I am very glad I went grocery shopping yesterday as we woke up to snow this morning. Hard to believe there is so much of the white stuff still out there when the sun is shining so brilliantly, not to mention blindingly. I'll have to go out and clean off the car before the sun goes down so that I don't have to do it in the morning when I drive the kids to school.

I found $5 in a wad of ones in the middle of the Trader Joe's parking lot yesterday. There was no one else around who could have dropped it so I took it and put it in the coin jar when I got home. I don't understand people who don't put bills in their wallets. It is so easy for money to fall out of your pockets, especially when it is so cold that you have your hands in them a lot.

Today has been the kind of day where I am very glad I put a pot roast in the crock pot this morning and pizza dough ingredients in the bread machine this afternoon, because otherwise I would have been extremely tempted to order a pizza delivered. A $27 x-large all meat pizza, plus tip. I really do not need to do that when I have all the makings for a great pizza (ham, bacon, ground beef, homemade sausage, salami, pepperoni, proscuitto, onions, peppers, tomatoes, sauce, herbs and cheese) in the freezer, fridge or pantry. I won't use all those toppings on one pizza, I just have the choice to do so. Well, two pizzas as the crust recipe makes two large (or three smaller) crusts, but I usually just freeze the second one for later.

The pot roast had enough meat for two meals and I made microwaved sweet potatoes and a can of green beans to go with it. I think I will make a sort of beef and sweet potato hash with the leftovers. I like to do that and eat it in whole wheat tortillas with a salad added for a later meal. It is surprisingly good and I never would have thought of it except my ten-year-old has been going through a phase of wanting to eat everything in tortillas this year. There will be plenty of leftover pizza for the kids to take in their lunches for school. I am so glad they will eat cold pizza. They didn't use to eat any leftovers cold, so they have come a long way.

The ducks are mad because their little pond froze over and have no trouble expressing their displeasure with the situation. We had to put some hay down for the chickens. They are so funny to watch walking through the snow, but they really do need a hay path to have a break. They need to eat more feed in this weather to produce well. Most days this winter have been around 40 degrees, which is still warm enough for them to forage for most of their food, but during these cold snaps they need grain. We are getting seven eggs a day which is still more than we can use, especially with DH in Alaska. I should probably make up some meatloaves for the freezer to use up some of the excess.

I should probably go ahead and make buns and biscuits for the week, too. I've gotten lazy about making bread and just tend to make rolls and buns instead. Well, it is part laziness and part making the right portion sizes so someone doesn't hack off a huge chunk of bread to eat and suddenly it is all gone. The kids don't care what their sandwiches come on so long as it's homemade (or tortillas). They really don't like store bought bread of any kind anymore. I usually do that on Mondays and Thursdays, but I have an appointment tomorrow with the physical therapist and may be too exhausted afterwards.

My goal for the week to save money is to not grab anythng out to eat. No drive-thru meals and definitely no sit down restaurant meals. Our biggest wasted spenditures are from eating out too much. So today is day one of that.

Well, it seems like I rather suck at blogging anymore. I just tend to pop up from time to time now with an update and that's about it. So much has changed in the past year it's ridiculous. Things are slowly coming down debtwise. I am seeing real progress being made in some areas. There's still a lot of debt left though. And we had to pay for more surgery which added to our debt.

$ 94,400.00 left on medical debt
$ 23,139.75 left on the mortgage
$ 42,100.00 left on personal loan
$ 30,000.00 left on unsecured debt over 3 cards
------------
$189,639.75

Considering we started out at around $250,000 when I started this blog we've done well. We do also have around $23,000 left on our car loan.

All of our debt should be paid off in 6.5 years if we continue at this rate. If we sell our house, which may or may not happen any time soon, we could take a large chunk out of it. With the market the way it is I am not counting on it.

We are still living with my mother. She's taken a couple more falls so I really do not regret my decision to move into town and take care of her. She's still mostly self-sufficient, still has her mind, but she really needs someone to just be here for the bad times. I'm not sure we'll buy another house after the one we own right now sells until she's ready to go into assisted living or a nursing home and that's probably several years away. This house is huge and it just makes no sense to move away from her right now.

It's a good school district here. After two years of homeschooling I've got the kids enrolled in the public school system again. They are both thriving and getting good marks. My daughter is a freshman and well on her way to honor roll. Probably five A's and a B. They do weekly updates online and also every three weeks, so I can check it obsessively and make sure they aren't screwing her up.

Things are a little up in the air at DH's work. Contracts are up in December and they aren't being very forthcoming on whether his company is even going to get the subcontract from the main company this next year or not. We've had job security for 14.5 years and not having it anymore is a little unnerving. DH isn't as worried about it as I am. He's got feelers into several companies just in case and says he's gotten positive responses so hopefully if his company doesn't get the contract he'll simply be able to switch to the one that has it. It'll mean no medical insurance for a few months, but it'd be work and that's important with a debtload like ours.

I'd feel better if I could work. I'm pretty much disabled these days because of my knee and the pain I'm in all the time. I am working to strengthen it with swimming, but it's a slow road. The rest of me is getting fitter, but it's still very difficult to walk. Standing still is even harder. I can cook sitting down, but I don't think they'd let me do that in a restaurant.

I am doing what I can to cut back again. We were getting really lazy there for a while with eating out because it was hard for me to cook when I was in so much pain, but I've been teaching my daughter and between the two of us we are managing a lot more home-cooked meals.

Last night I made my special spaghetti sauce from 3 fresh roma tomatoes, 1 chopped onion, 2 tbsp minced garlic, 2 14.5 ounce cans tomato sauce, 2 6 ounce cans tomato paste, basil, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Tomatoes and herbs came from the garden. The kids and I made parmesan breadsticks from scratch (dough made in the bread machine), and homemade spaghetti noodles in the pasta maker (had it for years, but have rarely used it). It was really good, better than a meal at The Olive Garden and cost about $8 altogether, as we all drank a glass of milk as well. It would have been about $50 for 3 of us if we'd gone out for that same meal.

Today I'll be making a beef potroast in the crockpot and microwave baked potatoes and green beans and tomorrow I'll be doing up a big pot of Texas style chili. There will be enough of that to freeze for several meals. I've got all the ingredients on hand and am focusing on cooking from the freezer and the pantry this month as much as possible. Chris comes home on Thursday and hopefully he'll be on board with this whole not eating out thing. He claims he likes my cooking best anyway, but we shall see.

Because we don't have an oven or stove top where we are currently living and I don't want to have to constantly be running up to the kitchen in the main house every time I want to cook, I've been trying to make do as much as possible with the microwave and the slow cooker.

One of the benefits of crock pot cooking is of course that you can buy cheaper, tougher cuts of meat and cook them into succulent tenderness. Because our food budget is our biggest expense after our credit card payment, it is the place we are trying to cut back on the most to save money. We are limited in this by my son's food, food dye, additive, and preservative allergies and have to buy a lot of pure, unprocessed foods. This means no casual dumping of cream of something soup or most spice packets in the pot with the meat to make it all easier. Everything has to be from scratch or carefully perused for ingredients that could harm him.

