Schtuff.

Dude! I have so many random things to tell you guys. So, I thought I should throw together a miscellany post.

(Starting off with cloud pictures because clouds are one of my favorite things. Except for the rainy kind.)

1. Site slowness

My blog has been running a bit slow of late for me sometimes and for some of you…my apologies!

I’ve maxed out my VPS at Dreamhost, which has been the kick in the pants that I needed to shop around for another host, and so soon, The Frugal Girl is going to be migrated to a new hosting company (don’t worry…the site will still be right here, as all the changes are just happening on the back end.)

The really awesome part: the new hosting promises to be faster, AND I’ll be paying $50-$100 less per month. Which means that I can afford to hire them to do the migration for me, and that’s an enormous load off of my shoulders.

(Kristen does not enjoy doing techie-related blog tasks. At all.)

Happiness all around, I say!

I have no idea what exactly will happen during the migration, so just know if things seem hiccupy at all, it’s probably because stuff is being moved.

2. Butternut. Squash. Soup.

Not really too sure how I missed out on this for so long, but I did.

I made mine using a Cook’s Illustrated recipe (duh!), and it was so buttery and delicious. Also: very cheap.

Ooh, and it calls for using the squash fibers and seeds to flavor the soup (you do strain them out before you’re done).

I felt like that was sort of nice on the food waste front…using what’s usually trash to make the soup taste better.

Unfortunately, Lisey liked this soup as much as I did, so I had to share it with her, and it was gone awfully quickly.

Must make another pot.

3. Cream drizzles

Ok, so this isn’t very important, but it’s awfully fun.

I’ve found it’s key to get your pouring spout super close to the soup so that the cream hits the soup very gently. Pour from too high, and the cream just sinks.

4. Don’t you wish…

..that you had a minion to guard your basil??

5. Bad Ads

I want you guys to know that I always opt out of pop-up, pop-under, and autoplay ads. I think they’re super annoying, and I don’t care how profitable they are…I’m just not going to use them.

I also opt out of ad categories that are offensive or, uh, not family-friendly (for lack of a better term, because honestly, that term annoys me a lot).

However!

Sometimes bad ads sneak through anyway.

(I am so sorry.)

If you see an ad that behaves poorly (popping up, autoplaying with sounds) or you see one that’s offensive, the very best thing you can do is to take a screenshot and send it to me. That way I can see which ad unit is the problem and can submit the screenshot to the ad supplier for removal.

6. I’m on instagram now.

But I’m still smartphone-less, so I don’t imagine I’ll exactly be flooding your feed (I have to use a tablet to post to instagram, which is a lot less handy than a smartphone!)

I actually signed up because Aldi had an instavideo contest for bloggers. I usually stick with still photos (they’re my favorite!), but with Joshua’s help, I made a few videos, and it was actually pretty fun!

Anyway, I’m The Frugal Girl on instagram.

(I know. You were totally expecting a different user name, weren’t you??)

Ok! I think that’s all the stuff I needed to tell you.

Have a lovely weekend, k?

P.S. Food Waste Friday is over at Simply Being Mum today.

Joshua’s 365 post: Biology