Looking Ahead

Today I took the boys and Felicia to the library. I came back super excited. I found 3 books to bring home, two that were a great find.

1-Miserly Meals by Jonni McCoy

This book's copyright is 2002 and it claims each recipe comes in at .75 cents per serving or less. That certainly catches my attention! Even if the prices have doubled to 1.50 per serving now in 2010, that is still a good deal so I am looking forward to a few new ideas. I have read articles and such by Jonni McCoy in the past and gleaned a few ideas that were quite helpful back in the day. I don't necessarily buy into the "healthy" aspect, because my views on nutrition have been changing over the last couple years, yet in a pinch it is handy for cheap home cooked meals. Resources like this I have *always* appreciated in my adult years. I do plan on getting back to someNourishing Traditionsways of cooking once we get settled in the new house.

I am going to make some of the recipes in this book while we are still living here, and try to use up my pantry as much as possible in these next 3-1/2 weeks before moving to our new home. I'll plan to blog about what I cook up, and try like the dickens to remember my camera! Yeah, my poor camera with the dead flash....also meaning I need to cook while there is still enough sun to snap a shot by a window!!

2-The second book I am excited about is The Frugal Gardener How to haveMore GardenforLess Money (A Rodale Organic Gardening Book)

This book is jam packed with tons of great tips from how/where to get cheap plants, saving your own seeds, to building a simple fan trellis of your own. I am super excited about adding a little flower garden to the front of our new house, and I have never had experience that was positive from flowers the one year I tried them. This book is going to come in so handy! I know I definitely want peonies, dahlias and coneflowers. I would LOVE a blueberry bush and lilacs, and strawberries, and the list could go on and on! Now, off to research what will go well with those. Daffodils will be nice to see in the spring time, long before the summer flowers bloom.

The last book I checked out was Cottage Gardens, for some landscape ideas, just think, nice landscape of easy flowers and bushes means less mowing. haha! Off to devour some books now! Stay tuned for the cooking cheap experiments. Until next time, enjoy the rest of summer while you can~

This is my canvas:
I want to rip these shrubs out and replace with beautiful flowering peonies and dahlias!