by nicholmom3 on August 28, 2010
Today we took the two youngest to a not nearby farm to go peach picking. Tougas Farm is about 40 minutes from our house, but we love it so much that it is worth the ride. Besides picking delicious plump peaches, we also caved and bought a bag for apple picking as well.
As anyone who has gone to a “pick your own” orchard, it isn’t even close to beig cost effective. As I told my husband today, you are paying for more than just simple fruit. You are paying to keep a small business alive, paying for the “adventure” of picking your own fruit, paying for the choice of “safe to eat off the tree” fruit. Also, there is the tractor ride to the orchard, the petting area, and the wonderful playground. All at a price.
If you think that we paid $25 for the 1/2 bushel of peaches, and $15 for the bag of apples (peck? half peck? I’ll have to check which), $5 for a bag of sugared apple cider donuts, and $3 for 2 iced coffees. That is a total of $48. We were at the farm for about 2.5 hours, so it breaks down (very) roughly to $5 per person per hour of FUN! Not to mention all the yummy fruit we get to enjoy for months to come, as I’ll be prolonging the yum by canning a whole mess of peaches this week.
We only go once a year, as the 40 minute drive is a touch far for multiple trips, especially when there are other equally nice farms around, though few pick you own. It is definitely a family tradition now to go at the end of summer. Well worth the time, gas, and money.
by nicholmom3 on August 24, 2010
For all you folks doing back to school shopping, you know how tough it can be to keep track of which kid needs which folder, color pens, highlighters ect. I used to separate everything in to bags, but then you have to pull everything out to make sure you didn’t forget something important.
I have a few little tricks to keep everything organized. First, I scrounge one box for each kid. It has to be wide enough to fit notebooks and folders, and I add a shoebox in each one. I use personalized labels to put their names on EVERYTHING, (except the teen, he’d kill me) All loose pens, pencils, and markers go in the shoebox, the notebooks and folders stand up, and I can take a quick look to see what is still needed. I also tape a copy of the school list to the outside and cross items off as I place them in the box.
I keep these boxes throughout the year. As the kids need supplies, they go to THEIR box. There is no tapping into someone else’s supplies. I refill the boxes from time to time from my main stash, mostly the pens and pencils. I try to way over buy when I hit a sale, because I know come January the notebooks need replacing and the folders can’t be taped anymore.
The labels are key though. I got them with my company order of business printing services so they were short money. I try to bulk order whenever possible, to reduce my out of pocket expenses, but also to reduce my time involved.
If anyone has any special tricks about organizing school supplies for the year, please post!
