Busy Week!

I have had a busy week around the house and haven't been setting aside time to blog.  DD#4 dropped my camera last week so it's also been hard to just snap photos of what I'm doing.  Usually those quick photos are what I make blog posts of.  A camera phone photo requires about 5 steps to make it to the blog instead of 2 with the camera.

Late tonight my good friends, Ruth & Justin, are coming to stay for the weekend.  I have been busy cleaning the guest room, moving some clothing bins, and even painting a wall in preparation of their arrival.

Additionally, we have DD#3's birthday party this weekend so I've been doing a lot of preparation for that as well.  Here are some photos of that:

Silverware/Napkins

Parting Gift - Cookie Dough (Just add butter & egg)

DD#3 fills her Cookie Monster pinata

Today I'm working on finally getting those clothing bins stored and finishing the tags for the take-home cookie dough.

I also ordered another camera so hopefully I'll be back in action soon.

Katie

Pot Roast Leftovers

I made a big pot roast recently and ran into my normal problem: Too few vegetables!  I always chop far more than the recipes direct but when it comes time to eat the veggies inevitably run out.

So I had a big hunk of leftover meat that I would normally turn into pulled pork, but we've had a lot of pulled pork recently and I just love the veggies that cook up with pot roast.  I decided to try another route.  I still had all the juices in the crockpot from the original cooking so I made up another round of vegetables.

With all the leftover meat it made up 6 individual portions for lunches.  Yummo!  I only have five in the photograph because I had already eaten one by time I assembled the others.  =)  

DH loves (I mean, luuuuuuurves) pulled pork so I probably won't get to do this too much in the future.  Maybe next time I'll make a round two of veggies only before I make pulled pork.

Katie

Weekly Menu Plan and Goals

Dinners:
Monday - Leftovers
Tuesday - Chocolate Chip Pancakes (Joanna's Birthday choice)
Wednesday -Pulled Pork
Thursday - Spaghetti
Friday - Baked Potato Soup
Saturday - $1 Hamburgers
Sunday - Popcorn & Smoothies

Lunch:
Monday - Grilled Cheese
Tuesday - Quesadilla
Wednesday - Mac'n'Cheese
Thursday - Pizza
Friday - Finger Food Lunch
Saturday - Grilled Cheese
Sunday - PBJ

I did well with my goals last week!  DH helped me finish the kitchen backsplash - hooray! and I finally got the sticker residue of the kids' toilet.  I managed to get the wall painted in the pink bedroom during church Sunday morning.  DH took the kids to church and I painted frantically then headed to church myself.  I didn't finish rototilling because the weather has been pretty junky.

Goals for this week:
1) Garden - Rototilling & remaining plants in
2) Home - Bleach bathrooms
3) Kitchen - Prepare for the Meal Swap on June 11th
4) Blogs - Update "Good Price" grocery list

Katie

Weekly Shopping - $73.36

I must begin by apologizing for the terrible photos this week.  DD#4 dropped my camera on the floor and it's kaput.  I've searched high and low for DD#1's digital camera to no avail so I had to resort to my camera phone: a 2009ish non-smart phone

Next, this was a bit of a stocking up week because the Memorial Day grocery deals are normally great for condiments, chips, pop, etc.  I anticipated a lot of shopping trips and a lot of spending, but as it turned out I only did the normal amount of shopping.

My first stop was Fred Meyer.  My daughters were giggling that I bought four of most things.  "Mom, you're Mrs. 4 today!"  I spent $20.11 on a TON of stuff!

Nabisco Crackers - $1.67 each ($0.75/2 MC)($.075/2 MC) = $1.30 each for 4
Nabisco Crackers - $1.67 each ($1.00/2 MC) = $1.17 each for 2
Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce - $.89 each ($1.00/4 MC) = $.64 each for 4
Cream Cheese - $1.00 each for 4
Bell Peppers - $0.50 each for 3
Cucumbers - $0.50 each for 4
8 oz. Shredded Mozzarella - $1.50 each for 4 ($3 per pound is my absolute max price for cheese but mozzarella doesn't go on sale often so I allowed myself this purchase)
Bananas - $0.64/lb
Green Onions - $0.44
Romaine - $1.00

I also had a $5/$25 coupon that came as part of my quarterly Fred Meyer Rewards.

