Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Food, Glorious Food!

Well, now that I'm feeling better (13 weeks and I felt GREAT! I cleaned the house, vacuumed for the first time in two months, didn't sit around all day, YEAH!!!) I'm starting to cook. For real.

Not those meal-in-a-box things, but real, made from scratch dinners.

The catch is that I have to find something where I at least have most of the ingredients on hand. Which isn't easy. Many recipes have tons of ingredients that I don't have, can't afford, or have never heard of.

But I have found a few. And some of the things I've tried are simply the first time I've tried something I've heard of before but just never tried on my own.

Last week I made lemon pepper talapia (I spent the money on the fish before our finance situation came to light, though I should have known when I kept hoarding money from the savings...), some green-bean creamed soup, and blueberry crisp (the blueberries were form Walmart and had been in the freezer for months.)

So I ate a lot of it. So much so that for some reason my pregnant body didn't enjoy it the next day, and after forcing myself to eat yogurt with home-made granola (recipe from Tightwadd Gazette) I ended up throwing up for the first time in 3 pregnancies for the simple reason of being pregnant. The rest of the day I felt fine or else like I had pre-13 weeks. (I'm now 14 1/2 weeks.)

But that didn't deter me. Last night I made stuffed pork chops. With cornbread stuffing (bought from Aldi months ago knowing I'd using for SOMETHING) and bacon (from in-laws pigs, along with pork chops), onions, and on the chops marjoram (first time using it...on the spice rack from our wedding 8 years ago), seasoned salt, and pepper.

A little too dry due to not knowing how much over our oven would cook it, and I had already subtracted 5 minutes from the 45 minutes, so next time I'll subtract 10 or 15, but they were DELICIOUS!!!

I made cookies last week for the first time in months as well. Tomorrow I'm thinking Banana bread, which I've never made, ironically, since I love the stuff and have made tons of Zucchini bread which is so similar in a way.

But now with all this cooking I have to find a way to get creative with pork. Not ham, since for some reason we never get ham from the butcher when we get the pork from my in-laws. Probably because it's too expensive, but I'm not sure. I love ham.

Anyway, we have chops, and ham slices (it's not like ham, though, hard to explain), big chunks that I'm not sure what to do with (I'd have to go down and see the label on the paper to know what they are), bacon, sausage, and probably more.

In the summer, I made shish-kabobs, which I LOVED! But now I'm trying to figure out what to make indoors without much hassle and extra ingredients. But this way, we save money by using what we HAVE vs. buying what we don't really NEED. If we can use up all the pork in the freezer, then we are doing good. I already had to throw some out last year from having been in there WAY too long (years, people.) So we really SHOULD use it...it was free, for goodness sake, as a gift, really. It's just I didn't know what to do with all the pork.

And now I have one more option - stuffed pork chops. And it didn't take long to prepare, really. Even less time had I thawed the pork chops ahead of time. I'd have time to make a side dish, maybe out of the many, many bags of frozen veggies in our freezer, gotten from Angel Food or from me trying to buy healthy once. I don't like veggies very much, so I'm not motivated to cook them. Much like the unknown pork products. Ham I could make into casseroles and use potatoes and such. Pork...what do I do with that?

Same with veggies. Cheese, butter, throw them in a casserole. Otherwise I'm lost. So I'll have to look up veggie ideas in my books, too. Though now that I'm thinking about it, we haven't had pot pie in a very long while. I'll see which pork product I think will go best with that and put it on the menu for next week. After all, I DO know how to make white sauce...

Monday, January 15, 2007

Living the Tightwad Lifestyle

Well, we've been here before, but it still hurts a bit.

Today I called the cable company and canceled our cable. It's the only bill we can cancel. Funny how one need electricity and gas and all, but TV isn't a necessity. So it's gone. Which is probably good, and we can get it back later when we can afford it, but it still hurts.

