Picture Year in Review (2025), Part 4: Summertime

Happy New Year, everyone.  This post took a bit to put together due to being busy with beginning year paperwork.  I got PFD's filed for the year, got psychological evals done for the son for his three year review period for the homeschool and other things, so it's been busy on top of the weather being insane the last bit.  I'll get into more of that later (ugh, December), but in the meantime, let's get to some random summertime pictures around here.

One big thing that happened this summer, which wasn't something I had planned on and wasn't thrilled about, was our well pump started to die in a big way and we finally realized it needed to be replaced when it wouldn't keep pressure up no matter how my husband adjusted it.  That was a hefty expense to replace, but it was due (it was over 20 years old by the date on the old pump when it was pulled up).  We called up Arctic Pump and Well to get the pump replaced as my husband knew them and knew they did great work and would have as good of quality parts as could be sourced now a days.  Jim was really nice to deal with and we've been really happy to have well pressure again since then.  Fun fact was that he knew the previous owners of our house (I used to talk to the guy who built this place at the kid's elementary school every day, so it was fun to find that Jim was friends with them, too) and remembered the last time he had replaced the pump and stuff.  I just find it kind of cool that we know so much about the original owners of the property.  I know Allen, the guy who built our house, is a really cool and nice guy and it was fun finding out more of the background of Carol, the woman we bought our house from (Allen and Carrol had divorced years ago).  Just as a side note, forgive the state of our lawn.  It was so ridiculously wet this summer that it was too wet to mow and quickly went crazy.

Anyway, yeah, it was an expensive year around here (and we are still dealing with 2025 to date...double ugh).  Onto other pictures.

Armina graduated this summer, which was a big accomplishment for both of us.  I was happy that she had excelled so much in homeschool as when I pulled her out of public school her reading abilities were abysmal and she was falling further and further behind in math.  Math is still a sore spot for her, but her reading abilities I'm very proud of as she reads for pleasure all the time now.

Alvah's favorite hobby this summer was playing in the grass and rolling all over the yard.  I apologize for the blurred face, but Alvah is old enough that I really don't feel comfortable showing his face so much as he, obviously, can't consent to his face being online.  The graduation photo I don't know any of hte people in it, so wanted to make sure to blur their faces for privacy as well :).

Schoolwork this year has been a lot of Leapfrog videos with how bad Alvah's mood has been.  Luckily, he likes Leapfrog, which makes it easier.

On the rare event we went through a day without rain (somehow I did manage to get a bunch of grilling done this summer, despite the wet, which was nice), our skies were beautiful but had some crazy cloud formations.  I included a coulple of them for fun.

Enjoy!

Picture Year in Review, Part 3: The Garden

I decided to do this section in it's own post, as these are some fun pictures that  I kept hoping to share.  Our little 2025 container garden.

A few things I learned by accident this year.  One, Swiss chard can grow a lot closer together than you have been told (I put three seedlings per small pot and they actually gave me a nice yield overall when it came to harvest time).  Two, it is amazing how far caterpillars will travel to do destruction.  I had one lettuce plant completely eaten through right above the dirt by one of those buggers.  In a planter.  Up on a second floor deck.  I was impressed.  Three, growing basil indoors is the way to go.  I was able to harvest Basil all summer off of my tiny little basil plant that I grew on my kitchen shelf.  It was awesome.  My herbs out on the deck didn't do well at all.  We had a cold, wet summer and they did not like it.  I was impressed that the tomato plants grew honestly.  I was able to harvest enough ripe tomatoes to eat with salads over the summer and got a small bag of green tomatoes at the end of the season that I'll use to make something with later in the winter.

Armina's hanging basket did well again this year, although we fought blight numerous times with how wet and crappy it was.  It hung on like a champ, though.

So, onto the picture highlights...

And there you go folks.  Our 2025 garden.

Enjoy!