My next stop of Safeway for cereal.  I spent $15.99.  I decided to buy a gallon of milk because we a) were on our last quart of delivered milk and I figured another gallon would last us until our next delivery and b) I was pleasantly surprised to see organic gallons were only $4.49.

Cereal - $1.67 each ($1/3 MC)($1/3 MC) = $1.33 each
Milk - $4.49
Pasta - $0.50 on clearance
Turkey Hot Dogs - $1.00 each

I stopped in to QFC just because I wasn't ready to go home yet and I usually find some good clearance deals there.  I didn't have a single thing I planned to buy and spent $14.10.  I kicked myself - hard - when I found organic milk on clearance for $2.89 each.  Oh well.  I bought it and cancelled our milk delivery for the coming week.

Milk - $2.89 on clearance
Eggland's Best cage free - $2.19 on clearance ($0.50/1 MC)($0.75/1MC) = $1.53 each
Lunch Meat Turkey - 16 oz - $2.99 on clearance ($0.55/1 MC) = $2.44
Brown Cow plain, organic yogurt cups - $0.59 each (for smoothies)
Organic yogurt cups - $0.49 each

Finally I picked up a few things at Dollar Tree when I stopped in to pick up balloons for DD#3's birthday.  I spent $6.00.

Tortillas - $1.00 each
Syrup - $1.00 each
Pepperoni - $1.00 ($1/2 MC)($1/2 MC) = $0.50 each
Note on the pepperoni: Until recently I had been buying a different package of Hormel pepperoni because the rounds of pepperoni were smaller and fit more tidy on the pizza.  But I realized those packages were only 1.75 ounces compared to these packages of 3 oz each.  I'm getting almost double the pepperoni for the same price.

Our milk delivery this week was $11.16
I bought 3 dozen eggs from my friend for $6.00

Total groceries this week: $73.36
Total groceries-to-date in 2013: $1,750.82
Average per week 2013: $83.37

Katie

Warehouse Book Sale in Kent

Once Sold Tales is going out of business by May 31.  They are clearing out thousands of items from their Kent warehouse at amazing prices including $1.50/lb for children's books and $.50 CDs.  Thrifty NW Mom has a very informative blog post here.  Check it out for tips, directions, and lots of details.

Katie

How to Use Bread Crust? Strata!

 A couple of weeks ago our church had a big Ladies' Tea and we helped out in the kitchen with food preparation.  We made about 150 cucumber sandwiches, trimmed off the crusts, and cut them into 3 small sandwiches each.  Lorraine, our awesome queen of the kitchen, never wastes anything.  She asked us to stuff all the trimmed off crusts into the empty bread bags.  But then what?  What do you do with 8 bags of bread crusts?  Well, I took two home because I knew it would make Lorraine happy to know they weren't going to waste and I made strata - twice.

I had a MOPS meeting coming up and I'd committed to bring a hot dish.  Breakfast casserole is very inexpensive to make and easy to transport in my insulated hot dish bag so I figured I'd make a strata to use up some bread crusts.  It's basically just using bread in place of potatoes and more milk.

A very tiny amount of the bread crusts.  You can see bits of cucumber.

Bread, cooked sausage, and cheese

Add eggs and milk, then pop in the over at 350.

I didn't take a photo afterward, but it looked yummy.  It was super moist and the sausage was flavorful but the rest was pretty bland.  Also the occasional cucumber bite tasted odd.   One 9 X13 pan only used 1/3 a bag of crusts so there will be more strata in our future.  I'm going to try and mix it up with bacon, ham, veggies, and other spices so it isn't so bland as it was this time.  I'll also probably pull the cucumber bits out. 

I might also make croutons to use some of those crusts up.

Katie

Small Savings Projects - 20 Week Update

I've been working on 3 areas of savings in 2013 and I gave you an update at 10 weeks.  I thought now that we're at 20 weeks I'd update again.

First is the 52 weeks of savings plan with DD#1.  The original idea is to save $1 the first week of the year, $2 the second week, et c, all the way to $52 the last week of the year.  We modified it so that we can save any of the weekly assigned amounts as long as we do all 52 over the course of the year.  We quickly filled up the lowest numbers ($1 through $10) so I am trying to reserve many of the "teens" for weeks when I am low on funds.  I have been trying to set aside whatever is left from my weekly household allowance for this project, but it's harder and harder to add the big numbers!  We did use the $52 recently.  So far we have saved $379 for Disneyland!  