So the last couple of days I have been doing some research into foil packet cooking and/or cooking in layers in the crock pot. There are a ton of foil packet recipes out there, most geared towards either cooking in the coals of a camp fire or on a barbecue grill, some towards cooking in the oven, and a very, very few towards cooking in the slow cooker.

I'm going to attempt to adapt these to use in the slow cooker. I can't imagine anything that could be easier than wrapping up packets of vegetables with some butter or olive oil and seasonings and dumping them in on top of the meat in the crockpot to slowly steam. My only problem is knowing how long to cook the veggies for. I know that root veggies will cook just as long as the meat but I'm more concerned with how things like zucchini, bell peppers, asparagus, green beans, and yellow summer squash would come out, if they'd end up complete piles of mush if I let them cook for the same amount of time as the meat. After all, I want to save money here, not waste it by making veggies inedible.

So I'm going to be doing a bit of experimenting over the next few weeks to see if I can't come up with something successful, where I maybe put the meat in for ten hours, but three hours from the end of the cooking time I add in the packet of veg. Or maybe just try cooking some different veg in the crock pot and checking it every so often.

Last night at midnight I put a beef chuck roast in the bottom of the crock pot, seasoned it with herbs and then put in enough pierced and foil wrapped potatoes to fill the rest of the pot. I set it for ten hours on low and at ten in the morning it switched over to the warming feature it has, and at noon they were all perfectly cooked. So in practice I can definitely cook meat and potatoes together without ending up with mushy juice covered potatoes. Now, I just need to figure out where I'm going from here. I'll be making my baked potato soup in the slow cooker with the leftover baked potatoes tomorrow. I think I'll attempt fajitas later this week. Sliced and seasoned meat in the bottom and one packet of sliced bell peppers and one packet of sliced onions and see how it works.

Yesterday was payday so I sent off $1200.00 to the credit card and the autopay for the car payment came out of 490.75 and we are down to having three years left until the car is paid for.

I did a bit of grocery shopping, not a lot, just for things like milk, tortillas, bananas, sour cream and scallions. They also had a special going where if you bought one beef roast you got the second one free along with a five pound bag of potatoes. Now, it wasn't really a great sale. You paid about as much for them as you would have if you'd bought two roasts on a regular sale, because they jacked up the price of the first roast you had to buy to get the rest of it free. It was still a good deal, but definitely not truly "free." But accepting that, the potatoes truly were free. Since I want to make baked potato soup tomorrow and we always are making pot roasts in the crockpot it felt like an acceptable sale for our needs.

When I got up this morning I assembled all the ingredients I would need to make dinner and put them in the crock pot. I've been devouring a blog on slow cooker cooking that Monkey Mama linked to a few days ago, and she had a recipe on there for orange chicken. Orange chicken or pineapple chicken is pretty much my all time favorite "fast" food from the polynesian takeaway place we have here in town. But we don't eat there anymore because of T's allergies. It's full of all kinds of chemical goodness so it's off the list of places we can go to and with us cutting back on going out anyway, we just haven't been there in ages.

I made a lot of changes to her original recipe for orange chicken: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2009/09/slow-cooker-orange-chicken-recipe.html

And basically ended making my own version with what I had on hand. It turned out perfectly and I was completely thrilled, because it tasted better than the takeaway place and cost about half as much to make from scratch.

I didn't have any frozen OJ in the house so I substituted frozen pineapple juice.

Here's my version of Pineapple Chicken. I doubled her recipe because I wanted to make some for the freezer as TV dinners.

3 pounds chicken wings
1 cup of flour for dredging
2 tsp kosher salt (her 1 T was too much for me to even think of putting in, especially considering I'd have had to double it)
1 12 ounce can pineapple juice concentrate, thawed
6 T brown sugar
6 T ketchup
2 tsp apple cider vinegar (I didn't have balsamic)
olive oil

Dredge chicken in flour and brown in a bit of olive oil, just long enough to make sure the flour sticks to the chicken. Dump the chicken in the crock pot. Mix all remaining ingredients in a bowl and then pour over chicken. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. I pulled mine out at about 7 hours. I had a couple little containers of sesame seeds so I dumped some on my portion because I like them.

I had some frozen, cooked brown rice in the freezer so thawed that out and warmed it up and ate it mixed with the sauce and chicken. Added canned green beans for a veg. A good meal all around and there was enough left to package up 8 TV dinner meals for the freezer.

I really like cooking in the crock pot. It's nice to make something in the morning when you have energy and have it ready for you in the evening when you don't. Or even to do it before you go to bed and have it ready for you to deal with in the morning. I like cooking once and having enough leftovers for several meals down the road. It saves energy, it saves time, and it seems to save money as well.

On my quest to save money by eating more at home, using up what I have in the cupboard and freezer, and making as much as I can from scratch I tried a new recipe this week and an old favorite.

I made English Muffins from scratch on Wednesday and they were so easy. Ridiculously easy. I don't know why I never attempted this before. And I think it works out to about half the cost of buying them and I can be sure of the ingredients. I had to tweak the recipe I made to make it Feingold safe, but this is what I ended up with.

1 cup skim milk
2 tablespoons honey
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 pkt)
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup melted butter
6 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sea salt

1. Warm the milk in a small pan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Mix in the honey, stirring until combined. Let cool until lukewarm. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes. It should be bubbly.

2. In your bread machine add the milk, yeast mixture, butter, flour and salt. (I use this order because my machine says liquids go in the bottom). Start dough cycle.

3. When dough is done rising remove from bread pan and punch down. Roll out on a floured surface to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut rounds with a biscuit cutter. I used an empty, clean tomato sauce can since I don't have a biscuit cutter. Sprinkle waxed paper with cornmeal and set the rounds on this to rise. Dust tops of muffins with cornmeal. Cover and let rise 1/2 hour.

4. Heat griddle. Brush a bit of butter on to season the griddle. Cook muffins on griddle about 10 minutes on each side over medium heat.

5. It said to keep the baked muffins in a warm oven until all had been cooked but I didn't see the point in this since we weren't eating all of them right then. Then it said to allow them to cool and place in plastic bags for storage. To use, split and toast.

It was pretty straight-forward. In the original recipe I changed the shortening out for butter and the sugar out for honey. I used equivalent amounts. They taste great, way better than anything I've ever purchased.

I have Canadian bacon and cheese and eggs on hand, so I think I'm going to make up some egg muffins like McDonald's has and wrap them in plastic wrap, put them in a freezer bag and store them in the freezer for fast breakfasts on mornings we just can't seem to get started properly. T is going to love this. He likes anything he can do independently foodwise.

Tonight before I came to bed (not to sleep, obviously), I put the ingredients for burritos in the crockpot. I don't follow a particular recipe for these, though it's basically the same every time.

In a blender whirl (umm...I think the technical term is puree) 1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes, 1 4 ounce can green chile peppers, 1 TBSP chili powder, 3 heaping spoonfuls of chopped garlic, and 1/2 of the smallest size can of tomato paste until mostly smooth. In the crock pot place a 2 to 3 pound pork roast. Pour the sauce on top. Cook on low for 10 hours.

When it is done take two forks and shred the meat in the crockpot mixing with the sauce that has accumulated on the bottom.

