Tea, Scones, And Jam

Tonight I made scones at home to go with my tea. I used this recipe. The only change I made was to omit the salt since I used salted butter. They turned out great and if I had cut them into circles or added sultanas they would have been very much like the ones we had when we went to a tea house. The jam I used I had made and canned about 2 weeks ago. It is strawberry kiwi jam and it is oh so delicious.

Tea For 3

I had my friends from Tucson visiting for the past few weeks. It was lovely to see J and D as I had not seen any of my stateside friends since we moved to England almost 2 years ago. It was great. They stayed here over the weekends and during the week they travelled around the country to see the sights. One of things I have seen and J told me about was having tea. When we go out and about there are tea and coffee houses all over and they always seem to be busy. Of course with small children I was hesitant to try one out. J had told me about going to the tea houses while she was out travelling and said it was great. I asked about how it worked since I knew they served the tea with milk and sugar and I have never tried milk in my tea. She said the milk and sugar helped to cut down on the sharpness of the tea and that the scones with jam and clotted cream were amazing.

Last Saturday I took J, D, and the little princess to Cambridge to wander around. The Man kept the boys at home so they wouldn't be bored wandering around. The little princess had to come with us so she could nurse while we were out. We parked at the park and ride and rode the bus into town. We found the tea shop that we had looked up online and I had my first tea and scones since coming to England. The tea shop was named Auntie's Tea Shop. We had to wait til a table cleared outside so that we could sit down and order. I ordered a cream tea and it came with 2 scones and a egg and cress sandwich. It was a lot of food. It easily could have been shared by two people. Luckily J and D helped me out by eating some of it as well. I found that hot tea with sugar and milk is absolutely delicious. I have been making me hot tea at home the same way. I have a tea kettle already but would love to find a gorgeous tea set with a teapot, sugar bowl, creamer, and cup with saucer. I will be looking around to see if I can find one that will give me that elegant spoiled feeling without costing a ton of money. The Man and I will then make our own scones and tea and have mini dates at our house.

Overseas Commissary Score - Quaker Products

Today I went to the commissary to get some milk and as I walked in I got a great deal on some fruit and Quaker products. They had the Quaker chewy granola bars 10 count on sale for $1.50 a box with $1.00 off two coupons. Next to them they had buy 5 Quaker items and get $3.00 off produce. The strawberries were marked down to $2.09 a pound. If you buy 10 boxes of granola bars and 3 containers of strawberries with 5 granola bar coupons and 2 produce coupons the total was $10.27 plus the checkout fees.

You could also do this with the Quaker instant oatmeal for a little bit more. The oatmeal was on sale for $1.79 a box. If you buy 10 of these and 3 containers of strawberries with 5 $1.00 off 2 oatmeal coupons and 2 produce coupons the total would be $13.17 plus the check out fees.

My Garden

As I posted before this is my first year attempting a garden and it has made me proud. Some of our plants we bought as baby plants and the rest we started from seeds. To save on money for the cost of plants or seeds my friend B and I each bought different seeds to share or split the cost of plants. This worked out well for us because we were able to save some money but also use more seeds before the expiration date on the packages. We are in the process of trying to grow potatoes in a bag, marigolds for pest control, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, a couple different types of peppers, cucumber, pumpkin, chocolate peppermint, strawberries, carrots, chives, coriander, parsley, onions, and garlic. It has been a pretty chilly spring/summer up until this past week and suddenly with the warm weather the plants have grown quite a bit.

The cauliflower was bought at a local market as baby plants. My friend B and I bought a container with 9 plants to share. She took 5 for her garden and I took 4 for mine. All 4 of mine have grown very well so far and we got to eat our first one this past weekend. It was so fulfilling to eat something that came from the garden that I have been tending for several months now.

The broccoli was started from seed and wow did it take well. I planted about 12 seeds and 10 made it to the garden. Since then I lost one of the plants that was planted in the garden but all of the others seem to be doing really well.

Our lettuce, spinach, and herbs other than the chocolate peppermint were started from seed and have taken off really well. We have had salads and spinach in our crock pot lasagna. The Man's favorite part of the garden is the herbs because he loves to experiment in the kitchen. He loves to cook on the weekends and try to get creative to help everybody learn to eat different food options.

We had bad luck starting peppers this year. Out of probably 10 different seed pots we managed to get one plant. We decided to buy 4 pre-started plants to add to our one and see how it goes. They are all pretty small but seem to be doing OK so far.

Cucumber is another one that I have had a hard time growing from seed. I had big dreams to learn how to can pickles this year but out of about 10 seed pots I managed to get 2 plants and they are still quite small. I am quite sad about this because I do not think that I will have enough cucumbers to try pickling this year. Oh well I will not get discouraged and try again next year but probably using a different type of cucumber. Any suggestions?

Tomatoes seem to grow quite well here. We bought 2 pre-started plants and then have 3 others in the garden that I got from seed. I still have a couple started plants in the mini greenhouse waiting for either more space in the garden or some more pots to grow them in. The two pre-started plants have started to flower and get small tomatoes on them but the seeds I started are a little behind on that. The warmer weather this past week has really helped my seed tomatoes grow better.

My strawberries have proven to be the kids' favorite but they have become the beetles' favorite plant to attack as well. The kids love when there are red strawberries and they can pick them and eat them. We had quite a few strawberries ripen before the beetles came and now there are quite a few less. It is sad to lose them to the beetles. They started eating the leaves and my plants look quite pitiful now. i am hoping that they didn't actually burrow and place their eggs below my plants to kill them off totally.

