Groceries Week of 3/7/21

I expected to blow the grocery budget out of the water. I had spent just over 1/2 of it last week ($47.13 remained) and my list was much larger than normal… we’ll see?

Yes I did.

I spent $107.79 in one shop: 5 blocks cheese, butter, 1.5 gallons milk, 2 frozen OJ concentrate, 2 bags coffee, 4 pkg pecans, 1 jar of P-nut butter, 2 boxes cereal, 1 peanut oil, 1 cat food, 2 demi-glace, 1 mayo, 1 flour, 1 pickles, 4 water, 1 vinegar.

I could have saved by not buying multiples. I got 2 pecans and so did DH. If we’d put 2 of them back, we’d have been under budget, for example. The indulgences were a block of swiss cheese, the cereal, the extra pecans. The pickles were supposed to be a jar of pickle relish, but the brand we prefer they only had pickles, no pickle relish, so we’ll chop our own.

This is one week’s worth: butter, milk, water. The majority of the groceries we bought should last us 2 weeks or more. What I expect to last more than 2 weeks: pecans, peanut oil, demi-glace, mayo, and vinegar.

The spring farm’s first pick up is tomorrow, 3/9. I thought I had another week… Nope! The onslaught begins. And so, despite the fact that I bought all this food Sunday, I need to go and seriously look at the big freezer and see what I can use out of it to make dinner? The “clean the freezer out” project needs to be put into high gear.

Sigh.

1. The taxes need to be finished, today.
2. The storage move needs to be finished in the next few days.
3. The freezer clear out for the season needs to be finished, this week.
4. The food plan for the year needs to be finished, this week.

See a trend? I am going to be insanely busy for a little while.

Happy spring!

Petra ? from unsplash, complete info will be added sometime this week. I don’t own the image!

My big seed order never arrived. I sent them an email last night asking for information. They cashed my check and are normally really good about fulfilling their orders. But, given the f’d up post office these days? Who knows…

PITA squared

Put-It-(Things)-Away

So it’s not a: Pain-In-The-Ass!

A characteristic I’ve noticed lately is that I tend to do a project and when I finish it, I leave the tools & materials out. This is less so when the materials are food, but it’s really true when the project isn’t food.

A major source of clutter here are these things which aren’t dealt with after use: DH’s plate from the toast he ate is out still, for example. When we unpack mail order purchases, the opened box is frequently just put aside, not broken down, not staged either for reuse/recycling, just an empty box — adding to the clutter.

When I started to notice this, I told myself it’d be an easy way to have less clutter, nearly instantly. So, I’ve been trying to be more more aware. Two things:

1 – I’ve been telling myself to Put it (things) Away so it doesn’t become a PITA or mumbling PITA squared…

So, I put the box I’d cut down away — but, I’d forgot to replace the razor blade. Made myself go back do that.

2 – I’ve started discussions with DH about the things which just don’t have a home. Or, when the home the item has is inconvenient for some reason and I can’t come up with a solution. If it’s an easy fix, I just find places to put things away and tell him. But that isn’t always true.

The large cooler is an example. I decided that where it had been living atop the fridge, didn’t work.

What didn’t work? There are things I needed to store which are used more often, the ice cream maker for one. On top of the fridge is premium, always accessible space. But the big cooler is only used three times a year:

1. During a power outage is its most common use.
2. When I buy bulk produce and the fridge/counters are overwhelmed, we’ll add ice and produce to it on the porch.
3. Once a year, we go to a friends’ summer cottage at the beach. Everyone brings food. We usually take home-baked bread and fancy cheeses and use the big cooler for transport.

The problem? Nowhere to put the big cooler, except where it was, without displacing something else. The obvious something else was the willow hamper which holds “Ragdom” atop the broom closet. We talked about it. The cooler’s most common use, during a power outage, meant that I didn’t want it stored in the attic. I didn’t want to have to go with a flashlight into the attic to get a tool to use, because we’d had a power outage!

Answer? Ragdom is moving to the attic, or that’s the current plan. Didn’t happen that way, see below The large cooler is now atop the broom closet. It’s accessible during a power outage, near where it will be used, to rescue the fridge food.

New problem? I don’t really want to send Ragdom to the attic. Any critters which get into the attic might nest in it and our attic isn’t all that easy to get to, even without a power outage… That’s in process. We use the Ragdom hamper less than the big cooler. We’re using the ice cream maker and other things now on the fridge more often than the big cooler, so basically, it’s a win, if only an incomplete one. Ragdom has been relocated to the top of the supply cabinet. It displaced a nearly empty box, so if nothing else, the floating piece is getting smaller! 3/1/21

That’s the process we’re going through. It means that I end up muttering PITA squared! to myself almost daily…

Note: Again, I HATE WP’s new block editor and I will move this content as soon as I can manage it. I just spent 10 minutes trying to center ONE LINE!!!