Thrifty Joys

As I prepare for our annual camping trip to Mesick MI I have a seemingly never ending list of things to get; food to buy, supplies we've run out of, and gear that we need to replace/add to our collection. SO I turn to being thrifty and shopping at Big Lots, Save a Lot, dollar stores, Meijer, and using gift cards from last Christmas. I admit that it is totally my nature to always assume that if you buy from name brand stores you're always getting the better products BUT I'm coming to realize that this is not always the case. Sometimes you can find really great stuff at the off brand stores at a much better price.... the trick is to keep what you get nice and then you will be able to use it for a long time! :) Something I learned from my thrifty mother in law and my husband. For example, I think my husband is the only man I know who, after a long week in the woods, comes home and thoroughly cleans his tent, coolers, lanterns, grill, and even his tarps! I am convinced that this lengthy clean up process is saving us time and money in the long run. At least I hope so. Being thrifty is sometimes hard but I'm finding that the joys in life don't come from the brand name on your camp chairs but the time that you spend enjoying your friends, family, and God's creation while using them! So this is my encouragement to you to get out there and be thrifty and take over-the-top good care of your stuff so you can get back to enjoying life! :) Happy 4th of July week!

Live well,

CW

Breathing Deep

"'You've been out! You've been out! There's that nice smell of leaves!'... 'It's so beautiful, you never saw anything so beautiful! It has come!'...'Open the window!

Perhaps we may hear golden trumpets!'" -Colin & Mary in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

My own heart feels like this after taking in the beautiful spring air all around us! I see my plants blooming all over white and pink and green and I can't help but smile. It makes me hopeful that indeed they will come into full bloom and for a little while we will have summer. Ahh...for a little while. Yesterday I just sat in my backyard and listened to the spring all around me as I finished reading Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden". This is a perfect book to read in the spring. It must be read outside. It must. I grew up watching the 1993 rendition of this classic novel and being fascinated with it so the other day when I was at Barnes and Noble I picked up this classic to read. For just $5.95 how could I have not? I found that this is one novel in which the 1993 movie actually did a good job of capturing. Most of the time when I read a novel after seeing the movie I am sorely disappointed with the movie and refreshingly glad that I picked up the book! Ahh such is life. We cannot fully capture the beauty of a well written novel in film the way it was meant to be captured...in the imagination.

God Bless, Sleep Well,

~CW~