To dos, keeping produce fresh, bulk cooking and CVS

Hello - another illness bug came to visit me the end of February.  I was the only family member that had this one.  I did almost nothing for 5 days but I'm better now, and trying to get back on track.  

Today was a free day for me, no grandchildren or appointments,  so I wrote out a list of things that needed done at home and I added some more things as I thought of them,  

Because of the 2 bouts of illness in February and my husband being away helping his parents for a week,  we didn't use very many of the groceries we bought at the beginning of the month.
While we were sick, we mostly ate crackers, rice, jello, canned soup and easy to digest foods.



I store our clean, fresh produce in the fridge and I seal it in either plastic containers with tight seals or in plastic bags with the air squeezed out.
I've always thought our produce keeps a good while and this month, it really stayed nice.

These boxes hold mini peppers, celery and broccoli. 

Below are the receipts for when I bought this produce.  All were purchased the very end of January.  

Some was from Aldi and some was from a military commissary. 

More of the old produce- but still plenty fresh enough looking that I'll be using them,

A head of cabbage and 4 heads of romaine lettuce.  

I also straightened up the freezer and saw a lot of meat.  We didn't have much prepared meat so I pulled out ground beef and a roast.  

I cooked 1 pot of chili and almost 5 pounds of taco meat. 

The roast beef was cooked with pepperocini and beef broth in a slow cooker until very tender.  

I shredded it and then froze it in the broth and peppers it cooked in.  This makes a really nice hot sandwich filling.  

I ended up with 4 meal sizes of chili, 6 of Taco meat and 4 of pepperocini beef.  

Having meals started ahead of time is almost as good as having money or time in the bank.  They are really welcome on busy days.  

In the afternoon, I made a short  shopping trip to CVS

I used $10 in extracarebucks from last, some coupons from the CVS red box, $1 Xtra and $2 Fructis coupons from coupons.com 

After deductions, I paid $10.58 and got back $10 extracarebucks for next week.

Today is Andie's 5th birthday.  She was born a preemie and took a helicopter flight right after that to a big hospital.  She gave us all a scare but you would never know now she had a difficult beginning.  She is the tallest child in her class and smart as can be ❤
She's not lacking in the self confidence department either.

There was a Mardi Gras party yesterday afternoon at my parent's retirement home.  I took little Jackson and he celebrated like a Proud Cajun.  He put all those beads on himself.  

Let the good times roll ❤ 

New hair doo-dads, cooking, grands, etc.

This will be a post covering many subjects......

Have you ever noticed on EBay some of the crazy-cheap items that come directly from China?  I have ordered several and have only been a little disappointed with one.  

Link for the recipe for the Pickle cheese spread that I talk about at the end of this post.  But I'm on my iPad and the Blogger app likes to do things it's own way. 

Those pictures don't really show the actual size but this stretchy elastic all rolled up was about the size of a big cookie and the envelope was just big enough for it.
Seems things in the US are shipped in packaging much larger than needed.  I recently got a tiny bottle of nail glue shipped in a 10 by 13 envelope.
Stuff coming straight from China also takes awhile, 3 weeks at least or longer.
This elastic was a true bargain.  

EBay polka dot elastic lot

What the elastic looked like after some of grands played with it 😱

I bought it to make headbands for myself.  I had enough to also make pony tail holders.  I made mine on the small side because I have thin, fine hair.  

This was a very quick project, I just cut them to comfortably go around and stay on my head and then tied a knot.  The Pinterest tutorials said to sear the ends to stop fraying but mine don't seem to be the fraying kind.  

I'm happy to have so many new hair so dads for $3ish.  

I'm still happily using Impress press on nails.  I can usually get two manicures from each set.  They cost about $6 a set.  I think $3 a manicure is a great deal as a gel manicure in my town is about $40. 

I haven't wrote out a pretty to do list in months but I did this week.  It's just notebook paper on a clipboard that hangs outside our pantry.  The washi tape was from Dollar Tree and all these stamps were from a thrift store.  