We eat it on tortillas with shredded cheese, but you can add sour cream and guacamole if you want. My son puts plain vanilla yogurt on his. Another variation is to eat it on leftover hamburger or hotdog buns sloppy joe style.

I'll end up packaging up about 2/3 of the meat and freezing for future meals. A 2.5 to 3 pound pork roast usually produces enough for 3 full meals for a family of four around here. I spent about $10 on the ingredients originally (they were all on hand in the freezer or cupboard). So for $10 we get approximately 12 meals. And they are as good as the burritos from our favorite Mexican place where one burrito platter with the same amount of food would cost $8.

I was cleaning out the pockets of all the winter coats today so that I could wash them and put them away until next autumn and I found some money in two of mine, a grand total of $3.43, so it is going into the coin jar.

$63.86 beginning balance
+ 3.43 amount added
------
$67.29 ending balance

I haven't gone anywhere since...I'm not sure when. It's been a couple of days so no money has been spent. I'm still not feeling good, but I needed to bake today so I did. Today I made a loaf of bread and hamburger and hot dog buns, brownies, a batch of blueberry muffins and a batch of corn bread muffins. Muffins have been individually wrapped and frozen, bread has been cooled and sliced and buns have been split and put into air tight containers.

I think later in the week I am going to try my hand at making English muffins. The recipe I found doesn't look too hard and I have been sort of craving egg McMuffins lately, but not wanting to pay for them. It's easy enough to poach an egg in the micro, toast a muffin, add some ham and cheese and nuke again to warm them, and there you go. But English Muffins are something of a favorite of T's and most brands have ingredients he can't have.

The white ones have preservatives he's chemically sensitive to and the "healthy" brown ones have raisin juice and he's allergic to grapes and raisins. Bringing those into the house is hard on him. He's so good about avoiding foods he can't have anymore, but waving an old favorite in front of him is just mean. If I can make them myself with pure ingredients, we may have solved that problem altogether and he can have his beloved English muffins again. That would be nice.

My youngest turned ten today. I think that's way harder for me to grasp than the fact that I turned 40 in February. In less time than he's been alive so far, he'll be heading off to college or trade school. Wow. I hope he earns lots of scholarships.

My sister's kids descended en masse on us, presumably to celebrate my son's birthday and not to eat us out of house and home. I hadn't really planned on doing anything other than making T pizza for dinner because it was what he wanted. We already celebrated his birthday and gave him his presents last weekend when his dad was home. Today was just supposed to be a mellow day. T didn't want any more than that.

I wasn't feeling good. I'm still not, been fighting a sinus infection that's not responding to meds, and I just really wanted a quiet day. R made the from scratch chocolate cake batter while I sat curled up in a chair in a blanket in the kitchen and read out the ingredients to her from my laptop. Then we discovered that mom's one cake pan was flaking.

I haven't brought in my glass cake pans or my metal rounds yet and I really did not want to have to drive with my head this full of congestion and buy a cake pan when I had good ones at home. Didn't want to drive back to the house either. Fortunately I had bought baking cups for making muffins and had my muffin tin here so instead of a birthday cake he got birthday cupcakes. I did put together the from scratch butter cream frosting but R stayed with it in the kitchen while it blended for the ten minutes. I love having a child who is old enough to bake with minimal supervision.

I had started the dough in the bread machine as soon as the cupcakes went in to the oven. They were cooled and frosted by the time the dough was done rising and I had assembled the pizzas and they were ready to go into the oven. I had only intended on using part of the dough to make one pizza but with extra mouths I suddenly had to feed I ended up using it all. Fortunately Mom has one of those ovens that has two parts so you can cook two things at once. I was able to cook them evenly and not one after another and they came out perfectly.

T loved his birthday dinner. He said it was better than Round Table Pizza and a bakery cake. Which made me feel pretty good, considering that from making it all from scratch, I spent around $12 where all that pizza and cake bought elsewhere would have rounded out around $60. The boys loved the food too and wished that their mother would cook like that. They said it was the best pizza they'd ever had. That made me feel good even if I was kind of annoyed with the whole day's change of plans.

I think I probably would have taken it better if I wasn't so grumpy from being ill and tired and if it had been planned and not suddenly thrust upon me. *sighs*

I had to go buy a few gallons of organic milk yesterday so I ended up with $3.58 in ones and change out of a $20 to add to the coin jar.

$60.28 beginning balance
+ 3.58 amount added
------
$63.86 ending balance

Yesterday I also paid $1079 on the credit cards and $375.14 on the mortgage.

I think we did fairly well this week. We went to Trader Joe's and to the local grocery store that has the cheapest price on organic milk and potatoes. We spent $45.82 at TJ's and $15.95 at the other store.

I ended up with one loaf of bread, 2 heads of cabbage (one purple, one green), 3 pounds of broccoli, one pound of asparagus, one head of cauliflower, a head of lettuce, 2.17 pounds of roast beef, a 15 pound bag of potatoes, 1 bunch of radishes, 1 large family bag of plain potato chips, 2 gallons of milk, 2 pounds of carrots, 4 large onions, and a head of garlic for roasting.

We also went to Costco for the big monthly stock up. It came in at $140.92. There we got 3 18 packs of organic eggs, large tub of pre-minced garlic, a 3 pack of English cucumbers, 5 pounds of pork chops, 6 pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs, a case of oranges, a case of green beans, a case of pineapple, 4 pounds of butter, 4 pounds of unsalted butter for baking, 25 pound bag of flour (yay! I can make bread again), 10 pound bag of sugar, big package of all beef hot dogs, and a case of toilet paper.

We didn't buy any beef because I still have 8 pounds of hamburger and 2 large pot roasts in the freezer. Ditto canned salmon or tuna because we have a little over half a case of both. And I still have plenty of frozen salmon from that big fish I bought last month.

For the rest of the month I should only need to buy milk, fresh veggies, and possibly bananas if they start looking fit for human consumption again. I still have about 4 or 5 apples left from last month. They aren't really a favorite around here and Tobias is allergic to them so we don't go through a lot unless it's honeycrisp season.

Between the three stores we went to I ended up with some ones and some change to add to the coin jar.

$43.73 beginning balance
+ 6.84 amount added
-------
$50.57 ending balance

Tasks for tonight are to sit down and balance the checkbook for the week and to make up the menu plan for the next week. Our menu planning runs Saturday through Friday, usually

I also need to bake tomorrow, hamburger and hot dog buns and cloverleaf rolls (recipe was posted earlier this week) and bread, and Rose wants to do a batch of her famous sugar cookies.

I might make brownies, too, since I have been craving chocolate this week, but none of us can have store bought because of the vanillin or yellow #5. Doesn't take all that long to make them from scratch and they always taste much better. Now I just need to decide if I want to use cocoa or baker's chocolate since I have both on hand for a change. And I need to make a cake and frosting from scratch for T's birthday. He turns 10 on the 13th (my baby is ten!), but his dad goes back to Alaska on the 9th so we are celebrating early.