Picture Year in Review, Part 2: Springtime

 I am going to hit you guys with a bunch of pictures here, so be prepared.  Today's post is what we did in the Spring of 2025.  At least the hightlights.

Alvah was so bad mood-wise, even before Spring showed up, that we bit the bullet and took him on a trip (he loves car rides and going places).  We decided on Homer, hoping that he'd be away from the "usual boring stuff" for a few days and maybe would have a really good time while we were there and just plain give all of us a break from his bad moods.

Spoilers:  It didn't work.  He hated the AirBNB we rented and would not eat or drink anything while we were there.  Thank goodness there was a McDonalds in Homer or I don't know what we would have done (other than go home and eat the cost of the AirBNB).  The only time he was in a decent mood was when we were driving around.  At the AirBNB he'd just pace and demand to leave until he'd collapse (after more medication than I really ever wanted to give him) for the night.  He'd wake up about 2am and start the whole process again.  After that trip I needed a vacation to recover from the vacation, I kid you not. 

But, Homer was really pretty and we did get to see the town a bunch since we drove around for two days straight.  I am including a few highlight photos of the spit for your enjoyment.

A shot of the spit from far above when we drove into the surrounding areas...

And a picture of some of the boats...

We didn't get out of the truck much because it also rained a very cold rain the entire time we were there.  There was also nothing open, even though we were there at the beginning of May because I guess nothing opens before Memorial Day (good to know for future reference, I suppose), so there wasn't a ton of stuff to visit on the spit while we were there.

At least my husband had fun.  He really enjoyed driving around and looking at stuff while we were there.

Next up is the "Adventure of the Tree" I guess is the most dramatic way to say it.  

We had to cut down the big birch tree in our front yard.  I'd been putting it off because I really loved that tree and got a kick out of seeing it every morning in the summer and fall, but it was old, starting to rot in places and losing limbs. Then, one day I was out in the yard and I heard a huge crack.  I looked over to see the tree starting to list toward our power line.  I quickly called a few tree outfits, including AAA Tree Service who had given me the advice last year that the tree would need to come down soon (highly recommend them to anyone local, by the way).  They showed up quickly, got the tree felled in record time (while I, paranoid I was going to see a lumberjack get hurt hanging from that sucker, sat by and watched form inside my house to stay out of the way), got paid and were out of here in record time.  I was really happy with how it was done so well and so fast.  They made sure the tree was out of the driveway and the road and cut it into manageable chunks that we could then move to the backyard to use it for firewood later.  That came in handy when we needed to burn wood this month, I'll tell you what.

I still miss looking at the tree, but am so, so glad it worked out the way it did and it got taken down when it did.  We had seasoned wood to burn this way, and most importantly, we've had horrific winds this month and if that tree had still been standing it would have fallen into our house and well for sure.  So, yeah for divine providence in this case.

Since moving the tree to the backyard, these guys have shown up more than once to much on the, easy to access, tree branches...

And there you go.  Some of the highlights from Spring 2025.  

Enjoy.

Picture Year in Review, Part 1: A Den Redo

First and foremost...

Merry Christmas, everybody, from my family to yours!

Second, let's get to that year in pictures by segwaying into where the tree is sitting this year.

We put up our tree in the den this year.  With how everything has gone down the last few years (and especially this year) I decided early this year to redo the den so that my husband would have a library space, work out area and a spot for his work table (for electronics and stuff).  Our den, since the pandemic, had become a huge mess and was just a catch all for EVERYTHING...food storage, tons of donations for the used store...you name it).  I became obsessed with the Youtube channel The Masculine Home to study masculine style (which my husband and I both enjoy) interior design and after months and months of stacking up boxes and furniture to stay in a budget (my husband was worried, I could tell, as the boxes stacked up in a corner of our catch all room on what in the Heck I was doing).  Finally, I got everything in to the point I could put it all together and I spent a good week on the floor putting furniture together and getting books and things put away.  I do plan to eventually get the cabinet in the corner out of the den and broken down into what wood we could reuse for other projects (it falls apart more and more each year), but that is for another year.  

