Monday Q&A | White Bedroom Furniture, Summer School, and Frozen Foods

Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!

Before I answer some questions, I wanted to let you know about something fun that Joshua and I are doing this week. For our 365 photos this week, we’re switching cameras! I’m using Joshua’s point and shoot, and he’s using my Rebel with the 50mm lens. This will be a fun challenge for me and a nice little upgrade for Joshua. 😉

In case you’re wondering what this whole 365 thing is about: Joshua and I both maintain blogs where we post a single picture each day. If you want to keep up with us, you can subscribe to my blog and to Joshua’s blog (the subscription box is on the right-hand side of both of our blogs).

I have never painted any furniture, but our home contains lots of wood pieces (hand-me-downs) that don’t match. You have made it look relatively simple to paint them and so I would like to try. My question is this: would you ever paint Master Bedroom furniture white? Would that look too “little girl-ish”?
I SO don’t have an “eye” for decorating and so I don’t want to go to a whole lot of work if it will look cheesy in the end. So, yes, I am just looking for your opinion.
M. Bedroom dressers and such white…could it work?

Esther

I definitely think you could do a white master bedroom! White doesn’t have to be little girly, especially if your furniture has relatively simple lines, and you don’t pair your furniture with linens that are pink and flowered. Also, if you paint your walls a more grown-up color (pastels probably aren’t a great idea), that would help keep your room from looking juvenile.

If it makes you feel better, sometimes when I get a little bored with my burgundy walls and black furniture, I briefly consider painting my furniture white and doing a lighter color on my walls. But that would be so much work, I usually go right back to being content with the current look of my bedroom.

I was wondering, do you and your kids take the summer off from homeschooling? If so, do you somewhat follow the schedule of the local school system and begin and end when they do? We know we want to home school and while it’s still a few years away, I find I have a lot of questions about the way people do things already! Thanks.

-Brittany@TheMamaZine

We do indeed! I find that after 9 months of homeschooling, I need a break maybe even more than the kids do.

Usually we start school in September and then finish sometime in May. Our ending tends to be more towards the beginning of May than the end, which is not typical of our local public schools. They seem to go to mid-June more often than not.

At this point in the year, Joshua and Lisey have started to finish up some of their subjects, so their school load is a little lighter right now. For instance, we always seem to finish our spelling and vocabulary books early, and the same goes for our English books.

If we finish a book super early (like in the middle of January), then we do often just start the next grade level, but if we finish something at the end of April, we usually just call it quits for that subject until the next fall.

Of course, during the summer we don’t sit around and let our bodies and minds just veg. We read a lot, we watch educational DVDs, we swim regularly, we go to the library, we go to parks, we bike, we get together with friends, and the kids play outside a lot.

Also, the summer break gives me a chance to get around to some things I don’t have time for during the year, like sewing projects, painting projects, decluttering, and organizing.

I was wondering if you ever bought pre-made frozen items? I’m not talking about frozen Lean Cuisine meals or anything, but sometimes I will pick up pot stickers, frozen meatballs, tater tots/fries, etc. I would find those things hard to make from scratch, and since I’m single, it’s easy to take out just one serving to make.

-Patricia

Having never lived by myself, I’ve never been a big purchaser of those types of things, but I can definitely see the appeal for a single person. I think the only frozen prepared food I buy semi-regularly is ravioli. I’ve made my own before, but it was a LOT of work, and I lack the inspiration to do that on a regular basis.

Pot Stickers and Tater Tots might be hard to make yourself, but I will offer up that meatballs are pretty easy to make and freeze. Just make a batch (baking them is REALLY easy), put them into a ziploc bag in the freezer and you’ll be able to take out just as many as you need.

That said, I don’t think that pre-made, frozen items are necessarily bad to buy, and they could very well be a wise choice for a single person, especially if you’d be tempted to buy takeout without them or if you’d end up letting food go to waste otherwise.

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Readers, what are your thoughts on white master bedroom furniture and frozen prepared foods? And for those of you that homeschool, do you take the summers off like we do?

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Today’s 365 post: Cinnamon Burn

Joshua’s 365 post: Lisey’s Pearls (on Ann Marie)