Shopping Goals: March 2018

UGH!  I have officially decided to dub March as "March:  The Breakening" *cue dramatic sting with lightning and thunder going off in background, lighting up the foreground in a dramatic light*.  Darn March anyway!  I'm actually trying to laugh this all off, because what else can you do, really?

It started with the car getting bashed up.  Then, this week started.

I was taking a picture of the son who was doing something cute with his I-Pad and hiding under a blanket, so I went to take his picture, which he seemed not too concerned with.  Suddenly out of nowhere he lets out a happy shriek (which anyone who has heard one of his happy shrieks will quickly tell you it'll make your ears ring and MIGHT shatter fine crystal...at least it's a happy sound) and I jumped about ten feet in the air, dropping the camera as I did so.  The camera managed to land on it's lens and the shutter jammed half way closed.  I managed to manipulate the shutter to close and open correctly, but the lens was definitely effected and while the photos looked okay on the screen preview, the actual photos on the SD card weren't.  And the battery door was broken partially so the batteries are barely staying in the camera.  I wasn't even mad, honestly, as it was a honest to goodness accident.  Sure, I felt stupid for doing it, but it wasn't like Alvah scared me on purpose or something.

On the advice of my sister-in-law I contacted Canon to see if they could fix the camera, as I have really loved my old A-series camera.  I get an e-mail back and am basically told my camera is too old, the series of cameras that my camera is from isn't even made anymore or serviced anymore, and they offered me a 20.00 rebate if I recycled my old camera toward a refurbished newer camera.  So, I am depressed.  That camera is as old as my son, has seen me through nine years of blogging on my various blogs, has taken tens of thousands of pictures over the years (many of them of my kids), was never far from my side and now it must be laid to rest :(.  Rest in peace, old friend.

Then my very old wireless phone that we bought at Costco long before my kids were born has decided it is going nuclear on me and I have to unplug it from the wall and everything about two times a day and let it sit for a few minutes to go through a hard reset before the darn thing will give me anything other than dead air or a dial tone that won't clear.  I mean, yes, I knew the phone was on borrowed time.  It's OLD, the caller ID log buttons stopped working (well all of the non number buttons, really) years ago and it's been glitchy and cranky for a while now, but this was not a good time for me to have to mess around with this *sigh*.

Next up was the hand mixer (oh yes, there's more) that I was mixing up 1/2 cup of whipped cream with and it started stuttering on and off and going into slow down mode bad.  Mind you this is another appliance that is old.  The hand mixer was the first Christmas gift my mom bought for me after I was married (I remember because I specifically asked for it) and has been used hard over the years.  It's been doing a stuttering stop while working for the last little bit, but I was hoping I was imagining it.  There was no imagining it this time.  Thank goodness I had the stand mixer (and a whisk to get the cream started as it was such a small amount my stand mixer was laughing at me, I swear) to get the job done.  My husband thinks the hand mixer is stripping gears because it's just worn out and parts would be so expensive  to get to repair it, buying a new one is going to be cheaper.

Top that off with a drawer in my antique desk bottom (the desk is an old portable desk that sits on top of a small dresser) cracking all the way down the side which resulted in the bottom falling out of it and having to make a tremendous mess out of my daughter's room to get it cleaned up (as that is where the dresser is now) and I am officially done with things breaking on me at the moment.  At least my husband is pretty confident that the drawer can be fixed with wood glue and clamps so he won't have to completely rebuild the side of the drawer and re-dovetail it all, so hopefully that works out okay.

Between that and the short pay period this time around (since we got paid for the second half of February today) and the check barely covering the mortgage, let alone anything else (thank goodness for not having to pay those closing costs) this month can be summed up with, "Needing to buy things and not much money to buy them with."  I am going to have to triage things we need and kick cans down the road on things I can do without (like using the stand mixer to take up the slack from the hand mixer being broken) until we can start to get caught up monetarily.  Depressing state of affairs, but we'll get through it.  HOPEFULLY things are done breaking now *knock on wood*.

So, here is the list (other than the things listed above, like that's not enough, right?) of things we need.  Basically I'm going to cover the groceries I'm hoping to get this month.  Potatoes, cabbage and onions are on sale this week due to St. Patrick's Day so I'm hoping to at least get some of those.  I'm thinking of just making a lamb roast for St. Patrick's Day, since lamb is traditional Irish fair, and just add some roasted potatoes around it and things.  Since I have lamb in the freezer at least that saves me from having to buy much new.

So, here's the shopping list for this month!

Carrs:

• Boiling Potatoes
• Cabbage
• Bag of storage onions (big onions are on sale, but I like the storage onions as they last a lot longer before sprouting and work out to be a better value for me)
• Garlic (I'm finally running out of the garlic cloves I bought at the produce stand, like what a year and a half ago?  I'm impressed how well those kept for so long!).
• Garbage Bags (got a good personalized price on them through the end of the month and I need them)

Three Bears:

• Cooking Oil
• Tuna Salad 

Amazon.com: 

• Frontier Taco Seasoning, 1 lb (salt free taco seasoning and I needed taco seasoning, so double bonus)
• Frontier Rubbed Sage, 1 lb (this was as cheap as buying a small jar at the store and I use a lot of sage around here)
• Rotisserie Chicken Seasoning (this is to be used sparingly due to the salt, but it was a really good price, like 7.00 for 6 bottles of McCormicks brand seasoning after a coupon was applied, so I felt it was definitely worth getting)
• Curel Intensive Healing Therapy Lotion (the son is really liking the Curel lotions, so I want to try this one and see if it can finally get the nasty eczema on the bottom of one foot cleared up).
• Zegerid, 48 ct (for husband)

And there you go folks.  My list of things we need (and hopefully somehow getting) this month.  How about you?  What's on your list?