Here is DD#1's chart.  We write on it each Monday crossing off which weekly amount we're saving and adding it to our running total.  Then DD#1 counts it all up to make sure we added correctly. 

The next savings project is setting aside $10 each week for big summer bulk food purchases like peaches and apples that I will can.  Unfortunately this savings project is not going as well as the Disneyland savings.  I've only set aside $70 all year.  But $70 is something and it will mean that my entire weekly household allowance won't go toward the 150 pounds of peaches I hope to buy.  I have not abandoned this project but it's increasingly difficult to set aside $10 when I also am trying to save over $20 for the Disneyland savings and also withhold small bills to buy eggs.  I'm hoping to put a big "catch-up" chunk of cash in this envelope after our garage sale in June.

Finally, we are also saving for Christmas expenses.  We have been able to budget $100 each month so far in the first 4 months of 2013.  I am hoping it works out for May, too.  I'm also already stockpiling some stocking stuffers and using my weekly household allowance for that instead of the Christmas savings.  I'm hoping over $1,000 as we approach Christmas will help significantly with gas, Christmas card postage, tickets to special events, and last minute gifts!

Katie

Summer Theater Movies for $1.00

One of our favorite summer activities is the $1.00 movies at Regal Cinemas.  DH usually picks a few over the course of the summer and takes the older girls on dates.

Click here to go the Regal Summer Movie site and click here to see which theaters are participating in Washington.  Most theaters in Washington are playing Week 1 movies on June 25th & 26th and continuing 9 weeks though August 20th & 21st.

Movies are at 10AM on Tuesdays & Wednesday. All movies are rated PG and G.  It used to be one PG was paired with a G each week so a G was always available, but this year is really light on the G options.

Week	Title	Rating	Start Time
1	The Three Stooges	PG	10am
1	Ice Age: Continental Drift	PG	10am
2	Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days	PG	10am
2	Parental Guidance	PG	10am
3	Mr. Poppers' Penguins	PG	10am
3	Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked	G	10am
4	Monte Carlo	PG	10am
4	Rio	G	10am
5	Coraline	PG	10am
5	ParaNorman	PG	10am
6	Dr. Seuss' The Lorax	PG	10am
6	Big Miracle	PG	10am
7	Yogi Bear	PG	10am
7	Journey 2: The Mysterious Island	PG	10am
8	Racing Stripes	PG	10am
8	Happy Feet Too	PG	10am
9	African Cats	G	10am
9	Chimpanzee	G	10am

Menu Plan & Weekly Goals

Dinners
Monday - Pot Roast (Roast from freezer)
Tuesday - Stone Soup (Pork Bones from freezer)
Wednesday - French Toast
Thursday - Strata (sausage & bread from freezer)
Friday - Bible Study Potluck (side dish)
Saturday - Lemon Garlic Chicken (crockpot) (Chicken from freezer)
Sunday - Spaghetti (ground beef from freezer)

Lunches
Monday - Finger Food
Tuesday - PBJ
Wednesday - pizza
Thursday - mac'n'cheese
Friday - quesadilla
Saturday - leftovers
Sunday - PBJ


I didn't finish the first two items on my list last week:
1. Finish Kitchen backsplash project
2. Goo Gone on the kids' toilet
I'll add 3. Finish rototilling the grass so I can plant more tomatoes
and 4. Paint touch up pink bedroom

I did get the outside freezer  emptied and unplugged.  I also started the yellow squash and some broccoli inside.  We'll see how they do, but I'm not hopeful as they're such late starts and the squash is from last year.

Katie

Weekly Shopping - $107.43

Fred Meyer's Founder's Day sale was running last week so I made a couple of trips there.  Otherwise it was a busy week and a jam-packed weekend to my poor garden didn't get much attention, but the outside freezer is empty!  You'll notice there was not a single purchase this week for the freezer . . .