I am really glad I got the den redone this year as we got the emergency wood stove area all set up and ready to go once the den was emptied out.  We ended up having to use said wood stove this month during some horrible arctic vortex storms we had and we were very grateful to have it as it kept the house warm during some pretty trying weeks.  It ain't pretty, but it is functional.  We are planning on putting in a proper hearth and stone surround sometime soon (to make it look better and get it up to standards), but I am very glad we have it if we need it.  And yes, we had plenty of wood to burn in it (more on that later).

So, here's a "before" shot of some of the clutter that was in the den (forgot to take a picture until I was well underway getting things emptied out and things).

And here are the "after" shots.  I know the wood doesn't match on some of the shelving (the disadvantage of shopping online), but sometimes you have to deal with what you can get online because shopping in stores with a cranky teenager who sits over a foot above you is just not feasible. (and in Alaska would have cost me about five times as much...no joke...the chairs were less than 200.00 a piece from Amazon and shipped up here, while trying get to get something similar from a furniture store would have been 400.00 per chair).

Enjoy!

My Year in Review (in pictures): 2025

Yeah, me too, kid.  Me too.

 Hello everybody. Merry Christmas (to those who celebrate in the Scandinavian tradition) and I hope you all have a Merry Christmas tomorrow for everyone else.

I know it has been months and months since you saw a post from me.  Life has been...life...this year and we've just been getting through on survival mode around here.  Severe autism and puberty is really rough.  On the individual (in this case, Alvah, or Casper the grumpy ghost up there) and on the rest of the household.  Between that and other stuff that has gone on...blogging has been the LAST thing on my mind just because it took time (big, big one) and mental energy to form sentences, which has been kind of in short supply this year.

Alvah has improved slightly, I think, the last bit.  I tried some new products that seem like they are working to help him a bit.  I'll try and write the reviews on those here pretty soon as I think it is important to get honest reviews out for others to read as it seems like so many products are just fake reviews by bots or the companies block or delete comments that don't talk about how wonderful they are (not saying these products do...I haven't tried to write reviews on their sites or on social media about it, though, in case of this as I don't have time to waste on stuff that is going to just get blocked).

I didn't do a bunch of blog posts this year, but I did remember to do one thing.  I took a bunch of pictures (in the hopes I would get blogging done).  So, I figured I might as well do my year in review in a different way this year and just deluge you with blog posts complete with pictures.  The posts will probably not be very wordy (time and energy again), but will get you guys up to date on everything that has gone on this year...good and bad.  

To save time I'm just not bothering to do much editing of photos at all, so the photos are going to be bigger than normal and basically as is.  So, if you don't see "pretty" photos, just take into consideration that this is life and I'm living it hard right now and don't have 20 minutes or more to edit a photo to post to the blog right now.

Right, back to getting some of those posts done.  Merry Christmas, everyone!  May this holiday be good (I've been praying all month for just that).  Hope you are all doing well!

Erika

What's for Dinner: The Next Two Weeks of Dinners

Hey all!  Long time, no contact.

Life has been...doing...around here.  All I can say is puberty combined with severe autism just leads to life being really challenging.  Honestly, I've been really busy just scrambling from day to day trying to keep a petulant teen calm...well...calmer.  It is challenging, stressful and hard.  It is what it is, but it doesn't make it any easier.

I've adapted.  Instead of having a list of things I need to do every day, I instead am happy if I get one side task done per day.  For instance, yesterday was a kind of off day, but Alvah wasn't extremely unstable, so I was able to vacuum down the stairs and the lower floor in between mood issues.  The day before I was able to speed clean the bathrooms...things like that.

