What My Husband Does When He's Not Working

Shane's had a lot spare time lately, since he hasn't been able to work since before Christmas (technically he got 6 hours in one day right after Christmas, but that's it). Maybe some of you wonder what he's been doing?

For starters, he's been great at helping around the house. He's done ALL of our laundry and ALL of the vacuuming since he's been home, has helped with many of the other household chores, has kept Kat occupied on the days she's been out of school, and has prepared our lunch most days. Our weather is warmer now and the snow is almost gone, so there's the possibility that he'll have work (for pay!) next week, but if not, I'm sure he'll keep himself busy with finally bringing in our few outdoor Christmas decorations, washing the vehicles and doing other outdoor chores.

Another thing he's been doing during his time off is working on his winter-time hobby of choice, leather-crafting. What you see below is called a targe, which is a type of medieval shield. Although he's not really "into" war items or Celtic culture, he is of Scotch-Irish descent and was interested in doing a larger, non-Western piece. He had traced the design onto the raw leather before Christmas, but did all the tooling, staining, stretching and mounting in the weeks since. The core of the targe is a piece of plywood about 24 inches in diameter. It's leather-bound on the back as well as the front and it even has leather arm bands to hold it in place should he ever decide to take it into a real battle. (Unlikely, but you never know...LOL.) For now, it will hang on a wall in our home.


Shane picks it apart and points out all the mistakes and flaws, so I have to keep reminding him that an authentic targe would have had many, many flaws and imperfections to begin with and many more after being in battle.

Personally, I think he did a great job on this project.

Crafting An Unconventional Date Night

What's your idea of a good time on a Saturday night? For old married folk like Shane and me, it was spending the evening working on crafts.

Shane has a couple of hobbies he enjoys, and I have a couple or twelve of them myself. The problem is, we rarely take time to enjoy them. It seems there is always yard work or housework to be done, errands to run or even TV shows to watch that keep us separated from our hobbies. I'm a stay-at-home wife, but rare is the day that I will "allow" myself to just sit down for an hour or two and enjoy working on a craft.

Shane's craft of choice is leather work. It's a skill he learned in high school and has recently picked up again. I don't have a craft of choice; I like so many of them. It depends on my mood, but I usually prefer crocheting, knitting, cake decorating, cross stitching, or sewing. I dabble in a few others, but those five are the ones I'm best at and enjoy most.

After dropping Kat off to her mom on Saturday morning, we browsed a thrift store, at a nice lunch, and then Shane dropped me off at Hobby Lobby, while he went a couple of blocks away to the Tandy Leather Factory store. We did a little more shopping Saturday afternoon, then went home, put away our purchases, and each did a few chores that had to be done.

Then without discussion, we each sat down in the living room with our craft supplies. That was about 7:00 or so in the evening. We worked on our respective crafts -- without turning on the television or even the stereo -- for more than five hours! Sometimes we were quiet, but sometimes we chatted, and our conversations were all over the board from serious to mundane to comical. At about 12:30 a.m., we decided we'd better pack it up and head to bed.

It was a wonderful evening! We spent some quiet, quality time together, had a chance to enjoy our hobbies, and didn't miss the TV one bit. I have to admit I thought it would be too quiet without some music in the background (I always want music on), but was surprised to find I didn't even miss that.

We enjoyed our evening so much that we're going to have a somewhat regular craft night. It won't be set in stone, but we're going to try to decide on the weekend what night would work best for the upcoming week, then plan for a TV-free evening of doing crafts and teaching crafts to Kat (who is already good, for her age, at leather work). To change things up, we might instead plan an evening of board games or even video games. We're going to try to avoid being sidetracked by household responsibilities. We've also decided not to feel guilty if craft night can't happen every week because of chores that need to be done...or if it happens twice in a week and some chores go by the wayside.



Here are some of the fruits of our labor fun:

A tri-fold billfold Shane made for my dad. He had already done the tooling, so he stained it, assembled it and stitched it on Saturday evening (and a little while on Sunday morning).



A pair of moccasins for my mom to wear as house shoes. Shane assembled these (from a kit) while he was waiting for the stain on the wallet to dry.