Which reminds me we still have to go up to the used video game store and do his birthday present shopping. He prefers used games because he can get more games that way than if he got new. He's really starting to get it about value for money. It started with his own allowance that he would do it, but it's carried over now since he knows he only gets a limited dollar amount for his birthday, too. Now that his reading has started to take off we might just take him down to the used bookstore and let him get a few books from the children's room there.

We also paid the chiropractor today. $215. They've raised their rates from $195 for the one month plan. It's still a good deal (up to 3 visits a week per family member for the four of us), and he hasn't raised the rates in five years. The difference is, as he put it, one less meal out at McDonalds per month, which no one really needs to eat at anyway. Of course, we're not really going there that much anymore and when we do we order off the dollar menu so it's closer to two visits cost for us, but still, I like his thinking.

Okay, I think that about catches us up on the last few days.

A couple of you requested my hamburger and hot dog buns recipe so here you go.

2 1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/4 C. warm water
3/8 C. butter, soft or melted
1/4 C. sugar
1 egg, beaten well
4 1/4 C. flour
1 1/4 tsp salt

Add water and yeast into bread machine, let sit five minutes, add in egg and butter, then salt, sugar and flour. Set for dough feature of your bread machine.

When done remove from bread machine, punch down dough, and on a large greased cookie sheet shape into circles (for hamburger buns) half the size of what you want it to end up as, or oblongs for hotdogs (again half the size). Cover with a towel and let rise for an hour in a warm place. Bake for 25 minutes at 375 degrees F. Brush tops with butter if desired on removal.

For cloverleaf rolls use the same dough, grease a muffin tin and into each muffin cup drop three equally sized balls. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes. Brush tops with butter if desired on removal.

Dough will keep about 3 to 4 days covered tightly in the fridge if you don't have time to make it and bake it on the same day.

***

We spent a good amount of time out at the house today packing, cleaning, and shredding old paperwork. I think I shredded for a solid hour. Fortunately we have two shredders so when one started heating up too much I'd switch to the other and give the first one a rest. And you know what? As much as we did, it still looks like we've barely even scratched the surface. Ugh. Packrattery is not something I would ever recommend.

I found $9.64 in change and ones laying around the house so brought that home and added it the change jar. I'm pretty sure there are still a lot of coins somewhere as well, because I haven't located one of the old change jars yet.

$34.09 beginning balance
+ 9.64 money added
-------
$43.73 ending balance

***

Things are going well here living with Mom. Chris and Mom get along very well so there are not really any problems adapting. Hopefully that will continue. I think if Mom is going to get on anyone's nerves it will be mine and since I've got a really high tolerance for Mom nonsense it'll probably not be too bad. Mom and I are very close and yeah, she drives me a little crazy, but I think every parent does that to their kids. I don't take it personally.

Yesterday was payday, but because of how it falls we won't actually use most of this money until next week's bills except the autopays that come out the first of the month, a medical bill, and the $1000 for Mom. The rest will sit in savings for a week.

***

I had knee surgery on December 7 for a torn miniscus and a loose floating cyst thing under the same knee cap. The final bills after insurance have now come in. I owe the doctor $266.85 and the surgery center $892.80. I'll write a check for the doctor tomorrow.

The other one will have to wait for the income tax refund. It should come in about 1 to 3 more weeks. We sent it off at the end of January. It usually only takes 5 weeks or so before it is deposited in our account when we send it in so early. If it hasn't come by then, I'll just take the money back out of the emergency fund and the safety net and pay for it. But the bill is not due until the last week of March so I'm not too worried about it.

I think that about covers the last few days.

My husband flew home from Alaska this morning and as is his habit, he sort of empties his pockets as he goes through the house, trailing receipts and change. I followed the trail and ended up with $1.50 for the change jar.

$32.59 beginning balance
+ 1.50 amount added
-------
$34.09 ending balance

We also went grocery shopping this afternoon and spent $46.53 at Trader Joe's for two stuffed full bags of groceries, mostly veggies but 2 pounds of ground beef also. It always shocks me that a one pound package of organic hamburger there is cheaper than anywhere else around here for the non-organic type. I even remembered to bring my Trader Joe bags so got an entry into their grocery drawing. Now I just need to remember to put the bags back out in the car.

I made hamburger buns, hot dog buns, and rolls today. All from the same dough. It's pretty easy and they are far superior to anything I can buy for less money than it'd take to buy one bag of buns or rolls. I'll probably do up a big batch of soft pretzels over the weekend. They freeze well after baking and then can be nuked when ready to eat. I might also make up a batch of corndogs. T has been wanting them lately, but he can't have storebought and it would give us something to keep in the freezer that would be easy for him.

I think I finally found a recipe for making battered fish that I'm going to like. I hope so. We love fish and chips from restaurants and I have been trying for months to get a close approximation of it to make at home. I've had no problem making the chips but the battered fish has been more elusive. If the cod looks good at the fish market tomorrow I'll get some and try this latest recipe out. Making it at home will be so much cheaper than getting takeaway.

We're doing pretty good on not eating out and on leftover management. I had to throw out part of a bell pepper this week and one moldy tortilla. Not bad considering how much food we used to toss. Slowly but surely we are finding our frugal feet again.

My brother-in-law and my nephew stopped by today and I did not find out until dinner time that they'd eaten all of our leftovers that I was planning to use for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. At least they didn't drink the organic milk, probably since it was non-fat. They did down six cans of Mom's Sprite between them. They are used to coming over, going into the fridge, and eating whatever they want. Which was fine when my mom was the only one living here. My mother didn't care. But I do.

Aside from the fact that it was my grocery budget they were eating up, what really irks me is that they ate enough food in one sitting to provide two full meals to the four of us. No one needs to eat that much food at one time.

I ended up on the phone with my sister and from now on they've agreed to ask first before eating anything here. Sister was not happy because they arrived home an hour after leaving here and proceded to eat a full dinner. Since they are both very much overweight (both morbidly obese) and supposed to be watching their diets, it made her pretty mad that they were sneaking food.

I had planned to be able to just nuke up dinner in five minutes time and planned our day accordingly. Everyone was starving by the time we found out so I did what I would have done before the belt-tightening. I jumped in the car and went to McDonald's. Old habits die hard, I suppose. Still, I ordered off the dollar menu and we had drinks at home, so I wasn't completely out there. Ended up spending $6.46. Everyone got a double cheeseburger and small fries and we had oranges and canned green beans at home to round it out. Mom had decided to fend for herself and made chipped beef on toast.

I need to go back to making up our own tv dinner meals to keep in the freezer. I'll be making a big batch of burritos up later in the week, so if I freeze the extras in individual portions that'll be a start. We do have a fridge in our wing of the house, just no stove, so some things I keep up there because it's where I do the majority of the cooking, so I don't have to be schlepping stuff up there every time. I won't make that mistake again.

I think I'll put a pot roast in the crockpot before I go to bed so I'll have some meat to work with for tomorrow's meals when I get up. I think I'll also thaw and brown up a couple pounds of ground beef to have on hand. If I'd had some pre-cooked hamburger on hand tonight, I could have just quickly seasoned it and made tacos.

I added $3.54 to the coin jar, the change from the ten I used at McDonald's.

