Frugal Friday? (and Holy Week)

A quick perusal of the blog will show you that I am not "diary" blogging (making a post every day) any longer. Nor am I counting down the days.  As I shared in this post, I feel pretty strongly that we are not in a situation where we will have a sudden end and have life instantly return to what we were. Rather we are in for the long haul, changes will be gradual, and may of us will not return to tings exactly as they were. I know the countdown helps a great many folks. bth in terms of sanity and accountability.  I am returning to my blog as it is, knowing that our life changes will be part of this, and every blog post will of course have reference to the current normal, whatever that is.

We are now in Holy Week, and today is Good Friday around here. While there is no fasting, there will be a (virtual) church service, a there was a Maunday Thursday service last night, and will be an Easter Eve service tomorrow, in my case at the Washington Cathedral.  Today I plan to print out some large easter egg coloring pages and paint them and put them in the window for our local kids who are doing a virtual easter egg hunt. I also have multiple painted rocks, and under normal circumstances I would hide them on the street, but we are supposed to go from seventy five to snow here, so I'll stick with the window stuff.  Someone other than me will be making leg of lamb and asparagus and rice and salad and I gathered a couple large Lindt chocolate bunnies for the other two house residents.

My son just took the dog to the vet (he sits in the car, they take the dog into the vet and bring him back out) to get his nails cleaned and have his shots and have his sightly red gums check out. Unfortunately, he needs his teeth cleaned. Something I guess they won't do in the current climate (and which doesn't fall under the Frugal Friday theme).

Meanwhile, let's see if we can find some Frugal Friday stuff:

1. I have been doing only delivery grocery shopping. Which occasionally involves a delivery fee and a tip of twenty percent. While this has obviously increased my grocery budget, I consider it frugal because the money is going to local businesses and employees. Aside from my delivery guys, we have multiple restaurants offering grocery and delivery, like this one-a wine and food bar that could not easily do takeaway.  
   
2. A friend from my knitting group shared a meme the other day, which is so true. While I always, always CAN buy fabric and yarn (and do so safely online) I have enough stuff in my home to entertain me without spending any money in the near future-because I buy stuff on sale even if we don't necessarily need it and because we already did a fair amount of self entertaining at home. I have  a one thousand piece puzzle in the works and two on tap (of the Titanic and the other of Cinqe du Terre), we have games, we have crafting supplies, we have cooking and baking and decorating stuff galore. Normally , yes I WOULD buy my regular monthly supply of crafting and entertaining products but right now that money can go towards Texas purchases or the two thousand dollars that will cover son's dog's cleaning when vets open again.
3. Our car insurance premiums are being reduced by as much as twenty percent (USAA) for the next couple of months. And of course I can fill my tank up for a few bucks (even though I'm not driving it anywhere). Can I consider this frugal because of no normal wear and tear?
4. A local online magazine just posted a list of 50 things to do at home this weekend. While not all are free, many were, including a virtual street art tour of the city,  a live streamed music festival, free tours of our local museum exhibits, online drawing classes (one from a local tattoo artist) and library virtual book club, and even a virtual escape room adventure you can do at home.
5. With the exception of a small container of pork stew, we have been really, really good on the leftover front. This might seem like a no brainer in the current world of at home, but two of us are sandwich or microwave soup type lunch eaters rather than leftover eaters-so we have had more than one day of "everyone fend for themselves and let's hope it's well balanced" dinners. So far it works.

And now I'm off to hide. I actually got three giant chocolate bunnies but I've already begun nibbling on mine and I need those ears.