All posts by Becky

packing, Uncategorized

Moving Update–Feb. 12–Working My Plan

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I have been taking every piece of advice all of you and my friends and family have offered up and am getting a good start on my pre-packing. I haven’t had to show a house for over 20 years.  The last time we sold, around 10+ years ago, there was someone who wanted the property, they didn’t care about the house at all, so they pre-bought the property and gave us 6 months to sort and get out, and used the property even thought we were still there.  This is a totally different situation, and is making me feel more stressed then that did!

Here’s what I got done this week.  The two pieces of advice I have used the most this week were to be ruthless when I’m sorting and get rid of a lot of stuff, and to label well. (I am trying not to flit from room to room, either, but am having limited success with that) I am still feeling overwhelmed, because the task is so great, but am starting to feel like I’m getting somewhere.

I sorted shelves and shelves of books that I have been collecting and using for over the many years we have home-schooled.   Ja’Ana is almost done with school, and Patsy goes to school.  So, now’s the time to get rid of a lot of it.  Rob and Lovana took 10-12 boxes away for me.  We sold some of them for around $100 and donated the rest.  I am putting that money into my fund for the new house.  I cleaned out a lot of craft supplies that my girls have outgrown.  I also got rid of most of the huge bin of toys I had been keeping for when small children come over to play.  I kept a small box full.  The sad thing is that there is still so much stuff in that schoolroom/sewing room, I have quite a few more hours in there.

Rob has been putting items up on e-bay and we have sold and shipped a few.  The kind of things we are selling are a few dishes that I did not need, a few more expensive books, some small tools he has unearthed in the shop, and things like that.  I am donating the small stuff that is worth less.  I could do a garage sale, but I don’t have time right now because the sorting is such a big job.

We collected more boxes at the liquor store today.  They are small, but sturdy and good for heavy things.  Rob and Ja’Ana took the first load from the shop over to my brother-in-law’s to store.  Long story, but he has an empty semi-truck trailer on his property.  We are going to be able to store quite a bit for free in there, and rent an unit for the rest.  It is all going to have to be stored while we are between houses.

My mom and aunt came one afternoon.  My mom sat with Ja’Ana in her room and did the second sorting out. (She is unable to stand for very long due to some problems with her feet, but she can sure help with decisions, and encouragement, and has been instrumental for the last few years helping Ja’Ana keep her room tidy.  It’s their special thing, and I’m grateful.  At first, it was awful, they cleaned it, J kept it that way for a while, then Mom came again and helped her get it back in order.  J was able to keep it clean longer, and so forth, until I can say she keeps her room the best of anyone in the house now.). They came out of there with a black garbage sack to throw away and a bag to donate and left things in pristine order.  Last week, she picked out 2 bags of clothes to give to her cousin, and several bags of trash and donations. So of all the children’s rooms, hers is actually ready to show.  It would just need a few more things out of there to make it look more roomy.  My aunt helped me sort things downstairs and do some of the household chores that are getting neglected.  She sold her house a couple of years ago and had lots of advice to offer.  Hers sold in the first week.  I’m listening.

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We had 4H club yesterday.  So, bins like these, and boxes, were stacked in corners, the schoolroom, and the garage–out of the way because we needed the garage table for club projects.  Starting first thing this morning, I started filling more bins and boxes and placing them right in the living room and garage.  We will rent a storage unit before next month’s 4H meeting, and put it all in there, so I don’t mind that it is in the way for 2-3 weeks.  We don’t want to rent the unit until the last minute.  We hope to list the house during the first week of March, so we will rent the unit right before we list. We will take as much as we can to storage and leave only what makes the house look roomy, spacious, clean, and hopefully very desirable to buyers.

I worked several hours in the garage today, cleaning and sorting, and I burned a huge pile of trash.  That makes the 3rd huge trash fire this week.  (These are things that I don’t think are nice enough to give to anyone, as well as literal trash such as the paper products from 4H yesterday)  We had a friend offer to take things to the thrift shop yesterday, so she loaded the back of her van up after 4H and took it away.

