So Much Going On!

Taking a break from the kitchen pantry clean up.  Saturday I cleaned out the fridge, purging spoiled left overs...why we bring home food from eating out that will never get eaten is beyond me.  Neither can I believe how much produce I end up loosing...such a waste of money.  Although, this time, the fault was with a fridge that had been turned up to high...or down to low rather...and it froze my produce.  See, I have two fridges and I keep the extra milk, eggs, produce, wine and hubby's beer all in the spare fridge.  We even froze the milk.  Trust me, frozen 2% milk is not a  pretty or tasty site.  Of all the things that I ended up having to throw away, from the spare fridge, the 18 count carton of eggs really hurt.  They did not freeze, but I had my daughter put the eggs in a bowl of water...every one of them floated to the top.  They had been in there a tad to long I think.  After cleaning out the main fridge, the poor thing looks so bare.  I have two chicken breast that are thawed out, will be throwing them out today.  They have been thawed out way to long, at least four days, and I just don't trust chicken. 

Sunday, I started on the pantry.  OH WHAT A JOB!  Everything had just been shoved in here and there and it had gotten to the point where I just couldn't find a thing I needed to cook up a meal.  Was buying things I already had and had no room for stocking up.  Not that I really need to stock up, I truly believe that I could feed this family for at least 6 weeks with out buying a thing, but the family would not like what I would be fixing.  On the other hand, they are about to not have a choice anymore.  I am sick and tired of cooking on the spur of the moment and I am not a short order diner.  I have really had enough of the chaos that has taken over my life and am putting an end to it. Life changes, different chapters and all, so I have to change with it. One thing I have realized...our family dynamic has changed, my daily routine has changed, I have not.

Here are the goals.

I am getting back to menu planning.  I just needed to know what I have on hand to work with...in order to know that I had to clean it all up and inventory it. As I said, I am taking a break, my back just can't handle it like it used too.  May even have to admit that I am getting older. But that is thought for another time.

Changing buying habits.  As I said, the family dynamic has changed.  I no longer have two teenage boys at home, my youngest daughter is in a healthy-diet-making different food choices stage and I now have an added driver at home (now that Miss Zebra has her license) so there is no reason to buy three loaves of bread and 6 gallons of milk each week.  Plus, with the opening of more grocery chain stores (Walmart, Winco) the stupid California way of forcing the customer to buy gallons of milk in twos to get the price discount.  Now that I don't have to buy so much of everything, and I can send Miss Zebra to the store, I don't have to stock pile so much.  Besides, it is not a savings if you stock pile so much the products expire before you can use it.  OH...flashes of Extreme Couponers just went through my head. The stupidity of that show, not to mention the blatant illegal practices involved is a story for another time.

ALSO:

I have recently become a consultant for Pampered Chef.  Really looking forward to seeing what I can do with that.  I am not a salesman, so this kind of thing is hard for me, but I am hoping to refurnish my kitchen with some quality equipment as opposed to quantity.  That is a project for this summer, when I have Miss Zebra home to help watch Mr. M.  I will clean out an reorganize all of my kitchen cabinets...dishes, pans, pots, mixing bowls...and such.  I was putting it off because in the near future...I hope near future...we are gutting the kitchen, taking a wall out and redoing it all. Was going to wait until then so I only had to empty the cabinets one time.  HOWEVER...my contractor (my hubby) has put some other things ahead of the project so I am not waiting any longer.  Soon as I get some things out of the way, I am emptying and purging my kitchen cabinets.

I also, after much thought, made a major investment in to my sewing/quilting hobby.  I purchased a new machine. A Pfaff to be exact. It does it all, sewing, quilting (nice large throat space - automatic quilting foot), and embroidery (large area). Now, thanks to a little inheritance money, I have the money in hand to pay for it.  I have put it on layaway because I am just not ready to have it in the house yet, just too tempting.  I need to finish up a quilt project...which would be nice to try out the new machine on...along with the kitchen cabinets...along with housekeeping...it would be way to easy to get side tracked with playing with the new machine.  Along with tutorials for my new software programs.

So...now that I have had a nice little rest...back to work.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Once I know what I have on hand, I can plan menus tonight.  I will be able to then cut down the cost of groceries, hopefully enough to put a little toward the new Pfaff to save on my little egg money account.  See...what ever I have left over each pay day from the household budget is mine to keep, to use how I want, on what I want.

Thanks for dropping in, I am back to work.  Besides it is lunch time.