One Hundred Dollars a Month - Page 1489 of 2143 - I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.

Excuse Me, But Does Your Husband Have Any Heart Problems?

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 20, 2013 · 22 Comments

I have to make this snappy because I just took a handful of pain meds and I only have a good 20 minutes to type this up before I fall back to sleep. And 10 of those minutes will be hitting the backspace button trying to correct mis-typed {?} words. At least the ones that are underlined in red.

If you thought I was verbally incontinent before, you should really watch out when I’m hopped up on meds because we all know I will never get a gold star in the grammar department. And yes, that is a cup of DECAF tea. 😉

Okay, so where should I start?

So yesterday the HH took me to the oral surgeon so I could get my crappy British teeth pulled and to get some cow {?} bone screwed into my jaw. No biggie right? Well as soon as they gave me a Valium {which I didn’t think I really needed} they had the HH pay for the surgery, get my medication scrips and went over a few after care directions with him while I sat down and read back issues of People Magazine in the lobby.

Next thing I know I’m in the dental chair staring up at the giant screen looking at images of my teeth and the whole time I kept thinking I was in the middle of a Bones Episode and waiting for Brennon to walk in with that cute intern from Boston {what is his name?}.

For some reason the nurses kept putting warm blankets on me and I couldn’t figure out why. I felt the iv go into my arm and then I was out cold for about 3 hours.

Fast forward to the end of the procedure and I’m now relaxing in the partitioned off recovery room high as a kite, sitting in a recliner with more warm blankets on me and my mouth is packed with gauze.

Then all the sudden I hear the Dr. yell for the nurses. Then I hear OXYGEN, HURRY, DEFIBRILLATOR.

Hmmm.

The tall nurse with the brown hair very calmly comes over to ask me if my husband has any known heart problems.

Has he been under a lot of stress?

Yes, this past week has been stressful at work.

When was the last time he ate something?

Yesterday? Why, did he just pass out or something?

Yes, but I’m sure he’ll be fine.

Okay.

Then she left to go check on the HH.

The next thing I remember I was standing in a storage closet looking for the HH when the receptionist found me and walked me back to my seat, covered me with more blankets and said not to worry, everything was going to be fine.

Then I told her about the time the HH nearly sawed off his leg and passed out cold in our driveway.

A few minutes later the HH was in a wheelchair being wheeled over to me by the doctor. The Doc said he passed out cold, stopped breathing for a moment then finally came around. No CPR, No Defibrillator. Apparently just low blood sugar.

So when the HH was wheeled on by {with a sheepish grin on his face} all I could muster was “You’re such a dork, why didn’t you eat breakfast?”

The HH laughed, the Dr. Scolded me {something about a Man’s ego and how I should be a little nicer} and then wheeled the HH off to his own recliner with warming blankets for a little siesta.

Eventually someone from the HH’s work came to pick us up and take us home.

Where we stayed in bed the rest of the afternoon eating tomato soup and haagen daz peach sorbet.

Good times.

~Mavis

FYI – Everyone in our family has low blood sugar, so passing out is nothing new with us. 😉

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Botanical Interests Trial Garden Tour

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 20, 2013 · 2 Comments

While we were on our epic road trip to St. Jude last week we had the opportunity to stop by the Botanical Interests trial gardens just outside of Longmont, Colorado for a private tour.

Take a look at the inside of Botanical Interests Co-Owner Judy’s potting shed! Isn’t it lovely? Look out HH, because I totally want one of these now. 😉

Judy and Curtis are co-owners of Botanical Interests and let me just say this, their garden was AMAZING! Not only were there oodles of garden beds in every direction, but the sheer assortment of vegetables they were growing was intoxicating. It was almost as if they had planted at least 5 different seed varieties in each bed.

Look at all that basil! What can’t I get mine to look like that?

Here’s Curtis talking to us about his garden.

And Buddy the dog chowing down on a fresh picked carrot. I have a feeling Buddy and Lucy the Puggle Dog would be best friends if we lived closer.

