April 2020 Frugal Chatter Thread

[coupon girl]

yes my amazon order came 7 days total awesome -for $7.94 I got a huge jar of peanut butter and 2 large family size boxes of rice krispies 4.99(they limited it to 2)big bag of chipits my coconut oil and 2 lindt bars 2.47 each for a treat .

Everyone don't forget to save p.c offers on Wednesday or today if you are not going out -I am going to try and save the ones I will use like butter as I have a butter order on my next grocery offer.

[Ciel]

Very nippy outside and the local morning show said something about tonight's windchill will make -3C feel like -10C. So will have to wait for temperatures to warm up before adding any more seeds to the garden (almost laughed just now but yesterday, I did see a couple of almost 1.5 inch green stems in the garlic bed so I might have sprouting cloves!).

Glad I did shopping yesterday. Mega tea consumption seems to be the plan as well as catching up on recording food savings on my grocery trips.

Pleased to learn that the Ontario secondary school teachers have a contract deal. ETFO membership is supposed to vote on their contract soon.

[Frugalbigmama]

I made an egg on a toasted bagel. All this cooking was making me hungry!

[Angela273]

@Granger What do you think?

Ds’ Grade 2 teacher posted 4 assignments yesterday. In the last hour his teacher has posted another 6 assignments for today, plus the daily assignments on the websites, math, reading, etc. I think her expectations are quite high.

Daycare girl, Grade 2 girl’s teacher assigned 8 double digit subtraction questions. That’s it. That’s her entire assignment for the day. 1 activity per day, no list of other things to do or websites to log into and work on.

edit: Ds’ teacher continues to add more activities each day. She posts 5 or 6 activities each day. My Grade 1 and Grade 2 day are children only have 1 short assignment posted for them each day.

[Frugalbigmama]

Mac and cheese cooling on the stove top. Kitchen is clean.
Fridge cleaned out.
List written out with things I want to accomplish today.

[Giseledta]

the ceiling in the 2nd daycare room is done. Sarah ( middle child) needs to paint it. then ... i put it all back together. lol. both rooms will get a massive reorganisation at the same time. the only spot in the house that still has popcorn on it is in the kitchen..... its a smaller area then the daycare rooms... if i am not open till june.. i may tackle it in may... if we have a couple of bad weather days... as i want to spend most of may outside working on the gardens.... i dont think i will be up before the middle of may earliest...


ok. showered. ... taking a break then going to clean the kitchen and work on laundry... garbage willl go out later and recyles...
i am exhusted. !

[Ciel]

Put soap pump out, realizing different spout design plus clip around pump neck. Glanced at label: foaming soap in Lavender Moon scent. Oh well, it's soap! Missed those details in the store but still delighted to have the soap. The refill soap is fragrance-free, so I got 1 out of 2 items right.

My half-full yard waste bag has been bandied about by the high winds. Think a recycling crew rescued it the second time but placed it elsewhere. The yard waste team just came around about 15min after recycling crew to collect the full yard waste bag (now must wait two weeks for next pickup). Got plastic flying over from next street (after the quick as lightning recycling crew went through the survey) and I can tell one household is not rinsing out their food containers.

Catching up on SC Blog for free shipping deals and my, my does the L'Occitane hand cream beckon. No more online buying until May (meanwhile, Pinterest remains a place to put my heart's desires onto boards without charge). Free shipping is delayed in most cases. I am having fun with packaging. Cardboard boxes get recycled one or more ways. Kids must be having more fun with big boxes than me! Shiny plastic or tissue paper are other interesting items too.

[Ciel]

As the teachers here are talking about the online learning for elementary students, I am placing a link to current article from an elementary school teacher in Hamilton. She is finding online teaching to be a thing of many concerns depending on students and home circumstances and parents' ability to understand the work. https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilto...n-teacher.html

[Frugalbigmama]

Ive been in contact with school guidance to be in th loop. All teachers have reached out to me and DS is up to date. Nice to know for sure.
He is cleaning his laptop to sell it ( he is selling all old electronics to updrade his photography equipment) then he has school work to do.

[Frugalbigmama]

Bedroom is tidy. Working on laundry. Putting it away as i go. 1 bathroom clean. Keep adding to recycling bins at curb. 2 weeks ago they came around 8am. Hope we don't get missed today.

[SassyAshley]

Good Afternoon,
What a day, it has been busy, nothing hard just a lot of little time consuming thing and it is nor helping that I think (and it might be the weather) our internet isn't going down but slows down a little bit. This no enough to affect the internet but it enough to kick me off the work server so I have had to re start my laptop and fight to get re connected a few times today.

Yesterday Mom went to Wal-Mart to get what she needed a few things I said well if you are going out grab as it will delay our need to shop. She got everything but eggs, I have heard our stores are starting to have issues with stock, I do not think the issue is supply. I think the issue is people from larger towns around us are now coming here to shop because we have less cases and lines are shorter but our stores cannot handle the increases and is now leading to shortages.