The onions and garlic was started in the fall and were supposed to be ready by now but I think with the cold weather just have not gotten to their full potential yet so I am keeping a close eye on them. Neither of them have produced a full sized product yet. The onions had a really bad growing rate. Out of 24 onions I planted I have 8 that have kept alive. I am not quite sure if it was just a bad set of onions or if it was the huge pigeons. Which ever it was it was disappointing. The garlic was great. Every single clove of garlic I planted grew. Now just to let them mature enough so I can have garlic to eat. I will also reuse one of the cloves to replant for next year if they give quality cloves.

Gardening has proven to not only help save money on fruits and vegetables but to also give me something to occupy my time and teach my children about growing food. I am hoping they will take these lessons on with them and start them out earlier in their life than 30. The things I have learned in the past few years to save money would have been nice to figure out when I was a single mom. It really helps now though for me to be able to stay home and stretch The Man's paycheck.

Audley End House

Yesterday we decided to buy an English Heritage pass and find a place to go visit. The Man picked out the Audley End House and Gardens. I really didn't know what to expect other than a day out away from the house exploring something of England's history. The day was gorgeous and the time out with the family was amazing.

This was part of the laundry rooms and I fell in LOVE with the clothes drying racks. They are on pulley systems so they could be lowered to hang the clothes and then raised out of the way while drying. I had The Man take a picture of it because it is my ultimate dream of a drying rack. Living in military housing we have our washer and dryer in the kitchen and I do not like it one bit. One day when we are able to buy a house I aim for having something like this to hang my clothes on in an actual laundry room.

We got to watch a show of horses and riders. There were 6 riders, 3 male and 3 female. Each team consisted of one female and one male rider. They did a relay race showing how they could take items like champagne glasses filled with champagne or tea kettles back and forth while galloping and jumping over small gates. The men also demonstrated how they play polo. I know I would for sure fall off a horse doing the things they were doing. I was amazed at the ladies riding side saddle and how fast the horses could go without them falling off.

It was a great day and now we have a year pass to many different historical sites here around England.

Preparing For A Garden

The weather today was gorgeous. It was a high of about 48-50 degrees and sunny. The Man and I took full advantage of this and started preparing for a garden. The Man told me when we got orders to England that we would be able to have a garden since it wasn't too hot like Tucson was. We dug out our area and took all the weeds and branches to the compost bin. We then mixed in 7 bags of soil. I will have to get more soil because this was not nearly enough. We already have winter onions and garlic in the ground which should be ready in June. My garlic looks wonderful. My onions look pitiful. We shall see how they turn out soon enough. I also planted my first potato grow bag today. I have three of these bags and will plant them about 6 weeks apart so that we have potatoes longer. In our new dug out garden area we have planned to grow tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. We would like to grow more but jsut are not sure what to try. I also have two strawberry bags. In one I will grow herbs and I think I will try strawberries in the other. This is my first full year attempting a garden. A few years ago I would not have thought gardening was for me but I realized just with the few things and short growing time last year that gardening is almost theriputic to me.

Since When Is My Time Less Important Than Yours?

Today is the first time I have had to have a military provider appointment and man am I disappointed. In the States I used Tricare standard so I could pick and choose my doctors and if I didn't like my care then I could switch without the headache of referrals. Being overseas I do not have that much luxury. I have to be seen at the Military Treatment Facility. I arrived for my 12:45 appointment at 12:25 knowing that I would have to fill out some paperwork since I haven't been seen there. I filled out the papers and was called back to a room promptly. Yay, I am going to be seen like a normal human. WRONG!!!! After sitting in the little room alone for 30 minutes someone finally came and said it would only be a few more minutes. Yeah right a few more minutes. It was almost 15 minutes later when the doctor would finally walk in. I was there for my annual pap and to get my IUD removed. I had originally tried to get an appointment in the OBGYN clinic as that is what I would have done in the States. I was denied and told to go to the Family Practice clinic. Guess what?? They couldn't take care of my IUD removal so now here I wait for who knows how many days to get a referral and then who knows how much longer to get an actual appointment. This is definitely not my ideal heath care system.

The Free Store

Being a part of a military family does have a few perks. Most bases have some kind of help for families in need. Here they have a free store commonly referred to as the Airman's Attic or Community Closet. This is like a free thrift store. Being overseas this is open to all ranks but I believe that in the States it is usually limited to E4 and below. You can go in and find clothes, housewares, books, toys and more. The only rule is that nothing there is for resale. This has been a great resource for us since we have 3 growing boys who always seem to need clothes. The best part about it is that when my boys are done with the clothes or shoes or toys we can bag them up and take them back to help out another family. We also take in stuff that we have bought ourselves to help replenish their stock. I find great joy taking a bag of stuff in to help others. It really helps me in reducing clutter and it definitely helps in my debt plan.

Frustrated with mail order shopping!!!

So, as I am trying to stretch the dollars I have so that we may become debt free I keep hitting brick walls. I have seen some amazing deals that I would love to take part of for the holidays and just because they were great deals. The problem I am having is that because we live in England with an APO address a lot of places either will not ship at all to an APO or they want to make you pay a higher shipping charge. It is no more expensive to ship to me at an APO than it is to ship from Washington state to New York so why are we being penalized?? It is already way more expensive to live and shop here and then when I find a great deal online it would be nice to be able to take part in it. I really wish that online stores would reconsider their shipping policies and ship to the APO/FPO shipping address of people who are serving all over this world to help keep them safe in the land of the free.