Groceries and menu planning

Now that I have my refrigerator, I had to go shopping! I wrote up a menu, sort of, first. Then I went to Sam's, but I was smart, I stopped at Taco Bell and had a taco first!
I bought a box of frozen salmon fillets, a bag of chicken breasts, a bag of cheese ravioli and a bag of sliced frozen strawberries and some fresh blueberries. I still have a big bag of walnuts and two bags of raisins, and my canned chicken from Sam's for my Chicken Salad.
I bought some Laura's boneless petite sirloin steak yesterday at Kroger and it is in the crockpot now, with some beef stock. I know that will horrify some, but I need it very tender and completely cooked. It will fall apart when I pull it out for dinner, and I will eat the last of it tomorrow. I also bought some of Laura's ground round, which I will make sloppy joe mix out of.
I will be eating Chicken Salad for lunch this week, and the Sirloin on Mon and Tue, Salmon on Wednesday, Sloppy Joe on Thursday, and then I am heading for Mom's on Friday afternoon. We will see what she feeds me! I am really looking forward to meeting Rachel and Mason and seeing Joel again. I hope Gwyn will be up so I can see them interact together. I will try to get some video to post.

Chicken Salad a la Kate
13 oz can of Sam's Premium Chunk Chicken Breast 98% fat free
1 Cup of Walnut pieces
1 Cup of raisins
Can of drained mandarin oranges
Poppyseed dressing to moisten
Mix it all up and serve on fresh Spinach.

I love this stuff!

I have a refrigerator!

They had to take my back door off the hinges to get it in, but it is here! He said all these old houses in Herrin have tiny doors, but one of my fall projects is replacing it with 36" door. I went sh0pping to fill it up. Most of the stuff is in the freezer while the unit cools down. Yeah!

dig the glasses

10 off 40 Walgreens deal

I got an email coupon yesterday for $10 off a $40 purchase at Walgreens this Friday and Saturday. The new September rebates start today, so this was my deal. I bought

2 Dryel starter kits, on sale for 7.99 each

1 Nivea body wash 4.99

1 Walgreens antacid sale for 7.99

1 Loreal anti wrinkle serum 12.36 on sale.

Total was $41.32

-10 coupon

- 2 $4 coupons Dryel

-$3 Loreal

-$1 Nivea

= 18.38 oop with tax

I will get back the 12.36 Loreal rebate,

4.99 Nivea rebate and

7.99 Walgreens antacid rebate=

$25.34 plus 10% for having it put on my Walgreens gift card,

=$27.80-18.38=$9.42 profit, and I use the Dryel all the time for my Ebay non-washables.

You can see how much others saved at Money Saving Mom Super Savings Saturday!

No refrigerator

I waited and waited for a call last night to schedule the delivery of my refrigerator, but it never came.

After I opened up the building at work this morning I got out my receipt to find a phone number for the delivery and walked out on the landing to call, since I can't get a signal in my huge concrete monstrosity of a building. I tried right before 8 and no one answered, and no machine picked up, so I figured I would call later.

No sooner had I got back inside then 2 text messages from Karen popped up and a notice that I had a voicemail. I read the texts and assumed that the message was from Karen, so called it to listen.

It was the delivery lady calling at 7:30am, while I was still finishing off opening the building. She left a call back number, so I stepped outside again to call. She says "They will be delivering your refrigerator between 8 and 12 this morning. " I said I am sorry, but I am at work. I waited for your call last night to schedule and never heard from you. She says she called repeatedly and got no answer. (there are no missed calls from last night on my phone.) She then says they are loading up your refrigerator right now and you are first on the list so they should be there in 30 minutes. I tell her I am in Carbondale and even if I left immediately I am not sure I will be there in time. Silence on her end. I ask if they can come back later in the day. NO. I hang up and call my boss and say I am on my way in to the office to turn in my keys because I have to leave right now. He says ok, and I run inside to get my bag.

I can't find my car keys. I get all the way out to the car, which is parked in the parking garage, and my keys are not in my bag, nor are they in my ignition. Where are they? I run back into the building, hoping I left them in the drawer or on the desk, but not remembering handling them this morning. I call Karen before I get into the building, because she has a spare. She is waiting for a shot in her knee. I get back to my office, no keys. I call Karen's Dad, and ask him to bring me my spare, which Karen says is in her glove box, in her car in their garage, since she drove her Dad's car to her Doctors appointment. Are you still with me?

Karen's Uncle Dave is visiting, and is parked behind Karen's car, which is why she took her Dad's car. Her Dad looks in the glove box, finds a key, and Uncle Dave drives him to campus to give me the key. It is the wrong key. So they drive me to the office to turn in my keys and pager and paperwork, and we go back to their house to see if we can find the key or else let me take Karen's car to my house and deal with my car later. Jack goes inside to find the key to Karen's car and I get in to look for my key. I pull everything out of the glove box and find my key.