Last year Curtis’ wife Judy made this elevated cucumber trellis. It’s hard to see in this photo, but you plant the cucumber starts at the base of the trellis and they then vine up towards the top and leave cucumbers dangling below.

Pretty genius if you ask me.

Does anyone know what kind of squash this is? I think it might be a Dirani Lebanese Squash but I’m not sure.

I don’t know about you, but I have always dreamed of a white picket fence around my garden.

I wonder if I could talk the HH into installing one for me this winter? The fence may not be able to keep the slugs out, but I’m pretty sure it would keep Lucy the trouble dog from using our vegetable garden as her own personal lunch buffet.

And let’s not forget about the cottage flowers. After all these years of gardening I’ve never really had a cottage garden,I’ve just grown vegetables. I think if I could stick strictly to perennials flowers, I could manage the up keep.

What do you think?
And last but not least, take a look at the bean trellis/ lettuce bed. Isn’t it beautiful? I need one of those too.

So basically, I think I should just pack up my garden tools and move to Colorado and live in Curtis and Judy’s garden shed. I loved being there and every single thing about there garden.

A girl can dream, right?

~Mavis

P.S. Have you ever walked though someones garden and thought “This is where I belong?” If so, where was it.

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DIY Daily Shower Spray

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 20, 2013 · 26 Comments

Do you use a daily shower spray? I have always wanted to, because mostly I HATE scrubbing the grime off of the showers, but I never have because I just couldn’t justify the cost or the fact that I was essentially spraying chemicals into the shower, only to add steam to them later. Kind of seems like a vaporous nightmare on the old lungs.

I stumbled onto this DIY shower recipe recently, though, and I LOVE it. It is super simple, void of harsh chemicals, and CHEAP. Plus, it seems to be doing the job. I don’t need to scrub my shower hardly at all {the key is to start using it right after you have scrubbed the shower so it stays clean, and not relying on it to do the job entirely.}

Ingredients:

1 Cup Distilled White Vinegar
1 Cup Dawn Dishsoap
Spray Bottle

Seriously, that’s it.

Directions:

Heat the vinegar in a glass container in the microwave for two minutes. {Heating the vinegar helps the vinegar and dawn combine better.}
Pour the vinegar into the spray bottle {I used a funnel, because I am messy}
Now add the cup of Dawn.
Place the spray nozzle back on the bottle, screw it down nice and good, and now shake it like you mean it.
Spray your shower daily.
Check clean the shower off your list of to-do’s.

Here are a few more DIY Products I make:

How to Make Your Own Laundry Detergent
DIY Fabric Softener
Homemade Soft Scrub

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Food Waste In America – I’ll Take What I Can Get

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By Mavis Butterfield on August 20, 2013 · 2 Comments

This past week The Girl and I picked 5 boxes of chicken scraps from Mr. Produce Guy. At first glance it really looked like quite a haul of fresh fruits and vegetables. But we soon discovered otherwise as we started to unload the boxes.

We were able to reclaim 2 bunches of fresh cilantro which will totally come in handy for fresh salsa.

But this box of fresh fruit was a total no go. Had the fruit still been left in it’s original containers I think we would have had ourselves a tropical feast. But since the fruit was just tossed into a box, I was a little uneasy about feeding it to my family.

The chickens however, had no problem eating all fruit and lettuce scraps.

And a few ears of corn as well.

This weeks fresh produce freebies:

5 ears of corn
3 bunches spinach
2 bunches of cilantro, and
4 heads of broccoli

What can I say? Some weeks are better than others, but you know what? I’ll take what I can get.

After all, free is free. Thanks you Mr. Produce Guy,

~Mavis 🙂

Would you like to see what else we have brought home over the past year?

Head on over HERE to read all the past stories and to see all the pictures.

If you have just stumbled upon this series and are wondering how I got all this food for free, you’ll want to read this story first.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.