The Big White Farmhouse

intentional living, little by little

No.388: 2020 Gratitude // 17

A new series for 2020: if I record 20 things every week, I’ll have over 1,000 items by December 31.  
That’s a lot to be grateful for.

five brand new baby birds in the nest
every kind reader who goes through my affiliate links to make their purchases
the food banks that are working so hard for those in need right now
the farmers who keep us fed
holy, courageous priests
watching my oldest teach some of the little kids how to play guitar
when the kids complete their math lessons without complaint
how affectionate P has been with me this week
Lucy’s happy face
how much my string of pearls succulent is growing
my mom
taking walks outside by myself
bialys fresh from the oven
Scrabble games on the same set my grandmother used to use
a night off from cooking dinner
Saint Faustina’s diary
whispy white clouds on a background of bright blue sky
this lesson of living in the present moment
getting to use both sides of my brain with my #100dayproject
birds and flowers and green things growing everywhere

No.387: A List of April’s Frugal Accomplishments

This post is a combination of March and April, since I missed it last month.  Is there any better time to focus on frugality than in a pandemic?!

APRIL’S FRUGAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
My Goal: Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.  
And if you have to spend money, do it with intention.

+ I borrowed and read six books from the library.

+ I recently had a winter coat and a pair of dress pants dry-cleaned and I forgot how expensive that is!  To avoid that cost for awhile, I invested in an at-home dry cleaning “kit” (affiliate link).  Hopefully it will work!

+ We had a bunch of old Jenga blocks strewn around the house – I’m not sure how they got all over the place and if we even had enough for a game!  Inspired by this blog post, I gave two of the kids the blocks and our tempera paints and off they went!  The blocks turned out beautifully and have been played with daily ever since.  So fun to give a cast off toy a new life!

+ I gave Sophie and three of the boys haircuts.

+ One of our sinks was clogged and would not drain at all.  I tried my handy declogger recipe with no luck, so off to the Internet I went.  I learned that the issue might be the P-trap, so after watching a Youtube video, I got to work.  I removed the P-trap with a wrench, sprayed everything out well with the hose and reattached the pieces back together.  Definitely my favorite frugal accomplishment of the month.

+ I unsubscribed from almost a dozen email lists.  Less temptation for things that aren’t on the priority list right now.

+ I used the paper created from shredding our junk mail for our compost pile.

+ We turned the heat off on March 12 and barring any random snow storms, we should be able to last awhile before we need to turn on the AC!

+ The big boys and I took out the remaining boxwood shrubs from our front flower beds and transplanted them in the backyard. 

+ We’re saving tons of gas money by not going anywhere!

+ The rolling wheel part of the top rack of our dishwasher broke.  Since we can’t really have any repairmen in the house right now, Mark did a little research, ordered the parts online and was able to fix it himself.

+ We’re making a garden!  This is not exactly a cheap endeavor, but doing all of the work ourselves is saving us quite a bit of money.  For example, Mark built all of the beds from untreated lumber, which was significantly cheaper than buying pre-made kits.

+ J and I made some garden markers for our veggies out of Sculpey clay and alphabet stamps (affiliate link).  They are so perfectly imperfect and I love how they turned out!

+ Did you know that you can reuse parchment paper up to three times before throwing it away?  This has been especially helpful right now when I can’t get to the grocery store often.

Your turn!  What did you do to save a little money this month?
P.S. I’ve been pinning frugal ideas to this Pinterest board if you need some inspiration too!

_________________________________

Previous Frugal Accomplishments: 
2019: JULY  //  AUGUST  //  SEPTEMBER  //  OCTOBER  //  NOVEMBER  
2020: JANUARY  //  FEBRUARY

No.386: The Wednesday Five #10

This post contains affiliate links.

Happy Wednesday!

A QUOTE

A noble and delicate soul, even the most simple, but one of delicate sensibilities, sees God in everything, finds Him everywhere, and knows how to find Him in even the most hidden things.  It finds all things important, it highly appreciates all things, it thanks God for all things, it draws profit for the soul from all things, and it gives all glory to God.  It places its trust in God and is not confused when the time of ordeals comes.  It knows that God is always the best of Fathers and makes little of human opinion.  It follows faithfully the faintest breath of the Holy Spirit; it rejoices in this Spiritual Guest and holds onto Him like a child to its mother.  Where other souls comes to a standstill and fear, this soul passes on without fear or difficulty. – Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska’s Diary, p.83

THE BOOKS ON MY NIGHTSTAND

I’m cycling through three books right now:

  • Fiction: The Rosie Effect, which is the sequel to The Rosie Project but isn’t nearly as good as the first one.  Still pushing through because…maybe it will get better?
  • Non-fiction: There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather.  I’m less than 100 pages in, but it’s already reinforced so many reasons why we’ve chosen to continue homeschooling.
  • Religious: I picked up Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska’s Diary after listening to a homily on Divine Mercy Sunday and it’s better than I remembered.  A lot to ponder and pray about.     

