Who's laughing now??

Well Irene has come and gone, leaving destruction in her wake. Millions of lives have been disrupted, vacations ended early, homes destroyed by flooding, infrastructure damaged. I am in Kentucky, so I didn't suffer any issues from the hurricane, but it has opened the eyes of some people regarding the necessity for emergency preparedness.

I saw a commercial on CNN suggesting that people should have a 72 hour bag together "just in case". It was great! My family thinks my cousin and I are kind of crazy for storing food to prepare for market instability/disruption. Now I have to tell you, my cousin has a better handle on this than I do. Our life circumstances are different and she is able to invest in her food storage on a much larger scale than I am. And with both hubby and I out of work, we have had to rely on ours more than she and her family have. But boy am I glad that I have purchased and stored up.

So this week, I am blessed to have my Angelfood in the freezer. We had burgers and fries (AF) yesterday with fresh garden tomato. We grilled pork chops (AF) and had mashed potatoes and green beans (AF) the night before. And tonight I opened the 2lb package of chicken breasts (AF) and made some awesome soup (one of 3 chicken breasts, 3 potatoes diced up, and a bag of frozen veggies[AF]) and corn bread (AF).

Now you may not know this about me, but I have a very specific idea of what corn bread is supposed to taste like. Growing up we always used water ground white corn meal. Mom make baked corn bread with buttermilk and an egg that was just to die for! Fish was always accompanied by scalded corn bread (boiling water, corn meal, and an egg). It tastes very differently than yellow corn meal, and I was an adult before I ever tasted corn bread with actual corn kernels in it.

But tonight I have found a way to enjoy yellow corn bread! Not having any fresh milk, or buttermilk, in the house, I used a Jiffy corn bread mix (courtesy of a previous Angelfood purchase), an egg, 1/2 a cup of Magic Mix, and enough water to make a batter. Oh my... its a little sweeter than any corn bread I ever made but it was a real hit here. Hubby crumbled it up into the soup and was mightily impressed. I bet we do this again!

Seems like whenever we are pressed for funds I turn to soup making. Yes its a comfort thing, but its also excellent food thrift. All the left overs can go into the pot and with a little love from seasonings and some broth you have a wonderful meal. I am going back to youtube to check out the dehydrate2store lady's videos on crockpot soups from dehydrated food. I think I need to be looking at what should go into the dehydrator since we have such lovely weather (I load it up and plug it in outside so the heat doesn't tax the AC in the house).

Pantry and Freezer to the Rescue

Well, with the Hubby's unemployment checks messed up, and my paycheck "in the process" of being direct deposited, life is very tight at our house at the moment. So I did an inventory of the freezer, and the food storage, and turns out we will be able to eat. Yes, we have to cook, much to Hubby and my Daughter's chagrin. They don't mind to cook, but its not... well...instant, ya' know?

So this morning it was pancakes, hot off the griddle, and scrambled eggs. Not sure what they did for lunch, but dinner is foil packet grilled flounder and yellow squash (who knew that was in the freezer?), lemon dill rice (with fresh dill from the garden), I will have 2 flounder steaks left over so they will probably be my lunch tomorrow. Wonder what tuna salad is like with flounder? Hmmmm, I'll let you know.

Oh yes, I made a batch of Magic Mix Chocolate Pudding. That will be a nice cool treat later this evening.

My green beans are producing, but only a meals worth at a time. I am thinking that is not going to be a canning project from garden this year. Maybe next year. I will have to buy beans, and I just don't really want half runners. Maybe once I have money again there will be some other types of beans at the farmers market.

Since I have sick for the last 7 weeks I have not been out much. Blood work shows that I have a very low level of vitamin D. Well yeah, I haven't been outside for weeks! No sunshine. But I will have to take prescription vitamin D for 6 weeks and see if it helps. Its no wonder I am worn out, can't shake this bronchitis, and my memory is bad!! I am taking a multi vitamin too with extra minerals. Between the two I should be back in the game in no time. Why not just go outside? Yeah, well I have these brown spots developing on my face from sun shining through my glasses, the humidity is horrific for asthmatics, and so I am not getting out like I usually would.

I did go to the store today and purchase:
medium eggs for .88
1 gallon of milk for $1.99 (marked down due to date, but no trouble for us to get through)
1 package of margarine .78

The other thing the test results showed was that my cholesterol has gotten too high. Not terribly, but enough to take action. The doctor would like me to take fish oil capsules but I just can't make myself do that... ick! So I am going to eat oatmeal every day for breakfast, eat low fat food, and get a bit more exercise. That will be good for me all around. I think I can manage this. We will see. I have read that yoga is better for stress relief than anything else, and stress hormones will raise your cholesterol too. So its Wii and yoga for me...