Some medallions I made that will become the afghan I am making for my daughter and son-in-law. This isn't a surprise gift (my daughter picked out the yarn), so it's alright for me to post a picture. I still have a long way to go, but I'm learning the pattern by heart and the medallions are going more quickly now.


I also worked on some gifts for my "Pay It Forward" recipients, but I don't want to spoil the surprise with a picture.

And finally, I spent a little time teaching myself to finger knit (thanks, Leanne, for the great suggestion), and plan to teach this easy craft to Kat on one of our craft nights. If you don't know how to finger knit, I found these directions to be the easiest to understand.

Time To Pay It Forward

While I was on my recent break from blogging, I received a package in the mail from Ireland! It was from my friend Leanne. Leanne is the industrious sort, taking care of her husband and daughter, cooking from scratch, creating and selling jewelry and other crafts; she's even planning on installing a skylight in her garage! She maintains not one, but three blogs: See The Woods and the Trees; See The Woods, Simply Food; and See The Woods Designs. For all I know, she has a half dozen more blogs out there...wouldn't surprise me a bit!

A while back, Leanne participated in the Pay It Forward Meme, offering to send a specialized homemade gift to the first three people who responded to her post and asked for one. Of course, I jumped all over that!

Here's what she sent: A wonderful knitted coffee cup cozy, a set of 4 (K-N-I-T) stitch markers, and two little handmade notebooks. I love them all! I can't wait for cooler weather to try out the cup cozy, and I'm always searching my purse or glove box for a bit of paper to write down a note or two. The stitch holders will come in handy, too; I'm determined to do more knitting this fall and winter.


Now it's my turn to Pay It Forward!

Here's How It Works:

The first three people to comment on this post (and this post only) will receive a handmade item from me within three months, completely free of charge. I have some great readers and this is a great way for me to reward some of them. You don't get a set date, but just know that some day within the next three months, you'll receive a little surprise from me.

The Catch (of course there's a catch):

You agree to Pay It Forward yourself after you receive your gift from me. Or even before you receive it. Send a gift to the first three people who respond to your post. The gifts should be handmade, by you, and somehow personalized for that person.

So, who's in? I'm feeling crafty today!

Random Wednesday

First, I want to apologize to my friend Janelle, who is doing a series of posts about saving money on groceries on her blog At Home With My Monkeys. I replied to her post about looking for groceries in places other than the grocery store by suggesting she check out the Asian grocery store at our city's large open-air market. I found my favorite Lipton loose leaf tea there for 50% less than Wal-Mart; I think it's a great place to find bargains.

How was I to know she would almost lose her lunch by going in there? Really, I hardly even notice the dead-fish smell myself.

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All is quiet here today; my daughter Jeanne went back to work today (still on crutches) and Kat is at her second-to-last day of summer school. I've been able to catch up on housework and bill-paying. Getting things in order, which is something I require to feel calm and peaceful.

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Tell me, what do you think of this afghan?


Jeanne and her husband have asked me to make it for them for a wedding gift. At her request, I'll be replacing the red yarn with a deep plum, but otherwise it will remain the same. We bought the yarn yesterday afternoon and I'm looking forward to getting started on it. If you want to make it, too, the pattern can be found here.

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Remember the motorized bike we bought in May? We've been having fun with it on our camping trips and cruising around town a little, but we have to take turns with it. Well, guess what? We bought another one. We got another great deal, this time from a craigslist ad. This one has a nicer ride in my opinion, so it's probably going to be the one I ride most.

The problem is that it's almost identical in appearance, and it's confusing to say "the old one" and "the new one", since the one we just bought is actually older than the one we already had (see what I mean?)

We think we should name them to be able to distinguish between the two. We've thought of several names already: Itchy and Scratchy, Beenie and Weenie, Phineas and Ferb, and even Mary-Kate and Ashley. Of course, Beavis and Butthead, but neither of us wants to ride Butthead.

Any ideas?

A Good Time To Review The Budget

It's hard to believe the year is half over already!

I like to review our budget every six months and make any necessary adjustments. I wasn't surprised to learn we were way over budget in our Lawn & Garden category. In the past, that category has mainly been for things such as lawn mower maintenance, items like citronella candles or Tiki fuel so we can enjoy our time outside more, and things like charcoal that don't really fit in any other category. Since the gardening bug bit us this year, it seems we've gone overboard! Luckily, a lot of those expenses are either one-time purchases or things that won't have to be replaced for a few years.