$29.05 beginning balance
+ 3.54 added
-------
$32.59 ending balance

Today, well, techincally yesterday now, was a no spend day. I didn't go anywhere or do anything and didn't even have the urge to order take out. Controlling leftovers and food waste is one of the things I'm focusing on to save money, the grocery budget being one of the places where we probably waste the most money.

For lunch we made calzones out of one of the leftover pizza dough balls. We divided it into four portions and I mixed some tomato sauce and herbs with a 6 ounce can of tomato paste. Each small piece of dough was rolled into a circle and filled with leftover ground beef, diced ham, onions, bell peppers in my case, mozzarella cheese and the sauce. My mom made one with just ham and cheese in it. The dough was folded over to make a half circle and crimped with a fork to seal. I pierced each one with a fork in a few places to vent steam and laid them out on a cookie sheet, baking them for 20 minutes in a 425 degree gas oven. They were great, some leftovers got used up, and the kids were happy.

For dinner we made some of the on sale salmon, on sale broccoli, and potatoes from mom's garden (free). I did up a lot of the broccoli and extra potatoes. We have enough broccoli for two more meals and enough potatoes for three. I like making big batches because then you only use the electricity or gas once for the initial cooking and then can warm up the rest in the microwave in the future for just a short amount of time instead of going through the whole long process and the expense again of heating water and boiling food. In this case they are planned overs as opposed to leftovers. That's something I heard them called in a magazine once and it stuck.

I like having planned overs, because it gives me the incentive to use the food in the fridge instead of going out and grabbing burgers or pizza or chicken somewhere. Tomorrow all I have to do for dinner is pop some chicken legs in the oven for an hour and the rest of the meal is taken care of. Mom will probably make gravy out of the drippings because she seems to think that all meals that have meat need gravy, but that's her time and energy, not mine.

Lunch will be quesadillas made of shredded leftover pot roast, some cheese, and some tortillas that need to be used up quickly. They're additive and preservative free so I only have about five to six days from when I open the package to get them used before they go bad. Also we will have coleslaw made from the on sale cabbage I bought the other day and a carrot that needs to be used up.

Someone left the bread open this morning and it got kind of hard so breakfast tomorrow will be french toast and then I'll probably use the rest in meatloaf the day after.

I also got around to counting the money in the toy bank and scrounging up what was on the furniture to add into my coin jar counting. It's almost up to $30, so not bad at all.

$16.59 beginning balance
.38 found on dresser and nightstand
+12.08 amount in TARDIS bank
-------
$29.05 ending balance

I didn't really feel like dumping out my bank today, so I don't know how much is in there at the moment, but I did empty my purse today and gathered up all the loose change and one dollar bills.

$ 8.00 in ones
+ 8.59 in coins
--------
$16.59 in the coin jar

Tomorrow I'll take the time to shake out the bank and see what's in there and add it to the total. I know there's some loose change floating around on my dresser and night stand, too, so when I declutter those I'll add that amount in as well.

The kids have been wanting pizza really badly the last couple of days and have been begging for Round Table pizza and I almost gave in to them today because it was payday and hey, it would be easy. Plus it's one of the few restaurants my son can eat at with his food allergies.

The thing was that there was plenty of time before dinner to start mixing dough in the bread machine and we had two unopened packages of pepperoni and Canadian bacon and a 2 pound brick of mozzarella. I had herbs and tomato sauce. The pizza pan was even clean. There was absolutely no reason to go out for pizza when I could make a perfectly good one that they would like better at home. The only thing stopping me was lazinesss. I got over it. *laughs* Just one of the things I need to do in readjusting my thinking back to a better way of doing things for financial gain.

So it was 3:45 and I popped the five ingredients I needed into the bread machine, set it on the dough cycle, which takes 63 minutes, and had enough time to run to the bank drive-thru and pay the credit card bill (take that evil empire!) then stop at the grocery store for milk.

They happened to have broccoli (crowns for 69 cents a pound!) and asparagus (for 99 cents a pound) and cauliflower (79 per pound) and a head of cabbage (33 per pound) on really good sales so I picked up those and glanced at the fruit. Nothing really looked good despite the prices and we still had apples and oranges and frozen bell peppers at home, so no need to buy anything even if the green bananas were 29 cents a pound.

I made my way over to the fish counter to see if they had anything on sale. They had wild Keta salmon $4 per pound if you buy the whole fish. They filet it for you right there and since the counter was devoid of customers I didn't feel guilty about taking the time to do it. I ended up with four pounds of usable fish for $20 which works out to $5 per pound after all the discards are taken out of the original five pound fish. Not bad for what will amount to six meals worth of salmon.

Nothing else was on sale and I have plenty of meat in the freezer so that was all I bought. Between the milk, veg (I bought a lot of veg, we eat a lot) and milk (organic), I spent $48.74.

I got back home to my mother saying the bread machine had just dinged (ha, timing!) So while my son and I divided the dough and put two balls in the fridge for later this week and started stretching out the other one, my daughter preheated the oven and shredded the cheese. We added the sauce to the dough, sprinkled on basil, oregano, and thyme, added cheese and the meats and by the time we were done the oven was warm.

With everyone pitching in it didn't feel like a huge production making it, we all had fun and instead of paying $30 for a large pizza, we'll end up with three pizzas for the same price of on hand ingredients we would have paid for the other. I used to do this all the time. I used to be good at it. It's coming back slowly but surely.

What is it about throwing away food that makes me feel so awful? Even when I'm doing it for a good cause it raises something in me that just makes it feel wrong. I suppose it's better that it feels wasteful than that it not, but every little piece of the money saver in me is protesting this turn of events.

My youngest child has just been diagnosed with mutiple food chemical sensitivities. I have to get these items out of the house. In some cases it is enough if he even touches the foods that they affect him. (Cheese powder covered snacks, for one). Oh, I know it's all less than good for you food anyway, but still...it's hard. Fortunately he is not here to see it all being thrown out.

He's agreed to go on the new diet, actually seems eager to do it if it will make him feel better and improve his mood swings (which are scaring even him lately). But that doesn't mean he'd react well to seeing the Captain Crunch, the Cocoa Puffs and the Lucky Charms go into the trash because of the food colorings or artificial preservatives.

I'm torn between saving unopened packages of food to give away or, knowing what I know now, just throwing them away, because really, no one should be eating these chemicals, especially the children most of the products are designed for.

It's a fight. Waste food, waste money, that's ingrained in me from childhood. I have to get past it. We've experimented in the past before with going organic, cooking completely from scratch, and I know I can do it. It's just...really hard with all the other changes going or right now.

Still, in the long run it's the best choice, the only choice I can make. Be wasteful in one area to improve all other areas of life. And make better choices with my food dollars from now on.

We're starting on the Feingold diet as a family. We've got enough information to start while we wait for our full packet to arrive. At least I've got enough healthy food in the house that I don't have to go shop for it at all. We can start tomorrow. And that's a good thing.

Since I've mostly been posting boring things like coin jar updates lately, I thought I'd pass along one of my favorite meals. It's pretty fast and easy to make, despite the fact that you have to assemble a dough for it and there's a short rising time, and it's delicious and tastes good cold as leftovers the next day if you want to take it for lunch. Of course, we never have leftovers, but you might. I like it because its ingredients are alway things I have on hand in the pantry, fridge and freezer. I've left out the salt and substituted the sharp cheddar for medium (which is cheaper) with little discernable difference in flavor.