6 Weeks of Bronchitis

Well, the week after I came home from helping my daughter and son-in-law with their new baby I got sick. At first I thought it was just a sinus infection, sore throat and on again/off again low fever. Two rounds of antibiotics and 6 weeks later I am now on a z-pack and waiting for test results. Its crazy, I can sleep for days at a time, still coughing up infection. I am so ready to be well again. My garden is suffering. I have completely lost all my snow peas and lettuce. The cilantro has gone to seed (otherwise known as coriander), and only the tomatoes and green beans are producing. I just don't have the energy to go breathe the humidity heavy air and take care of them. Its doubly annoying because I finally got hired and have gone back to work. I hate the idea of missing training because I am ill. I don't even have enough energy to do much in the way of posting. We will see how the test results come out tomorrow.

Life altering moments

Its been a couple of weeks since I posted. We were waiting for the arrival of our first grandchild, a precious little girl named Maggie. She is simply perfect. She was born last week after 33 hours of labor. Momma and baby are both doing well.

I was incredibly blessed with the opportunity to be in the delivery room when she was born. It was, without question, the most amazing experience of my life (short of knowing Jesus). Her little fingernails looked like she'd had a french manicure just for her appearance! I do not know how anyone could not believe in God after seeing a baby born. Its the most amazing thing.

Being a grandmother is quite different from being a mom. I was told that by several lovely grandmothers, but until it happens you just don't really understand. I stayed with my daughter, son in law and the baby for a week, and it was such a good time. They were able to rest, I got my baby fix (for the moment), and they are ready to settle in and have some family time.

While I was gone, DH faithfully watered the garden plants for me. The volunteer pumpkin has taken root and is beautifully green, the yellow squash is up, the tomatoes are surviving and the Roma tomatoes I planted from seed are up. They will need more thinning. Tonight I picked a few buttercrunch lettuce leaves, baby snow pea pods, baby radishes, and a scallion. They made a nice little salad.

I am sorry to say my broccoli all bolted, and the spinach is not thriving either. The cauliflower is barely hanging on. I think one of my tasks this week is to replant those sq ft areas. Maybe beets, carrots, and potatoes. We will see. The mint has taken off tho in the pot.

I have had an opportunity pop up that will mean I go back to work, assuming that it is approved higher up the chain. If that happens I will be back to balancing everything again: work, home, quilting, church, etc. Its not that I can't do that, its just a busier life than I prefer to have :) Still, one needs insurance and a regular pay check comes in handy!! DH is trying to determine what his next venture in life will be, and while he does that I am going to go back to work. Should gasoline climb much higher we will have to reconsider, since this would be an out of town, 40 mile round trip undertaking. For the moment I am focusing on being thankful that I had no job for several years and now I may have 2! When God provides, He provides abundantly.

This week I will be: watering the garden, weeding the garden, completing the beading on a sweater and sewing in a modesty panel on a wedding dress, finishing one quilt on the machine now, and finishing another by Thursday, starting work on Wednesday if everything works out. It will be a busy week.

Couponing

I recently attended a class on how to save money on groceries and household products. I thought I knew a lot, but let me tell you, there is always room to learn some more! Andrea Charles, of A Smart Shopper, was the speaker and she brought a slide show. It contained pictures of her "storeroom", info about coupons, and lots of information about drug store savings. I highly recommend visiting her site, because we could have spent an entire day going into more detail than she had time to tell us. A few important things that I learned:
1. Buy on sale
2. Use coupons
3. Use store promotions
4. Shop drugstores

Also: Kroger will double a coupon up to .50 cents. They also do not provide rain checks for items on sale that are not itemized in their weekly ad. Wal-Mart will give the same deal on their store brand that another store offers (Kroger soup = Wal-Mart soup) along with matching prices on name brand items.

Be proactive - you will save money if you stock up when things are on sale. though I didn't have a coupon for it, recently during the mega sale at Kroger I found organic cold cereal for .99 a box. I bought 16. Yes, we feel a bit run over by cereal at the moment, but I don't have to worry about breakfast for a few months. Also we found coupons for pasta ($1 off 2 boxes) and the pasta was on sale for .49 each. You just can't beat FREE!

Coupons CAN work in your favor. Here is an example:

Jiff Peanut butter regular price $2.99
On sale for $1.49
Coupon .35 cents off/doubled $.70
---------------------------------------
Final cost to you: $.79

Yeah, its addictive!