I'm happy to say that most of our other budget numbers were still good or just needed minor tweaking.

I also took Kat to the doctor today. She wasn't feeling ill at all, but she'd found two small lumps in the back of her neck. They were under the skin and about the size of BBs. I remembered that a few days after our last camping trip, I found a tick biting her scalp behind her left ear. I'd missed it when I checked her earlier or she may have picked it up later. I didn't think it was a serious problem, but did suspect the lumps were related, so I wanted to have a doctor take a look. The doctor said the lymph nodes had some infection from the tick bite. She also noticed some infection in Kat's left ear, which she said was probably caused by the infection in the lymph nodes. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic, so hopefully the infections will go away before Kat feels under the weather or in pain at all.

Tomorrow Kat leaves for the weekend with her mom (and another birthday celebration), while Shane and I go camping again. Since it will just be the two of us, I've planned some foods that are a little less kid-friendly than usual. I'll post about them early next week.

I'll also try to get next week's menu ready for Sunday, although I've noticed (and read) that Blogger has been having some issues with their advanced scheduling options. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

That's it for me until at least Sunday. Hope all of you have a fun and safe weekend, wherever you are!

Garage Sale Finds

Shane and I spent the day on Saturday going to garage sales in a somewhat upscale housing community in our area. And I do mean the entire day -- I have the sunburn to prove it.

Shane found a circular saw, smaller than most, that he plans to recondition and give to his step-dad who enjoys making dollhouses - $3. He also found a nice carpenter's level, the 6- or 8-feet long kind - 1/4 of retail. He found a brand new skylight to install in our home - $10.

I found a set of pans to make filled layer cakes (like this) that I've always wanted to try but never wanted to buy - $2. A new beginners' yoga set, still in the box, with mat, brick, straps and DVD - $3.* Gardening books, both general and organic; when I picked out and bought two of them for $1, the lady insisted I take the other eight of them for free. Other books for 25¢ each.

I bought a small coin purse, of leather (real) and zebra (also real, I think) for 50¢. It had 56¢ inside it. I made 6¢ on that purchase.**

But the best find of all was the $10 bill I found lying in the street.***


* Did you know yoga is recommended for people like me who are clumsy have osteoporosis? It doesn't help build bone, but it improves balance to prevent falls and improves flexibility so that you are less likely to get hurt when if you do fall. I might plan to use this set regularly.

** My friend Charlena used to collect items in the black and white cow print pattern and once bought a set of salt and pepper shakers at this same subdivision. When she got home she looked inside one of them and found two $100 bills. From now on I'll be checking all black and white items that come from this subdivision. They seem to be lucky.

*** Lest you think I'm racking up some karmic debt here, a couple of years ago I lost a $20 bill while out at garage sales. But I'd probably be pushing my luck if I were to say that karma still owes me a tenner.

Shooting From The Hip

I don't know much about photography, but once in a while, I get a nice shot or two. Here are some pictures I took Sunday.

In these first shots I was playing around with the shoot from the hip method where, instead of looking through the viewfinder or the camera's display screen, you just point the camera in the general direction of the subject and click. It's fun, but thank goodness for digital cameras. I'd have wasted a lot a film by missing my subjects too often.

In these last photos, Kat was on her jungle gym. Shane had just draped an old tent over the top temporarily to afford some shade, which changed the lighting drastically from it's usual brightness.

Holiday Weekend

Public Service Announcement: When going on an extended weekend road trip, it's always nice to have a vehicle that's "fully loaded".


We'll be heading out as soon as Kat gets out of school this afternoon to go camping and have a big family picnic with my parents, siblings and all the kids/grandkids. I'll be back online either late Sunday or sometime on Monday.

Hope everyone has a safe and fun-filled weekend!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Ours is off to a good start; we've seen quite a bit of growth since I posted photos two weeks ago. That's very encouraging, since we're practicing by-the-seat-of-your-pants gardening.