Braided Chili Loaf

1 pound lean ground beef
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 cup tomato sauce
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese

Dough:
1/2 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
1 package active dry yeast
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/2 cup warm milk
1 tablespoon oil
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
Cornmeal


Preparation Instructions:

1. In a skillet, heat oil. Saute onion and garlic until soft. Stir in the beef and break up while browning.

2. Pour off any excess fat. Stir in tomato sauce, chili powder, basil, cumin, pepper and salt.

3. Cook a few minutes until sauce is absorbed. Set aside.

4. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, milk, oil, garlic, salt, and most of flour. Stir, adding enough flour to make a soft dough.

5. Knead a few minutes. Keep dough soft.

6. On a greased baking sheet, sprinkled with cornmeal, roll out dough to a rectangle, about 10 by 14 inches. Spread meat mixture down center of dough. Sprinkle with grated cheese.

7. Cut 1 inch strips along both sides. Fold strips at an angle across filling. Cover. Let rise 30 minutes.

8. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes until golden. Slice and serve.

Original recipe from Great American Recipes.

I sent the monthly $100 deposit to ING today.

$2088.58 Old EF Amount
+ 100.00 Deposit
---------
$2188.58 New EF Amount

I also did some organizing in the pantry and in one of the freezers. Still have a bit more to do until I can inventory what I have, though. I should get through that tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will be making a pot roast in the crockpot and a chicken on the rotisserie and we will use that meat for dinners this week. I'll have to freeze some of it so it won't go off before we can use it all.

I'll also be cutting up veggies ahead of time. I've done onions and a red bell pepper and I tomorrow I will do broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and tear up a head of lettuce to store in my salad spinner.

I also diced up a bunch of ham and shredded up some cheese for making omelettes in the mornings. I'd started buying those premade omelettes from the grocery store and they are a sorry tasting, preservative filled concoction that in no way tastes anything like my own. It only takes five minutes to make an omelette in my large fry pan and then I can split it between me and the kids.

I think I may make up little omlette making kits and toss them in the freezer, just a little container that has the diced ham, diced onions, and diced red bell peppers in them in pre-measured portions. Then take one out the night before to thaw in the fridge.

I can't believe I was letting myself by those omlettes. It cost $5 for a package of two. I can make ten omlettes that would feed the three of us for ten days for that same amount. That's how far I had fallen.

I suppose I ought to do up menues for the week as well, though that may not get done until Sunday. We'll see. Don't want to overtax myself.

I'm doing pretty good for the month of September so far. That makes 3 no spend days.

I used the pre-paid cash card to buy gas today, but that was paid for last week so I don't count that. as spending. Filled up the tank for just under $40. Costco gas is still at $2.559 a gallon while everyone else but one ARCO is upwards of $2.799. I know Costco can buy wholesale and get a better deal, but that much better just seems suspicious to me. The other places have to be doing some gouging.

The wait in line for gas today was ridiculous, though. I didn't even go at a busy time. I suppose it was the after holiday fill up.

School went great for the kids today. I am always happy to hear that. They also did tae kwon do class today. Tuesdays aren't a normal class day for us but the dojang was closed yesterday so we made up that class today. Rose doesn't want to do tae kwon do on Tuesdays and Thursdays because she has 72 minute long P.E. classes those days. Can't say I blame her!

We came home to another crockpot beef roast, tender and delicous. Both kids were whining about wanting nuggets on the way home. Tough. I'm not taking them out to eat for a good while, and especially not when there is a meal waiting for them at home.

Tomorrow will be a spend day as I have a 1.5 hour physical therapy appointment. $75 for that. My hip is pretty much back to normal so this will most likely be my last visit. I'll see what the girl has to say, but I think she'll agree with me.

My appointment is at 10:30 and the school bus leaves at 8:46, which means I could get to Curves by 9:00, workout, and still get to my appointment on time. I think my hip is well enough now to do that. Though maybe I should wait until I see what the girl says about it. Oh, who knows?

Mom gave me 20 pounds of red potatoes from her garden so I'm going to have to start working those into meal plans along with all the green beans and blueberries. They are a very good tasting potato so it shouldn't be a problem.

We have been really lax about eating out too much. Now that DH is gone for 3 weeks I am going to do my best not to eat out again until he returns, or at least keep it to the minimum, like once. With that in mind I'm making menus for the rest of the week.

I am making all meals from stuff that is on hand in either the freezer, fridge, cupboard or garden, or that I will be picking this week (blueberries at Mom's, blackberries from behind the chiropractor's office).

Wednesday
beef chuck roast, crock pot (freezer)
new potatoes, sliced and steamed (garden)
green beans, boiled (garden)
canteloupe (on hand)

Thursday
roasted turkey legs (freezer)
broccoli/cauliflower (garden)
new potatoes roasted (garden)
blueberries (garden)

Friday
fried chicken (freezer)
homemade gravy
new potatoes, fried (garden)
blackberries (wild picked)
green beans (garden)

Saturday
Roast beef hash (made of leftovers from Wed)
raw carrots (garden)
any leftover berries
salad greens (garden)

Sunday
Turkey sandwiches (made from Thurs leftovers) on 100% whole wheat buns that need to be used up (in freezer)
soup (cupboard)
leftover broccoli and cauliflower
canteloupe (on hand)

Lunches tend to be soup and sandwiches anyway, so Sunday's lunch will probably be some TV dinners I need to get rid of before they get freezer burned.

Breakfasts will be a combination of eggs, homemade sausage, waffles, pancakes, toast with peanut butter and jelly (blackberry, strawberry or apricot) or French toast. Maybe some bacon if I can find some in the back of the freezer.

I forgot to mention in the Safety Net entry that I went to my mother's today and we went out and picked her two blueberry trees (yes, they are trees, you don't know how tall they are) and her green beans. I ended up bringing home a gallon of blueberries and 2 gallons of green beans. Not bad for an hour of work.

The thing is though, that in three or four more days they will all be ready to be picked again. Oh, well, blueberries freeze and green beans can, so whatever she gives me I will gladly accept. Meanwhile we are going to be eating plenty of produce.

I've got cauliflower about to need to be picked, broccoli (mine bolted) from the neighbors in exchange for some of my zucchini, the aforementioned zucchini, cucumbers, and yellow crookneck squash. I'm still picking raspberries and the occassional strawberry (some of the plants are everbearing, not June bearing), and plenty of herbs.

I've got lots of tomatoes on my one plant that are green. My garlic is just about ready to pull. My potatoes are ready to be dug, and I've got kohlrabi coming out my ears. My bush cherries are getting there, maybe two more weeks and my own little blueberry bush is almost ready to be picked. I've got pears and apples like crazy but they won't be ready until September. I think I will can pears this year.

Imagine what I could be harvesting if I'd been able to plant more than half my raised beds this year? Scary thought.

I don't think I will buy any produce other than corn and lettuce for the month of August. My lettuce bolted the week the temp went up to 105. Maybe I should plant some lettuce seeds, too. I think there's still enough time for it to produce if I do. And maybe get some radishes in.