Today, Rob took another van load, his second this week.  I think he did amazing this week, especially in light of the fact that he stepped on a piece of glass about a  week ago.  On Wednesday, the same day he picked up a day’s work helping out a friend at a sportsman’s show and was on his feet all day, it developed an abscess.  I had worked on it, removed the glass, and put lots of stuff on it, and it was healing, so I hadn’t checked it for a couple of days.   When he hobbled home Wednesday night,  the minute I looked at it, I knew I wanted him to be seen by a doctor.  Thursday morning, she lanced it, cleaned it out, didn’t find any more glass, told him to soak, soak, soak in epsom salt-water, and put him on antibiotics.  It looked worse yesterday, but finally today, it’s improving.  I’m so glad we didn’t mess around.  He’s supposed to stay off of it, and he has, for several hours per day.  The rest of the time……..

So, this week, I’ll keep working my plan.  One corner, one area, one room at a time, as I keep marching through the house.  I will work for 2 days, busy with church on Sunday, have a few appointments with the kids, and sort and pack like a maniac the rest of the time.

 

 

Watching my pennies

Use-It-Up Project–February 11, 2016 A.K.A. Yikes! Again!

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Yikes!  After having the inside of the refrigerator get melted while we were trying to fix its problem of icing up and stopping the fan, it looked awful, but kept working.  Until today…..  Unfortunately, it started icing up within a couple of days of its “fix” and by Wednesday we could hear the fan clicking on ice again inside the back panel.  By this morning, it stopped clicking totally, which happened last summer, leading to several hundred dollars of repairs.  The food I had placed inside was slightly cool, but not cold as it should be.  We had 4H today, and quite a bit of the food was slated for immediate use, so I put a lot of things into the garage fridge and made do today with a lot of running back and forth.  There seems to be a bit of coolness in the produce drawers, so I left the lettuce I got last night in there.  Hmmmmm.  Tomorrow, I will work on emptying the freezer into one of the ones in the garage, and I think that fridge is going  away soon.

Then……a few nights ago, my popcorn popper made a strange noise and stopped working. After fiddling with it for a while, we determined that it was dead.  So, I used up my popcorn popper this week as well. 🙁 I did make popcorn in a pan on the stove one time.

Frankly, this was not exactly what I had in mind for my use-it-up project, but we will survive and get all of that figured out.  It’s part of life.

I did use up the celery and potatoes I pictured above.  There were quite a few potatoes starting to sprout, so I took off the sprouts, peeled them, trimmed the brown pieces off the celery leaves and stalks I had been saving from when I made celery sticks, and some frozen clams and made clam chowder.  I also used some milk I had purchased on a really good sale and had been storing in the freezer.  The clams were frozen in recycled plastic cartons after I used 1/2 of a very large can of clams I had (think old lunchmeat container, cottage cheese carton, etc.–I do that a lot with things).  I feel a sense of satisfaction when I turn food that looks “bad” into something delicious that is eaten eagerly.  I had to pry the clams out of ice–they were frozen to the shelf–a feel-good moment when I got those used!

 

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We had 4H today.  I planned the recipes around my pantry and freezers and cupboards.  I used canned beans (several assorted), frozen chicken and hamburger, onions from my garden, home-canned tomatoes (several pints), tomato sauce and paste, and a bunch of other foods.  I had to buy a few things, but not many, considering we made 9 recipes.

Rob used some freeze-dried peas and spaghetti we had been given a few years ago in his outdoors class.  He showed the kids how to re-constitute them with hot water, and sent them home with peas to make at home.  He told them how that kind of food could be used camping or in an emergency.  He also helped them make home-made instant oatmeal packets for camping or home use.

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I used up a lot of assorted noodles from several bags.  We used a couple of jars of juice that were on a bottom shelf in the back and had been un-noticed.  I used some gluten-free pancake mix that had been around a long time.  I kept working away at veggies, fruits and bread products from the freezers.

I’m happy to report that I will be making hamburgers at my sister’s house on Sunday.  There are lots of buns that we were given a while back, and that will create even more space in the freezer.  I’m going to need my newly cleared space for the food in the freezer below the fridge that clearly needs to be emptied.  The freezer has a different fan/motor/system than the fridge, so it still works fine and the food is still frozen.  I just think the more things that are out of the house, the better, with the upcoming move.