I am working hard on keeping on top of housework so I can focus on Alvah as he is unpredictable at the moment and is demanding on my time and energy.  I, for years, have folded my clothes downstairs on my bed as it gives me a nice big work surface to fold said laundry and it was on the same floor as the laundry room, so it made sense.  I adapted and put one of the leaves in the kitchen table and I just strip the tablecloth off of the table and fold the laundry upstairs.  I was falling further and further behind on laundry before doing that as I had to keep Alvah basically within easy distance.  I have started cooking early in the day and at times just reheating even our main dishes when my husband gets home from work as it was just too challenging to get it done without tons of stress at dinner time.  Tonight I am grilling, but I the chicken I'm grilling is thin cut to cut down on time needed to prepare...things like that have become necessary.  Next big tackle is removing my sewing machine from my sewing table downstairs so I can use it on my kitchen table as well to get mending and necessary sewing projects done here soon.  Sometimes life is just like this, ya know?

In between everything, I focused on my major task that I was working on the last few days, which was trying to fix my dishwasher.  It suddenly, out of the blue, started leaving a white film on all of the dishes and it was a kind of sticky, yucky film.  I had, luckily, been able to keep on top of the dishes before it started giving me fits, so in between dish loads, I put the dishwasher through a few cleaning cycles.  It didn't help.  I always keep on top of keeping the dishwasher filter clean, so I knew that wasn't the cause of the problems, so I finally did what a person had recommended online and figured out how to remove the sprayers from the dishwasher to clean them out.  I'd never been able to figure out how to remove the bottom sprayer in the dishwasher, but was finally able to walk through it with step by step instructions someone had typed out for a person on how to deep clean a dishwasher online (thank you kind stranger for leaving that for me to find).  After I cleaned the clogs out of the bottom sprayer, I then pulled the bottom of the dishwasher apart and cleaned everything I could find (which some of it was kind of gross, I ain't gonna lie), cleaned around the door and anything else I could think of.  I then put the dishwasher through another cleaning cycle and am happy to say that what I did worked!  The dishwasher is working as good as new now, which was a relief as I was really starting to get worried we were looking at a costly repair or something.  The dishwasher is nearly 7 years old now (which is incredible to me as in my mind it is still new *laugh*) and with how things are meant to just break at a certain age...I was concerned let's put it that way.

So, now that I've gone through a bunch of stuff, let's get to the menu plan for the next couple of weeks.  We've actually already gone through some of the groceries that were in the fridge as we picked up groceries on Sunday instead of later in the week like we would normally as my husband and I got grocery store sushi to do our anniversary dinner that day, so the shots of the fridge are missing some produce.  I have worked hard to prep any produce I can as soon as I can to keep my nights more stress free around mealtime, so I already cut up and put a cabbage into the freezer (to use for stir fry, soups and the like later on), we ate the chard I bought with dinner last night and I cut up the lettuce I bought and put it into freezer bags with some paper towels to turn into salad over the next few weeks.  And we ate through some of the fresh fruit as well.  So, I'm going to start the menu plan from Monday as that is when we actually started eating from the groceries I bought.  And then I'll list what other dinners are on the agenda over the next few weeks as well.  So, let's get to it!

Dinners We've Had So Far:

Monday:  Leftover smoked turkey (I had a smoked turkey in the freezer we got with a holiday deal a few years back in the freezer, so pulled it out to use it up) and sides.

Tuesday:  Ham and Cheese quiche, chard, fresh fruit.  I am on a quest to use up food storage that is close to its "use by" date or past it, and one of the things we needed to use up was a big #10 can of egg powder I had from a breakfast food storage kit I bought a long time ago.  I've so far used some of the eggs for breakfast bowls for my husband, used some by baking some pound cakes (we ate one and then I put the others in the freezer) and than I used them to make two quiches yesterday (I made the other one with smoked turkey, sharp cheddar cheese and some basil and put it in the freezer for a quick dinner later on).

Wednesday (today):  Hawaiian chicken,  coconut milk rice, tropical fruit (I just add the pineapple from the can I use to get the pineapple juice for the chicken recipe to a can of Dole's tropical fruit and we are good to go) and salad.