And I still don't know how we're going to make all the rest of the payments this month. I've already dried out the savings account, and if I take any more out they start charging us, so that won't work (let alone if any emergency happens at this point, we're in dire trouble.)

And of course we have to start shopping smarter. I've been shopping every week or two instead of monthly, and I tend to buy items a second time (chicken, beef, chocolate) that we don't NEED. We shop almost exclusively at Aldi's for food, and yet it's the Walmart bill that's out of hand. Each receipt looks innocent enough except the total, so we just have to start adding stuff up before we get to the checkout.

Basically, we have only 230 dollars to spend on groceries and paper/hygene products each month, and that's not counting things like birthday gifts for relatives and other little things that come up.

I know we can do it, as our kids don't eat a lot, yet. But being pregnant I'd LOVE more variety. (On food stamps we couldn't even spend the $400 a month they gave us...had too much food and didn't know what else to get. Looking back, I'd have gotten specialty breads and cheeses and stuff...things I've never even tried yet for lack of funds.)

Anyway, considering families spend $200 a WEEK on groceries, $230 a MONTH seems very little. But it's all that's left after paying the bills....bills that have to be payed are aren't even optional or entertainment related.

We don't eat out (the most expensive place we've eaten is Applesbees, but only with a gift card.) We don't watch movies (no dollar theater around here) but once a year.
We don't even vacation, though not for lack of want.
But the one income, and that being a teacher's, is definately pulling us down right now. My two days at afterschool bring in hardly anything, and Boom wouldn't even have time for a second job with football and schoolwork, besides that I want him here with us.

So we have to cut back. A lot. For now. I have to tell the midwife that we can't make any payments until after our tax return comes in. I have to ask the doctor if I can wait another month to pay the bill.

And yet, I have a hard time complaining. I don't have a hard time crying, because I wish that we weren't here right now. I wish our income was enough to live comfortably. I mean, it's not like I'm asking to go to Jamaica, but I had wanted to buy Honeycomb for the first time in 5 years....

But complaining, I'm not. Because we have our house. A large house, for us. We have two beautiful children. We have a job, a good one. A Boom is good at his job. We have friends. We have a community. I'm the happiest I've been in years, and I really CAN'T complain. I just wish it was different. I wish the numbers came to a different total.

But they don't. And so I'll keep looking at those pottery magazines and thinking of "someday" when I'll be able to get them (why can't our libraries carry them??) I'll remember that others would give anything to even have half of what I have. And someday, we'll hopefully move again, maybe back to more open land with free gas and sewage ($50 a month now that it's finally come), and eventually each year Boom gets a small raise that will help.

So we'll get back on our feet. We will. This year was financially heavy. We redid the attic to make it a room. We got a van because of the dog (and now with a third on the way we need it, anyway.) We got a dog, full breed. We got another truck (20 years old, that is.) And we need yet new windows for upstairs, a new door for the one that doesn't work, new gutters on the whole house (which would help all the water that's pouring into the basement.) Our shed is a joke. And so we aren't even close to being done with spending large amounts of money that we don't have.

But for now we're stable. For now we are warm (Boom is cutting down trees to feed the wood-burning stove downstairs we got from his parents. It heat well but requires much food.) And we are happy.

But I will look forward to the day when the checkbook actually balances withouth having to wait for the next paycheck to clear. And may that day be soon.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

All Fired Up for the New Year

Well, if it wasn't for the fact that I talk too much and thus write too much, and that I'm extremely tired and lazy lately, then I already would have updated this thing. Oh, well. Here's a summary:

I fired my kiln up for the first time! Yippee!!! I was so excited that night, and everything turned out great. I made a whistle for my nephew and my ocarina is the best attempt so far. Now I have to think of what to make next...

Christmas was great except for a few glitches in my in-law part of the family. I won't go into it, but I sometimes wished my kids were as blessed as I was growing up in an almost "perfect" family. But then again, maybe they'll learn compassion for those not like them, and learn how to connect to them since they'll have seen it first hand, where as I have not.