My first trip to Fred Meyer was specifically because we were low on fruit.  I know spent $40.07 and I can't find my receipt.  I'm sure $9 was toilet paper and $6 was baby wipes.  With tax on those, I'm calculating $23.63 for food.

$1.88 each butter
$0.75 each pasta
$4.29 cheese
$0.77/lb for apples, oranges, and pears
$0.64/lb for bananas
$2.99 for 5lbs carrots
$2.50 feta

I went to Fred Meyer again later in the week and spent $25.92 on food.

$3/5.00 and ($1.00/3 MC) = $1.42 average price for Cereal
$2.89 - Sugar
$.75 each - pasta sauce
$1.88 each - Tillamook butter
$1.99 ($.40 SC) = $1.59 Fred Meyer butter
$4.29 cheese
$1.09 pita bread on clearance
$1.49 romaine head
$0.99/lb celery

I went to Fred Meyer a 3rd time on Friday to pick up a few things the doctor suggested for one of my kid's wart colony on her fingertips (ew) and grabbed some more Founder's Day deals.  Food spending was - $25.18.  A photo is trapped on my camera.  My kids damaged it Saturday and I haven't looked closely to see if I can fix it yet.  Here's what I bought:

$0.77/lb pears & apples
$2.58 - 2# strawberries
$0.99 - Vitabee Bread
$2.50 - 1# lunch ham
$4.29 - cheese
$4.99 - each for 2 non-cheddar Tillamook

And finally, I stopped in at QFC near midnight on Saturday to pick a few things we needed for Sunday company and scored some great clearance deals!  I spent $15.52

$2.89 Tortillas
$2.99 Tortillas
$1.99 Heavy whipping cream
$1.29 deli salsa on clearance
$2.00 deli guacamole on clearance
$1.67 cottage cheese
$1.69 organic lettuce on clearance
$1.00 eggs

Eggs this week - $6.00
Milk this week - $11.16
Total weekly spending =  $107.41
Total Grocery spending through Week 20 = $1,677.46
Average per week = $83.87

Katie

Sharing the Cucumber Love

Remember these cucumbers?

 And how one reached out a curly tendril to the tomato plants?

And  then a whole bunch reached out to wrap around anything nearby?

Well I finally planted them but  there were easily a dozen plants and most of them were already flowering!  I only planted 7 or 8 in my own garden because of space constraints (and fear of bunnies) but I hated to think the others would just wither and die.

My friend, Meredith, solved the dilemma by happily planting the remaining cucumbers at her house and then she sent me this picture:

I am so thankful for my fellow gardening friends.  And I especially thankful I can learn from them.  Look at her beautiful garden!  And she had those cucumbers climbing on their first day at her house. 

Way to go!

Katie

Defrosting the Outside Freezer

This week we did a lot of baking for the kids' teachers.  Unfortunately all the shredded zucchini was frozen under layers of ice in the outside freezer.  On the bright side, it was just the motivation I needed to go ahead and defrost the outside freezer and make everything fit in the inside freezer.

Now, the inside freezer was already pretty full.

And there was quite a bit outside.  But I have supreme confidence in my packing abilities and I figured if I failed I'd just let the 'zucchini paste' go down the disposal.

First I removed all the milk jugs and ice packs I keep out in the freezer to help with energy efficiency.

Then I started moving stuff inside.  After about 4 hours, a few things were still frozen and stuck in place.  That's about 8 pounds of ground ham on the top shelf, a big pork roast on the next shelf, and the shredded zucchini on the third shelf down.  To my great delight I found 12 cups of frozen blackberries under all that top shelf frost!  Hooray!

The empty, unplugged freezer.  Yahoo!

 And the jam-packed inside freezer.  I had to cut the huge pork roast in half and the girls ice cream for snack, but I did manage to fit everything in including the "zucchini paste."

I am going to stay pretty focused on meal planning from the freezer.  We are hoping to have a neighborhood ice cream party in a few weeks and I also have 1/4 cow coming sometime.  And it's extremely hard (and a little time-wasting) to move food and repack a freezer this tightly packed every time I need something.

Katie

MOPS Goodies

How blessed am I? 

I get to be a table leader at my MOPS group - and not only is it a stellar MOPS group, my particular group of gals is pretty awesome, too. 

I am also blessed that I've been able to be a table leader for these same gals 2 years in a row. 

