A Couple of Random Cool Things
Today’s post is going to be different from from the “Five Frugal Things” you’d normally find on the blog. Instead I’m using the blog to shine a light on a couple of random cool things that are too good to not share.
I also invite you to share whatever random things you’d like to share with the Non-Consumer Advocate community.
Our backyard neighbors are having their cyclone-with-wooden-slats fence replaced, (at their expense) with a fancy wooden number. They’re planning a built in “notch” so we can still chat. We have a “friendly acquaintance” relationship with them, so I find it enormously flattering that they’d amend the design so we can continue our “over the fence” friendship.
Just thinking about it makes me a bit teary, it’s so sweet!
My husband and I are now considering hiring their company to continue the fence along the right hand side of the property to create a consistent look. You know, as long as they’re already doing the job. It’ll take a chunk of change, but it’s long overdue.
I learned that if you tap the microphone icon in the Roku app and tell it to “Find remote control” that it prompts the remote to make a dinging sound! It takes ten seconds, but it absolutely works.
I know about the hidden button on the side of the Roku box that serves the same purpose, but this is easier. I love a good hack and this one is too good to keep to myself.
My husband decided that he’s ready to donate his grandparents’ enormous art easel, so we’re giving it to the high school art department. It serves zero purpose in our basement, so it’s off on a new adventure with a fresh generation of artists.
Frederick and Josephine Reiniger were lifelong commercial and fine artists, well known for their decades of work with Tastykake.
Our basement is nowhere near developing an echo, but every item that leaves is a relief and a step or two in the right direction. (You see how huge that easel is, right?!) The way I view it, every solid object in our home replaces air that would otherwise circulate. Fewer things in my house = more air to breathe!
Ahh . . . .
Now your turn, what random things do you want to share with the Non-Consumer Advocate community?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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Decluttering is frugal. Organizing belongings helps calm the mind and keeps us from buying duplicates of items we need, but already have. Three frugal things:
1. Had a big sit down dinner party (10 folks total), and made Chicken Marbella with chicken thighs. Chicken thighs are usually a bit cheaper than other parts, and they have more flavor. An inexpensive, but nice, dinner that didn’t cost much.
2. Refinishing a dresser found on the side of the road. Who says frugal people can’t have nice things?
3. Put a book, Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li, on hold at the library instead of spending $15 on a new one. Patience is frugal. Has anyone else read this book? Thoughts?
Beth Ann
I read it in a day and thought about it for MONTHS.
Your neighbors fence is making me think of something from 10 years ago! Our neighbor behind us replaced a fence that we shared (old wood fence) with a fancy iron one and asked if we would split the cost for it. That section was $2500! I said that I was sorry, we couldn’t afford it right now. When we did replace the rest of the fence on our two other sides with iron that matched, I gave her $700. But now you’ve got me thinking if I should have paid for it at all! Curious what the agreed upon fencing protocols are.
We lived next to a very elderly woman a few years ago. We opted to replace our fence, and let her know that we would pay for the entire thing, as it was our choice to upgrade the very decrepit fence that existed when we bought the house. She was fine with that, agreed, yay. We paid our builders & our fence boards run sideways vs up & down, which is a very bay area style (where we live). She came over & made some quite choice comments to my (at the time) child about how since his dad is an immigrant, he didn’t know that in “this country” fences only run up & down… My stars. the things I wanted to say. She then also asked that we have our builders put up the torn down trashed old fence on her side of the property, which we did. We paid an extra $700 for them to fish the old boards out of the dump pile & somehow cobble together the old fence again. Our builders were so confused. As soon as she moved out & the new owners bought the house, they asked about it, and immediately tore down the old fence. I still have feelings about that experience. My husband was insanely gracious. I was… less so.
What an awful experience. And yes, you and your husband were very gracious.
Honey, you made a huge mistake. You should have spoke your mind and spent that $700 *anywhere* but where you did. Crap like that is why we ended up with the toxic orange pox.
Hawaii Planner, I’m sorry you had that awful experience with your neighbor. You generously took the high road.
I’ve seen beautiful horizontal fencing. A classic split rail fence is horizontal. You and your husband were exceptionally great neighbors. I hope your new neighbors are wonderful to make up for the former neighbor!