Thursday:  Sweet and Sour Pork over rice (planning on making this in the slow cooker to keep the house cool as it is supposed to be hot, for us, the next bit).

Friday:  Pizza, salad, breadsticks, salad with home made Italian dressing.  For dessert:  Cherry pie (Fourth of July and all).

Saturday:  French Dip sandwiches (I made ciabatta rolls yesterday for these to make them a bit more special), french fries, coleslaw (I'm just using pre-shredded veggies in a bagged salad kit and then making up a dressing for it).

And that's about where my ability to plan actual day meals is petering out, so on the agenda for next week's meals in no particular order would be...

• Burgers on homemade bread, mac and cheese and salad.
• Pork steaks with baked potatoes and green beans
• Baked Potato soup with home made bread
• Chinese food night (chicken chow mein, sweet and sour pork or other dish)
• Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad.
• Club sandwiches with french fries (I have been CRAVING a club sandwich, so chef's privilege ;). 
• Pizza night (we have pizza usually once a week, so I'm just going to write it down)

And there you go folks.  Our meals for the next bit.  Since I only shop every couple of weeks, this is how I tend to plan out meals now.  I'll plan a few meals and add ingredients to the shopping list to help break up usual "go to" meals in between grocery trips (like the coleslaw kit), but otherwise I just plan around what ingredients we have and what we might want to eat and then I just concrete meals in as I go (sometimes I speed up what I'm going to make from a certain day as produce starts going bad faster than I thought it might, etc).  This has been working pretty well and has allowed me to keep a steady supply of just enough left overs to send to work with my husband for his lunches to help cut down on eating out costs (as eating out will eat your lunch (financially)...pun intended ;).

Enjoy!

Life Happenings and Frugal Shenanigans

It has been a year so far.

Alvah has been in an awful mood since the beginning of the year.  We aren't sure why completely, but it has not been fun around here (we suspect that part of his problem is hormones, part of his problem is allergies and the rest?  No idea).  Not fun at all.  Top it with my mom went back into the hospital in March and got diagnosed with stage 4 dementia.  She's fighting everything that is there to help her, which isn't helping anything.  Honestly between Alvah, my mom, the cost of everything and the never ending list that continually gets longer of things that need to get done or need to be replaced around here...I've been in survival mode and just taking it one day at a time.  It is all you can do sometimes.

We did find that part of Alvah's mood problem was definitely his allergies giving him a time when his mood went even FURTHER downhill a few weeks back and he started doing some weird, new, and concerning behaviors.  So, we got him into the doctor and she ran some tests.  Tests came back with strep and a sinus infection.  Not good news.  So, for the first time since he was like three, we ended up with him on antibiotics.  Liquid since he doesn't do pills, which is rough when you have a kid who hates strong flavors and really has problems with textures (like gritty antibiotic liquid for instance).  He was on them for two weeks because he's allergic to penicillin so we had to make sure the other antibiotics got his sinus infection.  He finished the antibiotics with only the first day thrown back up on us, which was good for him.  He got through that and then his allergies are going bonkers again because we are having a raging allergy season this year (of course).  

We have an appointment with the dentist next week to talk about putting him under sedation to get his wisdom teeth checked, get teeth x-rays accomplished (for the first time) and any work done with that and any other work doctors need to get done on him (like his mental health doctor really wants to do bloodwork to make sure his meds aren't messing up his blood sugar and things...we are pretty sure they aren't, but it is good to check).  His doctor wants to check his wisdom teeth to make sure he doesn't have an impacted tooth that is impacting his sinuses.  I get it all, truly, but if I could, I'd find a way around it.  I'm utterly terrified of putting him under.  It would be terrifying if he reacted well to medicines, but his body reacts so weird to drugs, that I'm...well...I'm trying to remain calm and not panic about it.  Any prayers would be appreciated as this is going to be a rough go here.