I am blessed that they want me to continue as table leader and have offered to carry some of the responsibility so I am able to stay at the table.

And yesterday, at our final meeting of the year, these ladies just poured gifts on me.  I received 2 compactable and washable shopping bags that get small enough to tuck into my purse.

Our mentor mom is an amazing seamstress and made each of us beautiful, fabric shopping totes - also washable.

They gave me lovely messages inside cards and an Amazon gift card.

Then, the cool icing on the cake, I won a Starbucks gift card, too in a MOPS-wide drawing.

I came home feeling so loved and appreciated - what more could a girl ask for?

Katie

Garden Progress

I'm still plugging away at the landscaping and getting plants in bit by bit.

Over the weekend I planted green beans, lettuce, 2 varieties of peas, romaine, and two tomato plants I bought at the farmer's market.  I pulled two lettuce plants that had wintered over from the old garden space and transplanted them here.

DH helped me Rototill the opposite end of the new garden space and I put the pumpkins in the ground.  

Don't they look so sad?   I hope they perk up.  Their poor little roots had been out of room for a couple of weeks and I couldn't loosen them up much.  You can also see the first two stones of the wall I'm putting on this end of the garden.

These are my sad little cucumbers that are finally out of egg cartons but not thriving.  They were in that sad little carton for 6 week!

And look at these huge cucumbers that got out of the egg cartons at only two weeks.  

These cucumbers are SO  ready to plant.  Look at this tendril curling around a tomato plant stalk.

Next up, more rock wall and get cucumbers outside.

Katie

Menu Plan & Weekly Goals

I'm focusing on the freezer again this week so I can unplug the garage freezer.

Dinners:
Monday - Enchiladas (didn't eat last week)
Tuesday - Pork Chops (from freezer)
Wednesday - French Toast
Thursday - Strata (sausage from freezer)
Friday - Easy turkey pot pie (DH with kids- turkey & veggies from freezer)
Saturday - Lentil Soup (from freezer)
Sunday - company

Lunches:
Monday -  Mac'n'Cheese
Tuesday - Bagels
Wednesday - Mini-Pizzas
Thursday - PBJ
Friday - Shell'n'Cheese
Saturday - Nachos
Sunday - PBJ

I did OK on last week's goals.  The pumpkins, tomatoes, and lettuce were all planted and I got the compost & steer manure into the first terrace.  I haven't checked the depth of the gutter drainpipe yet.  I also didn't separate the bearded iris bulbs yet because they bloomed in all the gorgeous weather we've been having.  I'll have to attack them when the blooms wither.  I started the freezer combining, but didn't finish.

Goals this week are focused indoors because of the weather forecast:
1. Finish Kitchen backsplash project
2. Goo Gone on the kids' toilet
3. Combine freezers/unplug garage freezer
4. Plant cucumbers outside, start zucchini & yellow squash inside.

Weekly Shopping - $51.88

Small shopping trips this week added up to.  I will need lettuce and fruit before the week is out so next week might be some heavier shopping

I went to Fred Meyer for compost and steer manure.  A quick tour of the grocery department yielded a few things totaling $2.46.

Bread - $.99 on clearance

Butterfinger - $.49 on clearance

 

I went to Safeway for their gift card deal and spent $10.36 more on food.

Cornmeal - $2.39 on clearance
Cheese - $3.99
Foster Farms lunchmeat - $1.99 each

I stopped in at Albertsons for pie crust.  I was taking someone a meal and ran out of time to make crust and had to buy one.  It was $3.79!  Ugh.  Buying groceries at regular price is so painful!

I went back to Safeway to use my $10 certificate from the gift card deal and my $5 certificate from the greeting card deal.

Corn Flakes - $2.09 each on clearance
Honey Nut Cheerios - $1.88 each ($.40/1 MC) = $1.68 each
PB Cheerios - $1.67 each ($1.60/4 MC) = $1.27 each
Cheese - $3.99
Hamburger Buns (not pictured) = $8.00.  I just ran out of time to make buns so I picked them up.
I also used my $10 and $5 off coupons for a grand total of only $9.60.

Later I went to a third Safeway looking for the Jiffy Lube gift cards that were supposed to be part of the gift card deal this week.  I couldn't find them AGAIN, but I got the limit 1 cheese again for $3.99.

