Good Things / Bad Things

Maybe I'll start off with the bad and get it out of the way.

Kroger and Walmart do not seem to carry Tapioca. At least the 2 stores I was in did not reveal any on their shelves. Or I was totally looking in the wrong place, but I really think it would be in the baking goods aisle... around where the Jell-O and stuff is. I NEED tapioca. I'm making 3 apple pies today. Like, TO-DAY today, and will be off on a search for some tapioca before I make them. If I have to go hunt down a tapioca tree and pull off the tapioca berries myself. Ok, I really have no idea where tapioca comes from; probably not from tapioca berries grown on trees...

I spent most of yesterday afternoon walking around Costco and Kroger (a Kroger I'd never been in, so I didn't know the layout and was back and forth all over the store getting what I needed). When I got home, I had just enough time to unload the groceries, put the cold stuff away, load up some other stuff to take to church, and head off to 2.5 hrs. of choir practice (normally one 1.5, but we had some extra stuff to practice for Missions Conference). On the way home I had to stop at WalMart to get "the rest of the stuff" - like frozen peas, because Costco does not carry frozen peas. What?!?! And tapioca.

By this time my brain powers were waning, and my hips and legs were really letting me know that they exist. All I wanted to do was find what I needed, check out, and go sit down in the car so I could drive home and crawl in bed. We parked at the one entrance of Walmart, and of course went in that entrance. After checking out, we walked down to that set of doors to find that when we walk up to them, they didn't open. Neither of us could figure out why. Daniel decided to manually open them. Out of no-where this big, barking voice starts command-style-not-quite-bellowing at us "THE DOOOOORS AAAARRRRRE CLOOOOOSSSSSED". Daniel points out to Mr. Appeared-out-of-nowhere Security Dude that there is no sign posted, nothing indicating that this set of doors closes at any point. Again, "THE DOOOORS AAARRRRRREEE CLOOOOOSSSSED SIR, YOU MAY NOT GO OUT HERE." Daniel says "You mean I gotta walk all the way down to the other end, and walk back up to this end to my car, just to get out?" "THE DOOOORS CLOOOOOSE AT TEN O'CLOCK, SIR, YOU MAY NOT GO OUT THESE DOOOOOORS." I'm ready to bite this guys head off and chew it up. Or sit down and bawl. More like both. I remembered that not 5 minutes earlier I explained to the cashier (who never acknowledged us other than noticing our large purchase of frozen peas) that I was doing some cooking for church and decided it would be kinda bad to be a church-lady one minute and a mad-hornet-cannibal the next, so I clamped my teeth shut and set off for the other entrance. Of course then the security dude tries to play dumb/nice and says "They're supposed to put up a sign. I just work here."

I managed to get out to the car (walking the length of WalMart twice just to do it) and was glad Daniel was driving in his work van. Neither of us was very happy with the security dude, his personality, or the seemingly ridiculous and not posted policy about the doors. I chalked my crazy emotions up to the whole day, not being able to find what I needed, and the mean security guy, and being pregnant on top of it all. And the tears started flowing. I wanted to sit down and bawl, so I did (glad that I didn't have to explain all the hormones/emotions to Daniel). And then I wished I'd pulled my wild card and given that guy a piece or two of my mind, something like "Sir, I'm 21 weeks pregnant, my hips and legs are killing me, your store did not have 1/2 of what I came in here to get, I'm tired, and you're going to make me walk x, y and z to get to my car?!!?" He really was being a smart-___, I was just a customer (a pregnant one!) wanting to get to my car.

Ok. On to the good.

Yesterday my package arrived!! Woohoo!!! I opened it up and tried on all the clothes. 2 black skirts (I ordered 3) fit!!! The white blouse fits!!! The dress.... fits, but we don't have a full-length mirror and Daniel said I looked better in a black skirt & white blouse than in the dress. He also (finally) said that for $40 I should send it back because it doesn't fit/look quite good enough to merit the $40. It feels kinda trash-baggy on me, so I wondered about that. I'm glad I was able to finally pull that out of him. LOL. The denim skirt was too hip-huggy (the 3rd black skirt was the same way), and the jeans! Oh, the darling, wonderful jeans!!! They fit like a charm!! I was so excited! Granted, they are about 3" too long, but a pair of scissors and a couple minutes on the sewing machine (if I can remember where it's packed) can fix that. Why don't they make non-maternity jeans as comfortable and so easy fitting? I don't know.