 

Watching my pennies

Noodles, Noodles–A Versatile Casserole Recipe

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Yesterday, I grabbed some odds and ends of noodles that had been tucked into the corners of my pantry and cooked them all up.  There were corn shells, corn “egg” noodles, and quinoa penne pasta.  I just cooked it all in the same pot.  It made more than I thought it would, so I ended up making 2 large bowls of casserole.  I just used a basic recipe that I’ve been making for years.  I did not measure anything.  Here’s what I did:

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I divided the noodles into 2 large bowls.  In 1 bowl, I put a pint of home-canned tuna, broken up.  (a couple of cans would work)  In the other bowl, I put 2 small zip-topped bags of defrosted turkey that I had previously frozen during the holidays.  Then, I added peas (about a pint per bowl), cheese (about 2 cups per bowl), dried onion flakes (about 1 Tablespoon per bowl), and cream of mushroom soup (about 3 boxes of Pacific Foods brand divided between the bowls–I use that because it’s gluten-free, but any kind would work).    I added 1 small jar of mushrooms to the turkey casserole.

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I stirred it up. That’s it.   When dinner time came, I warmed up the part we wanted to eat yesterday in the microwave.  The oven works, too.  It takes about 1 hour at 350 degrees, but I was in a hurry.

In the past, I’ve used many different kinds and shapes of noodles.  I’ve sauted onions instead of using flakes.  I’ve put in leftover cooked carrots, or broccoli, or green beans.  I’ve made my own white sauce with mushrooms instead of cream of mushroom soup.  I’ve used different kinds of cheese.  The great thing about this recipe is that you can use up whatever you have and it comes out tasting great.  In one cooking session, I had both turkey casserole and tuna casserole, giving me meals that are going to taste a little different on several nights this week.  Truthfully, it made so much, that I gave my mom some, and probably will freeze one bowl full for another busy day!

 

Menu plans

Menu Plan–Week of February 7, 2016

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Last night, Rob barbecued chicken.  He used a rub of barbecue seasoning, brown sugar and garlic powder and then cooked it on the grill.  That was an unplanned meal, but caused us no grief because it all came from the freezer and storage.  I sauted frozen green beans with butter and garlic, thawed squash, and cooked white rice from a 50 pound bag Rob got 2 summers ago.  We have put in quite a few hours the last 2 days packing, sorting, burning trash (lots and lots and lots of trash….), and the troops were all home working all day and were starving.  So, they burned through most of 2 pizzas, almost all of this chicken and vegetables, bacon, sausage, eggs, a huge pan of home-made hash browns, and I’m not sure what else.    Once I saw how the day was going, I cooked up a huge pan of rice, so there is rice left, plus a little chicken.

Sunday:  Family dinner–my sister made ham and mashed potatoes and gravy. We did green beans and my aunt brought salad.  I took cauliflower and a berry crisp.  We had 13 today, so a small crowd.  This evening, there is leftover chicken, salad, 4 pieces of pizza and peanut butter sandwiches to choose from.

Monday:  I found some chicken thighs in the freezer.  They had been in there too long, so I thawed them and trimmed off any suspicious areas and put them in a marinade to soak. I used ginger, soy sauce, brown sugar and water.  They will be sauted in a pan and will be teriyaki chicken, served with rice and broccoli.

Tuesday:  clam chowder

Wednesday:  Turkey noodle casserole

Thursday:  Lovana cooks.  She wants to do Mexican food, involving corn tortillas–her choice when the day comes as long as we have the ingredients.

Friday:  chili in the crockpot–4H day, so very busy and we are tired when they all go home

Saturday:  Cashew chicken.  I found some frozen pea pods from last fall’s garden, and some cashews when I was digging around in the freezer and want to use them.  I can make brown rice with this, as I have lots of that as well and we actually prefer it.

Sunday:  Hamburgers at my sister’s.  She and one of the girls will be out of town visiting our niece who is in college.  They will probably also visit Mickey Mouse:)  We will bring all of the dinner between us and my aunt and feed my sweet brother-in-law and the kids who are still at home.  He invited a couple of young adults also, and there are a couple friends of my kids who might show up, so we can just unthaw a bunch of burger from the 1/2 beef we bought last fall, and cook a bunch up, with hot dogs for Michaela and Jake.  I should know how much to thaw for sure towards the end of the week.  I will probably do potato or macaroni salad, a relish tray, and some kind of dessert.  Patsy and I made zucchini chip bars today–I may re-make them if they taste good.  Sometimes changing a regular recipe to gluten-free needs a few tries to make it work out.

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We also made some brown banana bread with flax seed.  They were a little less sweet than we wanted, but definitely edible with a little jam!

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Saving Money, Watching my pennies

Saving Money–Week of February 7, 2016

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This past week, I was able to spend a great deal of time on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday sorting, cleaning out, and even packing a few boxes that will go into storage.

