Thrifty Thursday: We Can Do This

 

Thursday:  I feel I did nothing much today, but I managed meals and that's always something isn't it?  

I brought out leftover turkey from the fridge and made sandwiches, then I wrapped up the bit of meat that was left and put it back in the freezer for another day.  There's enough for at least two and a half sandwiches.  That's enough for the three of us.

I had to come up with an alternative meal plan.  I'd hoped to make John's favorite Tuna Pasta Salad, but it was cooler and rainy.  Not conducive to eating a cold pasta salad in my opinion.  I thought of another recipe I haven't made in a long while.  I have enough leftovers of that to make another whole meal.   

I can't think of anything else I got done today.  No, I wasn't idle but I'm trying to remember on Friday what I did the day before...let me think...

I fed Bean the cat and Rufus scraps from the table, saved another cardboard box for Sam's garden, put another Christmas present away in the closet, reused what I already had in the living, just swapped places with several items.  I made notes of the things I want to pick up this weekend when we're out, not a lot of things but a few necessary items that will prevent having to do a bigger shop in the week ahead.  I ran a full load of dishes and then let them finish by air drying.

Friday:  Made bread this morning.  

We were out of loaf breads of all sorts, store bought and homemade.  While the bread was rising, I dug around in the freezer and found English Muffins that we used to make breakfast sandwiches.   I used Venison Sausage I'd mixed up.  If I have any criticism, I'd say the venison needs a bit more fat in it.  But it's quite good.

Leftovers for lunch today.

John did laundry by his usual method.  One huge wash load and then drying in small loads for 25 minutes at a time.

Temptation to call Katie and ask her to bring supper home was squelched.  I had a couple of frozen entrees in the freezer.  I took one out and will thaw and bake this afternoon.  I'll scratch around for side dishes to make to go with it.  We are low on salad stuff and sides, but we'll make out as Granny used to say, when she was lower on supplies.  And we always did.  I guess I can do just as well.

later:  By looking high and low, I found the remaining lettuce, two Roma tomatoes that were just at peak ripeness, a lovely carrot, a jar of pickled red onion.  It might not have looked like enough but once combined there were actually leftovers after we all ate generous amounts.  Indeed, Granny's words come true once again, I "made out" just fine with what I had.

Saturday:  We went out this morning, got in my car to go out for our day.  John inserted the key and 'Click click click'.  I'd just reached up as he was doing so and touched the overhead light.  It was hot.  I tested the switch and discovered that while the light was out, the switch was not fully in the 'off' position.  The battery was dead.

We could have jumped it off, but instead we went ahead and did something we had planned to do anyway.  We replaced it.  Was I expecting to spend that chunk of money today?  No...but I had planned for it and had money in a car maintenance fund to cover the expense.  Still, it did put a little bit of a damper on my thoughts of "and while we're out I'll just pick up...".

We finally headed towards our destination about two hours later.  I made use of the time we were puttering about with the battery though.  No time wasted!

At Walmart, I discovered that the store was no longer carrying the 25-pound bags of flour.  I had hoped to buy 75-100 pounds today.  Somehow the idea of loading up 10-pound bags didn't appeal.  I bought 3 and added in 1 10-pound bag of sugar.  Other items I'd hoped to get were out. I didn't look for substitutes.  The shelves were well packed with food and such, but the store just wasn't carrying the brand I was looking for any longer.  The price of the brand available was often not a savings at all.  It was no hardship to skip those items.  They weren't deep needs.

We had a list for a few other items.  We didn't find everything on our list, but I found I could order some of the items online for a decent price.  Some of what we purchased will come from the grocery budget, some will come from another source.  

We had lunch out.  I suggested an inexpensive place, one that John is less likely to agree to go to, but today he did.  Our lunch was delicious and filling, the food fresh and good and we paid no more than we might have for fast food.  

Supper was super easy tonight.  I pulled it right from the freezer.  Caleb asked for it, so that's what we had:  Waffles.  Some topped with fruit and syrup, others with just butter and syrup.

Monday:  I know I skipped Sunday.  You'll get that tossed in with Monday this week.  

We stopped at Publix to pick up my chicken order.  I also bought a container of watermelon.  It wasn't the cheapest item I might have picked up, but it will do us for more than one meal and what's more it slipped me over the $10 I needed to spend in order to use my $2 coupon that was expiring yesterday.

Home to make a simple dinner.  The chicken was already hot. I made mashed potatoes and gravy for the grown-ups and boxed mac n cheese for the children and then discovered that everyone wanted mashed potatoes and gravy and mac n cheese.  So, we just ate smaller portions of those things.  We followed up with Watermelon.  