And the second good: I slept good again last night for the 2nd night in a row! It was a shorter night, and it took a while and some Tylenol (for the hips and legs) for me to be able to go to sleep, but once I was sleeping I slept really well.

Today my #1 goal is to load up the dishwasher and get it going, then start up the clothes-washer. After that, my have-to's for the day are to hunt down some tapioca, make 3 apple pies, 3 cherry pies and 3 batches of rolls (72). I also hope to squeeze in a trip to the chiropractor and hopefully get everything straightened back out again.

So, I'm gonna put on some happy music, and get started!! Toodle-ooo! :)

(Oh - another good thing! I bought new batteries for our cordless phones, so hopefully if you call me I'll actually be able to answer instead of the phone dying in my hand when I push the answer button.)

Buying A Meat Grinder

I am such a weirdo. I mean, how many of you have considered buying a meat grinder? Or maybe you're a weirdo just like me and you've already taken the plunge. I've thought about getting one off and on ever since I turned (even more) frugal a year or so after we got married.

Plain and simple, ground beef is ex.pen.sive. And the "good stuff" is not often marked down, and when it is it's still an arm and a leg per pound (instead of both arms and both legs). I don't mind buying the full-fat ground beef, but my prefrence is the leaner, the better I don't always want to brown and then drain the hamburger before I use it, and I think the leaner stuff makes better whatever.

I'm in the "thinking about it" mode these past couple weeks. Beef roasts seem to be the "loss leader" sale item lately, and I'm just WISHING that I had a meat grinder so I could buy some of these really nice roasts that are on sale for $1.77/lb and make some really nice lean ground beef!

I brought it up to Daniel last week when I saw Food Lion's new salepaper, and we talked about it a little, but I don't know how serious to go with this idea. I checked online and it looks like the best reviews are going to the Waring Pro MG800... and it comes with a price-tag of about 200 smackaroos. So then I have to wonder if it's worth shelling out the $$ to have good quality ground beef for less?

Here's some random figures:

if we eat 100lbs. ground chuck (full fat)/year @ $1.99/lb (on markdown) = $199.00/yr.

If we bought the meat grinder @ $189.00
+ 100lbs. lean roasts @ $1.77/lb
= $3.66/lb the first year
= $2.71/lb the second year
= $2.40/lb the third year
= $2.24/lb the fourth year
= $2.14/lb the fifth year
= $2.08/lb the sixth year
and so on and so forth

Even by the second year (and maybe even the first, I haven't looked at full price) it would be cheaper per pound than full price lean ground beef. Now, I really have no idea how much ground beef we do or would eat per year, but with our expanding family, in another year or two, it's going to start increasing.

You might wonder why I wouldn't go with a manual grinder. Well, my quick answers to that are, first off, it has to be mounted and I'm not really interested in having one of those gizmos bolted to my counter top or kitchen table. And second off, it would take some serious arm gumption to grind through multiple pounds of roast since I would buy several roasts at once to grind through... and to get a nice grind you have to do it more than once, so if I bought 10 lbs. of roast, I would end up grinding 20 lbs. Yes, we could hook a drill up to the grinder (it works great for
Squeezo's!) but then we still have the mounting issue. Even if we would mount it to a block of wood, then we need to have a surface to clamp the whole apparatus to, and neither my counter top or kitchen table would work for that. I could always do it outside on a saw-horse & plywood table, I guess...

And ground beef would only be the beginning! Think of pork roasts that go on sale for under $1.00/lb? Ground pork... homemade sausage of whatever flavor we wanted... Shucks if we wanted to get super healthy we could buy turkeys when they are on sale for $.39/lb and make turkey-burger!

Call me silly, weird, extreme-country-chick, whatever, but I'm really liking the idea of having this machine on my pantry shelf. And yes, I just measured to be sure, and it will just fit on my main appliance shelf :)

Next week I might want to buy a milk cow and butter churn.

And the nightmare continues...

Anyone else on here 5'2", short-waisted and legged, and well-endowed in every area? If so, please tell me where and how you go clothes shopping!!

So we probably didn't hit up the best places to find maternity clothes (it was a last minute planned trip), the 2 places we did go (Kohl's and Target) yielded 2 pieces after trying on a million. In another couple weeks I'm going to not fit in my one skirt that I can still get around my expanding girth, and I'm not going to church naked. The only skirts I saw at either place were ones that my hiney would stick out the bottom. And the pants... I don't know who has such teeny, tiny, short butts!! Honestly! I put on a pair of jeans and the top of the jeans material in the back barely rides above mid-cheek! And if I bend over, the belly band ends up covering my tush while the actual jeans material goes lower and lower. I have to hike everything back up so it's not completely off my butt. Maybe my rear-end is just tall compared to the rest of me. I dunno.

