Doing Not Thinking Challenge Update

Ummm not really sure what week it is I've lost track. Not done a whole lot garden wise. But its my weekend that will change. Saturday Bill purchased 2 huge plastic drums from the recycling center and made rainwater harvesters. Some guy had come in a few days before that and bought 80! At $6 a pop! He's probably making collectors too and selling them for $70+. Grrr smart guy though lol. Anyway...tonight we had a small rainstorm I will check the barrels in the morning.

Im getting a little worried. Ok Im waay past a little worried. Im panicked. I watch the news online and its making me nauseous so I quit. Still no word on the new job position. Talked to Jodi today. Her and a girl from my fighting unit came over to help me pick green beans and can them. So far I did another 7 quarts but it looks like 2 of them might have seal failure. Grrrr. Anyway, was talking to Jodi and she mentioned that her king bed would not fit well in the extra bedroom and the possibility of swapping beds with us for the 5 or 6 months she would be here. We have the biggest room but only a full size bed. I told her that would be fine with me if she was cool with it. So that seems like the probability of her moving in is high. Of course nothing is in stone..Its a long way to January. Im trying to get my 2 credit cards consolidated. I also still have the car payment. Once I know about the job position thing then I will be picking up a second job. I dont care if its working along side the Teen at Burger King. I am making myself sick worrying about us having enough money to pay bills, gas and food. I do NOT have enough put by to see my family through winter without supplementing from the grocery store. The more I try to curb my spending the more that seems to go out the window. Quite honestly right now I feel like s#*t.

I worked in the garden quite a bit today. Some of the tomato plants had to go. They weren't doing anything and were looking horrid. Jalapenos are still churning out as well as the super long cayenne we got. I got quite a few green peppers as well. I pulled up a lot of grass. And I will have to start pulling the melons as they have gone wilty on me. I think also that I have an aphid infestation :( Not happy. I found some carrots had finally come up and some lettuce that sprung. Quite happy about that I must say. There are tons of catepillars that are trying to eat my fennel. Bill is quite pissed that I asked him to pull them off and put them in the grass and not kill them. I think a few of them are Monarch pillars and even if they werent Im not a catepillar squisher....though its open season on most other bugs. Anyway, I am up to my armpits in green beans again. I have about 13 quarts or so put up plus some in the freezer but I am running out of places to put stuff. Bill says we do not have enough to last us a year. Umm there is only 3 of us here at the moment. I dont forsee us going through all that. Might be 4 come January. Oh yeah I forgot to mention. I offered our old roommate Jodi the 3rd bedroom for $250 a month. Her lease at her efficiency is up in January. She should be graduating at the end of next spring. Not sure if she will take it though. It would be really nice though to have the extra money.

Speaking of money. I went to get the stuff to make Phelan's Alfredo Sauce and the cost of supplies made my mouth drop.. I really need to get in with someone who has a dairy operation going on.

• 1 quart of heavy whipping cream is currently $3.28
• Trying to get 16 oz of shredded parmesan cheese was insane. Arnold's market was out and the Co Op was closed so I had to get it at Krogers....18 oz was $10.80
• Butter is almost $3 for a pound.

So Im going to try to get that canned tonight.

Sorry I fell off the face of the earth

Sorry I have slacked on my posting. I am still keeping with my Doing Not Thinking challenge though. I've still been fighting my slump but its been better the last couple days. The last few days I have had wonderful experiences that have helped me stay on the up and up.

I hope everyone is doing ok with Ike and the crazy weather that flowed from Kansas through us in Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky.

The northern and central parts of Illinois have had problems with flooding but here in the southern part we had what I dubbed the Whipping Winds. Gusts up to 60mph+, we had some rain but not as much as Phelan or my parents who are still up in Decatur. Trees were blown everywhere, there are still parts of towns around here that dont have power and have been told that they might not until Wed or Thursday. Not us we lost power for all of 2 minutes thankfully and though I personally haven't seen the garden yet Bill has. He has warned me that its very trashed and I will have my hands full Tues and Wed salvaging what I can. He tried yesterday and today to get in there but it was really muddy. So I am moving to the clean up the garden phase.

But despite that like I said earlier I've been doing pretty good. Let me tell you about these things ....

Saturday Bill took me to an auction that was held a couple blocks up the street at the DeSoto community park. I've never been to an auction before and balked at the first auction that started as it moved too fast and I could not understand a thing. I stuck in though and $7 dollars later I came out pretty happy with some unexpected buys...But the score of the day would belong to Bill who accidently wound up getting a VERY nice dining room table and 5 chairs (one of the host chairs was missing) for $5. Yeah and wait til I get my camera battery charged up so I can take the pictures! He had thrown a bid on it because they had stalled at the start and started rambling (at that time the company had just started another auctioneer outside the pavillion and people had started bouncing back and forth between the two) usually when a bid gets thrown in (especially on furniture) it gets the ball rolling quickly....however, in the confusion no one realized that the bidding had started and next thing you know he was the only bidder on it. So yeah there you go. The table needs some murphys wood soap and elbow grease and the chairs need re upholstered [Something I actually know how to do!] and the other host chair needs a new back (its its a piece of scrolled wood that got splintered up) but it I mean WOW $5 bucks!

The second thing would be an email from Kathie at two frog home. She was asking how we felt about these coming hard times and what would really help and I was honest. I am very worried. We dont have any savings and there have been a lot of layoffs at Bill's work and there has been a lot of "restructuring" at my job. What I need is people to actually talk to. It's pretty much just me and Bill by ourselves at the moment, not a lot of people we know are into this way of life and its lonely. Im trying to get my household in order like I hear so many people doing. On that I think I would do well with a structured system, something almost military (yeah I know coming from me thats funny) But anyways, I got an email from Kathie and it warmed my heart.

The third thing would be that Bill has approached me on what we will plant for the next garden and mentioned we needed to get garlic put in. I really worried that the gardening problems (affectionately know as the McNelly Grass War) might sour him on gardening and the homesteading life. But that is a resounding no. He is more interested in doing seed swapping and getting away from Burpee Seeds and even went so far as finding a Local Harvest listing that was close by to possibly get seeds from for next year!

The last thing Im mentioning actually happened at work. I take orders for a vitamin company and pretty much am on the phone for 8 hrs straight lately. I talk to people all over and sometimes I have the most fascinating people and conversations. Today I talked a good while with a woman named Linda who lives in New York who I absolutely adored. She has a bermed house, loves gardening and we talked about all things we have been doing and the homesteading community and what not. I think we talked for almost an hour but it was one of the best calls I had all evening. I gave her the names of my blog and Phelan's over at A Homesteading Neophyte. So "Hi!" to Linda and I hope you enjoy what you find in our online community.