Back home where I belong

I got home Friday afternoon from my mom's retirement home in Cobourg. I put the ingredients for crock pot lasagna into the crock pot, put a load of dishes in the dishwasher and went straight to bed. I slept for three hours. My hubby woke me at 5 o'clock. I didn't do anything at all while I was gone, but I came back feeling absolutely drained. It took most of the weekend to recuperate. 

 The walls are painted "Heavy Cream" and the laminate flooring is finally laid. 

I have been cheating (on my grocery freeze)

Produce $9.90

Friday mornings find us at Costco for the bread pickup, so I had my Sweetie drive me over to Freshco where they had some loss leaders on produce. Woo-Hoo. I really wanted a salad, so I jumped all over the lettuce at $1.49 a lb., plum tomatoes at $.99 a pound and a small English cucumber for $1.29. Celery was down to $2.49 a bunch, but still too rich for my blood. Ten lbs of potatoes were $1.99, sweet potatoes were $.69 a lb., and broccoli crowns were also $1.49 a pound. I paid full price of 99 cents for the bean sprouts. I am making a chicken stir fry over ramen noodles tonight, and will have the green salad along with our DIY pizza tomorrow night. 

All other items $15.85

The 24 plastic cheese slices (that's what I call them) were only $2.99. They go into grilled cheese sandwiches. Bread was on sale for $2.29 a loaf. I hate paying over $2 for a loaf of bread, but it is what it is. And finally, I paid $5.99 for 25 dishwasher tabs because we are completely out, and the guys will be needing them next week. So much for putting a spending freeze on groceries. However, the whole bill only came to $26.64 Add that to my first shop of  $122.78 for Food Basics, $32.90 for Bulk Barn, and $33.25 for Giant Tiger, I have spent $215.57 of my budgeted $300. So not exactly a spending freeze. But if I were to come in under budget again this month, like I did in January, I will still be better off for it. 

We are having snow squalls today. By the end of it, we may end up with 7-9 cm. of the white stuff....enough to have to shovel the driveway. I guess I spoke too soon. Have a safe weekend everyone, and stay warm.                                                                                                     

Busy in the kitchen

I waited until 11 o'clock (after the high peak period for hydro) to turn on the stove, but I got busy before that preparing ingredients to make my freezer meals. The first thing I did was make my homemade BBQ sauce to add to the small pork roast in the crock pot. This will make up into pulled pork. I used the broth from yesterday's ham bone to make a huge pot of split pea soup for dinner tonight.  With the ham that I took off the bone last night, I added some cheese crumbles and peaches and cream corn to make 2 dozen savory muffins. We will eat these tonight with the split pea soup, and I will freeze the pulled pork mixture for the boys to have next week. I made some mince and gravy for another night. I also cooked a pot of chili con carne for the freezer.I combined all the ingredients to make a crock pot lasagna that my husband just needs to remove from the freezer and put directly into the crock pot some morning. That is more than enough to last the week, with leftovers. They also have eggs, tins of soup, tuna, etc., if they just want to eat light. While I was cooking, I was also washing up all the cooking utensils in the sink, so there will be few dishes to wash up tonight. But the stove top needs a deep cleaning.                

One thing I did not make today was a birthday cake for my Sweetie. It is his birthday today. I have decided we will celebrate OUR birthdays this weekend with a homemade pizza and a cake, since my birthday is next week. We don't do anything special for our birthdays........no going out or birthday gifts, so a cake and a card is all we will do to mark the occasion. We don't need a reminder about how old we are. We feel it in our joints almost every day. Ha. 

It has suddenly gotten very cold today and is supposed to get colder by Saturday. It is a great time to stay indoors and snuggle into each other to stay warm. I'm looking forward to that. 

  

If you can't take the heat, stay outta my kitchen

I took inventory this morning of the meat I have remaining in my freezers, and made a list of some dishes that I plan on cooking in the next couple of days. Some will be frozen for the guys to warm up while I am gone next week. I don't usually make up a menu plan in advance, but I do need to take inventory to make ahead meals. I fried up some onion, green pepper, red pepper, grated carrot and sausage to add to two pounds of ground meat. I ended up with four containers of fried meat. The smallest container I will add to a pizza I plan to make on the weekend using more onions, peppers and sliced pepperoni along with the last bit of mozzarella cheese that I grated this morning and froze. While the ground meat was cooking on the top of the stove, I baked a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies.

  

A batch of oatmeal raisin cookies

February Grocery Freeze

You remember this wall....the one with falling lathe and plaster after we took down the paneling.

I haven't done anything in this room since Saturday. I am running out of time, but I am also running out of steam. It has had two coats and needs to be sanded and a third skim coat needs to be applied before we can prime the walls. I took some time out on Sunday and yesterday morning to make and mail out 10 friendship cards in time for Valentine's Day this weekend. Then last night I realized with horror that I had forgotten my young nephew's birthday. I made that belated card quickly this morning, so I could get it mailed out to him. Unfortunately, I neglected to take any photos before putting them in envelopes. 

This is a nice deep closet space. We left the old paneling showing on the back wall.

I sent an email to my sister this morning telling her that I can be with mom in Cobourg next week. She is still recovering at home, and our step-sister is going to Florida for a week starting this weekend. I will try to cook ahead for the boys while I am gone. The dog will need his stash of biscuits baked up before I leave. As you can see, he doesn't need them for the extra calories, but because he is spoiled rotten. 

Our Boxer giving me a scowl

The month of February is going to be a big spend month, so I am seriously considering a freeze on my grocery budget. I am going to see how long I can live out of the pantry and freezer without having to buy anything else from the budget. I really don't want to dip into savings if I don't have to. My husband has to renew the plates on his Jeep, as well as renew his driver's licence. He also is replacing both front axles on the vehicle. He has already bought the parts, but has to arrange the time in his friend's automotive garage. He is hoping that tomorrow morning will work out, as his friend has had to cancel on him three times already. Also, it is going to cost a little extra to drive to Cobourg and back twice, and my meals in the dining room while I am there. There are lots of birthdays this month, but they will only require more cards (no pressies) to be made this week. 

I have been getting sloppy recently about keeping my electrical use down to low peak periods, and I am paying for it. Our hydro bill was wa-a-a-ay up this past month of January. Also, our phone bill took a hike. If we can't get this down, I will need to re-examine the budget again at the end of this month. So our dinner menu since Friday went like this:

Friday-  Roast beef with roasted potatoes and carrots, gravy and boiled cabbage

Saturday- Meatballs in gravy, baked potatoes with sour cream, green beans and peas

Sunday- Macaroni and cheese

Monday- Oven baked penne with homemade pasta sauce with sausage, onion and green peppers

Tuesday- Shepherd's Pie

So that is all the news for now. Have a great evening. 

Flu shot

We had to go into Kingston this morning, after I took the recycling down to the curb,  because I had an appointment for a flu shot. I know. I know. I should have had it in the Fall. I went into Shoppers' Drug Mart specifically for my free shot back in the Fall, but the line was so long, I turned around and left. I got busy because of Christmas and never gave it another thought. My doctor's office called earlier this week to ask when I received it, and I had to admit that I never got one this year. Hence.....

Dairy $17.87

The bedroom renovation

We originally thought that we might patch a few holes and do some painting to this room, but it has become a full renovation. I am so glad we did this. Behind this wall in the first photo is the main bathroom. When we did the renovation on the bathroom side years ago, my husband then thought it a good idea to put "safe and sound" insulation between the walls. Good job. So now the wall is already insulated against the sound of the running water, and we don't have to worry about sound-proofing now. I sure didn't want to tear down any walls if we didn't have to. 

Taping has started