Shopping Goals: December 2018

First, be prepared here as I'm (obviously) way behind on blogging, projects and life in general at the moment, so there's definitely going to be some catch up I need to get done.

When it CAME to shopping goals for this month, my plans were to look for a bit more cheap beef, maybe look for a cheap ham toward the end of the month, stocking stuffers...just normal stuff and just call it good.  Well, that was pre-earthquake, so now post-earthquake, the list of things just gets longer the more I go through things.  Sigh.

I'm on my second round of antibiotics for my kidney infection.  Bright side is that this time I feel like the antibiotics are working a lot better, so hopefully this time I can lick it.  I'm tired, but a lot more functional than I have been since the earthquake.

A Christmas miracle (I'm standing by this even though Christmas is still a few weeks away)  happened when I went and dug out the Christmas gifts in my closet.  I'd been dreading cracking the closet open for fear of what I would find under the huge pile/wall of everything.  A miracle occurred in that the gifts to the kids were in boxes and the boxes survived the earthquake because a huge pile of blankets fell on top of said boxes before the really heavy stuff started to fall on top of those.  Everything appears to be in one piece.  I was so relieved.  I desperately want to give the kids something close to a normal Christmas this year after everything they have been through the past few weeks.  The presents under the tree seem to still be in one piece as the heavy things from the shelves above landed on clothes or books (and the books survived okay I think), so that was good to find as well.

Downside to that is the gifts I had scrimped together to give to "Toys for Tots" didn't fare as well.  I made a note that I'm NEVER going to get another cute character snow globe as a possible yearly donation ever again.  What a mess.  When it broke, it took out a bunch of my old artwork from college, which was kind of upsetting (at least it helped to hold down the glitter and absorb the water), but I got over it as at least it wasn't pictures of the kids or something that I would feel like I'd never be able to replace.  I've sent up a prayer and apology to my grandpa as I try to donate to "Toys for Tots" every year in his memory as he was very proud of his service in the marines, but this year I just can't afford to replace the donations, so the organization is just going to have to get it done this year without my help, unfortunately.  Same thing with walking by the Salvation Army kettle this year.  It depresses me not being able to donate, but it's just not going to happen this year as we need every penny we can scrape together.

Right, so new shopping goals.  I'm still sorting through my spices and herbs, but I had a decent amount of loss.  Salt was actually a big one.  Regular salt in every spot bit the dust and then every specialty salt I had just went everywhere, mixed with other stuff and was just ruined.  I bought a box of kosher salt when I went shopping this week so at least I had salt to add to things for some flavor, but yeah...that was depressing.  I'm not worrying about replacing the salts at the moment just because I didn't use them everyday and I just have better things to worry about right now.

I also found out the hard way that if you have to clean up a bunch of Cheyenne pepper, black pepper or things like ginger with a damp paper towel as your only friend?  Wear gloves!  Those suckers will burn you if you expose yourself to them too much!  I learned the hard way so you don't have to!

We lost dishes and things, of course.  The CD player in my ancient stereo that I always used to listen to music on while cleaning or sewing blew it's stabilizers in the earthquake, so I'll be on the lookout for a replacement for that and things.  I had to order Alvah a new TV for his room as his TV screen started burning out in one spot that is spreading as time goes on since the earthquake (it's an old liquid crystal display, so goodness knows what hit it to cause that to happen), so at least that is on order.  At least some things are getting replaced so far.

So, for shopping goals I'm going to start out with my Earthquake list  (I set it to public so hopefully you all can see it okay) on Amazon and work out from there.  Mind you not everything on the earthquake list is things that need to be replaced anytime soon...it's just a list of things that I'm adding to as I find things broken.  Like the flatware/silverware chest.  The one we have that my husband's grandfather gave us flew off the sideboard and had the microwave land on it, so it is pretty broken, but you can jam the lid on and it will still protect the silverware inside, so I just added it to the list to remind me that it is broken.  I'm just going to add to that list as I find more things that are broken to remind me to buy, replace or fix the things on said list.  Others, like the stove top popcorn popper are more of a "yeah, we should probably get one of these as a back up plan" as with the microwave not working right making popcorn for the son has become a bit more problematic and made me realize a need for a "plan b".  I hope that makes sense.

Some things, like my sewing machine, I haven't had a chance to fire up yet (pray with me that it survived the shaking and everything works right as I NEED that in working condition right now), but will just update the list with things as I find/need them.

Some things I've already gotten because I had to.  Kosher salt got bought because I needed salt desperately, although pepper isn't far behind and I'm making one little pepper shaker of pepper last as long as I can (once I saw what the stores were charging for pepper).  Sprinkles were bought because we are going to make Christmas cookies this weekend come Hell or high water (I'm determined) and gingerbread houses are not far behind (although spicing on said gingerbread houses MIGHT get kind of interesting, I'm thinking they'll still smell good).  To help, I at least had a few things of sprinkles survive the onslaught (with the peanut allergy, Betty Crocker sprinkles aren't cheap).  Toilet paper was purchased because all of my paper products ended up ankle deep in water in the laundry room and the toilet paper just kind of clumped into a solid mass with a lot of it, which doesn't work.

So, yeah, onto the rest of the stuff on my list to get.

Regular Stores:

• Mechanical pencils (some of Armina's school supplies didn't fare too well in the earthquake when it hit the school.  At least we finally got her winter coat, her lunch box, her backpack and her violin back from the school yesterday :)
• Orange rolls (a family Christmas tradition)
• Candy canes (the son has been blowing through the ones on the tree)
• Stocking Stuffers (I have exactly two days where the daughter will be in school as her school is the last one that is going to be reopening for classes next week, so I am trying to figure out how to get some of this stuff with her around...it's challenging).
• Powdered sugar (as it usually goes on sale pretty cheap this time of year)
• Kosher salt (picked it up so I'd have some salt in the house)
• Flavored Rice (the few boxes I had to mix things up at dinner time got destroyed via teriyaki sauce)
• Kid snacks/boy food (having the kids home for the last two weeks has blown through a lot of what I had stockpiled for Christmas break)
• Sour Cream
• Cream cheese
• Wet cat food

Target/Wal-Mart

• Bikes for kids (they need new ones now and we figure it'll be a good thing to get and put under the tree to them from my family back East.  We let them ride them around the garage during the winter to help stay active)

Water Softener Store:

• Water filter for water softener (after the earthquake they are recommending everyone replace theirs)
• Water softening salt

Hardware Store:

• Sleds (we are getting plenty of snow and the kids need new as the shed collapsed on their old ones)
• Nails
• Screws
• Picture hangers
• Small frame staples
• Look for weights for pressure canner when it comes in (I would like to get the weights for it so that I can use it easier instead of having to babysit the pressure for up to two hours, depending on what you are canning).

I'm going to call it good there.  I'm sure there is more that is on lists that I've written all over the place as I find things, but I'm still kind of disorganized after everything, so I'll get there.

How about you?  Need to get anything this month?