I get a call from the delivery man, he is at my house, where am I? OH, well let me call my boss and we can reschedule, he says. I am fuming. FUMING. Uncle Dave gives me a ride back to my car, and my keys are sitting on the front seat. What? Yes, on the front seat. Why today? I don't know. I thank Uncle Dave and lead him off of campus, and head home. I am not a happy camper. Miss delivery scheduler person calls me back. They don't deliver on Thursdays, they can deliver Friday morning or Saturday morning. I am not taking another day off of work for this so it is scheduled for Saturday morning.

And how was your morning?

Temporary

Had my dental appointment today and they put in a post for the crown. I have a temporary crown until Sept 15, but it looks pretty good. Still can't bite down on it till the permanent one is installed. With cement. Yeah, baby. I am doing some research for Brian and Mom's Trip to Rome at Christmas time. Found some interesting places. When we narrow it down some I will post them here.

My refrigerator comes home tomorrow. Yayyyyyy.

Jean-Claude wants the kittens

Birthday present

I celebrated my birthday a day early and went to a huge booksale event at the YMCA in southern St. Louis. Made 3 trips out to my car with bags of books. To top it off I had called Anne earlier in the day and went to her house on my way home. I stayed for dinner, which was delish and welcomed the opportunity to catch up a bit. I just saw her at the reunion last month, but we really didn't get much of a chance to talk. She has a very nice home on the golf course and I will surely be back some time to visit with her, her Mom, and Eli!

It is dead.

It didn't work. My refrigerator is dead. I went to Home Depot, Sears, Best Buy and Lowes this afternoon. I think I am getting a Energy Star bottom freezer from Sears. $800. I guess this will be my birthday present. A year ago I got two kittens. They were a lot of fun. They still are.

How fast can you spend money?

so the refrigerator guy was here today. Seems my capacitor had gone out, which caused my compressor to overheat which then shut everything down. He was able to get it running by replacing the starter with a hard start kit. A new compressor would cost as much as a refrigerator but he couldn't say how long this one will last, 2 hours or 2 years. I will just keep a thermometer in it and when it quits cooling again I will replace the refrigerator. Sigh. This visit only cost $125.
I have an appointment for Tuesday to start the crown on my tooth, and I am just thankful there are 3 paydays in this month!
I did get quite a few auctions listed Sunday and yesterday, so there is some extra money being generated. I am thinking about letting myself go up to the St. Louis YMCA book fair this week-end as a birthday present to myself. So there!

Root Canal

Not too bad. My appointment was at 1:15 and I was out of there by 2:30. Two shots of novacaine and I lost my nose. He told me it would come back, and it did. I remember now what I hate about the dentist. It's that darn drill. And feeling pieces of your teeth fly around till they get sucked up by the aide. Shivers. Now I have to wait two weeks for the appointment for the crown.

Oh, my refrigerator was 80 degrees inside this afternoon. It is now unplugged and everything is in the trash. Good thing tomorrow is pick-up day. This is an expensive week.

Teeth

Ok, Mom. I have a root canal tomorrow at 1:15, and then have to wait two weeks for the fitting for the crown. I have my antibiotic prescription filled. Now I just have to show up. Yuck.

Beautiful day for a yard sale!

So I got up this morning and hit a couple of church rummage sales before checking out the yard sales. Got quite a few paperback books and dropped off a 36 pound box of books for Brian at the post office. Then I came home and played in the blackberries for an hour, still worked up a sweat, dang it. We got down below 60 last night, and the high is supposed to be low 80's. I can handle that. Really. I am still using the freezer as a fridge, and will get a call in to the repairperson sometime this week. When I feel like it. Need to get some books photographed and up for auction tomorrow, but right now I am going to play with some cats.

Freezer!

is still out of whack. I have it turned up all the way and it still will not freeze icecubes, so I guess I am going to call the repairman. I emptied it and took out the back panel of the freezer compartment. The fan works fine, maybe too much. It could be that the auto-defrost is stuck in the on position, but even knowing that, I don't know what to do about it. Sigh. All the meat has been tossed and the veggies are about to go. Cheese will be okay in the refrigerator. I will take my berries over to Karen's. I am having fun, can you tell?

Cleaning out the refrigerator

You know it has been too long when you find an unopened container of sour cream that was best used by Nov. 12, 2004. My freezer has not been cold enough to freeze my blackberries for 2 weeks, and I found that the seal on the bottom of the door had pulled loose somehow. I pushed it back into it's slot and tightened everything down. I then decided to sort the freezer for items that may have thawed and needed to be tossed. Not so much, thank goodness. But once you get started, you have to finish, so I pulled everything out of the fridge and cleaned it out. Yikes. I am going to try very hard to only buy what I am going to use during the week. We will see how long that lasts!