Freezer Meal Co-op

Some friends and I are doing a freezer meal co-op.  We had our first meeting about 1 week ago where we went through how it's all going to work and picked meals.  Essentially, 10 of us will meet, pick a meal and then go home and make 10 of our meal, 1 for ourselves, and 9 for the other women.  So each month we will have 10 different meals that can quickly be made for supper.

In theory, I really like this idea.  However, after shopping the other day for my meal, ham and potato soup at Costco, I am not sure how I am going to feel about it.  It seems like it is going to be expensive, even after finding ham at a good price at Costco, as well as getting everything else pretty good, my meal is going to cost $9.40.  The meals usually feed between 4-6 people.  So you can see our household is already going to have a problem.  I can flush the meal out with bread and a salad, but that just adds to the over all cost.

Because we generally don't buy meat and eat only the venison we get each year, I am nervous that this will increase my food budget a fair amount.  And I am trying to decide if the increase in cost, which I haven't confirmed yet, is worth it for different meals that help me stay out of a food rut.  We'll see.

And I am hoping to do another freezer meal with a friend where we make like 20 meals a piece in a weekend of crazy cooking together.  I think I am going to like that option a little more because we can decide together what to make and she also has 7 in her family so we can theoretically go the "cheaper" route and do bulk things that feed a lot of people for comparatively little money.

Has anyone else ever done something like this before?  I have a sister in law who does a lot of this and seems to really love it, but I think she does it on her own and not part of a group.  But I guess if I was left by myself to do this I probably wouldn't.  Doing it with other people forces me not to procrastinate and thus it will actually get done!

And here is a website that give recipes and directions on how to do your freezer meals, I admit that I haven't looked at it a ton, but there are lots of recipes on there, and they sound super yummy.  Plus it appears that she has been doing this for a long time so that is always a bonus!

Once A Month Mom

Turn Me On Tuesday

Okay, so I think I forgot to do this for the last two Tuesdays in a row.  For one I was on vacation, and for the other I have no good excuse.  But I am actually okay with skipping a week or two because sometimes it's hard to write these if I haven't tried anything new.  So I will shoot for every Tuesday, but it may become every other Tuesday.

This week:

1. Canada's Jam  (formerly called Malkins Jam)

     

Hubby and I love this jam.  But let me warn you, I have no idea to tell you where to get it.  We get it whenever we go to Fleet Farm in my hometown.  If you have a farmer-type of store near you there is a good chance it will be there.  It's definitely on the expensive side, about $5 for 16 oz. but super yummy and comes in several types.

2.  Downton Abbey



Okay, I know I am so late to this already.  Most of you are probably going "been there, done that". But I am running on limited amounts of free time and just recently got through Season 1 of this.  Love it.  And I really want to punch Thomas in the face.  So hopefully Season 2 (on DVD) will have something wonderfully terrible happen to him.  And I think Season 3 is starting soon, so I better hurry and catch up.

3.  Divergent by Veronica Roth



I discovered this book by typing in google "books like Hunger Games", and this one popped up, along with the sequel, Insurgent.  The trilogy is set to be completed in Fall 2013, so now I need to wait a whole year for the last book.  I hate that.  I would much rather be late to the game and be able to read the series in one fell swoop then got caught up in the mania of having to wait years.  I can't even give a good summary about it without sounding dumb, and Amazon's little paragraph about it doesn't make it sound all that great either, but it is a good read.  Not as good as Hunger Games but still worthwhile.  Check it out on amazon and read the reviews.  Or just order it, that's what I did.

4.  Survival Mom Book



With the risk of sounding overly survivalist to all of you, I really do like this book.  It is written from someone who would definitely consider themselves to be a prepper, so there is your caution, but it is filled with good tips on preparing your home for emergencies and the like.  Just last week I came home at night from vacation to a piece of paper stuck in my door from the water company saying we were going to be without water the next day for 4 hours.  Given the time, I really couldn't run to the store and get water to be ready for the morning without, but because I had read this book and put into play a couple things in it, I happened to have water on hand and we were just fine.  One other tip that I really liked was having a binder with photo copies of all important documents in them inside of it.  She suggest labeling the binder something like "Crockpot Recipes" and keeping it with the other cookbooks.  She suggests this in case you ever need a document that may be in your safety deposit box and you can't get to it.  Also, lots of people think their stuff in a safety deposit box is theirs and "safe", hence the name.  But President Roosevelt put down the command and all safety deposit boxes were seized and anyone who had gold bars in them at the time lost that to the US govt.  Most safety deposit box contracts have vague wording in them that allows the bank and the govt. to seize them at will if they see a need, which they determine, and your stuff becomes their stuff.  If that is where the only copy of your will or husband's life insurance is and you can't get to it or the bank or govt. seizes it, you are out of luck.  Plus, in an emergency like a flood, you could grab it and would have copies of things like the house title, your insurance, the kid's birth certs. etc.  Of course, it possesses a lot of valuable info. in it, so make sure to put it in a good spot.  I don't think a lot of people would steal something called "crockpot recipes" or "great scandinavian cooking".  Okay, now I do sound survivalist.  Sorry.

