Blogging Away Debt

Paid in Flowers and Food and Quality Time

The tides seem to be turning quickly. After over a year of seeking and struggling to find work, I have two part time jobs that I absolutely love and pay my bills. Then just this week multiple past clients have reached out for additional work…

Changes to their website
New Facebook ad campaigns
Taking over management of their social media
and so on…

And with no kids and no travel, I have nothing but time and focused energy. This is where I thrive. Being busy, varied tasks, and the freedom to do it when and where I want. As I write this, I am sitting at a fast food restaurant (the one I work for) enjoying a drink I brought from home and my free break meal.

There’s been no income yet from any of these side jobs, but that will come.

Friday Night Fun

This past Friday, Princess and I met halfway between her college and our home for dinner. She arrived with flowers and her W2’s in hand. After our amazing food, we moved to a bubble tea/coffee shop with free Wifi and I helped her get her taxes filed. This was her first year filing as an independent single person versus dependent, so she wanted my eyes on it before she completed it.

We have a wonderful time and she was thrilled to have filing her taxes off her plate as she goes into the final months of her junior year of college. And I was thrilled to get some quality time with her.

Sarcasm and Jokes

Now before everyone jumps down my throat, I did not charge Princess to do her taxes. The food and flowers were completely her call. A way of showing gratitude. I just thought the title was cute.

We are a family of sarcasm and jokes. If you could only see the constant back and forth between Gymnast and my sister where she is constantly hiding and scaring him or …so much. It’s a family affair. And it’s all in love!

As for my text to my boys, it was a joke. As a single mom, my boys have always taken on tasks around the house that I could not do or that they just loved doing. Them all being gone for a year has been hard, not just on my heart, but things have been left un-done. With them gone, if I had been able to, I would have hired some help. But that wasn’t an option.

Anyways, that was a joke and my boys actually were all grateful that I found someone to help me. Especially someone we all love having around. (And he’s in college, so the extra money helps him quite a bit.) Gymnast did call him and thank him actually. It was really sweet.

As for why I didn’t include Princess in that text, you may recall, if you have been here for a while, that she is literally allergic to outside…literally everything. She does not and cannot do yardwork without ending up with some severe allergic reactions.

Hope’s Travel Plans and The Garden

by Hope

I bet long term readers of BAD saw the title and slapped their foreheads, thinking here we go again. Hope will never learn.

However, I am here to show you differently. For the first time, maybe ever, I have no travel plans for the next 8 months. And that seems like an eternity. (We are going to go to Texas for Thanksgiving this year – driving.)

So with no plans to leave, especially over the summer. It is the perfect year to dig in to my garden. Every year in the past, I have gone somewhere for a week or two, typically Texas, and my garden just falls apart without maintenance and watering and care. But this year…

The long term goal

My long term goal is to create a super low maintenance, mostly edible yard. And this will be the perfect year to reposition and make use of everything I have…3 standing beds, 2 tall raised beds, and 1 typical raised bed. And really make a plan that I can implement over time and as materials are available.

I found this resource on The Soccer Mom Blog while researching plants and positioning and frugal gardening that I thought others mind find helpful if they are interested in frugal gardening.

I have to admit that we don’t eat a great deal of these items. Maybe about 1/2. But I love the idea of having a continuous supply of the ones we do eat. And have already started a few in my kitchen.

I have left over seeds from last year that I’ve started germinating and am following some gardeners on my social media accounts to gain more knowledge. We do eat a TON of veggies and salads so a good garden would really make a difference, and give us more variety than what we currently have. Our baby carrots that I planted last year are in use now so I’ll definitely replant them. And I am the queen of growing tomatoes. But would really like to be more successful at the vining veggies and fruits. And if I can, I hope to plant some berry bushes and maybe fruit trees (maybe).

If we could eat mostly from our own garden this year and just purchase eggs, chicken, and bacon…that would be amazing. We shall see. (I typically don’t eat as heavy during the summer so a good breakfast plus a salad with protein will be perfect for hot summer days.)