I hope I won't have to renig this in a week from now, but I am also pregnant. We weren't planning on getting pregnant this soon. We were going to TRY in about six months. But alas, I'm 12 weeks right now and the midwife will be coming next Tuesday to hear the heartbeat. I found out the same week my sister found out she lost her baby, so I'm very cautious this time, and disappointed that once again some of the joy is robbed if this pregnancy DOES go well. I hate being the source of someone else's pain, and I'd like for once to enjoy my pregnancy without hiding my joy...

So for 6 weeks now I've been sick. Nauseaus all day long and all night long. I hate morning sickness. It usually lets up around 14 weeks, which means 2 more weeks to go. I love the middle stage of pregnancy, before my hips start dislocating and causing me imense pain....plus I can finally eat with joy again. Oh to have gone through the holidays and not enjoy all the wonderful meals! I hate this!!!!

So, here we are, me laying on the couch most of the day trying to will my stomach to get better, and Boom put in his parents old wood burning stove downstairs which is working like a beaut and heating the whole house even though the vents haven't even been connected to it yet. And the basement is now the warmest place in the house. We need to get a shield for it to keep the heat in the usit more, but they can't find them for now.

Other than that, not much else to report. Too many toys at Christmas as usual (why, Grandparents, WHY!?!?) and unfortunately it was also evident that now that the children are getting older, Pumpkin in particular, apparently at least one side of the family doesn't know my children very well at all. My MIL in particular projects things into my daughter that she always wanted in a daughter of her own. She used to talk about her red hair and blue eyes (even though Pumpkin has neither) and now she gives her all these girlie toys that she has absolutely no interest in. Poor thing kind of sat there as her brother got electronic gadgets like a Thomas the Tank Engine set, a keyboard, a remote control truck and another motorized truck. So I bought her a dart gun, which she loves.

Sometimes I wish Christmas could be so simple as just getting together as family. But then again, seeing as we don't do much as a family over there, I guess it's better we fill the time with unwrapping presents. I just hope next year they are more tuned in. Not that I'm not grateful, in fact, I think one present a kid would have been fine. But at least get them something they'll like. And same goes with the adults. I don't know how much debt she goes into every year (creditors actually call OUR house to get ahold of her) but I do know she could save money by not buying presents that often are not used. She loves giving gifts, and that's wonderful, but sometimes that needs to be balanced with budget and the recipients actual needs in mind.

Which is one reason I'm glad for the kiln this year. I hope to make many gifts from the heart that cost only the firing and the materials that I buy for the clay. I'll enjoy that very much.

One last story. My son is such a goofball, always singing and dancing to music and laughing and running around and being a clown. I can't wait until he talks... But my daughter, she has some very unique traits, and one is that she has an imaginary girlfriend. For about a year at least now she's had a girlfriend, named the same as herself, of course. This girlfriend lives on a farm (or several based on the "my girlfriend lives there" comments as we drive) and she can fly, swim, jump really high, and do many things Pumpkin just can't do yet.

Well, we had my brother-in-law and his girlfriend and their family over for New Year's Eve, and Pumpkin was chasing around the boy who is her age. She was just bawling when she came into the kitchen and I asked her what was wrong. "Hayden won't hug my girlfriend" she cries. Stifling a laugh, I tell her that maybe he can't SEE her girlfriend. "Where is she?" I ask. "Well," she says, "She WAS behind the Christmas tree..." I laugh then and say, "Well, can Hayden give YOU a hug?"

"No, my girlfriend wants a hug."

"Well then where is she?"

Pumpkin steps behind the table and says, "Can you see her? She's right there?" and points to herself. So I sit beside Hayden and whisper to him to go hug Pumpkin, and he does, and she is happy once again. And then me and Hayden's mom just kept laughing.

So there you go. My daughter is, well, imaginative :)