A Year of Frugality

Welcome to this Year, my year, of Frugality. One of my friends took to naming her years at their beginning, sort of a forecasting and fore willing of the coming time. So I though I would give it a try. This year mine is to be -- will be -- frugality. As a young twentysomething, I am going to embrace the Depression-era jingle: Use it up, wear it out, use it all, or do without!

Generosity with money and things is not usually a struggle for me. I like to give. I scheme to give, usually. But frugality is not my tendency, at least of recent years. I used to save and save and sell candy to my siblings and temper all my saving and selling by lending to the desperate and giving to World Vision. Now, however, as a first time homeowner I must return to my roots! Dinners out? No! Specialty foods? No! High end clothes? No! I am going to try not to be extreme in my measures but terribly firm. In fact, as a blessing to my future efforts, I have arranged to meet with a Money Map Coach, two really, a couple, as support for my new year of monthly finances. Exciting! What will they say?

But in the meantime, anyone care for a walk Downtown, a trip to the library, or...homemade yogurt?

The yogurt:

I really made this. It was a success in taste. The consistency was looser than store bought but perfect for use with granola (it reminds me of Swedish yogurt). Next time, however, I will try to get it a bit firmer.

Quart of milk = $1 v. Container of yogurt = $3.69 = Savings: $2.69 per lg container of yogurt

See this NY Times article for the how-to: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/dining/15curi.html?_r=1

Independence Day

Ran a 5k with the Stamper's and Jenny:


Greg exemplified patriotic in his navy shirt, flag shorts, and flag (he ran with it!). In typical Stamper fashion, too, we biked three miles to the race course to make the 7AM start time and then biked back, an eventuality I hadn't considered the night before!

We had a champion's breakfast of soft boiled eggs, toast, zucchini bread, and sauteed tomatoes. Oh, and tea, of course.

Jenny and I then buzzed over to Staunton (pron: Stan-ton) to the Frontier Culture Museum. We picked up Ashley along the way and arrived just in time to hear the Declaration of Independence read. Brilliant! This is a tradition that I think should be continually observed. It was a great reminder of our heritage and our common ground as Americans. Afterward, fourteen toasts were read and after each one the whole crowd shouted, "Hurrah!" at the top of our lungs. Rowena will appreciate that as they were from 1814, a popular past time in that day (a toast for each state).



German clogs:



I tied for third place in a watermelon spitting contest. And finally -- there was a pie eating contest!



This was all the good part of the day. For some reason, traveling and starvation usually go hand-in-hand, in my experience. One tries to see as much as possible, everyone debates about where and what to eat, time ticks on, and before anyone realizes it it is the next meal time. In the mean time, however, decision making abilities are exponentially deteriorating. This makes food decisions even more challenging. At four o'clock on the Fourth, not having eaten lunch, we three girls were not immune to this natural process of the traveler.

After debating whether or not to go to Cracker Barrel, missing the exit, and thus continuing on, it wasn't until roughly an hour later that we realized that we had in fact gone an hour in the wrong direction. After re-grouping and turning the car around, Ashley promptly took a nap. But fortunately Jenny and I, seasoned travelers that we are, were able to let out our angst and have good conversation.

This event in itself would be dampering, however, things did not end there. After dropping Ashley off, Jenny and I were still ravenous. "Fried chicken!" craved Jenny. It sounded simple but since we couldn't find an open chicken place at 6PM on the Fourth of July (ridiculous), we decided to make it ourselves.

A word of advice: when you are quite hungry, it's late in the day, and you've been up since 5:45AM do not 1) attempt to make something you've never made, 2) cook at all, 3) decide to make a homemade pie on top of that, OR 4) involve yourself in anyway with hot oil, heat, or dirty dishes. Save yourself.

Let's just say disastrous. Yes, we laughed lightly then and heartily later. But...disastrous.

At 9PM, we finally relieved our hunger just as the first neighbors were moseying over for the planned out door movie. So, beautifully, are day ended as joyously as it had begun, with the Stampers hanging a sheet over their deck to project Dr. No, the first in their summer Bond series. The Lake behind us glistened with starlight, noisy firecrackers occasionally went off, and a few softly floating boats glided by as we watched.

Ooh, la, la, Mr. Connery.