, since the price for one campsite is based on having only four people using it.

    I’ve sometimes felt in situations like these that large families are penalized, because of regardless of how few resources or space you actually use (often less than much smaller families because of the choices we make), you are charged per additional child the adult rate per day. Anyway, once I saw how expensive renting the campsites would be, I started looking at the more expensive options that I wouldn’t usually consider, because they were no longer significantly more. They have two tipis, but they officially only sleep four, and I didn’t feel confident without seeing them that we could comfortably squeeze in to one. (I’ll check it out once we are there for future reference.) Then I looked at the cabins, which are the most expensive options.

    There are only two cabins, one is larger but not as ideally located (right off the main parking lot and there is a light from outside), the other is smaller but in a more woodsy and private area. Since the larger one sleeps 7, we decided to reserve that even though we really like the location of the smaller one more. But when I got online to make reservations, the larger one was taken. That made the decision very easy! I happily reserved the smaller one (sleeps 5 adults), feeling that it’s the one we were obviously meant to have, and it’s the one we would be happier with. The cabin is as close to tent camping as you can get – there is no electricity or running water, and the stove provided is the typical Coleman camping stove. But it will save us the extra set up time when we get there, and save us time preparing since we won’t need to take out the tent equipment ahead of time to be sure it’s all there.

    Here’s how we plan on sleeping everyone – there’s a double futon for dh and I, and above that is a twin bed that ds (5) and dd (6.5) will share. There’s a loft that has two twin beds, and two kids will share each bed, by putting their heads at opposite ends and their feet in the middle. Two boys to one, two girls to the other, and then we’ll bring the port-a-crib for the baby. We’re bringing sleeping bags, and if anyone feels the above sleeping arrangements are too tight (and they ARE on the tight side, though the girls often share a twin bed at home because they like to), they can camp out on the floor. This is the first time going camping without taking tents, and a couple of the kids initially balked at the idea, and still want to know if we can take a tent for them to sleep in if they want. I don’t mind if they do, so I’m happy to accomodate them and bring a tent along.

    This site looks beautiful and seems to have nice water areas – enough for tubing, wading, and swimming, some waterfalls, and lots of boulders for climbing and exploring. There’s a thermal lake nearby that we plan to take everyone to, as well as some caves and hiking areas that I’m trying to convince dh not to take everyone to this time. (I love how peaceful it is when we can just all enjoy being there once we get there, and don’t want to spend too much time leaving the campgrounds.)

    I made the older two girls modest bathing suits that they love and look lovely in, so they can feel comfortable in the water even if there are other non family members around. (They’re very practical, too, since they can wear them to hike in and then keep the same suit on for swimming.) I’ve been feeling tired in the evenings and have been putting off sewing one for myself and my 6.5 dd (who likes her older sisters’ and keeps asking when she will get one), but that’s something I really need to get to this week. Once I get started it shouldn’t take too long, but I’ve put mine off because I’m not sure how to size it so it will fit now and later on in pregnancy, because I really wanted to use it when I’m not pregnant. I’ve been thinking I could add in extra panels on the sides, and then remove them later on. Or I could make a separate pregnancy suit in the material that I like less (I got two different materials to use for the various suits) and make another one later on, which probably makes the most sense. Well, I’ll let you know once I decide. 🙂

    Avivah

  • New dining room chairs

    Some of you probably remember when I wrote about reupholstering the chairs that someone gave us when we bought the conference table from them. Those chairs looked great, but where kind of bulky, and didn’t give us the increased seating space we wanted when we bought the bigger table. On Friday, I bought 14 chairs from a private seller – he listed them as conference chairs, which is officially what we already had. But in the picture, I saw that they were standard width, and attractive looking. Since they were made for the commercial market, they are supposed to be nearly indestructible (though as I said to dh, I don’t know if the makers reckoned on a large family using them!). They have a ‘mountain backed’ chrome frame with super comfy cloth seats and backs. The seller used them for monthly meetings in his home for his business, and paid $100 new for each one. They are in great condition, and he sold them to me for $15 each. 🙂

    Dh is really glad I got them. The dining room feels larger and more comfortable with these chairs replacing the old one. Our dining room isn’t too big, so it makes a big difference. Whenever someone sits down in them, they sigh and tell me again how comfortable they are. That should fade in the next day or so. 🙂

    What did we do with the other chairs, you may be wondering? Since I got them for free, and reupholstered them with material that was free, I didn’t feel like selling them, even though they were very nice looking after all of our work. I posted them as a giveaway on our local Craig’s list and put them behind the garage for the first taker to come get them. Within a half hour, they were gone, to a very happy couple! It’s such a nice feeling to do something good for someone else, and that feeling is worth more than the money I could have sold them for.

    We’ll be busy with our usual Sunday afternoon routine for this season, cheering on our boys who play baseball. The entire family goes to every game, and though it’s a long afternoon (each of the boys is in a different league so we spend about 4 hours out, first watching the younger league play, then the older league), it’s something we enjoy sharing. Enjoy your Sunday!

    Avivah