5.  Art Forms in Nature Book by Ernst Haeckel



This book is amazingly gorgeous.  And the perfect thing to do with it is pull out the pages, frame them and decorate your house with them.  It looks like something Ballard Designs would do, only you do it for much, much cheaper.  There are some amazing drawings in here.  I have a hallway full of them.  The book is $16.50 off Amazon.

That's it for this week.  I notice a theme when I do these, it pretty much centers around food and books.  But I guess that's because I don't buy a lot of other stuff.  Anything new or note worthy you know of?

Working on the Hoarder Basement

I finally bit the bullet and decided to start working on my basement.  I have put it off for about, oh, the entire year the babies have been home, but now we can barely move down there and so I had to do something.  Or lose small children among all the crap, and I can guarantee you it's not baby-proof and Truitt would stick something in his mouth and choke.

I should have taken before pictures because I think it would have helped you understand what it looked like, but I forgot.  I do have a friend or two who have seen it though, and they could publicly attest to it if you really needed the proof.

The first area I started with was the boxes of clothes.  I was able to give away 6 bags of clothes to a friend, and that's not counting all of the clothes that I deemed too nasty or adult clothes that needed to go as well.  We moved Moyz into size 3 and I have 29 short sleeve shirts and 25 long sleeve shirts in that range.  Now to be fair to myself, and make myself feel better, most of them weren't Owen's, but were donated to us.  The good thing is, is that we are coming up onto hopefully cooler weather, so I just picked a selection of the short sleeve for Moyz and saved the rest for Truitt to wear, which at the rate he is going will be next spring.

Truitt also moved out of 12 months and into 18 months, and I love it when he outgrows a size because it means I can get it out of my house!  No storing for a future kid to wear.  Same this weekend for Kembia, out of 18 months (finally!) and into size 2, which I will admit is slightly big in the legs as far as pants, but I was working with a limited selection of clothing in the size 18 months, so it's nice to have some other options.

Chris whined that he felt like he barely saw me this weekend because I was buried in the basement, but I countered with the fact that it is looking amazing and so he probably shouldn't whine too much.  And as much as I hate cleaning, I kind of enjoyed it because Chris pulled 75% child duty.  So even though I had to sort and put away, at least I did it mostly sans children!

The Bunny Phone

Because I am so tired today (how tired?  My whole family went to bed last night at 6:45, including Chris and me) I am giving you a link to a hilarious post at Capitol Hill Style about this:

Seriously people, just because this is America and we can, doesn't mean we should.  Read her hilarious thoughts on this phone here Capitol Hill Style

And "her" is a woman who works on Capitol Hill as a lobbyist, for the NRA.  Which, by the way, makes me crazy love her.  A woman with style, tons of snark, and loves gun?  Let's be friends!

I have a magazine problem

More than likely, I will end up as one of those sad women who order tons of mail because they like getting things in that cozy little mail box.  That's how excited I am at getting my magazines each month.  Pathetic, I know.

Here is a picture of SOME of my magazines.

Not pictured that I also get are: House Beautiful, Elle Decor and National Geographic and InStyle

I go in phases with my magazines.  Lucky I have been reading for many years.  They have a new editor and I am not necessarily crazy about some of the things since then.  Mostly that everything is super expensive now, and they don't have stuff in the price range that most Americans fall into- you know, the poor range.

Vanity Fair is my secret liberal indulgence.  I have always, always been conservative.  But I really like this magazine because it gives me just the amount of liberalism that I have in my life.  Can I just state how the two party system in this country sucks?  Both need some serious improvement.

I go between Food Network and Rachel Ray for meal ideas.  Basically I flip-flop each year.  Helps me break out of my food rut.

HGTV is new and I am liking it so far.  I don't have the channel, but the magazine is pretty good.

