21 Tuesday Apr 2015
Posted in Accomplishments
≈ Comments Off on Last Week’s Accomplishments – Spring Cleanup
Most things now are revolving around the late spring start. But the weather warmed up quite quickly and if it stays that way we should have a reasonable transition to summer.
20 Monday Apr 2015
The first shopping trip last week was to Wegman’s. This was a mix of things we were running low on that are regularly at a good price and items for which there were specific coupons this week. The pastry in the front right, for example, was free.
Second, I went to Star Market. This is a pretty representative trip there for us – lots of oatmeal, pizza cheese, and pizza dough. I haven’t been so happy with their pizza dough lately (It’s not Star Market specific. I bought a package at Stop & Shop recently of the same brand that was equally disappointing.). Hence I’m going to try the Wegman’s pizza dough. I’ve been meaning for a while to get back to making my own dough. This might just push me over the edge.
I got a few pre-made items – Turkey dinner and rotisserie chicken – for the fast meals I needed last week. I got rye for the Reubens as Wegman’s didn’t have any of the brands we prefer. And, I picked up a few items on sale. The goldfish had a store-specific coupon that made it cheaper than Wegman’s, but I could only buy one. The Pringles were free with the Cheez-It purchase, which were the same price at Wegman’s but without the Pringles.
It’s a holiday week here – Patriot’s Day – so meals should be a bit more relaxed with no after school activities.
Saturday
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza
Sunday:
Hamburgers on the grill
Monday:
Steak
Red potatoes
Salad
Tuesday:
Take-out pizza
Wednesday:
Chicken with artichokes
Sweet potatoes
Thursday:
Kids: Chicken nuggets
Adults: Homemade macaroni & cheese
Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza
17 Friday Apr 2015
Posted in Product Reviews
≈ Comments Off on Ball Frozen Herb Starters
I bought these about a month ago in an attempt to waste fewer fresh herbs. I don’t own ice cube trays so those were not an option.
First, the good. They are easy to fill, and it is easy to remove the cubes from the green base once they’re frozen. The recommendation is to remove them to a Ziploc bag after freezing, which I did. They stayed separate in the freezer and went into my next recipe just fine. Plus, with two trays per box there’s plenty of capacity to freeze the remainder of a grocery store bunch at once.
But … The lids are impossible to get off – at least that is my experience thus far. I filled my trays and snapped them on no problem. But, once frozen the lids have no give. I had to use a screwdriver to pry them off (I seriously contemplated smashing them with a hammer or just throwing them away it was so frustrating). In the process I drew blood from my hand as the screwdriver slipped multiple times. (Photo is from the next day.)
What’s worse is that I wrote to Ball with my experiences two weeks ago and … radio silence. I admit it is possible I did something wrong. Namely, I am going to try using them again but with less fluid so there might be some give at the top. But, I read and followed all of the instructions that came with them, had issues, and got no response from customer service. That is just wrong.
16 Thursday Apr 2015
Temperatures here are still running in the 40s. And its been rainy so it feels colder. Therefore, I decided to go through the freezer and pantry to identify foods we use primarily in the winter so I don’t have to store them all summer. In the summer we BBQ more and use the oven less. I also don’t pack lunches so single serve items are in much less demand.
Here’s what I found. I’m going to aim to use these up before Memorial Day.
Pantry
Freezer
Refrigerator
Most of these items are seasonal and will go on sale again before I need them for the holidays or we reach the depths of next winter.
15 Wednesday Apr 2015
Posted in Home
≈ Comments Off on There is Still Snow
Mercifully, all the snow in our yard disappeared yesterday. That was a long time coming.
But, drive around and its not hard to spot the stuff still. Sometimes its in the woods; its certainly in big piles in the mall parking lot. But, its also in small piles where it was shoveled or plowed and the sun hasn’t gotten to all of it.
It’s been pretty warm this last week. But, what snow is left is very dirty. It’s supposed to cool off again next week. I imagine the snow will be around for a while still.