I just snapped these pictures, so there's some morning shade, but they'll all get full sun for several hours before the day's done. And a good watering, although the soil is not nearly as dry as it looks.

This bed is the home to green beans, onions, radishes, very recently planted beets (they're just now coming up) and cucumbers.


The second bed is planted with zucchini (which, as expected, is growing more quickly than everything else; we'll have to add a piece of fencing for it to climb soon), rainbow chard, mixed lettuces, green bell peppers, and green leaf lettuce. You can also see one of our upside tomatoes in the foreground.


The third bed is growing spinach, banana peppers, collard greens and tomatoes.


Now that almost everything is well established, it's time to put down some kind of mulch. I probably won't be able to get to that until next week.

Finally, here's a grouping of pots on our deck: Two succulents (hens & chicks and everlasting), lavender, two kinds of thyme, basil, oregano and cilantro. Some of the herbs are doing much better than others.

Monday Miscellanea

I'm down with a cold today and not feeling like doing anything very physical. It's been a good opportunity for me to catch up on my favorite blogs, explore a few new ones and admittedly, to spend some time playing Farm Town on Facebook. I'm seriously thinking of deleting my Facebook account because I let it suck up too much of my time, and I don't seem to have willpower enough to leave it alone on my own.

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Over the weekend, Shane was able to finish the last of our raised vegetable beds. We may have made a mistake with the beds, but I don't think it will kill us. At least the University of Missouri Extension says it won't kill us. You see, we made the beds from MCA-treated landscaping timbers that we had purchased for a different project. We knew not to use the older CCA-treated timbers for food gardening, but Shane was halfway through this project before either of us thought to research MCA. Ideally, we should have made the beds from cinder blocks or a naturally rot-resistant wood such as redwood. Still, according to MU, the newer types of pressure-treated wood contains no arsenic and show "insignificant movement of compounds to the soil".

I guess this mistake can be filed under live and learn, but I seriously doubt we're going to be in any more danger eating our homegrown produce than we would be eating grocery store produce.

Anyway...here are a couple of shots of our gardens. They are small; two of them are 15' x 3' (interior box measurement) and the other is 15' x 2". Regardless of their size, they should not only provide a good deal of produce for our small family, but should give us a good idea whether we want to expand our gardens next year.

What's in them? Well, we decided to plant either produce that yields abundantly for the space it requires, or produce we know we love. We have green beans, onions, radishes, green leaf lettuce, mixed lettuces, zucchini, cucumbers, rainbow chard, collard greens, green bell peppers, sweet yellow peppers. We also have both Roma and beefsteak tomatoes.

All but one of the seedlings I started indoors transplanted successfully, and most of the seeds I sewed outside are starting to germinate. So far, so good.

If you're wondering, the brick red stuff between the gardens is some kind of artificial turf or track surfacing. Shane is currently working on a large university's sports complex project and he rescued it from a trip to the dumpster and eventually, a landfill.

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Did you notice our pop-up camper in the first garden shot? We moved it from the back of the yard to it's summer parking spot. Very soon, we'll need to set it up and make sure it overwintered well and get it ready to go for our first camping trip on Memorial Day weekend.

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Our school is having Staff Appreciation Week and today was the day for Kindergarten parents to take in goodies if they liked. I made some cupcakes yesterday and sent a dozen of them to school. I didn't feel up to baking from scratch, so I used a mix (strawberry) and some homemade cream cheese frosting I had made up in the fridge from an earlier dessert. I opted for simple decorations for the dozen I sent to school -- just an edging of multi-colored sugar crystals.

Kat decorated the other dozen we kept at home with sugar sprinkled lightly over the top with SweeTart candies added. This idea came straight from the cake mix box, and I thought it might be cloyingly sweet, but the candies actually add a nice tart touch.

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Now that the camper has moved from it's winter parking spot (under our clotheslines) I can begin hanging laundry out again. I've already missed some beautiful laundry days in between all the rainy days we've been having here.

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Saturday morning we went to city-wide garage sales in a neighboring town. For a dime, I brought home this double-sized mug. Filled to the brim, it will hold a pint of hot tea or coffee, but because I'm klutzy, I only fill it with a meager 12 ounces! You can see from my fingers how heavy the full cup is in my left (weaker) hand. That's a lot of coffee or tea to drink in one sitting! But I've already gone through two fill-ups of tea this morning. It gets cool before I'm done, but I don't mind.