Martha Stewart.  Every couple of years I give her a try, and generally I come away each time thinking, too much money and too much time, both of which I don't have.

Country Living.  I am probably the furthest thing from country that I know of, that being said, there are some great rustic ideas in this magazine, and I love a good rustic touch mixed with everything else.

House Beautiful is probably my favorite.  Elle Decor tends to show homes that are too modern for my taste but I usually get the subscription cheap so it's worth it.

Love National Geographic.  Interesting articles and lots of great pictures.

Am also thinking about getting Discover again.  Fascinating science articles.  The Smithsonian is also an interesting magazine that I get on and off, it's cheap and each month the articles are so random you never know what you are going to get.

So there you have it, a fairly serious magazine addiction.  I would love to get Canadian House and Home, but at $40 per year, I have yet to bit the bullet.  And can I just add my forever lamentation of Domino?  Hands down the best home magazine ever invented, and then they had to go and do away with it because of the great 2008-2009 recession, and I will forever be sad.

Any other great magazines that I am missing out there?

Gross Things My Boys Did Last Week

Last week Chris got to go to Wyoming for some schmoozing related to work, so the kids and I decided to head up to my parents.  Because if you are going to single parent, it is much better to have others around you!

Aside from general crazy running around the farm, there are several moments that stand out for us.   The first was when Truitt decided to eat, not once, but twice, dried peacock poop.  I am hoping to high heaven that peacocks are germ free, and given the humongous chance they aren't, that anything in them was dried up by all of the hot days we have had.

The next great adventure was when the house was quiet and I had to go hunting for the kids, only to discover Truitt in the back hall drinking water from the dog bowl that he was so magnificently using as a cup.  My gag reflex is kicking in, I almost can't handle it.  He drank almost the entire bowl.  And then spent the rest of the week in the back hall trying to intimidate the pomeranian by growling at her.  Probably in the hopes that she would leave and he could have a free for all with the water bowl again.

And then there is Moyz.  Moyz decided to copy what the dogs were doing at a family reunion on Saturday.  After a brief rain, he noticed that the dogs were licking the cement to drink water, and so I turn around and there he is copying the basset hound and licking the pavement and thinking this was the best idea ever.  Plus, on the way in to town one day he decided to shove a bead up his nose.  Thankfully, he didn't get it up that far and so we were able to retrieve it.

And finally Owen.  His isn't so much gross as the thought that it could be gross.  I shot a rabbit that was in the garden eating everything, and when I told Owen, he was so proud of me.  But when I told him that we weren't going to eat it, he almost started crying.  For real people.  I think I am raising the future Davy Crockett's of America.

Fake Nails

In general, I consider myself to be a low maintenance type of girl.  I see nothing wrong with wearing the same black dress to poop around the house for three days in a row.  Heck, I don't even mind wearing it out in public three days in a row if I am not going to all the same places!  So I have surprised even myself with my recent desire to get acrylic nails.

I don't know what it is, possibly their allure is because longish nails look so nice on people.  Mine never get that long mostly, if I am honest, because I bite them.  I know, shame on me, I should have outgrown that like 20 years ago.  Even when I can get them long, they never stay that way for  more than a day or two and then they break.  Plus, I am the not so proud owner of stubby nail beds.

So today I bit the bullet and went for it.  First I called around to a bunch of salons and looked at stuff on the internet.  There is a whole bunch of info. out on the newest thing called gel nails, both the fancy nail polish and an extension.  But after talking and reading I went for acrylic.  I did it NOT in a shop in a strip mall, but went to a woman who does it out of her house.  She does not use the nasty glue that a lot of shops do, and does not use an electric file which erodes away at the nail bed and can cause problems.  She was more expensive then a shop in a mall, but I think it was worth it.

They look super cute in my opinion, and it does help me feel more pulled together.  We'll see how it goes as far as zipping jeans and not accidentally poking my kids and drawing blood.  The clicking as I type this is a little annoying, but I suppose like anything I will get used to it.  Kembia keeps pointing to them and smiling, I assume because she doesn't know how to say pretty yet.

After paying a not-so-dirt-cheap-amount for them, I think it will cure me of my biting habit, which then hopefully will carry over to when I no longer do acrylic nails.  And I guess I don't feel too bad about my biting habit, there could be worse ones.  I just recently read an article on adult thumb suckers!  Now there is an unfortunate habit to hang onto as a grown up.

PS- Is anybody else exhausted from staying up late to watch Olympics?  I am not sure I can keep this pace up!