One of my reasons for shopping is that I have 2 weddings to attend in the next month. And I literally have nothing suitable to wear. Unless I can still squeeze into the jeans skirt, but that's not very formal attire.

We ran out of time so we couldn't keep shopping, but we did get a nice pair of loooong black slacks, and I'll lop the ends off and hem them up if that's what I end up wearing. We found a nice top that went with them, and it fit really well... until I went to take it off and realized that if I put my arms out in front of me at all it was too small across the shoulders/armpits. So we tried the next size up, and it was just baggier with the same problem. I did get one top, but not really suitable for wearing with black slacks to a wedding. My problem with the tops is that they are all soooo long, or a cut that just didn't flatter my short bod at all. And I realize that as my belly grows, it'll take more material to cover, but seriously, alot of these things I could tie on a belt and call it a mini-dress.

Soooo.... I just placed an order online for several pieces of clothes. 1 dress, 3 skirts, 1 pair of jeans (that I think and really, really hope ARE the same brand and cut as the capris I have and LOOOOVE and fit really nicely) and a white blouse. And of course the dress is a sleeveless number so if it does indeed fit (crossing my fingers here!) I'll need to go sweater shopping, but that shouldn't be too hard. I don't expect every piece to fit, which is why I ordered several of the skirts. Hopefully one of them will and I'll have something to wear while I slowly get around to other places to try and add to my selection.

And I thought shopping for non-maternity clothes was hard. Now you know why you see me in the same thing time and time again. Because a) it's hard to find stuff that fits me and the budget, and b) what fun is it to shop when nothing fits?

Please don't take this as a whiny, boo-hoo, nothing fits, post. I might feel like that tomorrow morning, or in the next 15 minutes, but not at the current moment of writing this. Just exasperation that every woman on "Petite Top Model" was 5'7" or taller and a toothpick. Yeah right. Guess that makes me a midget or dwarf or something.

Bigger Isn't Always Better

In my latest quest to coordinate meals for 40 people, I am making every effort to save money wherever I can and still get high-quality food. I've written out several meal plans so I know about what I'm looking for, especially the meats. Since I know what meats I want to serve, I can keep my orbs peeled for sales on them. Or, if a really fantastic sale comes up on a meat I don't have planned, I will try and swap it out if I can.

Next week (if it's a go, I still need to make sure I'm doing it - I've learned to never assume!) I have chicken breasts planned. Normally, that is not the cheapest part of the chicken to buy, but I was fairly certain that between the time I planned the meal and the day I would need to prepare it, somebody somewhere was very likely to run a decent sale on it. Sure enough, I opened the sale-papers Sunday to find them on sale for $1.78/lb.

Now, most all people that I've mass-cooked with (aside from my sisters) are all about convenience when it comes to purchasing food. If they can buy it in bulk the day before, then that is the way they will automatically go. I wonder if they ever consider that they could pay 50+% less if they pre-shopped a bit and hit the sales? I dunno. I also understand that it could depend on if you're feeding 50 or 500 - I doubt Food Lion will want to sell you a whole shipment of Chicken Breasts! But they might, who knows :)

Just to be sure, both last week when I was getting 40 lbs. of chuck roasts, and this week when I hope to buy 65 chicken breasts, I've called around to all the "big box stores" to make sure I'm getting the most bang for my buck.

This week, here are the price comparisons for Fresh, Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts:
Costco - $2.99/lb (yoweee!!!)
BJ's - $2.79/lb (Yikes!!)
Sam's Club - $1.97/lb (that's more like it)
Farmer's Foods - $1.78/lb (normally $3.79) - now THAT's what I'm talkin' 'bout!!

I also check with the local store to make sure there isn't a limit on how much I can buy. If I do end up buying from the local store, I will check with them again to make sure they have the amount I want available.

I will most likely end up buying some things from the big box stores, but if I see what I need for a good deal, I'm going to get as much as I can on sale. For instance, I also need Cream of Onion soup for next week. Guess what's on sale at Kroger this week with coupons? Campbell's Cream Soups! For a very good price. A low enough sale price that I won't run to each big box store to compare the per-can price, especially since I won't use a whole case.

I guess the punch-line to all this is that yes, the big box stores ARE cheaper than the non-sale price at the local stores. BUT, so far they can't beat the sales!!