Always get the coupons in the Sunday paper*. If you know someone who takes the paper, ask for their coupon inserts. If necessary buy a copy or two for yourself. I have started purchasing them, taking out the coupons, and offering the paper for free to other shoppers. Cut them all out, because if you catch a sale, have a store coupon, a manufacturers coupon, or possibly both (yes you can use one of each on a purchase for more savings) then name brand shampoo might be cheaper than your usual brand.
*There are no coupons on holiday weekends.

Every month there is a magazine called All You. You can only purchase it at Wal-mart and it has a LOT of coupons in it. On the cover it will give the total coupon savings for that month. Its worth the money.


Now what to do with all these coupons? Andrea has hers in a small-ish note card box, separated by type of item (dairy, meat, condiments, etc) and keeps the ones with the closest expiration dates in the front of each category. After checking her pantry, the sales flyers to see what is out there, and her coupons, she makes a grocery list, pulling the coupons and putting them in a section at the front of the box titled "Use today" or Use at Wal-Mart", etc. She also uses websites that track the coupons (when they came out, what weeks insert had the coupons, etc). Really, go read her site! Its amazing.

In the meantime, the garden is growing. I looked out the window the other day and there was a big, fat groundhog in my yard! So, I did a quick search & found out they dislike peppermint intensely. I don't have peppermint but I did happen to have a bunch of spearmint that my Mom had pulled. So I laid it around the bag garden to ward off the critter. So far it seems to be working. We will see...

All this plus customer quilts! Life is good, even tho it is a bit uncertain right now.

Busy Busy!

Lots of things going on this month. Just got back from a great weekend in Tennessee. We have a cousin getting married and there was a bridal shower. I am so fortunate that I married into a family of people I really enjoy. Now we add another who is just as sweet and kind as the rest of them.

There was also a shower for my oldest daughters best friend. She is a sweet young lady and she is marrying a very talented and upstanding young man. So I got to spend some time with the friends I have made in Richmond. Janie hosted the event in her beautiful new home. Her girls were very gracious, the food was yummy, and I learned a wonderful new recipe for frosting cupcakes! One smaller size cool whip (8 oz I think) mixed into one can of frosting. OMGosh! Its great!

After the shower got to spend the afternoon and evening with the oldest daughter and her hubby. We don't get to spend enough time with them, and so it was nice to just sit and visit. Plus there were baby presents to open - always a plus :)

Today I made more detergent. Turns out that my bucket had developed a leak and I have clothes soaked with detergent... I am going to spread them out with other loads and not have to use more of the batch I made today. Everything I made (that didn't leak onto the kitchen floor) is in the new bucket. Now I will have to mop the floor to get the soap up, but then again, no cleaner will need to be used.

Picked up the comforter from my daughter. Now we can decide on a paint color for the bedroom, and start getting the rooms moved around.

In the meantime, I have also been out to the garden. Picked some more whirly-gigs out of the containers, and checked on the beans. They are just now peeking out. The peas are about 5 inches high, and the radishes are taking off great guns.

What a Weekend!

The weather has been lovely!! Saturday we spent most of the day dealing with outdoor tasks. Hubby mowed the yard - no small task since its rained so much it was getting tall and shaggy! I cleaned up the back patio and worked in the square foot garden. It was full of oak tree whirly gigs! There was a bit of grass in there too. Then I made a trip to Wal-Mart and, using my gift card from my SIL, I purchased flowers and top soil bags. I set up the green beans (4 bags of 6 bush plants) and 2 pepper plants in the top soil bags. I have 2 large pots and 2 small pots of flowers. After that, I watered everything with a diluted mixture of Miracle Grow. Mostly I did that because the topsoil was a lot of sand, and I want to be sure they get a good start.

According to the Farmers Almanac, one of the best days to plant is the 4th of May. On that day we are not supposed to have storms, so I will get more top soil bags and set up the rest of the green beans, the cucumbers, and the tomatoes. I also want to set up a new trellis system for these plants that involves pvc pipe and 6 inch netting. Its like working with tinker toys, you make a 3 sided box with the pvc, poke the 4th side down into the ground, and spread the netting over the top. This is fairly low to the ground, about 12-18 inches. on the corners you use a 4 pipe connector so that later you can add another tier as the plants grow. I think this is so ingenious! Also, I have the bed ends of a baby bed with slats, so I can use that for cucumbers or yellow squash. I have been learning a lot of tips from the My Square Foot Garden site. check it out!

Now, for a little non-personal life update: They just announced that Osama Bin Laden is dead. They have apparently verified this with DNA testing (using some of his relatives to compare it to). I personally am opposed to the death penalty but I have to agree that there are times when someone who is *really* bad has to die. I felt that way about Saddam Hussein and I feel the same way about bin Laden. I hope this will provide closure for families of the 9/11 disaster, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, and all the others who have suffered under the activities of this terrorist.