I washed a full load of dishes after lunch.

John and I had supper at Oasis last night (seniors meeting) and they had...fried chicken and mac n cheese but it wasn't boxed mac n cheese.  They also served salad, green beans and strawberry shortcake so no complaints on that score.   

As we were leaving last night John and I were both given a bag of red grapes. I have grapes coming out my ears.  Id' just bought a huge bag of them on Saturday. I think I'll make that lovely grape salad to go with our company dinner on Thursday night.   And of course, Caleb can eat grapes as snacks.

Today, I made the eggs and toast John requested.  We had leftovers of Friday night's supper as lunch today.  I made a loaf of bread.  I found a tiny tomato plant in a compost bin and pulled it out and planted it (it was in the compost I mean to use this year to mix with my potting soil).  I found a container of Buffalo Chicken dip in the freezer yesterday and pulled it out to thaw.  I'll mix most of that with pasta tonight for a casserole dish for our supper. 

I set my timer for thirty minutes and headed outdoors to work. I managed to weed a tiny flower bed, pulled weeds from a couple of pots, picked up some weeds I'd pulled two weeks ago and limbs and just generally puttered about the yard.   

The iris in the pot I brought home from the town house last fall bloomed.  They are a two-toned lavender and quite pretty.  The stems are just about three feet tall, and they are quite stunning.  I will need to divide them and another patch of irises this fall, and I hope I remember to put those from that pot in the back of the others which are shorter.  I now have deep purple, white, golden yellow and these two-toned ones.

I like to give Caleb something new to play with each day if I can, but I don't buy him new things each time.  I just hand him things like paper towel rolls that he can use as spyglasses or a bugle, or an empty box that is a ship or spaceship or race car, or a smaller box as a garage for his matchbox cars.  Today's plaything was to line up the dining room chairs and create a train.  We loaded one car with freight, megablocks and blocks, and one car with passengers who were all teddy bears and a sock monkey, and he got to be the conductor.  He was pretty happy with that for about thirty minutes or so.

Tuesday:  Our breakfast muffins were from the freezer this morning.  I also boiled eggs.  And while I was boiling eggs anyway, I made enough, or thought I did, to make egg salad for sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch.    

Caleb was very interested in the peeling process, so I cracked an egg all over and handed it to him to peel.  This made him interested in eating the eggs, so he had 1.5.   I went back after breakfast to peel the rest.  Again, he wanted to help.  And apparently eat.  So, I ended up putting more eggs on to boil in order to have enough for the salad, lol.

I used the cooled egg water to partially water plants this morning.  

I also made up a batch of Pimento Cheese spread for lunch for today's sandwiches.  John should be happy getting sandwiches at least twice this week!   I was disappointed in this brand of pimentos, a brand called Pampas that I've not bought before.  It said it was a 4-ounce jar.  It was mostly water.  I doubt I got 2 tbsps. total of pimento out of that jar.  The jar then had a good 2-ounces of the liquid left in it.  Generally, I get Dromedary, but I let the lure of pennies saved guide me to the Pampas brand.  It wasn't a worthwhile swap.

Today is not a highly productive day.  I didn't sleep at all well, was up super early this morning.  I have an easy supper to put on the table, already planned into my menu.

Wednesday:  I found pancakes in the freezer yesterday when I was digging through the breads yesterday.  Those were for breakfast this morning.  It was the perfect amount for the three of us.

I had three ripe bananas.  Caleb refused them repeatedly, and John won't eat one once it's freckled.  He prefers them a bit green.  I don't understand it, but there you are.  I have a loaf of banana bread in the freezer from last round and we've just eaten the last of the banana muffins from the time prior.  

Banana Poundcake is something I haven't made in ages upon ages.  I have company coming tomorrow night.  John's been grazing for something sweet for a week.  I need something to take to the coffee house on Friday.  I have plenty of eggs and butter.   Banana Poundcake sounded wonderful to me for all of the above reasons.

Lunch was an easy meal.  Supper will be easy as well.  I'm so glad because sorting out my room this morning was intensive work.  I made space for a whole lot of stuff that I need to keep and store, and I have culled hard those things I don't need or want.  I do have a small stack of things to go out to the shed that I will store for the future, but I've gotten rid of far more than I am keeping of all that I pulled out.  I'm sure more could be done but sometimes, it's best to know the energy limits you have.

And so ends another week in our home.