I've been reading a lot on freezer cooking for 30 days and am very interested in trying it out. The downfall is that the only freezer we have is the one above the fridge, so 30 days of meals may be a bit squished. I did cook up all the ground beef yesterday-a big family pack. I made enough lasagna for two dinners, two dinners worth of meatballs for sweet and sour, or teriyaki, and an extra portion of plain, cooked meat for sauce, or tacos. We froze two whole chickens, and three bags of legs and thighs. I put a different marinade into each bag, and froze them, so when they defrost, they'll be soaking up barbeque, Italian, or teriyaki sauce. Along with my usual standbys of perogies, tuna casserole, garlic prawns, and a variety of homemade soups, we have meals planned until February 24th. I love the idea of the time savings, but am very curious as to the monetary savings that may occur. We'll see as the month progresses. I have $175.00 left in the grocery budget to cover weekly dairy and fruit and vegetable products, as well as whatever else may come up. The pantry is well stocked with paper products, soap, hair products, pasta, canned soups and beans, and tuna fish.
I stopped following the Flylady regime a few months back and have regretted it ever since. I started again yesterday and notice a huge change in my attitude. This house will be organized...we will have a garage sale...repeat...repeat...repeat...

Pulled a fast one over on the kids. We make a delicious soup called 'Three Sisters Soup'. It has potato, corn, green beans, and butternut squash in it. The kids hate it but I still make it because Dh and I really like it. Well, we haven't had it in about a year, so when I made it for dinner tonight, I told them we were having 'Yum-Yum soup'. Two out of the three of them ate it and enjoyed it...one even asked for it to go in his thermos for lunch at school tomorrow! I gave sly looks to Dh all through dinner tonight--wanted to make sure the truth didn't leak out!

I had a good day at work today. It made up for yesterday's long and trying day! I love Mondays at work because I have the office to myself and generally everyone else's offices are empty, so I'm not being interrupted by other managers or supervisors. I tend to get a lot done...

I have tomorrow off and have no plans, which is nice. I think I might wander over to Michael's Craft Store and see if I can find any ideas of something to create to try and sell for my $20.00 challenge.

We loved the homemade sauce...got the recipe from the Hillbilly Housewife site. It was really good and everyone had seconds except ds5 who had thirds...he doesn't usually eat past with sauce. I will definately be using this recipe from now on--no more jarred for us!

Our financial advisor came over today to help us figure out what to do with the mortgage that's coming due in March. I have to phone the bank tomorrow and see what rate they'll give us on a one year closed. Then next year we'll add the two together when both terms are up. That'll be easier.

We are also going to change our life insurance around a little bit. He's looking into prices for us, but we'll save about $20.00 per month on a ten year term by switching. We both have insurance through our jobs as well.

We're going to re-do our will this month. The problem for us is deciding who should get guardianship of the kids if we both die before they come of age. I want to go with a couple that we're really good friends with who our kids love, and who parent the same as us. Dh is leaning towards a family member because 'it's family'. I don't know. I think I'll post a thread on this...

Well, the kids have done it again! I have been volunteered for classroom baking duties. Halloween is coming and the kids need witches' finger cookies for their classes for Monday. Normally this isn't a problem, except that I work today, tomorrow (all day--7:00am until 1:00am), and we've made plans with friends for Sunday to go out for lunch and to the pumpkin patch. Somewhere in there I still need to get costumes organized, as well as all the other normal household cleaning, organizing etc. The witches' fingers look great, but are fairly time consuming. On top of that, one of my customers gave me a gigantic bag of fresh cranberries, and I need to do something with them, too. I have some drying in the dehydrator (like craisins) and I'll freeze some. Hopefully, I'll be able to make some cranberry sauce as well. I'll give half of whatever I make to the gentleman who brought me all the cranberries. He's a widower in his 80's--a real sweetheart.

Work last night was ridiculous. The tech guy came in with a brand new computer for me (it's really, really nice!) but they forgot to install the program I need. I've only been waiting for 3 months. My boss at head office is getting frustrated because the work I was hired to do has yet to be started. I have enough to do with everything else going on, so it's not like I'm not busy, but I'm not taking the blame in all this because since August I've been given 3 computers, one of which didn't work, and none that had the program in it that I need. I work with a bunch of managers who think their job is to 'manage' which apparently means to sit in an office and tell everyone what to do and then complain when it's not done the way they'd like. I think I'm reaching the point where I either have to quit caring so deeply about what's going on in my department, or I'll have to leave. I can't find a middle ground and I'm very sad about it. Yesterday, one of the managers stopped by my office to ask me if I was going up to the main restaurant. I told him that I was and he asked me to pass on a message from another manager to the wait staff. He had just walked through the restaurant, saw something he wasn't happy with, phoned this manager and asked him to phone me and get me to deal with it! How stupid is that? Frustrating...