“Good fences make good neighbors” (I forget the author of this quote). Here in AR, the legal tradition is to put the “pretty side ” of the fence facing your neighbor. If the fence needs replacement, good neighbors split the cost of the section they share. But sometimes people can’t afford the repair, or are just cheap.
We bought into a newish neighborhood. Some people have fences, some don’t. Our house has fencing on 2 sides. So, technically NOT our fence. Our backside neighbor has a big, scary Rottweiler. Their yard is fully fenced. When the fence blew down in a storm he came to tell me my fence was damaged. I pulled up the state statute and offered 2 pay half the cost of our shared section. 6 months later no action.
There are little kids in the neighborhood that run and play or cut through backyards. I didn’t want them to get mauled by a mean dog that was only on a leash, pluss we wanted to be able to enjoy our backyard. We paid for the fence replacement ourselves. I’ve written it off as our contribution to neighborhood safety.
What is frustrating is that it’s time to seal the fence, and this neighbor won’t reply to messages. We don’t expect any money, just have asked for access to the fence to seal it. I HATE not being able to maintain an expensive fence. The one section cost $2,800. This area gets termites and maintaining/sealing the fence makes it last years longer.
Commentariots, what would you do? I don’t want to sue. It’s just not worth it.
Robert Frost. One of my favorite poems.
I would go and knock on his door.
Well, I thought it was pretty cool that I could take a damaged screen to my local hardware store and get it back, like new, in a couple of days. I honestly didn’t know hardware stores did that.
I think I mentioned this before, but it’s pretty cool that we now have a spacious table for folding laundry in our building’s basement. I much prefer taking folded laundry upstairs to laundry that’s all snarled together.
I stopped at the Little Free Pantry this morning, hoping for garden produce. There wasn’t that, but there was a bag of chopped onions that looks like it came from a restaurant. Also nicely marked with a use-by date. I divided it into what felt like one-onion scoops and froze them for future cooking.
I cleaned my aquarium today, which I have to do fairly often, but I enjoy how it looks so pretty after I’m done. I always wonder if my fish is merely annoyed that the furniture has been moved yet again.
Funny, never thought my fish might be upset about the rearranging!
I just finished a very excellent book- The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewel. The characters were very real to me, with maybe some of their flaws and quirks originating with the mom’s hoarding behavior.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Don’t know if I’ve seen this here– No Kings activity on October 17 is not protests as before, but Vote Early activities.
I’m going to the one in Waco, Texas. It is supposed to be colder and very windy, so I’m taking my big flag (from 2 years ago) that says “Choose democracy over dictatorship! Your vote counts!” and stapling it to a large cardboard backing so it won’t flap in the breeze and can be more easily read.
Meanwhile, I’ve noticed lots and lots of yard signs for Democratic candidates all over town. Hopefully, it’s a good omen.
I am only going to go early in person vote on Tuesday (October 20) the first day of early voting in my state. I sincerely hope that every US citizen who is eligible to vote does vote in this election and strongly encourages their younger adult children and relatives to vote if they have turned 18 since the last election. A third of eligible voters did not vote in 2024 and that terrifies me that many voters have gotten apathetic about voting.
I voted today. My line in the sand is if you don’t vote, you don’t get to bitch.
My state makes it easy to vote – early, by mail, same day registration with proper documentation. There is no excuse.
So cool that his grandparents were connected to Tastykake! They are a staple in my neck of the woods. I will think about the art easel when I purchase a box ( or 2-3)!!
Thanks for the connection. Glad the easel is finding a new home.
One of my favorite parts about my watch is the ability to ring my phone, when I’ve inevitably misplaced it.
1) Made a scrappy breakfast & lunch today, to use up what we had available before we leave tomorrow. I had peanut butter toast for breakfast, using the heel of some bread, and yogurt with berries & granola for lunch. I made DS20 another yogurt parfait to ensure the yogurt wouldn’t go to waste, and he then used the last of the bagels & cream cheese to make an egg/bagel sandwich for lunch.
2) Dinner will be remaining leftovers.