14 Tuesday Apr 2015
Posted in Accomplishments
≈ Comments Off on Last Week’s Accomplishments – Spring Sports Get Going
We’ve had a handful of nice days. But, there’s still a little bit of snow. One or two more nice days should be enough to finish it off.
13 Monday Apr 2015
I don’t like doing this, but last week I went to three food stores on the same day. I had intended to split them up, but sick kids at home limited my chances to get out.
I was at Stop & Shop first. The cheese ($5 total for three packages) and potatoes were on particularly good sales. The Parmesan and margarine were not so this is to stay afloat until the next sale.
We went to Wegman’s next. This week’s coupon was for seafood so we got some nice tuna steaks. The cheese is just good. And, I picked up a few other items that are regularly priced better there.
Finally, we were in need of a trip to BJs. Obviously we got a lot of milk. We’re also gearing up for sports season so I got pre-sliced apples for soccer snack next week and some Gatorades for when we have to go directly from one sport to another.
Unfortunately, now that the spring schedules are rolling in, its become apparent that we’re going to have rather few family dinners for a few weeks – none this week. And, I didn’t figure this out until it was too late to produce leftovers. I need to dig up a few more kid specific / adult specific fast meals.
Saturday:
Kids: Macaroni & cheese
Adults: Homemade pizza
Sunday:
Tacos
Monday:
Kids: Hot dogs
Adults: Reubens
Tuesday:
Kids: Turkey dinner
Adults: Homemade pizza
Wednesday:
Asiago chicken
Thursday:
Chicken chili
Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza
10 Friday Apr 2015
Posted in Family
≈ Comments Off on Stomach Sickness and Bunk Beds are Not a Good Match
There will be no picture today. You really don’t need that.
I’m of mixed opinions on bunk beds. The boys like them and they give us a bunch more floor space, which is nice. But, its difficult to do the sheets/blankets under good conditions, let alone when someone is sick. This time I decided to clean from the floor up, which might seem kind of backwards but which allowed me to get closer and closer to the heart of the problem without having to touch/cross the mess.
But, there was the full bedding on top, plus the quilt on the bottom (removed from sleeping child and replaced without waking him up!). We lost one stuffed animal, but its recent and can be reordered; the others in his bed were saved. We threw out four stuffed animals that got hit a bit, but nobody actually uses anyway. I might have been able to clean them, but it was a good reason to reduce our stuffed animal count. Thankfully the furniture nearby was easy to clean and the waterproof mattress cover almost entirely spared the mattress. Finally, I tossed the rug from that side of the room. It’s 10 years old from Target and the matching one from the other side of the room is worn too so I may just replace them both. Either way it wasn’t worth the effort of cleaning it.
The rug and animals were the biggest casualties of this illness. My two year-old did hit the couch when he had it, but I already had the fabric on order to reupholster it so its sanitized, but I’m not worrying about it much.
09 Thursday Apr 2015
Posted in Home
≈ Comments Off on It Ain’t Over ’til it’s Over
It was cold yesterday – 30s. We had accumulating hail in the late afternoon.
And, we woke up to SNOW this morning.
Admittedly, it was just a dusting. And, it had started to melt a bit even when I took this picture. (The big pile is some of what’s still left from the winter.) Now it’s a cold rain. This does not bode well for sports this weekend.
08 Wednesday Apr 2015
Posted in Home
≈ Comments Off on Built-in Microwaves
I was at yet another house last week with a built in microwave. In contrast I have never owned one. In fact here’s the microwave we bought for our first apartment many years back.
Through multiple moves and multiple states, we’ve never had reason to get rid of it. It’s not the most powerful (definitely do not try cooking a TV dinner), but it reheats, thaws, and boils just fine which is really all I need for a microwave to do.
I got to thinking about this because the day before the above mentioned visit my little guy did this to our kitchen counter.
Now, I’m not a fan of tile countertops; I would never install one. But, this came with the house so now we’ll have to try to find the right glue to fix it. I suppose if we were to ever redo a kitchen we’d probably have solid counters and a built-in microwave.
Busy in the Burbs 
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