#STANDWITHSMALL

P.S. A special thank you to the readers who purchase items through my affiliate links.  I appreciate it so much!  

    A 100 LITTLE THINGS UPDATE

    Work on my 100 Little Things list has been puttering along.   I need to step up the pace!  Current total is 36/100 with a little over three months to go.
    • ✔ #29. Find a free piano.  My parents have said that we could take their piano, but we want to wait until P is a little older before we move it.  (He loves to bang on it when we visit their house and I don’t think I could handle that on a daily basis.)  For now, we bought a keyboard for the kids to use.
    • ✔ #1. Buy a spice organizer.  I cannot tell you how long I have wanted this!  It’s one of those items that falls into the “definitely not a need, but it would make me happy” category and more important things have always popped up.  Finally made it happen in February and I was right: having all of the containers neatly organized makes me insanely happy every time I open the cabinet door.
    • ✔ #58. Make homemade playdough. We made a batch in February and it was a huge hit with the three youngest.
    • ✔ #38. Build raised garden beds.  Mark made us twelve 4’x4′ beds!  Can’t wait to fill them up with flowers and veggies.  
    • ✔ #60. Do 90 days of no sugar.  I started this goal on January 13th with the intention of going sugar-free until Easter.  I stayed strong and was thriving until the anxiety created by the pandemic had me stress baking.  I didn’t make it to exactly 90 days, but am still calling it a success.  I fully intend to go back to no sugar on the weekdays going forward…I feel SO much better without it.
    • ✔ #37. Hang a mason bee house. Purchased, hung and ready for the bees!
    • ✔ #85. Thank the trash guys. We made it social distancing friendly by taping a sign to our trash can.
    • ✔ #87. Pay off the car.  So so happy to have this one checked off the list!  
    • ✔ #77. Send someone flowers.  We sent tulips for my mom’s birthday.

    A FRUGAL ACCOMPLISHMENT QUESTION

    Earlier this year, I splurged on beautiful white Turkish hand towels for our bathrooms.  Unfortunately, this has proven to be a foolish purchase because…kids.  (#thisiswhywecanthavenicethings) Our Virginia clay/mud has discolored the towels and all of my natural stain removal techniques haven’t worked.  The tag says that I shouldn’t bleach them, so do I have any other options?  Consider it a failed experiment?  Are there any tricks left that I can try to make whites white again?  Help!

    No.385: Intentions for the End of April

    Act in such a way that all those who come in contact with you will go away joyful.  Sow happiness about you, because you have received much from God; give, then generously to others.
    – Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska’s Diary, p.24

    INTENTIONS FOR THE END OF APRIL

    • paint my toes
    • give myself a haircut
    • add a fresh layer of soil to the front flower beds
    • plant wildflower seeds throughout the entire front beds
    • start planting!
    • start working on garden fence construction
    • clear away the fallen trees and branches in the yard
    • read an ARC due for Netgalley
    • brainstorm some ideas/topics for my #100dayproject
    • update Nest Watch
    • try to propagate my Christmas cactus again
    • swap out the master rug for the one in the living room
    • clean the indoor/outdoor rug
    • put the indoor/outdoor rug out on the porch
    • order ferns on Etsy
    • order lemongrass on Etsy
    • go on a jog
    • deep clean the oven (100LT #4)
    • finish up the last work of the school year and prep for standardized testing

    PREVIOUS INTENTIONS

    If you’re reading on your phone or in a reader, be sure to click over to see what I checked off the list!
      • blog more (so far, so good!  I really need this creative outlet right now) 
      • continue working on my new scrapbook project (enjoying this creative outlet too)
      • add a fresh layer of soil to the front flower beds (our delivery has continually been postponed, but we hope it have it by Friday)
      • plant wildflower seeds throughout the entire front beds
      • email the county to see if I still need to order standardized testing (we’re still required to test even though the public schools are exempt…bummer)
      • figure out how to make Easter Sunday special, even under quarantine
      • start planting!
      • research rain barrels
      • choose a few books on my Goodreads “to read” list (I borrowed The Rosie Project and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society from the library)
      • decide on a baby shower gift for my cousin
      • finally work on the Finders Keepers box that I’ve had since December(!)
      • browse the recipes I’ve pinned on Pinterest and bake something new (decided to try a recipe for bialys in my sourdough cookbook instead)
      • try to propagate my Christmas cactus again
      • see if I can revive my dying fern (I trimmed it back and re-potted it, so we’ll see!)
      • add a few things to sell on ebay
      • clean and vacuum out car interiors
      • browse around for a bigger rug for the living room

      Less Materialism, More Intentional Living

      Amazon Disclosure Policy

      The Big White Farmhouse is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

      Archives

      Copyright © 2025 The Big White Farmhouse · Theme by 17th Avenue