3) I cleaned a few old things out of the fridge that had gotten tucked away. It will be nice to come back to a fresh slate on Sunday.
4) DS19 asked for a couple of coffee mugs for his apartment, so I dug out his preferred ones from home (he’s a mountain biker, these are mountain biking related) & wrapped them in bubble wrap, then a box & have them safely tucked into the bag we’re bringing him tomorrow.
5) It’s going to either be snowing in Boulder, or 70. Both on the same weekend, apparently. I’ve packed a lot of layers!
I’m lucky I never had to deal with a fence between my property and neighbors next door. The lot next to us is for sale though, so that might change in the future. The house I grew up in, in a city, shared a driveway with the house next door. Bear to the left at the top and you headed toward their garage, to the right headed towards ours. Usually worked out just fine but it was very narrow with bankings on each side so if two cars were driving at each other one would have to back out and give the neighbor the right of way. They were a nice family and we were close.
My grandmother’s house had a path through the lilac bushes over to her cousin’s house next door. These were two cousins who were the products of two sisters who married two brothers. The cousins got along but my mother told me the two sisters would stand at the lilac bushes separating the house and fight! This was in the old days before I came along.
My grandkids and I went thrifting today. I’m so happy they are okay with wearing secondhand clothes. Actually, I think that generation (late teens, early twenties) seems to enjoy it. Maybe us non-consumers are making headway with the younger generation. Either that or they’re just broke. College loans, gas prices, etc.
I’m not Catholic but I do admire Pope Leo. I hope he’ll have an uneventful recovery and is cancer free. If he needs further treatment I hope he’ll do well with it.
Just random thoughts. This was fun.
It’s nice to have good neighbors. I had one neighbor who liked the stone wall on my side of the property line and proposed that he build a fence in my yard so he could continue to look at my wall. I said, “no†to losing 3 feet of my yard, so he never spoke to me again. Strange. Another neighbor suggested that we share the cost of a fence between our properties, and before I knew it, she’d erected a fence facing her yard, and I got to look at the back!
When I lived in Florida, the city ordinance required that the pretty side of the fence face outward and the ugly back face into your yard. But I solved the problem by having a workman attach a wooden lattice to the sections of the fence that we saw when we looked out the windows. I then planted climbing roses and trained them on the trellis. So instead of ugly, I had blooming roses! (They bloomed most of the year.)
This one was supposed to be two-sided, but one side of the wood is smooth and attractive, and the other is rough. She asked the worker to have all the smooth sides face her yard, when they should have alternated. Well, at least I don’t have to look at her!
In my state you’d be able to make said “neighbor” tear it down or have the fence facing your property.
I hope you had a survey to ensure the fence was not on your property.
My kids are constantly moving the Roku remote, and we waste so much time looking for it. I’m totally going to try that tip!
Now if it didn’t just eat through batteries constantly…
Please report back!
Last night I opened a new tube of toothpaste and noticed it has an expiration date on the box. Went “Whaaat?” and looked it up online. Turns out it does not exactly go bad but the fluoride loses potency after two years. You learn something new every day.
Today I slogged through a number of life admin tasks: ordered a $20 Walmart gift card as a health reward through my insurance, ordered flea and heartworm prevention through our vet practice’s online pharmacy pharmacy for 20% off, and began the process of switching to a dentist who takes my insurance, which will save me at least $400 a year. I really liked our previous dentist, but just can’t afford to go there without insurance.
A branch fell from my neighbor’s tree and fell into our yard and damaged the shared fence in between our yards. In Ohio it doesn’t matter if it came from your neighbor’s yard, if it damages property the property owner is liable. Luckily my neighbor offered to pay half.
Nice neighbors!
Wish it was different but the law here in Massachusetts is the same as in Ohio. The neighbor’s tree split in half and is laying in our yard. Guess who gets stuck with the clean-up? If it was a clean fall DH and my stepson could cut it up but the upper half is hung up in some nearby trees. To try to cut it down is a scary prospect so we have a tree service coming tomorrow to the tune of $750. Ugh.
I took a bucket of KFC to a covered dish supper and came home with most of it. I have therefore been eating chicken all week. Today a friend brought me a lunch. You guessed it: fried chicken!
