All these little extra items are in addition to the meals and such I made from scratch; sausage, chili, pizza, chocolate chip cookies. So the kitchen has been humming.
Sure I could have dipped into our savings and pulled out enough money for groceries, and just pay it back over time. But there are a lot of advantages to doing this to myself. "Doing this" as in no grocery money. Just leave the savings alone.
1) It forces me to use up what I have in my freezer. My go to veggie, I confess, is roasted frozen veggies or roasted carrots. If there are any frozen veggies in the freezer, I will go to them more often than not. Last summer I put up many bags of yellow squash, and yet many times I over look it in favor of the roasted veggies. Funny thing is, since I've been doing this I've found I really like the squash and it's creating a new habit in me to use it. The same can be said for some pear sauce I canned (used since we're out of applesauce). It's really quite good, especially with a little cinnamon added, but I didn't use it because I thought my son wouldn't eat it. Well surprise, surprise he will, and does!
2) It stretches my creative juices when it comes to cooking. Weather it's a new creative use for left overs or meal planning. It definitely makes me think outside the box. In fact we're not keeping leftovers. They're getting finished off pretty quick. I will usually have them for lunch the next day.
3) It does give me an excuse to bake. This is a double edged sword as baking leads to good stuff to eat and calories...yea, great, but I'm looking forward to having my chicken breast and roasted veggies. That would be the one disadvantage in that I'm eating more carbs than I normally would. Taste great, but more than likely will hang around a bit....on my hips.
4) It eats down my freezer and fridge which will make putting groceries away (when I buy them) much easier. I plan to defrost my freezer right before grocery day.
5) It leaves my savings alone. I would rather work a little more now and have my savings available for when I really need it. When the ends can't meet because of a bill or repair that has to be done and I can't do it myself.
It's a challenge at this point. 2 weeks left. Just two. I'm halfway through. Ohhh yay!
So I know it's been 2 weeks since last I posted. I apologize. I have been sewing (of course), baking (of course), and working on this! Ta Daaa! My chickens have moved up in the world.
Nothing that would merit a picture in better homes and gardens, but it does deserve an honorable mention in the red neck quarterly. I will say that 95% of this was made from items I either already had on hand, or had been given. I paid for zip ties ( bought enough they probably thought I was up to no good), some screws, Bird netting (to protect from chicken hawks), 2 4x4x8 posts, and hinges. The door is a wooden pallet Dh and I took off for my mom. I covered it in hard chicken wire that I already had on hand. I need to add a latch (Hence the pole holding the door shut), and trim off some of the zip ties I forgot about, but you get the general idea. This is the retirement home. Here they will make compost (using the deep bedding method)and a few eggs, but they really aren't laying so much right now. The rooster is old and cantankerous and headed for the stew pot come May. Sorry if that offends, but...
This is what used to be their run
A little 4 x 8 PVC number that will now go to the baby chicks so I can move them around my garden. Then, when the baby chicks are old enough they will take over the laying and the roosters....well, they will grace our dinner table. Hey but until then they will get lots of green grass, bugs, and one of them will stay to father new babies. That's the plan anyway.
So there you have it, my goings on. Not much in the way of weight loss, but my life none the less. What have you been up to?
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