After Christmas, I was tired, and gave myself permission to take a few days off. Chill, relax. Read, sit on my can. Whatever.
But then....well, I'll just take the stuff off the tree. I'll just put this away. And that.
Before I knew it, I had most of my Christmas decor packed away.
All that was left, was what didn't fit in the bins. I needed to get more bins.
I also changed/washed/made the beds, and got all the laundry done before New Year's day.
Old superstition says don't wash clothes on New Year's Day, or you'll wash someone out of the Family.
So if anyone kicks the bucket, it wasn't my fault.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
Mine is more like an anti-resolution.
I'm *not* participating in No Spend January.
Sounded like a good idea at first, and relatively easy. December is probably my biggest spending month, with Christmas and all. (Or maybe November, with Black Friday and property taxes due.)
Having spent like rapper with his first contract in Nov and Dec, it should be pretty easy to not spend in January, right?
November is also a month for good baking supplies sales, so a good time to stock up on that stuff.
If you cook/bake enough at Christmas and have leftovers to put in the freeze, you really ought not need much more than milk and bread through most of January.
Welllll, the last few times I was determined to conquer No Spend January, I got my tail kicked. Mostly petty little stuff that adds up, chicken/pet feed/supplies, doctor/medicine bills, home repair projects end up costing more than expected. Then there was the year we replaced the heat/air system to the tune of $7K.
So, yeah, *not* playing that game again.
Had I been, I would've lost early. Someone shared a good sale on canning jar flats on 1/04 that I couldn't pass up, so I ordered five.
However, 1/04 was payday, bill paying day, so after ordering those, I got in the truck and went to the feed store and Walmart, got chicken stuff, pet food, some groceries, and a couple more bins to pack away the rest of my Christmas decor.
That should tide me over for a couple of weeks.
This has officially been the longest week ever.
It's only been 6 days and I'm already running out of stuff that usually would've lasted a lot longer.
NEW YEARS DAY
We went and had New Year's Day dinner at my Aunt's (house*).
It was pretty funny, my Aunt always cooks collard greens, black eyed peas and cornbread for NYD dinner.
Yes, more superstitions, its about prosperity in the new year - greens = paper money, peas = coin money, cornbread = gold.
She had mentioned earlier, before Christmas, wanting some of the venison cube steak I got from my parents, so I decided to cook some for NYD, too.
Well, she was sick, had been for a few days, sinus and bad cough, not feeling well.
She said she wanted me to bring it, but she wasn't sure she felt like eating all that. I said, well, leftovers.
So we got there, and cooked, and lol, she said, I'm gonna have to eat collards for supper, and she ate two cube steaks and gravy and biscuits and mashed potatoes.
Lol, them's some good eatin's.
NEW YEAR ANXIETY
Following a nice NYD at my Aunt's, things went downhill.
First off, we took some collards and cornbread by my BIL's. I ended up sort of falling down the porch steps. It'd been rainy for I can't remember how long, and I had stepped in dog crap in my other shoes, so the steps were wet combined with my nearly slick-bottomed old tennies, my foot went out from under me. Hit the next step and kept going, hit the next step and kept going.
Only I didn't fall fall, because I was hanging onto the rail with my left arm for dear life.
Nearly dislocated my arm. Scraped the skin off the inside of it. My legs felt...wrenched.
We gimped on home, stopping by the convenience center to dump some trash, and Kevin pulled a muscle in his back, badly.
He's pulled muscles before, but only where it was uncomfortable. This time, he was in tears, in pain.
Needless to say, neither of us did much the next few days.
And on top of that, we had an appointment coming up on the 8th that I was seriously dreading. Seriously. As in, nervous wreck.
I've figured out that one way I deal with anxiety is by preparing.
I thought it was preparing for whatever it was I was anxious or worrying about, for instance, flu season, or winter weather.
But apparently, being anxious or worrying just kicks in my survival mode, period.
I felt better on the 4th....when I was spending money.
But at least it kicked me out of my lethargy.
I spent the next few days basically sitting in front of my pressure canner, running it double time.
I had bought a 10# bag of potatoes on sale. Usually I cube, blanche, and freeze potatoes for use in potato salad later.
I love getting potatoes on sale, but there have been many times I passed on making potato salad because I hate peeling potatoes. So if I get them for a good deal, and peel them all in one un-fun session, my reward is having potatoes ready to go for tater salad when we want it.
As I've said, I've been trying to get away from freezer preserving as much as possible, and I learned from the Rebel Canner group that you can can potatoes, and they end up perfect for potato salad, or frying or baking or mashing...
My Dad went hunting this year and got us some deer meat. He had it processed/frozen, but I don't want to be dependent on the freezer, so I thawed some it, and canned it.
I had been dehydrating ground beef, which works out as well, and takes up less room, but I'm more worried about the long-term storage of it, because I don't vacuum seal the jars, and air, I'm told, can mess up your food after awhile.
This probably won't last long-term, but I like to be prepared.
Pictured above is jars of cube steak, and plain ground venison.
Below, I canned a few jars of venison chili. Ready to heat and eat.
I bought a big bag of dried pinto beans from Sam's awhile back, and I can up a few jars at a time for ready to use. Otherwise, leaving them dried takes less storage space.
Another thing I learned from Rebel Canners was you could can Boiled Peanuts.
My family likes boiled peanuts, mostly in the fall/winter, and will get a bag when we go out to festivals or fairs or markets or whathaveyou, but then one year I learned I could make boiled peanuts at home.
I did, but it took several hours on the stove top, so it's not convenient to do often, plus they weren't preserved so they had to be eaten pretty quickly.
This way, there is about a serving in each jar. Just heat and eat. The rest are preserved and will last a year or so. Probably longer, but I'm not sure how the texture of the peanuts would be after sitting in water a long time.
The other night, Ryan came downstairs and said, Mom, this tea doesn't taste right.
We've had tea taste off, like sour, or something before, so I took a drink to see if I could determine what was wrong.
What was wrong was - IT WAS SALTY BOILED PEANUT WATER.
No, I didn't break off his stick legs and beat him with them, but don't think I didn't think about it!
Ugh. Awful kid.
LOL, gotta love a good prank, though.
*ETA: As I was writing this post, I was running a load of dishes in the dishwasher.
When it finished washing and I went to open the door for the dishes to air-dry, the dishes hadn't washed. The liquid-detergent door had opened, but it just oozed down to the bottom.
Apparently, the pump has gone out, not pumping any water into the dishwasher.
AARGGH!!!!
