Making Cents Of It All

The college that we live near is ending this week. The kids are all moving out for the summer. Most of the kids that dorm there do not live near by. They can only fit so much in their cars. Many take buses, trains and even planes to get home which makes what they can bring home even less. It is the perfect time for Hubby and me to go garbage picking.  Hubby and I will not go into the dumpsters. We are not in our 20's and have no interest in doing that(unless I see a pile of money and then all bets are off). We also won't fight for stuff. If other people are going through stuff, we move on. We wear work gloves because lets be honest, some of the stuff is gross. We are not interested in items missing pieces or broken. We are looking for things that we can have a quick turnover with and make some quick money. We go in Hubby's truck because it is easy to grab and throw stuff into the bed. If it gets dirty we don't care, we can wash it easily.  So lets see what we g...

Hubby took a few days off of work. We have a lot going on with getting the siding and electric done on the house. We are having professionals do that. Hubby and I are doing other projects. We are having YD's graduation party at our house at the end of June so it needs to get done soon.  We had ripped out the huge bushes on the left side of the picture last year and planted plants. It was time for the other side to get done.  All of the bushes were so big that you can't even see the front porch. Hubby took the chainsaw and cut most of the branches. He left big pieces so we could tie it up to the truck to pull it out.  I loaded all of the branches into the truck. We made 5 trips to the dump. It is free for us if it is yard waste.  Hubby and my son dug up the stumps and then pulled them out with the truck. They then loaded the huge stumps into the truck.  They racked everything over so that no one breaks an ankle. We...

So I showed you some of the  gardens last week. He are some more.  Does anyone know what these yellow flowers are called? I have never seen them before but I love them.  All of the tulips were in bloom.  They were everywhere. They had so many different colors. I also loved all of the stone walls that divided the different gardens. Some of the trees were in bloom too and they were gorgeous.  Purple is my favorite color so I spotted these beauties from far away. Anybody know what these curly things are? They had tons of them. I assume they weren't fully bloomed yet.  I don't know my flowers the way I know my vegetable plants.  It really was a beautiful palace. I would say about half of the flowers were in bloom. Online reviews talked about all of the rose gardens so I hope to get back to see them soon. 

Saturday morning youngest daughter, Hubby and I went to  Old Westbury Gardens  for the day. I had reserved the pass from the library back in February so it cost us nothing. I packed a picnic lunch and we were set.  I have been trying to get here with the kids the last few years but something has always come up so we haven't gotten there. This year we finally made it.  It was a beautiful sunny day. The wind was a little much at times but otherwise it was perfect.  YD wants my husband to build her a cottage like this for her. It was so cute.  I haven't been her since I was a kid and there was so much more then I remembered. It is about 40 minutes from our house but it was a great day trip. YD asked if we could come back this summer when the roses are all in bloom.  There were hidden jems all over the property. The flowers were beautiful but I love the architecture.  If you stood in the right spo...

Our big news of the week is we decided where youngest daughter will be going to college. She is going near her sister in Maryland. I will miss her so much but I know OD and her BF will watch out for her. We put a deposit down for school and her dorm. She accepted all of the scholarship money they offered and we will be cash flowing the rest. We are not planning on taking out student loans. YD currently works part time and is putting most of her paychecks towards school. She has worked very hard and received a very generous scholarship. She is still working on local scholarships. We will find out in June whether she will get any.  I did really well this week food shopping. Sausage was on sale for $1.99 and I had a personal discount making it 99¢ a pound. I was allowed 2 family packs. I got one hot and one sweet. I broke them up into smaller sizes for the freezer. Each pack was under $3. I was very happy with that.  ST Patrick's Day always brings out good sales ...