There are going to be a lot of good meals this week that are veggie heavy that's for sure. And lovely berries for dessert!

Today is a beautiful day here in my little corner of the universe. The weather is just right, not too hot, not too breezy. Just a lovely, perfect summer day.

I've got wonderful fresh food that I'm making for lunch. Fresh green beans and cauliflower from the garden, fresh cherries from the fruit stand, raspberries from the yard, and a lovely salmon caught this morning by local native fisherman off the reservation.

The first of the local corn is coming in to the stores and the corn wagons are up, if not yet filled. Should be open for business by next week. And the first peaches and nectarines from Eastern WA are coming over the mountain.

I love this time of year. We eat simply but so well off the bounty of nature's harvest, and it is seldom expensive. That is one of the best things about living in the country and close to the reservation and the farms.

Okay, so as I was complaining about earlier this evening, it is freakishly hot right now. So I've dusted of ye olde crockpots and borrowed one from Mom. That gives me three to work with. I have my three prong indoor/outdoor extension cord hooked into an outdoor outlet and I have the three crockpots lined up on my porch.

In crockpot number one we have potroast with potatoes, carrots, turnips, hubbard squash and parsnips. Out of this will come the regular potroast dinner, beef sandwiches, fajitas, and beef hash.

In crockpot number two we have two whole chickens with water, onions, garlic, carrots, parsley, and celery (including tops), salt and pepper, to make a nice stock that will be soup and the chicken will be used for quesadillas, sandwiches, enchiladas, tacos, a bit back into the soup, and added later in the week to a crockpot cacciatore.

And in crockpot number three we have beef ribs and barbecue sauce. No magic extra meals from this, but it will be a great melt in your mouth lunch tomorrow.

When the house is cool enough, at eleven or so tonight, I will cook up enough broccoli and cauliflower to use as sides for the week and roast some asparagus and some bell peppers. I'll also cook up some of my homemade sausage patties, so they will just have to be nuked in the mornings. I've done 3 pounds of salmon on the barbecue grill. Everything is going to be packages up into divided trays and meal-sized servings. Anything more than three days worth will be frozen and thawed as needed.

After tonight, I shall not have to cook again during this heat wave other than to nuke stuff, except breakfast time when I may do eggs, and a lot of breakfast is nuked anywho. So I will be a happy camper and will not have to heat the house up with the stove, a very important thing when you have no AC and only fans and the shade of trees to keep you cool.

Okay, in my quest to buckle down and save up the last $290 needed for our vacation at the end of July, I am going back to menu planning. This helps greatly in not eating out and in frugal food management.

Breakfasts will be variations of eggs and toast, sausage and toast, or ham and toast for the kids. For me its eggs and vegetables of some sort, or sausage and vegetables usually cucumbers or kohlrabi. I tend not to eat bread.

I've made up two pounds of homemade sausage patties, so there will be a fair bit of sausage this week.

The kids are having lunches at school through their last day on Thursday and for me, and DH when he arrives on Thursday, its always some variation of the leftovers of dinners. Which is what the kids will get, too on Friday.

Monday:
B: Sausage, vegetables, toast
L: Leftover chicken stir-fry (chicken and broccoli)
D: Wild Salmon, roasted asparagus (from the garden), fried potatoes, salad (from the garden), fresh berries

Tuesday:
B: Salmon and aspargus omelets, toast for kids
L: Salmon patties, cucumbers
D: Crab legs, baked potatoes, broccoli/cauliflower, salad (from the garden), cherries

Wednesday:
B: Crab and broccoli omelets, toast for kids
L: Salmon loaf
D: Chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, salad (from the garden), fresh berries

Thursday:
B: Eggs, ham, toast, kohlrabi
L: Chicken quesadilla, kohlrabi
D: Spaghetti and meatballs, zucchini and yellow crookneck summer squash, salad, pineapple

Friday:
B: Eggs and sausage, cucumbers, toast
L: Meatballs with zucchini and squash
D: Beef potroast cooked with potatoes and carrots, side of broccoli/cauliflower, salad, cherries

Saturday:
B: Eggs and Ham, sauteed red cabbage, from scratch pancakes of the kids
L: Shredded beef tacos, chips and salsa
D: Taco salad and whatever odds and ends are still left from the rest of the week, peaches

Sunday:
B: Sausage, French Toast for the kids, any leftover veggie
L: Meatloaf with salad
D: Homemade battered cod fish and chips, green beans, salad, any leftover fruit

Meals are consumed either with milk or water, sometimes the kids will have apple juice or some kind of junk drink that somehow made it into the house. I may make a half batch of brownies from scratch, depending on behavior this week. I don't like to keep sweets in the house because Rose doesn't have an off-switch when it comes to highly processed carbohydrates. So it is rare to have sweets of the non-natural variety.

Anyway, that's my menu plan and I'm sticking to it!

So, I'm taking a dust break. I sneezed my head off and needed to get away from the cleaning for a bit. Or at least that is my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, since its a cool rainy day, I've got a pot of soup going in the crockpot and it smells and tastes marvelous, so I thought I'd pass it along.

1 pound ground beef, crumbled
2 yellow onions, chopped
1 4 ounce can mild green chiles
2 heaping tbsp minced garlic
1 16 ounce can tomato sauce
1 16 ounce can stewed tomatoes
1 tbsp seasalt, ground
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp black pepper
2 cans of water


Dump everything into the crockpot. Cook on low for 8 hours. You can add beans if you want to. This is mild, not really a chili.

Okay, back to the grindstone.

I forgot to post yesterday that we spent $55 on Chinese food. Part of that was two gallons of egg flower soup, for the two of us who cannot keep much down but soup. We like the egg flower soup because it is high in protein without being chewy soup, and also because this restaurant uses no MSG. Most store bought soups use MSG and we are allergic, it causes extreme stomach problems and when you are already having extreme stomach problems from a virus, MSG is not your friend. Not that MSG is ever your friend.

There was also other food bought so there will be leftovers for a couple of days. So DH doesn't have to cook much. I decided not to cook until this virus is gone as I am afraid I will pass it on to DH if I do. It's highly contagious. Tobias had it first.

I also wrote a $30 check to fund Tobias' hot lunch account at school yesterday. This should be the last one of the school year.

This morning DH took Tobias to the chiropractor before school and bought him a McDonald's breakfast. I'm not sure how much was spent but I gave him a $10 so it was under that. The rest of us went after picking DH up from the airport while T was in school. Since he had a t-ball game last night and has another one tonight, going in right after school didn't work and he hadn't been in since before my surgery.

We have the kids seen regularly as both DH and myself have mild forms of scoliosis. Mine has been corrected by chiropractic treatments. DH's is a little worse and his family has the the tendancy to go towards the hunchback osteoporosis hump. His grandmother had it horribly and his mother is starting. DH seems to have corrected against it since he's been seen for years, but we won't know until he's older. He has a high calcium intake as well, so the doc thinks he may not have this problem.

