It’s a miscellany Tuesday, people!

I have a more wordy post that’s almost all ready to go, but it really needs an illustrative picture or two. Since I’m lacking that specific picture, we’ll have a picture-filled miscellany post instead.

Oh, the joys of shopping at Goodwill

Goodwill shopping is probably not the most efficient frugal thing I do.

I could theoretically spend that time doing some other frugal activity, like playing the drugstore game, clipping coupons, or hitting multiple grocery stores to buy loss leaders.

But the thing about Goodwill shopping is that we all have so much fun doing it.

I like the thrill of the bargain hunt, and my children always find things to entertain themselves with.

So, I think the hour or so we spend at Goodwill every other week is totally worth it.

Frugality is such an individual thing, and I think you need to make it work for you. If you love playing the drugstore game but hate baking bread, then roll with it. If yard-saleing is super fun, but hanging your laundry out makes you want to cry, throw your clothes into the dryer and head out to the sales.

Of course, some frugal things are necessary even if they’re not fun, but if you can make frugality enjoyable at least some of the time, you’re going to be much more likely to stick with it.

We’re keeping one oak log

There’s such a disparity in height between the tallest zip line rider and the shortest, we had to err on the tall side when we installed it. This meant that Sonia and Zoe needed help getting off of the line.

Until now, that is.

Even though Joshua and Lisey didn’t exactly need a landing spot, the log makes their dismounts a whole lot smoother.

I suppose this is an awfully expensive way to obtain a landing platform, but since the tree had to come down anyway, we’re glad we could think of a way to make one of the logs useful.

In case you think my children are perfect

On Sunday morning before we went to church, I wanted to take a picture of Sonia in her hat, and Zoe wanted to be in a picture too.

Sonia was less than pleased with this idea.

It probably shouldn’t, but this picture makes me laugh.

As is usually the case, though, the sisterly squabble blew over quickly.

Visiting Grandma

After church on Sunday, we went to visit Mr. FG’s grandma, something we’ve been doing on a more regular basis this past year.

She lives in a pretty gorgeous waterfront condo. I plan to retire here. 😉

We don’t make the drive for the waterfront views, though. No, we do it for the company.

And we do it because a simple visit from us seems to bring her so much joy. We bring a meal to share with her and a bag of games (she always seems to beat us at Chinese Checkers, although I am proud to report that I tied with her this time!).

The kids always enjoy looking at her collections (especially the elephant collections), and I think she enjoys retelling the stories of how she found each one.

These visits are always a good reminder that things don’t have to be fancy or complicated or expensive to be meaningful…when it comes down to it, spending quality time with people is what really brings blessing and happiness to them.

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I’m regrettably late in informing you all (though I did inform the winner promptly!), but Molly McC. is the winner of the $100 SpaFinder gift card from my Oil of Olay review. Congrats Molly!

Don’t forget that my Libman Freedom Mop review and giveaway is still going on, though, so go enter if you haven’t. A $100 Visa gift card is the prize!

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Today’s 365 post: A forecast full of 80s

Joshua’s 365 post: The pieces we kept from our oak tree (the kids kept some pieces other than the zip line landing stump)