Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Kitchen Tip: Organizing a Chest Freezer

I was sorting through my chest freezer yesterday and I had a brilliant idea. (at least I think it's brilliant ;-)) Having just received some of the cow my parents had bought from my uncle, I was trying to take an accurate inventory and get the "old" stuff on top of my freezer, so it would get used. I took everything out because DH and my dad had put all the new beef on top of the old food. As I returned everything to the freezer, I decided to write down what was on each level. I have now taped to the top of my freezer a "map" of sorts that tells me what layer to find which type of food on. Here's what it looks like:

Left Side:
Basket:
pepperoni, peppers, whole chicken, onion rings, cranberries, 2 lemonades, 2 stew beef
Under the basket:
Muffins, 12-1#hamburger packages
french fries, broccoli, corn
fish, 2 bags of 8-1Cup pkg rhubarb

Right Side:
crescent rolls, bread dough, green beans
2- 2# hamburger, 1 pork chop
Bagged together (pork chop, 3 sirloin steaks, 2 pork roasts), 1 gal. bucket of homemade ice cream
2 soup bones, 2 2.5#bags chicken
3 beef roasts, 2 pork spareribs
3 5# bags of white wheat

We just have a small chest freezer. The smallest they make actually because that's all we had space for, but DH is forever afraid of me "losing" food in it like our mothers do, and I have to admit, I'd forgotten about the bags of chicken and spare ribs. I'm hoping that this way, I won't forget the things that got buried last time. I know I also need to keep track of what I've taken out. That's the hard part.

This post is linked with Kitchen Tip Tuesday's at Tammy's Recipes . So be sure to head over to Tammy's Recipes to see what other kitchen short cuts others have shared.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Menu Plan 12/14

We've got a busy week ahead of us. Parent conferences 2 nights, a doctor's appointment for myself and Bean, keeping on top of the housework, and Christmas Cookie baking.

Monday: Lunch: Peanut butter & Jelly, Chicken noodle soup
Dinner: Baked Hamburgers, scalloped potatoes, beans

Tuesday: Lunch: Macaroni & Cheese
Dinner: chicken nuggets, pears, green beans

Wednesday: Lunch: Toasted Cheese sandwich, tomato soup
Dinner: herb, garlic crusted chicken, mashed potatoes, peas

Thursday: Lunch: Lunchables-Kids, Birthday Lunch W/ Bear at school
Dinner: Pork Chops, rice, steamed carrots.

Friday: Lunch: Split pea soup, beer bread (probably leftovers from something else for the kids)
Dinner: Pizza, chips, veggie sticks

Saturday: Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: pasta with clam sauce, broccoli, garlic bread

Sunday: Lunch: Noodle Soup or leftovers
Dinner: roast chicken in the crock pot

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Random bits

Have you ever just lacked motivation? I've been on the computer plenty, made up my menus and everything, just haven't felt much like writing. I'm sorry. It's not fair to you. I'd like to say we've been busy, but I really don't feel like I have. I've just been lazy. We have had a few changes around here though. We're all decorated for Christmas. I'm trying to get ready for Bear's birthday, which is in one week. We will be having our families up Sunday for the church Christmas program. Bug has a speaking part. Bear and the Boy will be sheep. I'm not sure if Bean will have a part or not. Since my parents decided to come for that, it seemed the best time for having Bear's birthday party. So, we'll have a houseful with sets of grandparents, my grandparents, most likely our niece, and my brother and sister. Of course, I feel compelled to do a nice dinner, but it's beginning to feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew just by prepping for the dinner and house cleaning that needs done any way. I just can't seem to find the motivation to get it all done.

Little Bit, though has been growing like a weed. I was convinced last night that I must have another kidney stone. I called my doctor wondering what to do, little by little the pain ended up going away. I've had a terrible ache in my back right above my one hip for the last 3 or 4 days. Yesterday, it got the best of me. Since I never did hear back from my doctor, rich and I decided that it wasn't a kidney stone, but more likely Little Bit was lying with her back to my belly button and her hands or feet were pushing on my kidneys. She finally moved and I think she's laying the "normal" way as I’ve not had any significant back pain since last night. She's starting to stick boney little appendages out of my sides too. Doesn't like when I rub them to try to get them to draw back in and not stretch, but she's a stubborn little one. She keeps them right where she wants them to be. She must at least be comfortable.

We've added a few new members to our family. On the Saturday after thanksgiving, DH let me get a dwarf hamster that I’ve been wanting for a while. She’s a cute little thing. The kids love to watch her and want to play with her, but the few times I’ve tried to handle her, I’ve been nipped. I don't think the kids would like that. Freckles was quite intrigued by her. I think she wanted to play with it too. She’ll stand up on her hind legs and just sniff at the cage and look at the hamster when it's awake. She has had her nose bitten for her curiosity too. Since I got the hamster, Rich got a few fish. Right now we have 2 tiger barbs and 2 zebra danias(sp?). For now, until he gets the tank cycled that's all the fish we'll have, but we're hoping to add 3 more tiger barbs, a catfish, and 2 pink fish of some kind. Each of the kids has requested a certain type of fish except Bean. The Catfish is for the Boy, tiger barbs for Bear, and the pink fish for Bug.