I took some time out from sorting to cook.  The last thing I want to have to do is start spending extra money on take-out food because I am too tired to cook, or didn’t plan well.  I had Lovana make up some pizza crust mixes for the camper.  I also made up a bag into pizza that I had made a while ago.

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I plan to make home-made gluten-free biscuit mix in the near future.  Making mixes saves me both time and money.  I also use them to stock the camper to make camping more relaxing.

We did not spend the $50 that we budgeted for groceries this week.  We used our stockpile, canning, and freezers instead.  The only thing we bought from the grocery store was matches. We’ve been building a lot of bonfires while cleaning out, as well as our daily wood stove fire, and don’t want to run out of those!  I’m noticing that Ziplocks and Parmesan cheese are getting low, so I probably will take that money to Costco and get those items with it.  I’m thinking that lettuce/produce will take some of this week’s allotment.  We eat a lot of salad.

I’m noticing that, because I’m willing to dip into the stockpile and use up “special” grocery items, we are eating like kings and queens around here.

Both Rob and I sold several things on e-bay.  He’s finding a few things in the shop that he’s listing to see what happens, and so far, a couple sold.

We are putting all scrap metal that we find while cleaning onto a trailer and Rob will take it to the scrap metal yard soon.

As I pack and sort, I am making a big pile of items to put into the camper as soon as we get it back from the shop, where it is getting some warranty work done.  It is likely that we will need to stay in the camper for a couple of weeks after this place sells, and before we close on the new place, so I’m organizing myself for that.  If, for any reason, that doesn’t happen, we still plan to camp as usual, so it needs to be done.  I try to rotate the food supply in the camper each spring so things stay fresh.  This time, I’ve also picked out a couple of extra bins of food from the garage to pack under the benches of the dinette table.  I chose items like mac and cheese, canned soups, mixes (both home-made and purchased), etc.  I don’t use those items much on a daily basis, but do use them when camping.  If we do end up staying a couple of weeks in there, I want this extra food on hand to make things go more smoothly and to save money.  After all, I already own it!  I also am able to pick and choose out the convenience items before someone eats them.  I did a post on how I stock the camper pantry on a budget on Rob’s outdoor blog.

I have sorted out boxes and boxes of books and hope to make it to the home-school used book store this week.  They won’t take them all, but will buy a bunch of it.  Then, I’ll deal with the rest.  We took a huge load of miscellaneous items to a charity thrift store.  I know they will put the money to a good cause.

 

 

moving, Saving Money

February Use-It-Up Project a.k.a “Yikes, I used up my fridge!”

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Now that we are starting to sort and clean so that we can put the house on the market, I’m even more determined to use up items, especially food items. I have a very large stockpile and only want to move the freshest food.  However, I do not want to wipe out my food storage entirely, so I am seeking balance in this project.   After a successful Use-It-Up project in January, I am encouraged to work even harder at it in February.

This past week, I targeted what I call “freezer #3.”  Unfortunately, sometime in the not-so-distant past, one of the kids got something out of this freezer and didn’t get it closed correctly.  Sadly, this happens more often than I’d like around here, so I have a habit of going past those freezers and pushing on every one daily, sometimes several times a day, to make sure the doors are shut.  Thankfully, because of this habit, I caught the problem in time to save everything, but ice had formed on many items as well as the shelves.  I’m trying to empty it all the way out and defrost it, then re-fill it with stuff from another freezer, clean that one, and so on until some are empty and all are clean.

Sadly, the refrigerator in the kitchen developed some problems as well this week.  When Rob was working on correcting that problem, he put a heater inside to thaw some ice that had formed and was about to stop the fan from working.   It melted the ice all right…..and part of the fridge!!!! It now looks like something from a science fiction movie inside and some of the plastic shelves on the door are either gone, or will never be the same.  Also, I am wondering if it is sealing properly anymore.  We put several hundred dollars into the fridge last summer for the same exact problem, and he thought he’d fix it himself this time.  It still works!  Whew!  The fan isn’t stopped by ice anymore!  That’s a bonus, but I really didn’t exactly mean to use up the refrigerator when I started this project:)  So, we used up the fridge, but will make out with it until after we move and will not take it with us.  If it becomes inoperable, we will just bring the one from the garage in and make do.    It’s been trouble for us anyway, but now it’s really a troubled fridge. But it works for now.  I guess I’d better get some more items up on e-bay.  My “fix-up-the-new-house fund” needs more money in it!