I don't always get it all done but the list helps keep me on track.  

One of the tasks was bread baking.  I mixed up two double batches of sandwich buns and one double batch of cinnamon raisin rolls.  The bread machine does most of the work for me. 

We eat some, we share them with family and they keep in the freezer beautifully. 

I rarely buy store bought bread.  

I try to garden but I truly don't have the green thumb gift.  But 2 years ago, my brother gave us a potted Easter lily.  When it was done blooming, I planted that bulb in our front flower bed.
I was so surprised when it rebloomed last spring.
And I was even more surprised to see that over the year, it has reproduced and is growing up lots of lilies.

The past weekend was busy as all our 8 grands were here off and on.  

I didn't take any group photos but I did get them to all help make this handprint rainbow of their sweet little hands.  

The younger the child, the harder it is to get a good handprint.  My brother and our oldest granddaughter helped with the painting and printing of the 

3 youngest.  

I wasn't sure how many people would be here and when over that weekend so I did some meal prep ahead.
I made 2 fresh fruit trays as all the grands like fruit and so do the adults. 

I also made a fresh vegetable tray and some dip made of cream cheese, dried beef and dill pickles.  I was inspired by a recipe Cheryl posted on her blog.
I was going to make Cole slaw too but ran out of prep time.  

Some clever letter rearranging

This was in yesterday's Oklahoman newspaper.

I think it's fun and clever. 

Anyone know any more  of these? 

live up to my motto day

hello - you all are so sweet and kind to be concerned and offer advice about that nasty stomach bug.
Currently, to the best of my knowledge,  all my family members are virus free and no one else has gotten sick.  So,  I am cautiously optimistic that a most unpleasant situation is over~!


Monday,  I spent most of the day cleaning our home with Lysol and Bleach.  - to obliterate any lingering germs.

Today,  our home wasn't really dirty but it definitely needed some attention,  just lots of things needed put away, etc.  So I wrote out this list and got started

Before in the living room

after- toys put away, blankets straightened, some clutter cleared and the Valentine decorations all packed away  

well - there doesn't seem to be a before in the master bedroom but here is the after- bed made,  clutter dealt with, everything dusted

laundry room before- just little laundry

all laundry done and put away

kitchen- before

after- there were lots of odds and ends on every surface- all put away now!

Pantry- this wasn't on my list but it should of been.  It was messy

after an hour,  the pantry is much better and I found several things I thought we were out of. 

dining room before

dining room- midway- I had time cut out a kimono top for me from an internet tutorial.  Ill let you all know how it turns out after I sew it.  It was very fast to cut out.
I also found a square tablecloth while I was looking for fabric. 

I cut down the table cloth and made a super simple and fast table runner.  I've been wanting to do something for this table for awhile and this project was just the spruce up I was hoping for. 

That's my day.  I did some stuff and stuff got done. 

hope you all are getting stuff done that you want to do too!

A little sick here, a lot of sick there, sick everywhere

There is a stomach bug going around our area that seems to be visiting almost everyone. Some people are just sick a couple days.  Others are sick for a week.   And after the bug seems to be gone, it sometimes comes back.
All our grands have had it.  Some of their parents have had it.  My dad was so sick, he needed rehydration by IV at the emergency room.  My husband and I had a short-lived bout with it.

Some school districts have closed.

Anyway,  I am really concerned about it and did some research,
These 2 graphics  are from  stopthesromachflu.com

This one really has lots of points that I never thought of.  I had no idea this bug could be contagious so long.  

There are also lots of natural ways to help with this bug on Pinterest.  

I hope none of you are dealing with this but if you are,  some of this might help.  

We had some lemon lime soda, jello, Gatorade, bananas, rice and saltine crackers on hand before we got sick.  We sure appreciated having these things here and not having to ask for help.  I will be restocking those things very soon - just in case! 

No,  I have not been sick the entire time since I last posted, and I will have a more normal post soon.