Tomorrow I go the surgeon for my follow-up appointment. I am not sure if that will be a co-pay or not, since surgery appointments are different from diagnostic appointments. It may be part of the surgery package. If it is not it will be a $15 co-pay. I will also be paying a $107 bill there, my share of the diagnostic appointments after insurance. I have not been billed for surgery yet. Tomorrow is payday as well, so there will be other bills and the mortgage stuff paid then, too. Lot of money going out tomorrow.

I've been eating so much bad food lately, most of it not of my own cooking. I have to say I have really gotten lazy this month and also have gained about 5 pounds. This is really, really bad. Not only healthwise, but medically and financially.

I have to be very, very careful with what I eat to keep my symptoms in check and I haven't been. My biggest excuse is lack of time. The thing that sends me off the most is skipping breakfast, but I don't like taking time to make breakfast in the morning after having made it for the kids. It's not like I can just eat the standard and not to mention carboriffic fare of toastor cereal or waffles either.

Anyway, today I decided to make up some breakfast TV dinners for the freezer. I now have 2 weeks worth of breakfasts in there. I have:

6 servings of omlettes (turkey ham, scallion, bell pepper, x-tra sharp cheddar, tomato)
6 servings egg scrambles with homemade sausage which will be accompanied by fresh cucumber slices
2 egg scrambles with sugar-free bacon and daikon home fries

This also accomplished using up some stuff that would have gone off in another couple of days.

If I make it to the store on Tuesday they should have some ground lamb marked down and I will make up some lamb de provence with lavander patties (just one pound ground lamb with 2 tbsp herbes de provence with lavander seasoning) and some ground pork for making more homemade sausage. I also would like to make up some salmon patties (egg, parmesan, garlic, salmon) to freeze for lunches. I can make the salmon patties whether I make it to the store. I've got some canned salmon that is getting close to the use by date. May make some tuna patties, also.

Dinners tend to be much easier for me to cook without planning ahead or even with planning ahead. I'm hoping starting my day with a good brekkie and not ignoring my health and dietary requirements will make this urge to eat out and eat junky go away.

NewlyFrugal asked for my cheese sauce recipe so I'll post it here. Not the most frugal of recipes but good for getting rid of cheese and sour cream, and using on veggies that have seen better days.

1 pound extra sharp cheddar cheese
8 ounces sour cream (I use Daisy as it has no fillers)
1 jumbo egg
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dry mustard

Shred cheese and melt in the top of a double boiler with 3 inches water in bottom of double boiler (you can just use a metal or glass bowl resting above but not touching 3 inches of water in a sauce pan). Water should be boiling.

When cheese is melty add sour cream and stir in until completely absorbed. Stir up an egg and pour in slowly as you stir mixture. Continue to stir for a couple of minutes while egg is absorbed (also helps to cook the egg so it is not a salmonella danger). Add in mustard and paprika, stir until no longer visible. Pour over veggies or use as a dip. This can be warmed up later but its best to do it on a double boiler again as the microwave makes it change texture a bit. Still tastes good though.

I have actually booted my paprika and mustard up to 1 tbsp each, but I'd start with less the first time.

I don't like sour cream but I like this recipe.

I certainly gave our new dryer a run for its money today. I think I did six loads but it might have been seven. I even got everything folded up or put away, or had the kids put away their stuff. Rose's room is now clean and its going to stay that way.

I hope my power bill doesn't take a ginormous leap this month. At least the dryer is more energy efficient than the last one.

Dinner tonight was from the freezer/pantry. I am gradually getting my stockpile whittled down. A lot of the frozen stuff is at that 3 month stage where it won't be very appealing in a few more days. So two very thick chuck steaks that I cooked like roasts in the oven, some pan-fried potatoes sprinkled with herbs, salt and pepper, that had probably seen better days but weren't squidgy yet, some frozen broccoli with paprika/mustard cheese sauce and some bananas that needed to be eaten today or made into banana bread tomorrow. But everything tasted fab. You would not know it was clean out the freezer/pantry day.

I am getting better and better at managing my food usage for my family. I hope to get down to less than 10% of wasted food. I'd say I'm running about 20% right now.

Today has just gone by very slowly. It is a no spend day, which is always good. DH let me sleep in so I didn't eat breakfast. Lunch was cheap and easy, homemade 100% whole wheat and egg spaghetti noodles, sauce, and cheap ground beef from a 98 cents a pound sale (first one in ages that was that low). We have a tub of garlic butter in the fridge so we use it on toast to make our own garlic bread. Added a salad of lettuce, cukes, and kohlrabi. Yummy, yummy. I love my pasta maker.

Dinner is very light tonight after that heavy of a lunch. Just canned tuna, a hard boiled egg, mayo mixed together and stuffed in celery. Repeat 3 times for four people.

Tomorrow while the kids are at school we are going to go look at dryers. I won't do it with them, they'd drive me crazy when I was trying to read the info on each machine. They are both going through an annoyance phase. As in lets see what we can do to annoy each other the most so that Mom and Dad get mad. Hope it passes soon. Oh, and Rose has picked up the lovely habit of rolling her eyes. I'm considering charging her 25 cents from her allowance each time she does it.

Not much going on. Kind of a boring day.

I have been cooking a potroast in the crock pot today, just seasoned with Lawry's seasoned salt. Just now I added some cut up baby red potatoes, carrots, a parsnip, a turnip, and some acorn squash chunks and will let it cook an hour or so longer, checking for tenderness to see if they are done after an hour or so. I love slow cooked beef with winter vegetables. Yummy. And there is plenty extra for freezing for future use.

My George Foreman grill died an early death about 10 days ago. I use this thing constantly and hadn't even had this upgrade for a year. Something shorted out while I was cooking, I think there was a power surge. I checked the fuse box but it was fine, I tried other outlets, but no go. It is officially dead.

I think this is what has been leading me to not cook, well aside from the flu, because it makes it so much easier to make meat quickly. Not having one is causing me to spend money on less healthy convenience foods.

Well, tomorrow is payday and I think I am going to buy a new one. I probably could have with the amounts I've spent on convenience this week. At least there will be 2.5 hours of overtime on this check, which should cover it. I'm just glad they are not as expensive as they used to be.

I spent $11.64 buying a family size can of beef stew, a family size can of chicken noodle soup, and a normal size can of chili. From the gas station. I definitely need my grill back. I'm too lazy or too tired to cook consistently without it, even though I know how quite well.

I wrote 12 pages last night, which puts me at 121. Two pages to go to be 1/3 of the way to my goal of 365 pages written this year. I'm doing pretty good, writing every day at this point, when the most I was hoping for when I set this goal was a couple of hours a week.

In the past I always just wrote when the mood hit me, it was more of a hobby, just something I did. I'm trying to treat it more like a part time job. I still enjoy it of course, but I'm making sure I put the time in and I think that is really important to achieving my ends.

Working on this book is giving me ideas about the one that I finished a year or two ago but was unhappy about something and unable to figure it out at the time. I think when I finish this one, I can go back to the other one and fix it. Because I'm putting the time in daily, making the habit become second nature, it is so much easier to see gaps and fix them.

Boomeyer asked what it was about and all I can say at this point is that its a coming of age story that follows the lives of 4 girls keenly affected by the death of one of their friends and how it shapes the people they become over the next four years.