I dug out some frozen lemon loaf and I served it with dinner.  I used a small amount of corn fetuccini noodles and a small amount of spaghetti noodles, also corn.  I used them both on spaghetti night.  I used a bit of frozen basil in the spaghetti and a carton of frozen peas that were 2-3 years old.  I found some salad shrimp that I thawed, but they were so old that I gave them to the cats.  I took some old glass jars of lemonade and juice and let the kids have them.  On Lovana’s cooking night, she used cabbage from last summer’s garden (kept in garage fridge since then), frozen fish, and potatoes.  Rob used carrots, also still lingering from last summer.  I also got refried beans out twice from #3.  I also moved 2 hams out of there into other freezers, opening up more room.  Now, there is a lot of room in there and I’ll be aggressive about getting more out this week.

I thawed and served a large bowl of ham and bean soup for lunch yesterday when a friend came to visit for a few hours.  She lives 2 hours from my house and I don’t get to visit with her very often and it was nice to have a prepared meal so I didn’t have to stop visiting for one minute.

I thawed some old bread and will feed it to the pigs.  The kids continue to eat frozen berries and banana in their smoothies.  I keep serving canned fruit and using canned and frozen vegetables.

Lovana made pizza one day and successfully used up some pepperoni and Canadian bacon that were about 3 years old.  (I’ll frankly say she didn’t want to use them, I actually tasted them first, could tell they were fine, and forced her to use them.  She was assuming that because they were so old, they would be yucky, but they weren’t.)  She also used up a large amount of chocolate chips when I was not paying attention, making cookies that were extremely chocolaty.  I explained for the umpteenth time (she says she doesn’t remember hearing this) that we double the dough part with the same amount of chips so the chips stretch farther.  I’ve been trying to not micro-manage her cooking choices, but at this rate, we will not have any chocolate chips left for me to manage. I’ll have to say, though, the cookies were really good to eat.  I didn’t have to worry about forcing anyone to use them up!

I’ve been loving it when I just thaw something to eat when I’m busy sorting.  We are making progress, but it’s a huge job.  We got a huge bonfire going today, and burned a lot of trash.  Rob took a huge pile to a Kiwanas Thrift shop.  I sorted out  a lot of books that I hope to sell on E-bay.  I have some set aside for a homeschool used book store as well.

I had to buy matches this week, but that was all.  I need to figure out what else I may need, and get it.Otherwise, it’s wonderful to have that $50 sittiing there for another week when I may have additional needs beyond my lowered budget.  I’m excited to see how it goes.

 

moving

Moving Treasures

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While I was sorting a bookshelf a couple of nights ago, I came across a red notebook that had been my grandma’s.  I got completely distracted as I started reading it, and realized it contained recipes, housekeeping tips, and all of her canning records.  There was a page for each year, starting in 1940 and continuing until 1990.  I had so much fun reading over how many quarts of this and that she canned and froze.  I only noticed a few years when they butchered pigs, but saw quite a few entries for canned fish. I’m pretty sure they butchered chickens at times, but I didn’t see entries for that.

I noticed that at the beginning, she wrote of taking her frozen foods to a locker.  Then, after a few years, those entries stopped, somewhere in the 60’s. I’m sure that’s when she got her freezer.  I still have and use her upright freezer. I don’t know if it was her first and only one, or if she replaced it somewhere along the line, but I know it’s very old.

It was very fun and informative to read over some of the old housekeeping tips, such as how to set a table properly for breakfast, and other such ideas.  I won’t be getting rid of the old notebook.  I anticipate reading the whole thing one of these days when I have more time.

Life changes, moving

Moving–Pre-Packing Organization

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Now that we’ve decided to sell the house for sure, we need to get it ready.  I feel like I need to get some of my things out of the way so that people can see the house in its best light.  Also, a lot of my things will need to go into storage during the transition, so I want them to be packed carefully so they don’t get damaged.

I want to pre-pack for the month of February.  We have been offered the use of an empty semi-truck trailer to put many things into for free.  I hope to list the house in March, and I plan to have it looking nice by then.  Our house is not super messy, I just hope to make it look  nicer so I get a better price for it.  The shop is actually a concern.  There are a lot of things in there that need to be sorted and moved to storage so it doesn’t look so full.  The barn is 90% clean, thanks to friends who came a couple of weeks ago and helped.

