Restocking the Freezer

I had to make a quick run to Aldis this morning after I dropped off the kids to class. I seriously only went in for rice and chili powder. Since I was there I thought that I might as well look at the meat section and I am so happy that I did. I decided that I didnt like to think I was starting over with the freezer, I am looking at it as a new beginning. Honestly its hit or miss sometimes of the kids will even be home for dinner and even though neither are going to be moving out tomorrow or anything I need to  learn that I dont have to have every thing for them. Just the other day the boy ran to the store without even being asked because he was out of almond milk. We have been leaving them every other weekend for several weeks and when I get home no one is dead. They will be fine. I am sure I will be fine too, eventually. Can you relate? 

Lets focus on those deals.

I got 4.6 pounds of lean ground beef. It only has 140 calories for 4 oz. Since only three of us eat ground beef I thought it silly to use the whole pound so I froze it in 12 oz packages. Which is why it was $2.40 per package. I bought for packs but got 6 meals when I divided. As someone who never thought herself a math person I love to calculate cost of meals and all that stuff.

I normally dont buy chiicken tenders because I have no idea why they charge more to cut your chicken breasts into 3-4 strips for you. But when I did the math these came our to $1.78 pound and I decided they would make for quick meal prep and who really enjoys cutting up meat? Not this girl, I just do it because I am cheap.

Last but not least the skinless boneless thighs. I have really become a fan of these especially in stir fry and fried rice. They offer so much flavor and you can always find them marked down. I think these came out to $1.17 pound. If I can get a meal with the meat being less than $2 momma is a happy camper. I actually took a few of the thighs and cooked them in a hot cast iron skillet with some seasoning and made wraps for lunch.

My freezer before this accident was a hot mess and after the door being opened for like a week it really was a hot mess. I had started to work on it but honestly I had done a poor job and labeling and sticking stuff all over the place and cramming and when I went to the freezer to decide what to make I dreaded it. I actually have lots of areas in my life that remind me of the freezer. Thats the good thing about fresh starts you can do them right now!  Think about a relationship that you may miss but you keep forgetting to reach out or just dont because you are too busy. Think about that closet in the livingroom, you know the one next to the front door, you hope that if anyone breaks in that will be the first door they open and if they arent killed by all the stuff thats going to fall out they will run away. Anyone else or is that just me? Also if you drop in for a visit dont try to open that door when I am not looking, I have it locked for your safety and mine.

Now close your eyes and think about some areas you need a fresh start in. One of mine is a date with Mr Ladybug. Oh sure we are always running around together, gardening, binge watching Netflix, we listen to audio books and all that but the other day I suggested we go out to eat. He was tired and said lets just order in and we did which was fine and we ate together but sometimes you just want to dress up and eat off dishes you dont have to wash. Our marriage isnt on the rocks and if we never eat somewhere nice again we will survive. Well fell in love on those first date nights and we will stay in love going on them too. It doesnt even have to be a place to eat. A nice picnic with nice food would work too. I think its all the rain we have had on the weekends that has kept us from our favorite outings. Basically what I am saying is I will drag that man someplace nice even if hes kicking and screaming! Wouldnt that be sight? Mr Ladybug is lucky to have me and I remind him of it daily!

Tomorrow I will show you my inventory sheets. Well thats if the printer cooperates.

Is your glass half full of half empty?

There are some sayings out there that just make me crazy and I really had no idea why until the other day and this is what happened....

Wednesday I have my errand day, we are planning on heading out early Thursday morning to my moms farm so we can get her chicks out of their brooder box and into their coop we also plan on getting our green beans, watermelon and corn on the ground. Did I mention we have to do this in between rain showers? I get home from my last stop of errands and start putting the groceries away. I run out to the garage where we have a freezer and most of the good is thawed. Its not even cold. Are you serious?

I have already messaged a friend to stop by. I almost texted her and said done come. Dont be alarmed if you never hear from me again. I am running away. I instead just told her to message when she was on her way because I would be in the back throwing away all the food in my freezer.

I run to the store and grab whatever garbage bags smell the most scented because our garbage does not run for 6 more days. Oh my gosh the smell is going to be terrible. We are going to wake up with every meat eating animal from a 20 mile radius in our backyard, I just know it. 

I get about half of the food thrown in bags and in the garbage can and my friend is almost at my house. I take a deep breath and this thought comes to me "why do people say go big or go home instead of go small and manageable and stay out of the mental institution". I am going to admit that the time I thought this idea what the most profound thing I have ever thought. Typing it out I am seeing its good advice but maybe its not the best idea for my first tattoo.

My friends visit gives me a moment of pause. We chat a little about some things. She has some stressers in her life as do I. I am super sorry that she has some but its also nice to know that we all have things going on thats not Facebook perfect. She runs off to pick up her son from school and I go back to my smelly meat locker. It actually hadnt started smelling but it could have at any moment.

When I get done with the freezer its time to leave and pick up Mr Ladybug from work. The freezer is empty over $300 worth of food is now in the garbage but the freezer is not broken. Somehow it was left open enough to get ice built up which it already had some and needed defrosting but that caused it to not work properly and there goes my stockpile.