Finally, I went to QFC and spent $9.14.

Little oranges - $.99
Bananas - $.64/lb
Butter - $2.00 each

The cucumbers were $.69 each at Albertsons.

Milk - 11.18

My total weekly spending was $51.88
Total for 2013 year-to-date $1,570.05
Weekly Average $82.63

Katie

Thrift Store Finds!

I scored at the thrift stores when my mom & aunt were here.

 

I found the ballet spinner shoes for $5.99 and the mailman hat for $2.99 at the Goodwill.

These were from Children's Hospital Thrift Store:
Black Polka Dot Dress - $2.17
Green Sweatshirt - $2.50
Tea length khaki skirt - $2.50

 

The red dress was $7.99 at the thrift store in the Overlake Fred Meyer parking lot.  I can't remember the name of it.  The green smocked dress was $5.99 and the the black, velvet dress was also $5.99, both at Value Village in Totem Lake.

 

Katie



Recycled Packaging Material

I was helping DD#1 get a little gift ready to mail her friend this week. 

She found a bargain-priced little purse and we stuffed it with candy and stickers.  She wrapped it herself and came to me to get it ready for mailing.

I dug around in my packing stuff and found this appropriately sized envelope:

We received it awhile back when an aunt sent us a gift.  I peeled off the mailing label and we wrote the destination and return addresses on index cards and taped them on.  It looked good as new.

And auntie's $1.39 envelope gets another use!

Katie

Garden Time - Finally!

I finally got some time in the garden today.  Or the garden-to-be.

I got the back corner of the yard all dug out and the short retaining wall built a few days ago.  The dirt is fine and filled with rocks.  It's really not ideal for growing anything, so I planned to add a bunch of compost.  I also wanted to clean out the small flower bed above the wall so I could plant there, too.

I started at the top of the wall and pulled lots of weeds.  Then I planted two raspberries and set up this grid for the vines to climb.  One of the raspberries didn't look great so I'll be surprised if it takes off.  The other should do OK.

Next I dumped 6 cubic feet of dirt into the garden bed and spread it evenly.  It wasn't nearly deep enough to support healthy plants so I decided to rototill.

The tilling worked beautifully and the tightly packed under-layer loosened right up to blend with the fresh compost and steer manure.  DD#3 and I worked together removing rocks from the fresh soil.  I think I might actually plant some things tomorrow!  We'll see.

Katie

Monthly Update

First the Good News!  We had a huge jump in our emergency fund savings in April!  We had an unexpected stock sale and our tax refund gave us a big boost.  Adding our debt snowball we leapt 58.4% this month!  We are now at 94.8% of our Emergency Fund Goal.  Whoohoo!

I did not post on Project TwentySix.  I did not unpack the two remaining boxes in the office. 

Goals for May:

1)  Add  4.5% to Emergency Fund.  I don't think we can hit the total in May because the garden always costs a bit to get started and our every-other-month water bill is this month.

2) Pull off an amazing Cookie Monster birthday party for DD#3.

3) Get the entire garden in: Tomatoes, Romaine, Spinach, Mixed Greens, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Peas, Beans, Pumpkins, Raspberries.

4) Price 10 boxes of garage sale stuff

I will deal with Project TwentySix and the junk in the office eventually.

Katie

Bulk Food Buy

I mentioned the bulk buy as part of my grocery shopping this week.  It was actually food I had ordered and paid for about a month ago for a group of 8 ladies.

 



 

I picked it up in Kent on Thursday.  Here are over 400 pounds!

My kitchen was a total wreck as I separated everyone's purchases.  I was so thankful several ladies purchased the offered buckets so I didn't have to try to put everything into Ziplocs.

Those are cranberries and oatmeal on the table and that's DD#3.

I meant to take a photo of everything packed back into the car, but I was in a rush leaving to meet the gals for delivery.  Then the car battery died and I had to focus on that so all else was forgotten.

But here's a photo of my pantry so you can see just how well stocked it is!

