This week marked the end of quarter one at our school. So the gals had friday off. We celebrated by having a mom and daughter date. We did our favorite thing: Shop. But we do not shop at regular stores! I love love love saving money. We are thrift store, yardsale and flea market regulars. I buy clothes, shoes, needed dishes, books, gifts, furniture. and jewerly second hand.  We try not to buy things we only want as opposed to need. Sometimes though if something is a great buy I will get it because I "want" it. It was a blessing to spend time with my gals and just enjoy shopping together.

I bought a 1960 lamp ( that I LOVE and need!) for 2.00!. A wall plaque ( a want but I sure love it) for 1.99, Some candle holders. A basket. A beautiful round frame and print for 25 cents. A train set for hubby. Beautiful dishes.

 I want to share about the dishes. We had a dinner for some friends on Friday. I really wanted to decorate for fall. So I went looking for fall themed paper plates. The cheapest fall design paper plates I could find cost $2.99 for 8. I needed at least 12 and dessert plates. Just could not see wasting that kind of money. At the thrift store I found a complete old set of fall themed porciline dishes for $5.00! Serving platter, bowls, salad plates, plates, cups and saucers to serve 8. Not quite enough for my dinner party but a close enough match to mix and match with my white dishes and make it festive.

DD got two pair of jeans for 5.50. This would have cost her 100.00 brand new. A pair of vans. A beautiful bird cage for $3.00.

My younger daughter got an antique suitcase ( she sort of collects vintage stuff), a cute pair of shoes, and six first edition Nancy Drew books. ( by Carolyn Keene) These books we 50 cents each.

All the stores we go to have a free table. I love this! We always find something.

All toll the gals and I spent $25.94 on $433.99 worth of stuff!

And this photo has nothing to do with thrift stores....just our love of our felines.

We are blessed to find free opportunities for our children to enrich their music appreciation. This month was the kick off the the Comminity Music Series. The first concert was free and was held in a very old church. We were treated to piano, violin and voice of very talented and famous people. We listened to pieces by Adlophus Halstork, Claude Debussy, Florent Schmitt, Ralph Vaughtn Williams, Sergei Prokofiev and Andrey Kasparov. Andrey Kasparov  and his wife Oksana Lutsyshyn live locally.

Our 18 yo son is a music major in college. This week we were part of the audience of Improv Jazz Band. Another great opportunity for learning as the professor in charge was teaching a Music Appreciation class while directing the Improv! Before each piece was played he explained the style and a bit of history about the composer and the song.

Here is a photo of the Jazz Band. The band was to play outside on the "green": a beautiful patch of green in the middle of many buildings. They were forced to play in cramped quarters due to rain. The band is in the college admissions foyer right in front of the elevators and sorta wrapped around down the hall. Josh is the blond in the middle of the photo.

We are looking forward to our next free concert: Candlelight Noel. Josh and Jazz Band are also playing several more times this semester.

Saving on Fabric Softner Sheets: I put the sheet in during the cool down cycle of the dryer. Then I remove it when the load is done and reuse. I get about 7 loads out of a dryer sheet this way.

Out of dryer sheets?  Add 1/4 cup baking soda to the wash cycle and add 1 C. white vinegar to your laundry's rinse cycle.

Stains:Rub liquid dish soap into stains. My kids know this one well and grab the dawn dish soap as soon as they get something on their clothes. Rub it in well on the spot and leave it on a while. Then wash as usual.

Soak stained clothing in a small bowl of hydrogen peroxide (this works best on whites and light fabrics).

Other Laundry Tips that save money:

Use cold water! Do not use hot water unless the clothes are greasy. ( and then only set it for the wash cycle not the rinse cycle)

Presoak soiled clothing.

Make sure your machine is full. ( do one instead of two loads)

Spin clothes out a second time to reduce drying time. This really helps with heavy loads like jeans, towels and blankets.

Clean dryer filter after each load and chech the dryer exhaust monthly.

Wash and dry at non peak times. The rates are cheaper. Its called Time of Use Rate or TOU. You can look up the TOU for your area. It can save you as much as 18,609cents per kilowatt hour. You generally have to sign up for this and some areas do not offer this.