Armina got her grades finalized and graduated from high school this week.  It is crazy.  It seems like yesterday she was in preschool and now she's a high school grad.  Still trying to figure out where the time went there.  She is going to work as an assistant swimming instructor starting this summer, so that is exciting for her as she wants to work toward getting her swimming instructor license.

There's a depressing list of pressing items around here.  I'd go into them all, but honestly I'd probably just depress myself again, so I'm going to instead focus on a few things that I've been doing around here to save money.

1.  My son has been not nice to my house this year.  He went bonkers one day and kept slamming his chair into the wall and managed to put said chair nearly through the drywall.  I patched the huge hole/massive dent and used some food storage to make a improvised chair rail on the wall so he couldn't do the same thing again (hopefully).  Doing that also just tore the heck out of his chair, which has been trying to fall apart on the upholstery end for a bit here.  The back cushion split at the top and side and was spilling the inner cushion out everywhere.  I knew I had to fix that before I could figure out how to make some kind of new slip cover/upholstery for the chair.  I didn't have anything resembling upholstery tacks that would be big enough to hold the fake leather together, so I went looking through what I had and found, of all things, some crappy nails I got with a picture hanging kit I bought a while ago.  I used the nails, since they were decently long and had a nice big head on them, to secure the double folded fabric to the wooden back of the chair.  It is NOT even close to the nicest upholstery work I've even done in my life, but using what fabric I had with the chair that was in decent shape still, I got the job done.  It is actually holding up pretty well so far, which is good.  I've got some ideas on what I might be able to use to reupholster the top portion of the recliner here and am hoping to get time this weekend to work on it.  

2.  My grocery budget has exploded the last bit, along with so many others, but I worked really hard to get it down.  I have been working to get it down from over 400.00 every two weeks (eek!) to around 250.00 every two weeks.  I have been using the extra money in the budget from doing that the last month and using the other 150.00 to buy bulk meat when it was on sale at my local butcher (I have found with the limits at the grocery store on sale items, it just doesn't lead me to being able to stock up on anything, really).  I got hamburger (20 lbs), breakfast sausages (10 pounds), 10 lbs of steaks (a nice Mother's Day sale I was able to jump on) and 40 lbs of chicken thighs (those were from Costco as it was much cheaper there)...not all at once, but just one item at a time.  Like tomorrow I'm picking up some bratwurst and chicken sausage I got on sale cheap with a Memorial Day special my local butcher was putting on.  Not tons, but enough to see us through for a while.  Once meat is out of the week to week grocery budget for a bit, it will allow me to get my grocery bill down to the 250.00 every two weeks and hopefully keep it there and I can start to put the extra money into other bills I need to pay.

I have gotten a few freebie coupons of late through my grocery app and was actually able to GET said freebie products, mainly due to the timing of my grocery pick ups the way they have gone the last bit, which was super nice as I haven't had freebie coupons that lasted more than a day the last like three years and the freebies were always like energy drinks, which weren't even worth clipping to me.  I got a few that I'll share with my grocery haul post, but one that I got this week was a 4 pack of Haagen Dazs waffle cones.  I got the berry flavor, which worked out in my favor as they have been consistently out of the salted caramel ones (the husband and daughter wanted the berry flavored ones).  They were pretty good, but not 10.00 good which is around the price point they are normally.  Seriously, the price on stuff.  Geez.

3.  My daughter's favorite shirt tore (it is basically worn out, but she still loves it), so I mended the tear for her (I have a few more tears I noticed this week that I have to mend as well now).  

I also mended a few pairs of my son's sweat pants as the seams on new clothing seem to just suck.  I had to sew the elastic back into a few pairs of pants, sew up the crotch on a few pairs as well where the seam just came undone.  I noticed about three other pairs in the wash that I need to mend as well.  Hopefully I can get more mending done this weekend as well.