It is likely that the house will sell quickly if we price it right.  The market is hot right now and the average time of sale is 12 days in our area.  Then, if it does sell quickly, we will need to finish packing, put all of the boxes in storage, and move into our camper for a few weeks until the new house can be purchased.

When I think about the amount of work that needs to be done, I feel like crawling into bed and putting the covers over my head.  I decided I needed a better, more specific plan than just staring around at all of my possessions and wondering if there were enough cardboard boxes in the world for all of them.  So, here’s what I came up with.

Rob got me a huge pile of cardboard boxes from stores.  He also bought a big pile of plastic totes with lids.  The boxes will be for things that cannot be damaged by moisture or mice and the bins will be for things like delicate dishes that need extra protection, fabric, and any clothing that ends up getting put into storage.

I started going through things like dishes, candles, baking pans that were seldom used, homeschool curriculum from other years and things like that.  I was completely overwhelmed until I convinced myself that I didn’t have to do it all at once.  I simply took the small amount of time I had available, say 1/2 hour or hour, and tackled one small area or shelf.  I then grabbed an item or 2 and made a decision.  I packed some for later, threw away a lot, and then divided the rest into “sell” or “donate.”  I also left quite a few things on shelves or in cupboards that I anticipate we will use during the interim before the house actually sells.  I haven’t gotten very far, yet, but am starting to see progress.  I figure that when all of my family and friends come to help me, now I can point to a shelf of books and say “pack all of those”  and not have to make any decisions, thus using their help more wisely. I won’t get it all done ahead, so I figure I will have plenty to decide on that day!

I am delighted that I sold a bunch of homeschool curriculum on e-bay already. It will ship out today, and that’s another big box gone.  All money we get from selling things will go into a special account for things like paint and curtains for the new house.  I anticipate that the new house will be needing a little TLC, since we are going to find one that doesn’t cost very much, since we won’t qualify for a loan.  How much TLC needed depends on the price we get for this house.

I started packing empty canning jars as we empty them.  I will actually go down to the basement when I get time and pack up several boxes of empty jars.  We will continue to eat from the full ones, and I will deal with those when the time comes closer to actually moving.

I am making a large pile of things to put into the camper, i.e. more canned food items, etc.  It is in the shop getting some warrenty work done (let’s not even go THERE today–I’m not pleased that it needs it–but glad it’s getting done for free), but when it comes home, I will pack and organize it for an extended “camping trip.”  That can be pre-done and will actually give me a place to store a few things.  I don’t plan to stop life when I’m living in there, so I want a few projects in there to work on.  I anticipate that it will be a short stay–and easier than moving in with friends or relatives while we wait for things to close.

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As soon as we get a big pile packed, and some strong friends to help, we will start taking loads over to pack into the semi.   We are still eating down the stockpile, but will have lots to move anyway.  I plan to put bins of food in the front of the storage semi and then “shop” from those bins each week while staying in the camper.  We already have a place to plug in our freezers and will shop weekly from those as well.

It’s a plan.  I’m eager to see which parts work and which parts need tweaking!  I’ll take any and all ideas you may think of.

Saving Money, Watching my pennies

Saving Money–Week Ending January 31

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This week, I took a loaf of gluten-free bread from the freezer that was starting to get ice on it and turned it into gluten-free bread crumbs.  I thawed the loaf.  It was a little too wet from the thawed ice, at which point I decided to make it into crumbs instead of eating it.  I laid it out on the top of a cookie cooling rack and left the slices there for 2 days to dry.  Then, I broke the pieces into chunks and whirled them around in the food processor until they were crumbs.  I left mine quite large, like Panko crumbs.  They were still a little more moist than I wanted, so I cooked them at 250 degrees for 30 minutes.

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The entire loaf of crumbs easily fit into a quart-sized zip-topped bag.  I then froze the crumbs so they would last for a really long time.  I know they could be left out, but I prefer to keep mine frozen so they don’t get rancid, or have a chance of molding if they weren’t quite dry enough.

I continued my project of using up food. Since we are definitely putting the house on the market soon, I am now VERY committed to clearing some of it out.