So we leave early Thursday  morning and get everything going on the farm and get a call from the kids that the back end of their car is making a weird noise. We are thinking maybe the thing that holds the muffler on has come loose and its that. They only have a 2 mile drive to and from school and if the muffler falls off no worries. We get all the stuff done on the farm and feel pretty good about it and get home around lunch time. Inspect kids car and its not the muffler its the wheel.

Of course it couldnt be an easy fix. It took some doing to get the wheel off the car but then the rest of the parts which I have no idea the names of would not cooperate. My guys are searching every website and youtube channel for a solution with the only one being was take a sledge hammer to it. I am not even kidding thats what so many people said you had to do. Saturday morning we ran around trying to find the right tool and well ended up taking a sledge hammer to it.  So now we are looking about a $250 project. We got all the part we could get in town and ordered the rest and everything should arrive by Thursday.

So that means that every day I take Mr Ladybug to work because I have to make sure the college kiddos get to work, school and any other appointments they generally take care of themselves. Does it sound like I am complaining? I dont intend to.

This was not my plans for the week but it is what I have been dealt. I can choose to over complicate the whole thing, be miserable and make everyone else around me miserable or I can just be thankful that it stinks to have to start all over with the freezer but now I have clean slate and try to have one of those Pinterest Photo freezers. I had more than I needed in there and some dont have anything to eat.

If we had to take the car in to be repaired our bill would be more than $250. I am lucky to be married to someone who can fix it and know the problem with the freezer. So is my glass half empty or half full? I dont even care I am just happy to have something in my glass. I am happy to have a glass even though sometimes it does look empty. I have friends who care for me as I do them. I have more food than I can possibly eat and thankfully the garbage comes tomorrow and there are no weird animals lurking around the backyard. I get to spend more time with my adult children driving them to a few extra places this week. I get to take my husband to work and start our day off just chatting it up and getting to talk on the way home. Lets not forget all those new recipes I get to try out and store in the newly cleaned freezer.

I have to leave in a few minutes to pick up the boy, then its home for lunch and then back out for an appt. While waiting a little bit for him at his appt I can make a quick trip to the library and work on new dinner menu for the week. I use to get so much done in car lines when they were in public school. I had perfectly organized coupons and lists and dinner menus. Without that down time I have found other ways to fill that time and am not quite as organized as I was in that department. I also got lots of knitting done. Its funny how when in the car lines all I could think about was all the stuff I could be doing and now that its gone I think of all the stuff I got done. Life is weird.

Budget Update and a few odds and ends

I have managed to survive the fruit flies and now get to battle the ants! For some reason ants dont seem as annoying to me. I usually  just find where they are coming in at and put a few drops of peppermint oil on the location, You can use essential oils or even an extract from your pantry. I will warn you that the ants will just find a new location to come in so keep the peppermint handy.

I havent really been updating the budget for a few months but its going along nicely. The good thing about keeping your budget on track is that when unforeseen things pop up you are prepared, like a new bee hive.

If you follow me on social media you know that our well established hive split last week. We were able to get all the bees off the 2X2 post they landed on and into a hive box. We checked them yesterday and they are doing pretty good. I am betting the old queen wishes that she hadnt left her old hive because they have to start over and build up from scratch. Mr Ladybug thought he saw eggs in the frames which is a very important thing so they can build up their numbers and get that hive ready for winter. The cost of buliding a new wooden hive is around $250. The cost of bees is around the same amount. Now you know why honey costs what it does. We really do love our bees though.

Its time to start changing the menu to more of a summer friendly one. For us that means more outdoor cooking on the grill and much faster meals. We eat a lot of tacos and salads. I will be working on summer menus this week and will share that later.

I also got an air fryer for my birthday and I am so in love. I have cooked fries, fish, potato chips and brownies, Not to bad for only having it for a week and being gone two days.

Over the weekend we went to my moms and started our big garden. This will be our first year and we are super excited. In fact Mr Ladybug was so excited he took all our tomato, pepper, squash and pumpkin plants to the farm to plant and left none for our backyard garden. I guess we have to live on potatoes. lettuce, onions, peas and herbs during the week and only get the other stuff when at the farm. Thats not really true because I made him start some new ones the other day. I can not live without tomatoes nor should I have to!

In the last three weeks I have only used my dryer for 1 hour total. I have no idea why this excites me so much but it does. Its taking some getting use to and with so much rain I had laundry coming out my ears but its not been that bad actually and putting on those clothes or placing your head on that pillow and smelling that sunshine makes me smile every single time.

I love the picture at the top of this post. We had just arrived at my moms on Thursday. We were headed to the old wooden shed where she has an old wood cook stove that needs a little tlc. I can not wait to get that thing working and cooking. Anyway momma and Mr Ladybug were all in a hurry to get to the shed and I was picking flowers and looking at the creek and just taking in all the nature around me. It was heaven. My May is going to be a little busy, momma has a surgery at the end of the month and our middle child graduates from college, gardens need tending, grass needs mowing and life is happening. Its so easy to be so busy that we miss all the beautiful things around us. My advice is if you are going through a busy season right now take time to stop, take a deep breath and enjoy whats around you.

Have an amazing Monday! I have some clothes that need to be hung on a clothesline and some meals that need planning and maybe a trip to Hobby Lobby.