I took a box of donations to Salv. Army. They’d sent me a letter saying they are having
problems trying to take care of all the folks needing help in this economy. I can’t them money but I took them things to sell in their thrift store. Including the jeans that are now too big for me! Yesssss! I’ve lost enough inches in the waist that they fell down the last time I tried them on.
My next door neighbor owns the fence, as my predecessor in this house did not contribute her half of the cost. fence is dilapidated to say the least. Snuggles found some holes and loose boards in the wood fence where he could escape. Luckily for me, there is an animal rescue group that, among their many good deeds, will come patch your fence for free. The neighbor agreed to that, and now we have a secure enough fence that a certain 61 pound snugglely-wugglely, very non-vicious, Rottweiler can’t get out and stomp through the neighbor’s flower beds.
M
Can’t *send* them money.
I’m sick of fried chicken just reading about it!
There is no such thing as being sick of fried chicken lol.
Pictures please of new fencing and ‘notch’. I agree it is a lovely statement.
Congratulations on the increased air circulation in basement. Wonderful achievement and so nice for the school!
Thank you for your consistency in writing. I am really appreciating the support especially as we face such well, speculative (I am unsure of right word) times over the next …. lets say 6 months. I would never have guessed things would be like this now in the ‘I LIKE IKE’ years. Of course, I couldn’t really picture being in my 80s either. But thaank you for the support and consistency.
It hasn’t ben scheduled yet, but I’ll be sure to post when it happens!
Managed to make it to the community fridge today. It’s only worth it if I have other errands. Not too much food to rescue, but did meet a lovely volunteer who, very discretely, checked if I needed more help with food. Skillfully done and good to see. I hope she has a fantastic week!
Found a lovely top, from a favourite brand, in the charity shop.
Booked our free flu shots and dropped off the form that lets the doctors talk to me about my husband (we both signed it). That will save a lot of aggravation.
Trying to be intentional about setting up winter season activities. We have a short break booked mid December, so we’ll see how that suits. Some neighbour friends are coming over to eat nibbles and make clear fridge magnets. I have some boarding passes I want to cut down and use for mine. They will go with the holiday coins that are already stuck to magnets on the fridge. Very travel themed!
I want to look for a Christmas tea for us to drink.
On another day, a neighbour was excited to accept an invite to come over and make paper chains from Kraft paper. Simple celebratory things.
When we fenced in our yard an agonized for quite some time as to how to have privacy yet still be able to talk to neighbors and folks in the side walk. I finally settles on a 6 foot stockade fence but the top two feet are lattice work so we can see through and talk to each other.
When did weddings become all about social media, presenting the perfect Pinterest ready pictures and not about family? I must really be getting old.
Made vegetable soup from leftover stew. Added more broth, barely, cabbage, carrots and a can of mixed veggies. It will be even more yummy tomorrow!
my daughter and I got shots at our local drug store and we both got $5 off $20 purchase. So I got 5 family size packs of mega stuffed Oreos and ended up only paying $5 with the sake, my rewards and the $5 coupon. I used the other $5 off coupon to buy Halloween candy. With the sale and the coupon I got it for half off. I’m very happy.
Firstly, thank you Katie for keeping such a positive spin on life today. Challenges are many and your daily blog and the responses from your followers are inspirational to say the least! Please know that there are many of us around the world hoping and praying for the best possible outcome in these upcoming Mid Terms, for your beautiful country and good people. Bless you all.
Sorry – Katy NOT Katie. Very important!
Fences!!!!
Fencing is an art. Fences should last 50 years when built and maintained properly. (We don’t have wildfires here, yet.) Patching fence is a skill. A well.patched fence is something to behold. Building good fence is a craft that many people aren’t capable of. Folks who build yard fence are not qualified to build livestock fence. The stretching, bracing, and gate installation is different. All farm gates in snowy places should be 6-8 inches off the ground, unless you have hogs. Then, gates should be low. A well fenced farm with gates that swing and don’t drag is a beautiful thing!!!
My Dad builds good fence. I took it for granted growing up that everyone can build fence. After helping numerous neighbors and working rentals, I can now appreciate my Dad’s skill. Don’t get me started on water gaps, lol!