We do not hang our clothes out due to mold, mildew spores, lots of bird stuff and high humidy. ( allergies) Hanging your clothes outside is a huge savings though.

I posted this a few weeks ago but not many saw it so I thought I would recycle a post for todays Show and Tell. This is a busy season for us!

I am always amazed at my children: their differences, their talents and how fast they are making their way in this world.

My second oldest ( 18) is a talented guitar player. He is very passionate about it. He is almost completely self taught. He graduated from highschool ( homeschool) in May and is now pursuing a degree in music and recording arts. Currently he is part of a band called Beautiful Discord. They play for the Lord. This past week we got a chance to be at two of the bands performances.  Here are a few photos,

I should have taken a photo of the gift the gals and I put together for a friend. She and I share an avid love for the same thrift store so when we had an opportunity to bless her with a gift at a recent ladies get together at our church I knew just where to shop. The gift was to honor her as a Proverbs 31 woman. It was a blessing to be the one presenting the gift.

The gals and I had a blast picking out "her favorite things". Her home is filled with thrift store finds. She makes things over to go with the decor ( thrift store shek!) and is a whiz at painting furniture.  We had a theme in mind as we shopped and also set a price limit per item. This helps us stay in budget.

We bought her a large basket with wire leaves and banding accents, a tall leaf design candle holder, ( rustic metal), a pumpkin wire candle holder ( again rustic metal), a metal wall plaque in the shape of a cross with "Faith" written in the middle, a small metal basket that hangs on the wall, ( we filled it with flowers),and four old lace and cotton hand towels. I paid $6.75 for all the above. Below are the prices of the same ( or near same) items if purchased new.

Basket with Wire Accents 22.00

Pumpkin Candle Holder 13.00

Leaf Design Candle Holder 17.00

Faith Wall Hanging 9.95

Wall Tin Basket  17.99

Cotton Towels 40.00

Shopping at the thrift store enables me to buy great gifts on a shoestring budget.

I have finally caught up on all my photos and adventures. Please scroll down the last 4 entries to catch up!

This is the second church we visited last week. ( See 2 post on the first one below) We so enjoyed our visit to this church. We plan to go back and study the graveyard on the other side of the church as well as wander through the building again.

St Pauls Episcopal Church was organized in 1636.The Current building was build in 1641. The walls surrounding the church yard are dated 1759 and a replacement wall ( very very old) not dated. The church had the only burying yard in the city. It was closed to burials in 1835. This church is most known for the British cannon ball lodged high on the wall of the church. It was fired on the orders of Lord Dunmore on January 1 1776. Norfolk was bombarded and burnt and the town destroyed,. Only the walls of the church remained. The church was restored in 1785.

 Below:Pulpit, Schoolboys Balcony ( boys school), Marble floor in the Nave, and box pews. The pews were rented by parishioners. There was no heat in the early church so each family brought their own small portable heaters with hot coals to the enclosed pews.  

 School boy Loft

 Below: The organ. This is a reproduction of what might have been here in Colonial times. The carved shade coverings are symbolic to our local history. The organ player actually played a song for us.

 Below: The Baptismal. This is so beautiful. This happens to be late 19th century.

 Below: The stained glass in this church is amazing. Window on the left  honors a bride who died on her wedding day ( before the wedding). The window on the right shows Paul preaching on Mars Hill.

 This window was made in 1892

 Below: Each of the clear windows has memory plaques. The words are carved into the window sill. Notice the cool candle holder.

 Below: Stairs were fasinating!

Below: Exterior Views The date 1739 and the initials of the builder are in the brick (look on each side of the round window)

 The Fountian is from the 1870s.

 A lot can be learned from visiting a graveyard. Especially one this old. Many of the markers on the wall were brought from other locations ( long since destroyed) for safe keeping.   The oldest reable marker is dated 1673. The grave yard started before the church was built. So there are many graves older than that. There are  head stones amongst the tree roots.

Here are views from inside Freemason Church ( see below post). Photos do not give justice to the awe of the beauty. The brass was stunning. There was only two stain glass windows ( picture ) in this church. They are beautiful. The other windows had some color glass on the edges. All the side windows were replaced. The cost was prohibitive to putting the wavy glass back in. They are still very pretty.

