First grocery shop of February

Friday mornings are pickups from Costco. Since I have to go into Kingston anyways, I like to combine errands. Yesterday my grocery flyers were not delivered to the driveway, so I chose to go to Food Basics this morning thinking I might be able to procure some fresh veggies on sale. I don't know yet what the other stores are offering this weekend, but I found cauliflower on for $2.88 a head, and broccoli was selling for $1.88 for a bunch. I bought 2 bunches.Celery is still out of my comfort zone, selling now for $4 a bunch. It is still going up in price. I will go on-line to find the other grocers' flyers, but in the meantime, I think I did pretty well with the first shop of the month. 

 

Baking supplies $4.96 

Mid-week accomplishments

 Yesterday I had a Doctor's appointment in the afternoon, so we didn't do too much work upstairs in the bedroom. We did have to take down a piece of painted wood paneling so we could get in between the two walls to run some 12/2 wire for a plug on this wall. The wood paneling was holding everything in place. You can clearly see in this photo the very poor condition of the old lathe and plaster walls. When we renovated the rest of the house, we took everything out to the huge 8" by 4" timbers. This time we did not. We decided to screw gyproc right over the old walls. On the exterior wall, we built a new 2'X4' wall which we butted up against the existing wall, insulated it, and then put up the new gyproc.

Under the wood paneling is a mess of falling lathe and plaster

Running new wire for more lights and plugs

Here is a photo of a newer inside wall that already had a new plug and new switch for a  ceiling fixture (the old ceiling fan with 3 light fixtures). This morning we ran a wire from the plug up to a new smoke detector over the door in the hall outside the bedroom, and a new light in the closet with a switch on the wall outside the closet door (the glass French doors). Yours truly had to drill the holes through all 7 studs this morning. We also put up a couple more pieces of drywall not shown. 

Two library pockets to attach to my two mini album page assemblies  

Some stamping and water colouring to make more cards

After returning from my doctor's appointment yesterday, I made a chicken stir fry with frozen red pepper strips, young whole green and purple beans from my garden last summer, frozen broccoli  florets and thin julienned carrot sticks, with frozen chicken pieces that I had taken from thighs I had cooked previously in the crock pot. I stir fried in sesame oil and flavoured with hoisin and garlic sauce. I served it over ramen noodles because my Sweetie doesn't LOVE rice like my son and I do. After supper I did some crafting as pictured above. 

I found out yesterday that my sister has been admitted to hospital with congestive heart disease. They are running tests right now. She was looking after my mom before she went to Jamaica two weeks ago  and arranged to have our step sister check in on her while she was gone. They decided they didn't need my help since I had a lot on my plate at the time. I am still not sure how this may impact the next few weeks. I may or may not be required to go and stay with my mom like I did for a short time between Christmas and New Year's. More to follow on this turn of events. 

My week-end

 I got my exercise in this weekend. I helped my son carry 8 sheets of 4x8 foot pieces of gyproc up a flight of stairs. He and his GF insulated the fake exterior wall on the north side of the house and around the old chimney. And we cut and nailed up 5 sheets of the gyproc. It is looking like a new room. My husband will wire for a closet light, another plug and wire in another smoke detector outside their bedroom, before the last sheets of gyproc go up. Hopefully, we can start taping soon.

Insulation and gyproc went up on some of the walls

BOGO sale

 After the Costco pick-up this morning, we drove over to Rona to look at the laminate flooring that is on sale this week only. They didn't have a lot of bundles to do big jobs, but we did find these 12 packages that should be more than enough to finish the bedroom floor and closet. If we don't use them all, we can return the unused packages. I think we will be keeping them all for $320.  My Sweetie and I both liked the distressed look of this floor. Each plank is 12 mm thick and works out to $1.60 a square foot.

We bought the laminate flooring. Buy one, get one for 50% off.

A little of this, a little of that

 This morning it was just my Sweetie and I here to do some work on the bedroom. We put up a frame around the heating duct that comes up through the floor and into the attic. We had built a very deep closet previously behind those French doors, but unfortunately framed it rather close to the duct. There wasn't a lot of space (as you can see in the photo) between the duct and the closet frame. There certainly wasn't enough room to nail gyproc on that wall. We remedied that by covering the front with the same thin pine paneling that we put on the ceiling. At least we can open the closet doors. We will install gyproc on the side and along the wall.

We have enclosed the furnace duct into the new interior 2X4 wall

Wednesday afternoon

Yesterday I was not feeling my best. I felt like I was coming down with something. I had a dull headache, my tummy felt upset, and I was feeling very tired. I didn't lie down for a nap however. I made up another batch of dog biscuits and I baked a lasagna. I didn't feel like trying to post anything on my blog, but I read some blogs. Today I am feeling much better. 

Made lasagna last night for dinner

Monday's activities

On Friday morning, a good friend of mine loaned me a rubber stamp of hers that I think is adorable. I used it to make three more cards for my grand kids and young nephews. That finished up all ten of them. I was able to write a message inside each one of them so they are ready to mail out when the time approaches.I also made my own envelopes and addressed them all. Making these holiday cards does not save me money, but rather allows me to be able to send out all of these cards that I normally would not be able to afford to do. It is also a lot of fun.  

Made some more valentines with cupig. I already had the background stamp with the arrows.

We did some more renovation work in the bedroom but not all that I hoped. We ran into some snags which is always the way when you are renovating an old house. 

I also did up some laundry and made a chicken vegetable soup that will last me all week for lunches. Yes, those are still my Christmas dishes I am using. But they are gold snowflakes on a red background, so I will keep them out until the end of February. 

Simmered a big pot of chicken vegetable soup with leftover veggies from the weekend

Another trip to Shopper's Drug Mart on my gift card

Today I went to Amherstview with my Sweetie when he had to pick up another prescription refill. I went to the bank to deposit my "found money" and then paid another visit to Shopper's. I  found another gift card in an old purse that still had over $8 on it, so I spent that first. The loaves of bread and the cottage cheese had peelies on them and the fish sticks were on sale, so I had lots of savings. I still have half of my $50 GC available for the rest of the month. 

Tonight I made cabbage roll casserole with the last of the cabbage I bought over a week ago. This will provide lots of leftovers. Have a great weekend and stay warm.