My Frugal Tasks- 31/7/16

Corn chowder and jalapeno sourdough for dinner.

This week has been an absolute roller coaster ride emotionally. Parenting teens can be really hard work! Mr 14 is currently grounded for lying, over a myriad of issues. Sleep has been minimal because he has been unhappy with his punishment and threatened to leave home.

Apparently, he thinks moving out of home is a good idea and had organised to couch surf at different friends houses. No amount of talking to him from hubby and I would change his mind and he had packed a bag on Friday morning. This absolutely broke my heart. My son and I were always so close and the fact he would do this felt like a slap in the face.

I ended up calling his school and spoke to the principal, who agreed he needs to just suck up his punishment and offered to talk to my son. This must have worked because he came home from school on Friday with apologies for his behaviour.

Some days I feel like we are dealing with a war and it will all be a miracle if we make it out of these teenage years without battle wounds.

Despite this, I kept myself busy around the house and got some things done:

-Used the carpet sweeper and broom on the floors instead of vacuuming.

-Made some garlic aioli. We had this with leftover mashed potato patties for dinner and use it in place of mayo.

-Baked bread and butter pudding with leftover hot cross buns from the freezer. Also a double batch of choc chip biscuits.

-Hubby told me we were out of shampoo so I improvised and went through my bathroom drawer full of samples. I poured all the shampoo samples into a jug, mixed well and topped up with a bit of water like it is mentioned by Mr Homemaker. I poured it back into the empty bottle and now have a "new" bottle of shampoo! I did the same with the conditioner samples and this led on to cleaning out the bathroom cupboards, drawers and even soaking and scrubbing the hairbrushes. I got a bit carried away! Then I checked my toiletries stockpile, which was where hubby had "looked" and I found 3 bottles!

-Gave Miss 17 a haircut.

-I started making my first quiet book pages. When finished, the book will be a gift. Hand sewing has really helped with my anxiety too. Its a win- win!

-Had a "camp out" in the lounge room with Mr 10. We watched movies, made pizza pockets for dinner and set up the inflatable mattresses and sleeping bags.

-Saved rain water for the vegie gardens.

-Picked more kale and silverbeet from the garden. We have so much this winter. Luckily we love kale and eat it with most meals.

-Printed out my $60 vouchers from doing surveys. These are for Chemist Warehouse and will be used to buy our medication and vitamins.

-Hubby picked up some free bread and crackers from the op shop.

Also the lovely Mimi at A Tray of Bliss posted a comment I wrote to her and what follows is  a wonderful post on making our days cosy, comfortable and creative. She also has some powerful advice on ways we can insource in our homes.

Hope you have had a great week. xx

Winter quiet book pages.

Homemade garlic aioli.

Using up some free samples.

Free bread and crackers.

Mashed potato patties, pumpkin and pan fried greens.