Its all in the details! The medallion is one of three that exhisted in the ceiling. These use to be lowered down with gas lamps on them for light. They are huge! We were not allowed upstairs but the balconany was in a full U above the sancuary.

This photo shows a scale model with all the additions added over the years. They are just finishing the final addition. Great care has been taken to make the exterior match.

And I have saved the best for last...okay the best if you love music and old things! We actually get to hear this beauty this month. We are going to a concert. I cannot wait!

Last week we continued our tour of Norfoks History at Your Feet. These are free tours. I always walk away feeling as though I had been transported back to that time period. With cameras in hand ( we had two that day) we set out to learn all we could about two historic churches in the city of Norfolk. Our first stop was Freemason Street Baptist Church. Church is still held there today. Built in 1848 ,it is a neo gothic style and was designed by Thomas U Walter, the designer of our nations  Capital Dome. The bell was founded by Meneely Bell Foundry in 1850.

Exterior Views. The exterior is horsehair stucco on brick.

"The tall steeple of the church holds aloft the only one left of the dozens of plain and fancy old weathervanes that formerly indicated the direction of the wind in downtown Norfolk. Created by some long-forgotten Nineteenth Century tinsmith, the vane is an imaginative copy of Gabriel's trumpet. It was placed on top of the original spire (a much taller one than the present one) when the church was built."

Above quote from: Norfolk Highlights 1584 - 1881
By George Holbert Tucker
Chapter 41

Well that is the exterior of this beautiful historical building. In another post I will take you inside this jewel.

Last weekend we went to visit our oldest son and his dear wife. Both attend different schools and are adjusting to married life and life away from home. It was a fabulous visit! So good to just spend time with them. It was all too short. The gals really missed their big brother. Josh was not with us on this trip.

It was wonderful to walk and talk with the kids. Lots of beautiful walking paths all over where they live. The gals and I got in a great botany lesson. ( As my son says" My mom always the teacher.") There were trees and flowers there that do not grow here and I just could not pass up the opportunity. There were so many learning moments on this trip.

Are we there yet?????

Virginia Tech and Radford U.  The grounds of both of these schools are beautiful. The architechure is amazing. Naomi was captivated by it all. She is my budding architect.

It was family weekend at both schools. We were treated to a craft fair and festivities. It was hard to get photos of everything as it was so crowded. It was awesome to walk around with my new DIL and get to know her even better. I learned her favorite textures, colors, and just more of who she is.

Here we are learning about metal crafting, candle wicking and corn husk art. The artist were actually doing their craft at the fair and more than happy to demonstrate. The candlewicking was amazing. The artist had samples from the early 1800s and shared the old as well as modern techniques.

 Here are more crafts...Pillows: This gal had every variety of pillow you could imagin. Carved roosters, bee keeping, and walking sticks. The walking sticks had real crystals and precious stones embedded in them. The bee keeper was really like going on a homeschool fieldtrip. So much information! They were selling complete bee hive kits, honey, wax, and candles. The candles were beautiful and I am still upset that I did not purchase a set of tapers.

Forge for metal working, making apple butter, basket weaving demo, and knitting, I just love seeing artist actually doing their crafts and showing others how to do it. These folks really enjoy what they do and their passion is contagious! The apple butter was delicious!!!! I was really inspired by the knitting. All the caps in the box are for babies. Arn't they adorable?! I was unable to get photos of the pottery, jewerly ( beading mostly and very lovely), gourds, ( we bought some), and the Scottish festivities. Radfords mascot is Highlander....they do all kinds of games and wonderful bagpipe music. They played Amazing Grace.

I learned so much from the Lord on this trip. When he knits a family together the fabric of that family fits and is a beautiful piece of art work like a quilt. I am so proud of my kids ( all of them).

I love watching the "wildlife" in my garden. It is such a busy place with bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, and small birds. It is peaceful to observe. I just love the way God puts colors together. Here are this week favorites.

Who says a gal cannot wear spots and stripes together?!

I took several photos of these two "twins". They always landed on the same color zinnia and always faced the same direction.

Don't you just love that the Butterfly matches the flower? ( the orange)