Everything I Know About Gardening Would Fit In A Seed Packet

Yesterday afternoon turned out better than the horrible morning I had, then by last night, a hot lavender-scented bath and few pages of a good book fixed me right up.

Today, I'm going to talk about gardening. Shane and I have decided to try a little vegetable gardening this year.

Neither of us know much about gardening, although our few previous attempts were fairly successful. We know that you plant seeds or seedlings in the ground, which are supposed to grow and produce vegetables (or flowers or pretty green plants). We know there are different methods (organic, non-organic, in-ground, container, raised bed, etc.). Unfortunately, Shane doesn't have time to do research and as much as I love to read, I have little patience for reading about gardening.

So, we've decided on the raised-bed, semi-organic, by-the-seat-of-your-pants method of growing food. This method doesn't do much to ensure success, but I always learn better by doing than by reading, so it's right up my alley. Our topsoil is not organic. Some of our seeds and seedlings are organic; others aren't. However, we will be using organic practices otherwise (no chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides). We'll also be using our own compost that's been "cooking" for the past several months. We'll study up if we can find the time and inclination, but for the most part, we're going to plant, weed, and water...then hope for the best.

To begin with, we had a load of top-soil delivered last Saturday. Here it is sitting in a low spot in our front yard. (Our thinking was that any dirt leftover will be used to fill in this spot.)


Just after it was delivered, it started raining, so we tarped it over. Shane also had to put away the lumber he was going to use to make the raised beds. Our next best chance to do any gardening will be this weekend.

We had to pay for the soil, but we have plenty of lumber leftover from previous projects and all the hand tools and garden tools we need. I bought most of our seeds, but did save a few from last year's CSA veggies. We've bought a few bedding plants and will buy a few more. All told, we expect to invest about $400 in our gardening efforts this year. We aren't sure we will save any money -- or even break even -- this year, but feel confident that we will by next year.

By the time the growing season's over, we'll either have a great learning experience behind us or a few good laughs at our own expense. It's a win-win situation.

Inexpensive Cat Tree

Three of many important things to know about Shane: He loves our cats, he enjoys building things, and he likes to save money. It's no surprise, then, that after shopping around at pet stores and online, he decided to make a cat tree for our cats instead of buying one.

He built this simply-designed tree on Sunday. He had a few thoughts about how he wanted to make it, but no formal plan or blueprint. The uprights, flat trays and base are made from PVC pipe and plywood, attached to one another with wooden discs that fit inside the pipe. We already had all of these things in our garage. The carpet remnant was purchased at a local carpet store and the sisal rope that was wrapped around and stapled to the PVC pipe was purchased at the hardware store.

Shane plans to add a few more "options" to the tree, such as hanging cat toys and maybe a bed on the base. But it is fully functional as it is now. I like that it's fairly lightweight; I can move it anywhere in the house by myself.

Other simple flat tray trees like this one can cost $150 or more at the pet stores. Ours cost just $48. Of course, there were several hours of work involved, but tinkering is a hobby for Shane -- a way to relax -- so he doesn't usually factor his time into the costs of small projects like this.

Cheap Fun for Kids

Have you seen these Crayola Window Markers yet? They're designed for writing and drawing on windows and mirrors, and wipe away with a damp paper towel or cloth. They're washable, too, if they accidentally (and inevitably) get on kids' clothing. I've seen them at several stores, always for less than $5. (Hint: Use a craft store coupon and get them even cheaper.)

Here's Kat giving them a try on our sliding glass door.


Here's Siesta getting in on the fun.


They kept Kat busy for a couple of hours . They kept the cat busy for a couple of minutes.

How I've Been Spending My Evenings

Most evenings lately, I've been working on this baby afghan. One of my nieces will be having her first baby at the end of the month, and the afghan is for him. He'll be the first boy on my eldest sister's branch of the family tree, and the first boy born into our entire family (from my parents on down) in about 20 years.

