Pennie’s From Heaven

 Hello Dear Ones!

How was your week?  I hope it was filled with blessings! I know mine was!  This is one of the reasons I enjoy jotting down a short list of blessings throughout the week. We usually remember the really BIG blessings, but what about the small blessings? The ones that come to us daily?  A large bouquet of roses is lovely indeed—but what about the little wildflower that blooms off in the woods?  Is it also not lovely and a blessing when you notice it as you walk past?  Is it not also an “I love you” from your Creator? I think it is!  And the same with other small day to day things. The blessings are there, whether we notice them or not.  But we gain so much more when we notice them!

So on to my week!  This is not ALL the blessings I had—life does get busy, and when my small note pad gets full on one side I tend to stop writing things down. But I am still blessed by what I DO slow down to notice! 

1) I attended a free concert at the local college. :) One of the benefits of living close to a college that has a music program is I am often able to attend free music concerts given by the local students. But this concert was extra special, as it was by professional musicians, one of which grew up locally which is one of the reasons we were blessed to be a stop on their current concert tour. It was a trio, and the violinist has a bachelors and masters degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, the cellist is a current student at The Juilliard School, and the pianist has a Bachelors and Masters’ degrees from The Juilliard School and is currently working on her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Boston University. I wish you all could have attended the concert with me—it was absolutely lovely!

2) From beautiful music now to something as mundane as ear swabs.  Yes, you read that correctly—ear swabs!  I was at Walmart purchasing some ear swabs, and as I grabbed the large package I normally buy I noticed smaller packages of them for a smaller price—and all of a sudden realized that purchasing two of the small size packages would be 100 more swabs than the larger package at a less expensive price! Normally this is not true—normally a larger package gets you a bit of a smaller price per item, since you are purchasing a larger amount. But this was NOT the case.  So this is a reminder to check your unit pricing! Every little savings—saves! 

3) I started a new Bible Reading Plan, following a plan I found free online and printed out and I am using a Bible that I already had at home that I had purchased from a thrift store. Yes, I am a bit ahead of when most people start their “New Years Goals,” but that is because last year when I found a Bible plan I wanted to read for 2024, I didn’t want to wait so I started into it early! So since I started my last Bible reading program on November 1, I have finished it already and needed to make a plan for my new Bible reading.  I will share more details with you about what I just finished using, and what I am starting into now in a separate post sometime. 

4) I GOT A FREE CANDLE!!!!  Can you tell I am excited? 😊 Every now and then we get a free little newspaper thrown in our driveway.  Most of it is ads and coupons for fast food that I never buy, and it ends up in the trash or used for fire starter material in the winter.  Well, as I was skimming my way through the ads,  I noticed there was a coupon for a free Yankee candle!  Yes mam’ I would LOVE to have a free candle!  I have only found this coupon one other time, last Christmas season.  So maybe it is a seasonal coupon to entice people to go to the store in the nearest mall and buy candles for Christmas gifts?  Of course it was only good for a small size candle—this one is about 3-4 inches high, and normally sells for $17.  Does anybody really pay $17 for these?  I am thinking this is another thing of marking a price up high and then stores offer customers special coupons and discounts so the customer feels they are getting a great deal.  But I still wonder if anybody actually pays $17 for this size.  Maybe they do, if their budget is a great deal larger than mine is.  Last year I used my coupon for a free candle on a cinnamon scented candle.  This year I chose a sage and citrus scent, though truth is it is more sage smelling than citrus, and I LOVE citrus scent, but it is pleasant to my nose so I like it.  Scents are so funny, how one person loves what another finds unpleasant! 

5) I bought 24 ounces of dates for $4.99, which is a good price where I live.  These are sold at a local Indian grocery store.  The cheapest place otherwise to purchase dates is my Aldi’s store which sells 16 ounces of dates for the same price of $4.99.  This store is farther away than my Aldi’s is, but I stop in when I am running other errands in the area.  In this circumstance, I drove to the mall to pick up my free candle and stopped at the Indian grocery store on my way home from there. Since I do not use refined sugar any longer due to health issues in the past, I sweeten things that I make using applesauce, bananas, or dates—all depending on what I am making.

6) At the same Indian grocery store, I found grape tomatoes for just $1.00 a package.  What they carry will vary according to what they were able to purchase, so some things such as the dates and spices and other things they carry all the time but the fresh foods will vary. I brought home three packages of these yummies!

7) I also found fresh blueberries at the Indian grocery store!  Also $1.00 a package—and I LOVE fresh blueberries!  These will be close to the Best Buy date, so do not last long after you purchase them.  So when I purchase produce there, I know to use it within the next several days.

8) I saved some towels that had gotten stains on them by washing again using Borax added to the laundry.  I was very pleased with how much the stains either disappeared completely, or lightened so much as to be very difficult to see.  I had collected a small load of both bath towels as well as kitchen use towels, and my kitchen towels always get stained up since I use them to wipe up food messes.

Well that was my list!  What was your week like, and what did you find a good deal on?  Or were you able to save money by using what you already had at home?  It is not always spending money that saves you know—ultimately NOT spending is the very best savings of all!  Eating foods you already purchased, or putting together an outfit from clothes you already had is much better than feeling like you always need to go out and purchase something else! I would love to hear what you did!

Until next time! Keep watching for those blessings!

Friend