Time To Plan For Holiday Grocery Shopping

 Good morning!  Or Good "whenever you are reading this".  Down by two cats YAY!  Still have 7 left.  This week is kind of a odds and ends type week.  I'm trying to get things organized and accomplished.  I canned some dry pinto beans.  It's a nice convenience to just have to open a jar.  I also made some sweetened condensed milk for the holidays.    
I think I've undertaken a daunting project in that I'm attempting to restore a hand sewn quilt my grandmother made probably 75- 80 years ago.  I've washed it on the gentle cycle and am now waiting for it to line dry.  Having to do that inside as we have cats outside too and want to make sure nothing gets damaged further.  If anyone has some tips on how to go about this, please comment below.  I need all the help I can get.  The only thing I know is if I do nothing, the quilt will continue to disintegrate in my trunk.  See what I mean?

                                         

So that's the local chit chat on the homestead, but I have a much more exciting thing to talk about!  Holidays are coming!!!!  With that comes the best grocery staple sales hands down.  This would be the Super Bowl of the grocery shopping sale season.  Now don't get me wrong; there are good deals to be had through out the year, but this time of year you can get really good buys on things like flour, butter, turkey, ham, evaporated milk, nuts, chocolate, canned vegetables, cranberries, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, spices, extracts, and sugar to name a few.  Everything a growing pantry needs.  

Even Walmart and Aldi are announcing their holiday dinner plans!  Now they aren't really telling me anything I don't already know.  Every year grocery stores vie for our holiday dinner dollars.  Walmart and Aldi are just advertising what every store will be doing.  So don't just focus on Walmart and Aldi.  Scan those other ads for the deals too.  So, just in case you didn't read the article, it's Nov 1st -Dec 26th.  You will see some good staple item deals.  Stock Up!

Here's a tip.  You're deals are usually found on the first and last page of a store's ad.  These are called Loss leaders and they are that.  The store takes a loss on these things in order to draw you into the store and hopefully sell you other things maybe not as great a deal.  Your mission should you choose to accept it; is to shop these loss leaders and not get suckered into other things.  Now if you find a good unadvertised price on something in the store, we can talk, but know your prices going in.   

Now is the time to start laying a little extra aside.  If you can't lay a little extra aside, start cooking more from scratch and using less processed foods in order to have the extra dollars to stock up on these deals.  Go thru your pantry and make a wish list.  Go thru your grocery list and nix anything unnecessary; soda, junk food, processed foods.  Push comes to shove make the junk food!  Only if you make it; it's no longer junk food, but homemade goodness with no funny business.  Seriously, some of the junk food will also be on sale!  Buy it then!  

You're welcome!  😁

https://fox8.com/news/walmart-aldi-to-offer-thanksgiving-dinner-options-at-lower-prices/

I'm Not Supposed To Be A Crazy Cat Lady!

 Yall I'm losing my mind!  All the things we have going on and add 9 baby kittens in various ages and it's an insane asylum!  Remember the feral mom and  kittens?   Well HER mom was also pregnant and had a litter, we know not where.  This was about 4 weeks ago; right after I posted on the kittens we had then.  Anyway, we knew she had a litter of kittens, but not knowing where they were, we just started looking everywhere we could think of. The idea was to get the kittens and then use them to lure her into the house; much the same way as we did her daughter.  So with that thought in mind, DH went under the house to see if he could find them.  So the good news is DH did find a litter of kittens.  The bad news is they were too old to be hers.  We suspect they belonged to another one of her feral daughters.  We haven't seen that particular daughter in a long while.  In fact.  We had only seen her a few days before we found what we believe to be her litter.  We believe something happened to her, unfortunately.  For that reason we're so glad we found those kittens as they wouldn't have had a mother to feed them and would have died.  

So now we have 9, count them 9 kittens running thru this house and still have no idea where the, uh, grandmother mama cat's litter is.  I expect she'll bring them to us to feed in a couple of weeks.  We can't end this over abundance of cats unless we can get that grandmama cat fixed.  She's the one who keeps having kittens.  This would be her 5th in about 14 months.

As for the daughter we currently have in the house and slated to be fixed, she did take in these extra 4 babies and mother them...or a bit. It got to the point they got their teeth and started biting her.  So we had to step in and start hand feeding them some.  They're staring to eat dry food, but still want the milk we've been giving them.  Mini Me , the mother cat that is raising them, does still allow them to nurse a little, but not if they start fighting for a spot.  With 9 kittens that can be all the time.  We're just happy when she can and do our best when she can't.  