This afghan took me about a month to make. That was partly because I only worked on it for an hour or so an evening, but mostly because I found a mistake when I was about 1/3 of the way through. It was in the first few rows and would have been very obvious when I did the border stitches, I ended up starting the project over from the beginning.

I find crocheting relaxing and a craft I can work on while talking to Shane or watching television with him. But now I'm ready for something different, so back to the sewing machine I go.

Another Sewing Project

My second project since getting my new sewing machine was this top that I put together this morning. I was worried that working with a stretch knit fabric would be difficult, but it really wasn't. Either I was better at this hobby than I remember, or this machine makes everything easier. Maybe both.

I like everything about this pattern, from the longer length to the gathered bodice, but the sleeves are a little snug for my liking. I'm hoping a smaller seam allowance will be enough to loosen them up the next time I sew from this pattern.

Here is a closer shot of the fabric and the bodice detailing.

Sew...What's New?

I've taken up sewing again. I have never been an accomplished seamstress (or "sewist", a term I've seen a lot in recent weeks). On the other hand, on the few occasions when I took my time and remained patient, I turned out some fairly nice work. The problem there was that I rarely remained patient; it seems every sewing machine I've ever owned was out to get me.

Last summer, having not sewn a stitch for at least six years, I sold my old machine to someone more willing to put up with it's peculiarities. About a month later, the sewing bug bit me. After a few months of mulling it over, trying to ignore it, and just plain trying to talk myself out of it, I gave in and bought another machine. A new one this time. Well, an almost new one. It's "factory reconditioned", but if it has been used at all, I certainly can't tell. It's probably more machine than I'll ever need, but I was able to buy it at Overstock.com for less than many lesser models would have been brand new.

Here it is:

Janome 11558

And here is my first project, coordinating aprons for Kat and myself.

I decided to start with a very easy-to-sew project; few projects are more simple to make than aprons. I didn't want Kat to look like a Mini-Me, so I bought similar fabric in different colors, but used the same contrast fabric for both. They match...yet they don't.


This was a good refresher project for me. After sewing the first one with little trouble, the second one went together in no time.

Next up is a tunic-style top. I'm not sure when I'll get to it, but I'll post it here when I'm done.

Faux Mink in Pink (and Purple)

Most Christmases, I have given Kat a new blanket as a gift. The first one, when she was just 5 months old, was a purchased Care Bear blanket, but the others I have "made" myself. They've been crocheted or made from polar fleece with tied fringe. They've all been rather small, too.

Kat's been asking for a bigger blanket lately, so this year I decided to make one that is about 5 feet wide by 6 feet long. Instead of fleece, I chose faux mink, in bubblegum pink and a deep lavender. Like many 5-year-old girls, Kat names those as her favorite colors.


We worked in our kitchen because that's where we have the most floor space. Unlike fleece, this fabric is pretty slippery, especially when layered. To take some of the slip out, Shane and I sprayed the reverse side of one piece of fabric with a fabric adhesive. We used Hang Tite, which is actually a construction adhesive suitable for fabric and something we already had on hand, but there are many other brands to choose from at the craft stores. A light coating keeps the fabric from slipping, but does not bond the layers of fabric together. It also comes out in the wash.


After layering the fabric, matching the selvaged edges, we had uneven edges on the other three sides.


Shane couldn't find his Sheetrock square, so we squared the fabric using two yard sticks, a tape measure and some basic high school geometry.


Once squared, we decided on 5" long fringes, so we cut 5" squares out of each corner. Shane then cut the fringes while I followed behind tying them. We started out with 1" wide fringes, but they were too thick for me to tie, so we cut them in half. The 1/2" fringes worked much better.


And here's the finished reversible blanket. The pink matches her bedroom furniture and the lavender matches her new bathrobe. I think she'll be very happy with her new blanket on Christmas morning.

Recapping Mystery Shopping

In the last two or three weeks, two of my friends have asked me for information on mystery shopping. I sent them specific information, but I thought I’d revisit the topic and tell what I’ve done in the seven months I've been mystery shopping.

Let me start by saying that I’m not in any way a career mystery shopper. On average, I do just ten shops a month.

Rarely do I go out only to do mystery shopping. I usually only schedule shops to coincide with my other errands or appointments. Of course, there are exceptions. In fact, just yesterday I went out specifically for "secret" shopping because a commission was raised to an unusually high amount and I couldn't pass it up, especially since I could add two other lesser shops in the same area.

