It Feels Like Fall in the Mornings. . .

Posted on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 08:50

And the tomatoes are just starting to turn red.  It has been unusually cool here in our part of Missouri this summer.  That has been nice, since we decided to go without air conditioning this year in an effort to save money and pay off our debt quicker.  We usually spend an extra $150 a month in electricity when running the air conditioner.  That money is instead being used to pay bills.  I've been worried about the garden though, for more than one reason.  Back in April, dh took our tiller in to be serviced.  We didn't get it back until the first week of July.  I would have been all for getting it and taking it to someone else, but the guy had torn it all apart, and it was sitting in his shop in pieces for that long!  Dh borrowed a tiller from someone to get my salsa ingredients planted in late May, but the rest of the garden just got planted at the beginning of July.  With the cool weather and huge amounts of rain, the peppers and tomatoes just haven't done as well as they usually have.  Mine have a decent crop, but no where as big as usual.  My various family members' gardens have mostly been washed out or rotted off.

We've been busy the last month, with the Fourth of July, the local air show, home-town celebrations, and county fairs.  I posted quite a few pictures on our other blog, willtodayhold.com, if anyone is interested.  I don't have time to re-post here, and most of our family checks the other site.

We pulled every last scrap of carpet out of our house yesterday (only two rooms, and our house is small, but it seemed like a huge job!) and exposed the wood floors.  They are in great shape, and the carpet was not- four little ones had left the white carpet that the previous owners installed in terrible shape!  We started at 2:00 yesterday afternoon, and pulled the last carpet tack at 7:00.  After moving all the furniture back, I made supper and put the kids to bed.  Needless to say, putting all the "stuff," books, etc. back is today's project!

Better get to it!

Sara

Untitled Comment

Posted by Daisyblend on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 05:26 - Link

Oh that carpet removal sounds like a huge job! But so worth it, I'm sure. Our house has a poured slab foundation with some kind of tile (not ceramic) all downstairs, not a lick of carpet. I miss it sometimes because we'd all get down and play on the floor more. But I wouldn't intstall it (except in the bedroom) because this is soooooo much easier to care for. Upstairs (2 BRs, 1 bth) is all wood that has never been finished. I would love to finish it someday. We use a lot of scrap carpet for rugs throughout and we're slowly replacing them with rag-rugs we've made. --- The weather has been unusual, hasn't it? I'm definitely liking that it cools down every night and I can run around and get things done outside before it gets hot. We went last summer w/o AC but are using it a lot this summer. I think my tolerance to the heat and humidity is considerably less than it before, now that I'm pregnant. I've never been an AC depentent person before! But it's nice to have a smaller house that cools down quickly. --- I'm glad you guys can do that to save money and get out of debt. We did Dave's FPU a couple years ago. We went full swing into his priciples but found ourselves entirely too focused on money (and how little we had)... Definitely a balance to be struck in learning to be content and not being comfortable with debt, don't you think?? We did learn a lot (like what to do with money if we ever have it!) and are better for what we learned. We had the budgeting bit down already but it really woke us up to the stupidity of borrowing. We vowed never to borrow again and are very slowly paying off several thousands in credit card debt. We dream of the day when that amount can be lumped into our mortgage payment and pray we'll own our house outright before long. I think Dave encourages a good vision, especially about what we pass on to our children. --- Well, God bless and keep up the Good work!

other blog

Posted by Daisyblend on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 05:29 - Link

I tried to find your other blog at www.willtodayhold.com but come up with a message from my browser that says it may have moved. ?? --------- ah ha! I found it! willtodayhold.blogspot.com

Edited by Daisyblend on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 07:53