Apparently there were 2 Mom said younger guys probably in their 20s at Wal-Mart that being pricks. Wal-Mart has gone to one way aisles and they were purposely going down the aisles the wrong way, blocking aisles, and purposely getting close to people. At one point Mom was in the same aisle and they saw her and she had her fabric mask on and one of them said "Really, I should go rip that of her face." Guess it goes to show some people still are not taking this serious.

I am still having trouble getting up and getting going but this morning I had a really busy morning, got quite a bit done and was thinking of ending my day a little early well that changed once a 2 pm meeting was called. After I finished the call, I decided to take a break and did the floors upstairs, the stairs, and the hallway. I still need to do the Kitchen (Mom was in their doing the dishes) and the Living Room.

I am struggling a little bit the past couple of days as Mom seems to be in some type of mood. I was hoping her trip to Wal-Mart yesterday would help as she got out of the house but nope, no change. Anytime I ask what is wrong I get blown off but it is hard. Today she was in the basement and I heard a horrible crash I went down, she knocked over a bottle of cleaner which was just left leaking all the floor and I ended up cleaning up as she walked away. Then she got annoyed over where something was stored so stuff was tossed out of way and once she got what she needed she just left the boxes in the middle of the room. I get that his is her mood not mine but not being able to get away is hard, if it was not for Covid I would have left the house to get away for awhile but there is no where to go right now. I cannot go and wonder a grocery store or go somewhere and grab something to eat and to be honest I do not want to risk leaving my house right now. So now we sit in silence.

Thinking I might try to get some more work done, if need be I can take my laptop and go work in my room.

Alright well apparently I have to figure out dinner so off I go. Hope everyone has a good evening.

[lizzie bargain]

SA-your Mum's behaviour sounds totally out of control. I would just go for a walk and let her fend for herself for dinner and clean up whatever messes she makes!!

[flemeth]

@SassyAshley (((Hugs))) You mom is behaving like a Chid and it’s like you are the parent. I know it’s stressful being in the house all the time. But there is no excuse for her behaviour. You should have gone out for a walk and fresh air

[Ciel]

Dinner tonight-lamb meat leftovers (very salty) but paired with plain quinoa & California mix vegetables, suddenly palatable. Made apple compote from remaining small apples with some lemon juice and a few cherries. Waiting for compote to cool before having a small portion. Made myself a mug of Earl Grey tea while quinoa was getting prepped and also ate two corncake squares. Feeling warm and full.

Seeing the large fluffy snowflakes for a couple of minutes while I was chopping apples-very appropriate given the temperatures and winds.

Leaf bag never got collected. Was surprised it's still at curb. Sent a tweet and will see what result.

I came back to share an intrigue about Zoom-competitor Dropbox privately paid hackers to find flaws with Zoom. https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/04/20/z...aws-years-ago/

What I know about Dropbox: very little except that post-secondary students use it to remit school work/projects.

While reading updates on Twitter, I discovered that I can look forward to paying $79 for 1 PC to have a Microsoft 365 subscription (formerly known as Office 365) for 1 year (I cannot really go for the Family tier at $109 for up to 5 extra family members). Have to figure out if I'd have enough memory for that subscription to run plus also have Skype and OneNote. I have not poked into my programs to see what I do have--there was a 5-day trial of MS Office. Saw a popup but did not check it out during first week of figuring out settings on computer.

[Granger]

@Angela273 Ugh! I don't what is wrong with teachers. I love my colleagues and I know we are all learning BUT...slow down people!!!

We are having the same issue with my three kids' teachers.

Oldest - who has a learning disability, ADHD and Autism - multiple posts and assignments a day, today I got a phone call asking if I want EA support via email...I said as politely as I could, NO!!!! (WTHeck?!?!), less is more. We will be blending our learning and picking and choosing the activities.

Middle - teacher is posting the least of my three kids. Work is manageable but we are still picking and choosing. Teacher posts daily.

Youngest - I told teacher she is JK and we will login once a week. Several posts a day, posting daily.

Me - 5 day calendar with 5 learning activities that take about an hour each. All posted on Monday. I have families with custody schedules! I have families with nurses as parents! Not everyone can do school work 9-3 M-F. Mondays include check email. Fridays include check feedback. I have optional chats that I have just started Tues-Thu for help. I also post a few optional activities for keeners.

My activities are SUMMARIZED all on graphic. Then they can go into the online classroom and find the post they need. All my posts are organized so the SUMMARY is at the top and the rest is easy to navigate. I have suggested activities for my struggling or just overwhelmed learners: do one math and one language rather than the two assigned each week.

I might be a bit opinionated, but the goal is continuation of learning and connection with the teacher. These marks don't count unless they improve a students grade!