What a haul...

Today, I sort of hoodwinked Michelle into accompanying my on my errands ... after Firewood Man brought over his crunching snow blower and pick-up with a plow on front to clear the alley and in front of my house and all of my sidewalks.

Amos immediately tended to his major business.  Boy, does that puppy have an iron will when it comes to controlling his bowels when faced with large snowbanks and arctic temperatures!  Looking at this, do you blame him??

Once I was all dug out and clothed in something other than a hoodie and men's lounge pants, Michelle and I set out to fetch my prescriptions, have my eyes re-tested in the new glasses, fetch my February groceries, and fetch Amos' food (going forward it will be shipped monthly from Amazon's Subscribe and Save program).  Poor Michelle, I tuckered her out.  I sort of neglected to mention that I was buying for the month.

I have been crunching numbers nine ways to Sunday, with this whole-trying-to-not-only-live-only-on-disability-now-that-the-mortgage-is-gone (no ... I have not received either my escrow check or any paperwork yet)-but-to-find-a-way-to-get-to-80%-of-disability-since-the-fund's-insolvency-is-looming-in-just-two-years thing is hard.  A part of me wishes someone would look at my several dozen spreadsheets to see if I am making any sort of sense, but I press on in the number crunching.

I suppose I will admit that with all my number crunching, I have targeted shaving $50 a month off my grocery budget.  I think that is doable, with all the making of homemade food, instead of buying processed.  I think.

With that said, I would argue that I am close to meeting my monthly goal, since this month I had $42 of what I would call capital expenditures.  You see, if I am going to be this person who cooks from scratch, then I have to build up my cupboard, which I have been doing.  This month, $42 was all new long-term ingredients, rather than what I expect to use during the month, such as grape seed oil.  In that amount, I did not count cupboard stock items that it was time to replace, such as flour, brown sugar, and honey.  If I allow my number crunching to include capital expenditures, then this month I am currently $45.29 under budget and should only need milk, though fresh salad fixings would not go amiss mid month.

The same, really, goes with the household budget, for I have spent money each of the last three months on storage containers ... and the freezer and the plug for it.  But those latter funds really came out of my sales money.

Perhaps, a $50 per month savings is a tad steep.  But ... maybe not.  I do know that I bought all but one of the types of beef that I was after, as well as the two types of pork I would like to try making.  I could not find skirt steak anywhere.  If I can find it, I am considering going ahead and getting it.  That said, with my cooking and freezing, I should still have a bit of food in the freezer for March.

The good news is that it is very well possible that my best friend, her mother, and her aunt might come to visit ... chiefly to play Chicken Foot Dominos, in my mind.  Having to feed three more folk for several days will, thus, skew any data I would like to collect in trying to determine if cooking from scratch where possible actually is a good economical move.  However, I do think that doing so will allow me to absorb the needs of those extra stomachs without going over budget.  That counts as savings, right?

Speaking of steak, I do think a few Walmart shoppers had a chuckle or two at my expense today.  I was helpless to tell Michelle what the types of steak might look like, so I just kept calling out the names as she and I browsed the selection.  Then, in the produce section, I had no clue what a scallion was, yet tried to describe what she should look for, being my personal shopper.  The kind produce man pointed out that scallions are green onions.

There were a few items I could not find that go with the recipes I have chosen:  nectarines, gorgonzola cheese, full-fat Greek yogurt, eggplant (the selection was awful), and the skirt steak ... whatever that is.  I don't even like nectarines, but I have a recipe for grilled nectarine salad that makes me salivate each time I study it.  The first two items are for that.  I think that I can make tzatziki sauce with my regular yogurt, especially if I drain some of the whey (now that I know how to do so).  Yes, I did buy enough yogurt to make a full batch of labneh!

One the way home, we drove through Chick-Fil-A.  Most shopping days, I treat myself to a meal on one of my gift cards (Taco Bell and Chipotle).  I don't have one for there, but warm chicken and waffle fries were calling out to me.  I chose a meal for Michelle and I as my "entertainment" this month, so the budget was not compromised by not using a gift card.  After we ate, Michelle went to recover from her shopping bootcamp and I set about putting everything away.  Sadly, that included trimming all the chicken breasts I bought and then grouping them into ziploc packages of two each.  I put on one of my calming playlists before I started unpacking everything.  It is one hour and forty minutes of music.  It ended just as I finished.  I was bloody exhausted.  SIGH.

Though, part of the unpacking included a bit of re-arranging to accommodate this full cupboard lifestyle.  There is this very weird part of me that gets energized when I achieve an organizational improvement.  I did.  Impressively so, in my opinion.

Part of my reorganization meant moving the liquor that was above the stove to a shelf in the dining room built-in.  Part of my cupboard-stock-building has included liquor, so now the sweet stuff and the stuff others-would-drink-but-I-would-only-use-to-cook is all together now, cozying up to each other.  That means all the oils, cooking wines, vinegars, and glazes are all together, too, organized and quite easy to access.  BLISS.

As I was finishing, Michelle came back upstairs because we planned a bit of fire and Firefly time.  [She's never seen the series, so I am thoroughly enjoying being with a Browncoat newbie.]  However, before we did, I asked if she would be willing to pray Evening Prayer with me (using my Evening and Morning, the music of Lutheran Prayer CD).  She was, so I put on a pot of tea, lit the fire, and opened the hymnal.  For our readings, I read her the whole of Philippians.  It is so ... words escape me ... to have someone pray of the offices of prayer with me.  Having someone to share a pot of tea with is pretty wonderful, too.

I am not sure if I have written this before, but I savor the liturgy of Evening Prayer because, to me, it is standing before God and admitting that I am a sinner and fouled up bits of my day, asking Him to wash me clean and to set a guard on me for the morrow.  Evening Prayer is a renewal and a fresh beginning before the start of a new day.  Evening Prayer is a renewal that brings peace in laying down to sleep.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!