We bought some plastic bins to start putting some of our things in.  We will fill them with non-essential items, packed well and put them in storage.  My brother-in-law has an empty semi-truck trailer he has offered to let us use for free.  There are 2 reasons for this.  1) To empty the house a bit so it looks nicer and is easier to keep clean while it is for sale. 2) Rob does not have a job, so we are not going to qualify for a loan.  So, we will have to sell this house, get the money, and THEN buy a new house.  This will leave us in the camper for a couple of weeks at least.  It will save us a lot of money if we can pack things into that trailer for free, even with buying a lot of bins so mice can’t get into our more fragile things.  Rob got a lot of boxes from the grocery store and I am packing empty canning jars in them.  Moisture and critters won’t bother glass jars.

We have made a hard decision to sell this place, but in the end, we should be able to buy a house free and clear, which will save us a lot of money.  That is the bright spot in this situation for me.  It will be much smaller, and probably won’t come with property, but we won’t know exactly what we will have to work with until we sell this one, so I’m trying not to think the worst.

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Rob got these flowers for free from Fred Meyers.  I trimmed off the “problems” that caused them to be free in the first place, and arranged them in my vase I got years ago from a glass blower.

I spent $51 at the grocery store this past week.  I was able to get 5 bricks of cheese (2 lbs), soda to take to the family dinner, salad ingredients, some milk, and some other things.  I was pleased with the amount of food I cooked from my storage.   I’m also pleased with the fact that my food is nowhere near gone.   We had guests on Friday, and ended up with 24 people at the family dinner Sunday.  (I did not bring all of the food, but did bring a bunch of it).  I love being able to entertain without worrying about a big grocery bill.

Rob went to an accountant this year, although he’s been doing the taxes himself the last few years.  This is because we sold some timber and want to make sure the taxes are handled correctly. We don’t want a costly mistake coming back to haunt us later.   The accountant told him we would probably need to hire a study done to determine the value of the timber when we bought the place.  It would be between $800-$1,000 for the study.  Then they would take the amount we sold it for, minus the amount it was worth when we bought it and the replanting fees, etc. and we would only have to pay taxes on the gain.  At the last minute, she mentioned that if he could come up with the original listing where the timber was valued for the sale, she could legally use that.  Amazingly enough, he had it in his files, and we were saved all that money!

We checked out library movies and books.  We’ve been watching t.v. shows on Amazon Prime.  I cleaned out the cereal cupboard.  It was full of crackers and cereal, some of which were just bits in bags.  People have already been eating those items up, since I put them right in front of their little fingers and eyeballs:)  We took a small walk along the Willamette river on Thursday while we were waiting for the girls.

 

Menu plans

Menu Plan For the Week of Jan. 31

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Last week the food turned out to be a little different than I had planned, but that’s ok.  I love having a plan.  If I choose to change it, no big deal, I allow myself to do that.  On days when I’m in a hurry, stressed, or have to delegate the cooking–the plan is in place and all of the ingredients are on hand.  When we ended up having some of our very best friends breeze in unexpectedly from out of town, I quickly thawed some salmon and–you guessed it–Rob barbecued it up for us.  Yum.

When the family dinner turned into 24 people, my sister and I thawed more meat, which Rob and Ron barbecued, she did about 10 lbs of twice-baked potatoes, and I made 2 dozen eggs into deviled eggs, and I plus-sized the berry crisp I was making.  My sister pulled out all rolls in her freezer, plus bought a couple more packs. We had assorted rolls.  My aunt brought a huge salad.

One more interesting thing I ended up cooking was a recipe for lettuce wraps done in the style of P.F. Chang’s.  I used ground turkey, water chestnuts, and some other things.  I bought some gluten-free hoisin sauce.  They turned out really good, but were rather expensive because the hoisin sauce was so high-priced–over $4 for the bottle.   The recipe used 1/2 of the bottle. If I am comparing the price of making them to buying them from the restaurant, of course they were less expensive.  I will probably make them one more time to use the rest of the sauce, but save them for a special treat, instead of a regular addition to our menu plan.

So, here’s the menu for this week.

Sunday night:  nachos or leftovers

Monday: hamburgers

Tuesday: Spaghetti

Wednesday:  tamale pies (homemade and frozen for some time)

Thursday: Lovana will cook –her choice

Friday:  Pizza

Saturday:  Leftovers or soup

Sunday dinner:  Sister–ham, Aunt–salad, Me–small quinoa salad (found a bag that needs using), potato salad or more deviled eggs (chickens going crazy right now), dessert (possibly crisp again, depending on what berries or fruit I find as I keep going through freezers)

Veggies will be canned green beans, frozen cauliflower or broccoli, green salad, squash, corn, and carrots.  There is always canned fruit to add.