Without further adieu:  

If you're near North Georgia and are interested in a kitty, just comment and let me know.  The gold one is taken, as are the two black males and the black and brown long hair female.  

Update on Mom and reworking things

 Good morning all!  It is a good morning here.  Tonight's low is forecasted to be 43.  Fills my heart with joy.  That there is good fan in the window sleepin weather!  Now in January, when it's lows in the 20's; pay no attention when I complain about how cold it is.  Not going to think about that right now.  

Temperature isn't the only reason for my good morning.  Looks like my mom will be coming home from the hospital Tuesday.  She has a long road back, but she's doing so well.  

This particular hospital stay actually started almost 15 weeks ago.  15 weeks tomorrow.  Back in July, my mom fell in her driveway.  She had just returned from walking her dog.  When she pushed the button to open the garage, it startled her dog and he bolted, pulling her down.  Although an ambulance came, she refused to go to the hospital because she didn't think she was hurt.  She thought she was just jarred from the fall.  We won't mention what all of her children thought.  Ahem.....Moving right along!  

To her credit, she did finally go to an orthopedist about 4 weeks after the fall.  They took x-rays and said no fracture.  So she's been operating under the knowledge that nothing was broken.  However she wasn't getting better; only worse.   She was living in constant pain.  Finally she went to another orthopedic surgeon. They did a new set of x-rays and a scan to confirm, but there it was big as day, a hip fracture. Fast forward about a week due to having to make an appointment to see the surgeon for result and finally being told she could just go thru the ER and they would admit her to fix the hip.  So we took her a week ago this past Thursday.  They did surgery on her hip that Friday.  She did great for a day or two and then her knee swelled up and was causing crazy amounts of pain.  They drew fluid off her knee and sent it off to be tested; infection.  Yep, now we have that.  So she's started on antibiotics.  Now she's up and moving around.  She's working with physical therapy and walking down the hall some.  I'm so glad to see her out of pain.  She hasn't needed much for pain in the last couple of days.  She's primarily still in the hospital to finish the antibiotics and because she's on blood thinners to avoid clots.  

We did have a concerning (to put it mildly) moment during her stay.  It seems she has lesions on her pancreas.  They did an MRI to rule out Cancer.  When a doctor says "cancer" to you, it's easy to go to a very dark place.  Fortunately the MRI found no cancer.  We believe the lesions are damage caused by extended use of Tylenol.  We're hopeful, as she heals and isn't taking the pain meds, her pancreas will heal some.  So bear that in mind guys.  You shouldn't need to take any pain med for longer than 2 weeks.  If you're still in pain, see a doctor!!!  Your liver and pancreas will thank you.  

So, as for reworking things;  My siblings and I and banding together to help her during her recovery.  It's probably going to be a 6-8 week journey.  As she progresses, she won't need us as much, but for now, I'll be splitting time between My house and hers.  That means making meals ahead for when I'm gone, but also maybe purchasing things to have here and there to make things more convenient for both myself and my family when I'm away.  The garden is the least of my worries at this moment.  It's finished for the most part anyway.  I have a few cold weather things, but not much.  Clean up will have to wait til later.  Maybe it will give me something to do during the bleak winter months.  I plan to take my sewing with me for times when she doesn't need me.  That way I can keep up my Etsy shop during the holiday shopping season.  

It's what all of use should do in similar, and by that I mean "Crisis" situations.  There will always be things that rear their ugly head at the most inopportune times.  The way to plan for these things is to always recognize they will happen and so be willing to lay aside schedules, processes, and priorities to address them.  My mom is my priority. My family is also a priority.  That means I will do as much as I can to take care of my family and my mom.  I also need to be a priority.  If I'm not a priority to myself, then I won't be able to be there for my mom and family.  So while I will make things ahead primarily:  I will also buy healthy (operative word is healthy) things at the store that I don't have time to take care of at home.  I will also set things aside that don't have to be a priority.  

I'll do my best to post some frugal tidbit, but it may be a repost of something relevant to the season. Please be patient.  I'll be back at the writing desk sooner rather than later.  

If there is a topic you'd be interested in my addressing, please comment below and I'll address it, or post something from a previous post to address it.  Thanks guys!

I know I'm running late with a new post

 My mom is in the hospital, so I may be next week.  Thanks for understanding.