My portion of the bulk purchase included:
22.5 lbs Organic Popcorn ($1.00/lb)
12.5 lbs Dried Cranberries ($2.38/lb)
20.0 lbs Regular Rolled Oats ($0.50/lb)
15.0 lbs Black Beans ($0.75/lb)
15.0 lbs 5-Grain Rolled Cereal ($.83/lb)
My total for all this was $90.24

If any local friends would like to get in on this in the future, please let me know and I'll add you to my mailing list.

Katie

Menu Plan & Weekly Goals

Here we are a week into May and my freezer is still not defrosted.  Whoops!  Definitely a freezer focus this week so I can unplug.

Snacks:
Zucchini Bread (frozen zucchini & zucchini sauce)
Smoothies, Smoothies, Smoothies (frozen fruit)
Ice Cream Cones (frozen ice cream)
Blueberry Lemon Loaf (frozen blueberries & zucchini sauce)

Dinners:
M - quesadilla
T - Lemon Garlic Chicken for crockpot (uses frozen chicken)
W - easy Chicken Pot Pie (uses frozen, shredded chicken & frozen veggies)
D - Waffles
F - Pulled Pork for potluck (from freezer)
S - Enchiladas (from freezer)
S - Mother's Day - probably something from the freezer

Lunch:
M - Pizza
T - bagels
W - french toast
D - mac'n'cheese
F - quesadillas
S - Dad on his own for little girls
S - pb&j

Baking:
Sandwich Bread
Zucchini Bread
Blueberry Lemon Loaf
Rolls for Pulled Pork

Goal Update:  I didn't do well on last week's goals.  Perhaps they were a bit ambitious - who knows?  I did finish the first garden terrace and I did transplant my poor little cucumbers but I might have been too late.  I still have not gotten the girls' clothes bins up into the closet and I didn't take a single Project TwentySix picture.  Boo.

Goals for this week are mostly garden related because I have to work outside when the sun is shining.
1) Plant pumpkins, tomatoes, lettuce
2) Put in new compost/soil in back terrance
3) Find drainpipe next to the house so I know where to start the front terrance
4) Separate bearded iris bulbs
5) Pack inside freezer to see how much is really left in the outside freezer

Katie

Weekly Shopping - $175.72

I didn't even look at the grocery ads this week which is so unusual it's worth mentioning.

I stopped early in the week at Fred Meyer because DH had requested a dinner I needed garlic & feta for.  Fred Meyer was the nearest grocery store when I found myself with 20 minutes to fill.  I spent $8.61 on food.

Garlic - 3/$1.00
Feta - $2.50
Roma - $.78/lb
Bananas - $.64/lb
Cantaloupe -$.50/lb

I took the little ladies for a walk to the grocery store so we browsed and I spent $10.00.

Sour Cream - $.99 each on clearance
Bananas - $.69/lb
Pizza - $3.49 on clearance (in the oven when I took the picture)
Donuts - $.79 each (eaten on the way home from the grocery store)

We were near a Grocery Outlet on Friday so we stopped in.  I spent $32.21 and stocked up.

Mac'n'Cheese - $.50 each
canned Pineapple - $.99 each
2# Shredded Cheese - $4.99 on sale
Green Onion - $.50
Tortillas - $1.79
Mangos - $.50 each (they were overripe)
Mustard - $.79
Chips - $1.59
Cucumber - $.50 each
Olives - $.79 each
Parsley flakes - $1.99
Organic Cereal bars - $.99 each
Cream Cheese - $.99 each
Hot dogs - $.79 each

Then we visited the Dollar Tree next door to Grocery Outlet and I stocked up on some of our Dollar Tree basics spending $17.00.

4 bottles of Ranch
2 bottles of Syrup
Whipped Cream
Lemon Juice
Pepper
Relish
Tortillas
6 packs of Pepperoni

I also stopped at Safeway to use the bank on the premises and picked up a 20 pack of hot dogs for $2.50

And one more stop at QFC and I spent $3.98.

$1.00 each for a dozen eggs (I buy store-bought for hard boiled because my friend's fresh eggs don't peel well.)
$0.99 each for ice cream tubs on clearance

Our milk delivery was $11.16
I bought eggs from my friend for $4.00.
I picked up my bulk food purchase this week, too (see post next week).  My portion was $90.24.

Week 18 Total: $179.70
Grocery Total 2013 to date: $1,518.17
Average per week: $84.34

Katie