There are many mystery shopping companies to work for; I have done work for four. However, I choose to do most of my shopping for just one company. I like the shops they offer as well as their payment method and schedule.

As I’ve mentioned before, most of the shops I do pay a commission in addition to reimbursing all or part of a purchase. Some only reimburse for a purchase. A few are commission-only and require no purchase. Finally, one was not a shop at all, but rather a product demonstration that paid an hourly wage.

With those points in mind, here is what I’ve been able to do in seven months:

Cash earnings (commissions and product demo) - $488
Fully reimbursed carryout or delivery pizzas – approx. 25 large pizzas
Fully reimbursed pizza buffet lunches for one – 4
Fully reimbursed sports bar lunch for one - 1
Fully reimbursed Mongolian BBQ dinner for two – 1
Reimbursement up to $14 for a clothing item – 2
Reimbursement up to $8 for a household item - 1
Reimbursement of $1-$2 purchases made to prove I shopped – approximately 33

The reimbursements total close to $380. So, the total value of all my shops is approximately $868, or about $125 a month.

The commissions I’ve earned have ranged from $4 to $50 and can vary greatly from one month to the next, even for the same store or business. The shops also vary in difficulty. Some are as easy as driving by a fast food restaurant after dark to check signs and lights for outages. Others have meant posing as a prospective renter at an apartment complex. Most simply require a review of a store’s appearance and customer service along with a token purchase to prove I was there.

The shops can be learning experiences as well. I’m now up to speed on new models of refrigerators, gas ranges, computer printers, and closet organizing systems. Should we need to buy any of those in the near future, I know just what I want and where to find it. And believe me, there’s no doubt in my mind who has the best pizza in town!

As with any job, there is time involved. There is time required to do the shop and time required to complete the online reports. There is usually a window of several hours to submit the report after the shopping portion is done; just as with the shopping, I work the reporting into my schedule more or less at my leisure. The more shops I do, the more quickly I am able to do both the shopping and the reporting.

There is also the issue of taxes to consider. In most cases, it’s up to the mystery shopper to report his or her own earnings at tax time. However, a few companies do collect the necessary information and send out 1099 forms at the end of the year.

I think mystery shopping is a pretty good gig for something that’s really nothing more than a hobby for me. But who knows what a person could do if they applied themselves and worked for several companies at a time?

Easy Holiday Craft for Kids

Kat and I made these angels based on this idea from Jenn at Frugal Upstate.

We had trouble finding beads we liked that also had holes big enough to thread over ribbon, so we opted for wooden beads painted with craft paint. If you have trouble finding wooden beads, look in the wood crafts department of your craft store instead of the bead department. That's where we found these.

We started with the following items:


5/8" wooden beads
3/4" wooden wheels
Silver and gold acrylic craft paints
1/8" Christmas ribbon in red and white
A needle threader (optional)
"Ideal" paper clips (we found ours at Office Depot)

We made this a two day project, but older kids could probably finish the angels in a single day. First we painted the beads and wheels, half of them silver, the other half gold. We let them dry overnight.


Next we cut ribbon into 14-inch lengths. I folded them in half...

and inserted the loop into the paper clip as shown,

then threaded the free ends through the loop.


Tying the ribbon on this way keeps it from sliding up the "wings" of the paper clip.

Once threaded through the paper clip, I tied another knot in the thread.


This becomes a neck of sorts and will lift the bead up just enough that it will fit the paper clip better. This may not be necessary if you use smaller beads.

With Kat's help, we threaded a bead over the needle threader,

then inserted both free ends of ribbon through the threader.


Then we folded the ribbon back and slid the bead off the threader, creating the angel's head. We did the same with the painted wooden wheel, making the halo.


To keep the beads from sliding too much, I tied another knot close to the halo, and finally another knot near the ends of the ribbon.

Easy Peasy! An angel to use as an ornament on a tree or window, or to use as a gift tag. Or use more ribbon for each angel and make necklaces like Jenn did. These will be Kat's gifts to all of her great-grandparents and to a few family friends, such as her former babysitter.