The Thrifty Barista

Free coffee recipe e-book. 

An interesting tidbit, when I worked at a Barnes and Noble and filled in at the Starbucks station I had to look at the cheat sheet for every drink but one: the latte. 

The equation in my head is basically this: (latte=4$=coffee + milk)>sucker customer. 

Another equation goes like this: ((coffee=50 cents= free refills)+ free milk or cream)=smart customer.

Seriously.

So now when I go to the coffee shops I still spend 4$ BUT I buy the 50 cent coffee and dress it up, leave a $3.50 cent tip when I can. Or I buy a muffin too. Or get Tot a "milk tea" and the balance is a tip. 

Sometimes I dress it up with honey and cream. That's a cafe breve with honey. Mmmmm. 

Anyway, I like the working guy to get the extra, not the corporation. Plus, 4$ for a cup of coffee with milk? French name or no.....

So there you have it, my frugal tip.

Seed data

This spreadsheet contains data about the varieties we are starting this year. We'll use it to help decide which work, and which don't. I've kept similar records in the past, but that was at another location so while I'm trying out our favorites from there, we'll have to see if they do as well here.

I still need to add a quantity column, but we've got at least 8 of everything, more for peppers and tomatoes.

The long and short of it.....

Ok, Here's the run down of our week:  

Ah lady, up on her feet. 

Art class!

Sunshine! 

Crash boom, Mama P fell through the dock. Bruised up my leg and ego pretty bad, one worse than the other. I also cut my face on my camera lens. Right. I went down like this, "Lil'Bug be sure you don't forget the hole is right here, this missing board. I don't want you to fall through." And, "Ok mama," tot continues to happily fish off the dock.......KaBAM. "Mama did you forget about the hole? You just told me!" Then she ran back to land to set down her pole before racing to help get me out of the water. Baby Blueberry was in the Calyx carrier and completely unharmed. My camera was fine too, I buffered the impact with my face and hand. 

Crash boom, Dearest's hard disk thingy failed. He and Lil'Bug had a good time fixing it while I took Blueberry to a potato bar social I was invited to at the local church. Yum. Oh, and ultimately it was Lil'Bug's magic wand that fixed it, or so the story goes.

Blueberry attempted, for the first time, to climb a stair. And then another. She climbed the entire staircase all by herself (with Mama right behind her cheering!). It was neat. Pawpaw was on the phone with us, Daddy and Lil'Bug at the top cheering too. Yay!

I made a pie for pi day. Then the dog ate it and Dearest didn't even notice. I was mad but got over it. I'll make another. Still, many jokes were made about pi and dog and his growing list of reasons he should live outside (love of skunks is # 1). Ultimately, he sleeps at the end of our bed (just not on it, hey, it is SKUNK season!). 

Nana and Pawpaw came today and helped load the dead tractor up so we can take it to be fixed. Nana also helped me really, really clean and hang curtains. It was fun! Now the house is ready for the slew of Spring Break farm playdates. Not that it matters to any of the guests, but I always feel better welcoming friends to a clean, tidy house. They know it is not always like that, but this week it is! Yippee!

Seeds, seeds, seeds......almost time to plant outside! We are late getting seeds started, but I think in the end it will be alright. 

And that's our week in brief! Ta da!

Click. Whirrrrrrrr. Sploink.

Hard Disk Crash!!!

recovery time - 30 minutes.

Back up your data folks!

This has been a friendly reminder from IT personell everywhere.

PS - it also helps if you run linux (or Macintosh), but no pressure.