The weather has been absolutely glorious this week. The sun has been shining every day and the temperatures have gotten into the low seventies.
The rain returns tomorrow, which feels pretty bittersweet. Such lovely weather during April in the Pacific Northwest has been wonderful, but after needing to water my garden multiple times already, I know we sorely need the rain. We’ll see how the rest of the spring goes, but I’m already starting to get worried about fire season and drought. Hopefully our heavy snow pack will help.
Friday’s Frugal Five
1. This week my restaurant group is running Eastside Restaurant Support Week. Each day focuses on a different cuisine or type of food, and we’re giving away a $100 gift card to a local restaurant each day of the event.
All of the Eastside Chambers of Commerce are part of this event, plus a few other sponsors, including Women’s Personal Finance. I’ve had some mental struggles with creating a paid community after pouring my time into an unpaid one for years, but getting to do things like sponsoring an event to support local businesses feels pretty great.
2. In putting together another purchase order list for materials for the chicken coop, I just about fell over. At Dunn Lumber (local chain, but a bit more expensive than Home Depot), a single sheet of 4′ x 6′ OSB now costs $95. Plus tax.
After getting over the initial shock of what the lumber order would cost, it dawned on me that I needed to call my parents to see if they had any leftover materials from when they built their home four years ago and took down the previous home.
It turned out that they had a bunch of lumber and scraps under a tarp, and we went over there on the weekend and hauled away literally thousands of dollars worth of materials. It would have been maybe a third or quarter of the price a year or two ago, but as we stand now, it will save us a lot of money and I am so appreciative of getting to reuse materials – not just financially, but also environmentally.
3. We washed the dogs this week in the bathtub as we generally do. They’re big dogs, and our older dog particularly doesn’t love water, but it saves us so much money to bathe them ourselves.
Like a number of things (getting my hair cut comes to mind), washing the dogs at home is more about the time and convenience saving of doing it when works for us than having to load them up in the car and take them elsewhere to get groomed. The savings part is simply a bonus.
4. A friend I’ve made through the Find A COVID Shot WA group I’ve been volunteering with came over for a plant swap during the week. She brought me over some Jerusalem artichokes and I was able to send her with some strawberry starts and spring garlic.
She also has kiddos around the same age as mine, and they had a blast running around in the yard together. As more of us get vaccinated and the weather is good, being able to have the kids play safely outside is really wonderful.
PS – Wednesday marked my two weeks past my second shot! Hooray!!
5. I realize that I’m talking about the weather a lot this week, but it really has been glorious. It’s been warm enough that I’ve been able to hang our laundry out back for the first time of the year.
If you’re new to this blog, you might not know this, but hanging laundry on the line is my very favorite chore. So much so, that I don’t really consider it to be a chore. I honestly enjoy it – especially at the beginning of the year when it’s not been warm and dry enough to do so.
Exercise Update
As I mentioned above, we did a lot of work on the chicken coop over the past week, especially over the weekend on Thursday, including hauling a lot of lumber around. Not my normal workout, but one that definitely counts.
Monday I was able to get the kiddo to go for a twenty minute run with me. After the first ten minutes, I had to convince him to “beat the boss” to finish the run, but it worked. It’s easier sometimes to run by myself, but I sure do appreciate that he will run with me sometimes.
I ran again on Tuesday and then lifted with a friend afterward. We did some jump squats, and I tried to land on the balls of my feet as much as possible, but by Wednesday afternoon it was clear that I’d pushed my heel a bit too much. No more running for the rest of the week, just walks and stretching.
What’s the weather been like around you this past week? Does it feel like spring?
it snowed a couple of inches earlier this week and on my dog walk yesterday afternoon. crazy. we always have scrap lumber and paneling around our house. plus, when we finished our attic about 80% of the insulation was free from a recycle place.
Sweet!!
Congrats on being fully vaccinated! I received my first shot of Moderna on Wednesday – probably the best birthday present I will ever receive 😄 Love that you found leftover lumber at your parent’s house. It got chillier here this week, but the dogwoods are now in full bloom and the azealias are starting as well! And I’ve been hearing Eastern Bluebirds (among many other birds) in my backyard this week 😊
Yesss happy birthday to you!
Its been cold here in Arkansas and we are only one state away from the Gulf of Mexico! We run at 5:30AM with our group in the mornings and its been running tights and long sleeve shirts. We are both vaccinated and in our sixties, my 66 year old wife is fresh off of winning the grand masters at her last marathon (fastest over 50, which at 66 is pretty nifty). We’ve been fishing and playing a lot of tennis, with some success at both. Our kids are grown so we don’t have kiddos around but an empty nest has advantages too, very little planning required when its all adults at home and nobody has a JOB. It is nice to read posts by younger parents and remember those days. We are just about out of scrap lumber, that’s scary what it costs now! We had our roof and our central heat and air replaced this week, yikes! Thank heavens for being financially independent, those two cost us about $23,000. But insurance will cover a lot of it.
If you’re all retired why do you run at 5:30am? 😜