4.  I've been incorporating more and more food storage items that need to be used up into our day to day meals.  We actually sat down and had an MRE night the other night (military rations) for dinner as my mother-in-law had gifted us some a few Christmases in a row and the MRE's reached their use by date in 2024.  It was actually really fun to see what we got with the meals and I made sure to put everything aside in the accessory packets to use up as well.  We still have enough MRE's for at least one more dinner night and a few lunches for my husband and I, but we'll get them eaten up.

5.  I've worked on decluttering my den.  It is free for me to do it, needed to be done and I'm hoping I can get it cleaned out to the point that we can move the bookcases from upstairs downstairs and get more of a library set up going in the den (which was our original plan for the space when we moved in over a decade ago).  It is slow going with everything going on, but slow and steady win the race.

6.  I've been making sure to use up fresh groceries to avoid things going bad.  For instance, I found that buying a bag of carrots that they would go slimy before I could really use them.  So, I switched to using canned carrots or frozen carrots for soups and cooked dishes and then I've just been spending a bit more and buying baby carrots to use for fresh things like coleslaw in smaller bags.  It saves me fridge space (at a definite premium with this new fridge) and also stops me from wasting food (which upsets me more and more the more expensive life gets).  It also keeps me accountable to use the carrots IN a certain dish when I buy them, to keep me more on task for meal planning.  I'm not really doing a day to day meal plan anymore as I find I just can't keep to it in this stage of life, but I buy with the intent to use veggies and things in certain meals over the next two weeks when I buy them.  For instance, I bought asparagus to make with some poached chicken and rice pilaf one night in the next couple of weeks.  When I will make it, I'm not sure, but I will make it.

I am going to start sharing my meal plan ideas with the blog again.  They aren't the most popular posts in the world, but it will hopefully illustrate how I'm consciously grocery shopping so nothing goes to waste, if possible.  Every cent counts and I don't want to throw those cents away.

7.  Side tangent here.  I just wanted to take this opportunity to say "thank you" to those who order through my Amazon associate links.  Google Adsense has become harder and harder to make any money from (honestly I'm seriously thinking of just taking it off the blog entirely just to save everyone the aggravation of seeing ads) and to be 100% transparent I never made much from them to begin with (like maybe 100.00 per year on really great, "I'm blogging four times a week" years).  The Amazon associate fees have really helped me to be able to buy food for my pantry to stock up on ingredients, or other things we need around the house (like I used this month's fees to get Alvah some socks since he grew out of regular sock sizes, is now in size 12+ socks and goes through roughly five pairs of socks a day as he changes them out constantly).  I don't make much commission from the Associate link, but it does add up and DOES help out.  So, to those who have done it and wondered if it helped us at all (since I get that question from time to time), I can answer you with a definite YES and thanks again for supporting the blog (and all of its irregular posting schedule and very flawed and human content).

8.  I had purchased a small, boneless ham for New Years last year (sales on ham just weren't there and we don't really eat much ham at one sitting anyway) and when we went to pick up the groceries the manager in charge of the Pick Up and Go orders asked if we'd just like to get our ham, and an additonal small ham, for free, as they were expiring the day we picked them up and they were the last two they had.  We really appreciated that they did that for us and I made sure to put them both in the freezer as soon as my husband got home with the groceries.  One we ate for New Years and then made into soup for later (baked potato soup, but instead of bacon I use up any left over ham, or a canned ham, in it) and the second one we ate part of with Easter Dinner and then I froze the other part to use for later.  Turned out "later" was last night and I made another big pot of soup, which will last us through lunches over the weekend (husband, daughter and I all love the soup, so it is one soup that actually gets eaten by all of us, not just me, for left overs :).  I was able to use up some wrinkly potatoes that were not looking their best and the left over ham, so it was a win-win for me.

I'm going to call it good there as I'm very tired (son is sleeping about once every other day at the moment) and my brain is about to go on break, I fear.  

Enjoy!