Stop and Make a Connection

Something we seem to do less and less is to stop what we're doing and make a connection with strangers around us. Taking the time to speak with someone, hear a little of their story, can affect both you and them.

I have no background medical or psychological fields, but I do know that making a connection with someone, however small, can lift a person's mood.

This past Saturday while out shopping, I was hurrying from store to store. Even with my trusty coupon book and shopping list I felt scattered and frustrated. Before shopping I had gotten the oil changed in my car. The $30.00 oil change became an $80.00 expense. While they were changing the oil and checking my car the technician found the start of a mouses nest. So, they had to clean it out and change my air filter, which they happily showed me. It was covered in mouse poo, sawdust, what appeared to be lint and a whole lot of dust. Needless to say, I was dismayed at the extra cost and disgusted that we were breathing in air that was being filtered thru that thing. It felt like just another thing going wrong and adding to the pile of things we had to pay to fix recently. 

After that sad bit of news, I went to a grocery store. I struck out at the clearance shelves and was headed toward the next sale item I needed to pick up. An older gentleman was passing by me and I smiled at him, he smiled back and said excuse me, thinking he had cut me off. I replied not to worry, I wasn't in a hurry and was enjoying having a few minutes to myself kid free. He chuckled and then he asked me how old, I told him my son was three months old and that kicked off a five minute conversation. It was a random conversation with a stranger about small trivial things, but left me feeling glad to have been there in that moment to speak with him. It turned out that this stranger had more in common with me than I could have imagined. He was a 75 year old physician that was going to be going to his college alumni get together in the next few weeks, it turns out that his college is 30 minutes from the town I grew up in. We chatted about places and things from that area and how much it had changed. 

I walked away from that conversation feeling happy and connected to a man I had never met before. Were my problems still there, of course, but after speaking with that gentleman they didn't seem so bad. Why, because I had stopped dwelling on them for a while and could look at them with a fresh perspective. And sometimes a fresh perspective or a new look is all you need to realize that things aren't so bad.  

Meal Planning

For me meal planning has been a very effective way to save money. I make once list with everything that I'll need for the week and then a large grocery shopping. It stops me from making mid-week trips to the store or asking my hubby to pick something up on his way home.

Meal planning is pretty easy. At first it'll be a little time consuming, but stick with it. The more you do it, the easier it'll get and the faster you can do it.

When making my weekly menu, my first step is take stock of what I have in my fridge and cupboards. I try to make recipes that I have some or all of the ingredients for and by starting with your cupboards to help plan the menu you won't buy something you already have. For example, we had BLT's on Thursday last week and had some left over bacon. So the first meal we had this week was Bacon Pizza.

Once you've taken stock of what you have in your cupboards, look through the sale flyer(s) of your local store(s). I use the sales meats and produce as the main ingredients for all my meals. Like this week you'll see my menu has 2 recipes with broccoli, because it was on sale for .99/lb.

After you've taken a look at what you have and what's on sale, it's time to make your menu. I usually have 3-4 tried and liked meals, 1-2 new recipes and a left over day. Make sure to vary your meals or you'll get bored and not stick to your menu.

A few pointers when you're making the menu:
1. If you are finding recipes online, make sure to note where you found the recipe.
2. Think about your week and plan your meals around your activities.
3. Prep like items together. If you're having chicken in 2 dishes and both dishes need it to be chunked- cut it all at once.
4. Have the menu written down and posted somewhere. You don't want to have to search for what you're making that night, and if your husband is as awesome as mine, he'll start dinner if he gets home first.

To save time, when you're making the menu also make your shopping list. By writing down everything you need for each recipe as you decide on it, you'll save time. You won't have to go back to each recipe later.

Once you have your list, it's time to search your coupons for the items on your list and match up the deals.

Freezer Failure

Today's post was supposed to be about couponing. I apologize but I'll be changing topics. The past 24-48 hours has been a commercial for Murphy's Law. Tuesday, we realized our large chest freezer wasn't working. How you ask? Well, when I went to pull my teriyaki chicken out for dinner it wasn't frozen. Then yesterday morning, I woke up with a tickle in my throat and by the end of the day it was a full blown head cold.

Even though I feel like crap, it's nothing compared to my frustration about losing our freezer.

This freezer was left to us by the previous owners. We were so excited to have a large chest freezer. We had thoughts of making a ton of freeze ahead meals and some of the extras from our garden. We had 10 pre-made meals, 2 pounds of hamburger and a turkey in the freezer. Sadly, we lost it all. We're not sure when it died so we aren't going to risk eating the food. It would be our luck this week, we'd eat it and get all three of us really sick. 

Thankfully, we still have our small chest freezer that we brought with us from our old house. So, we can still shop good meat sales and start building up our freezer meals again. 

I apologize that this is more of a venting post, but I needed a place to let it out. Losing that much food, the time, money and waste of it, makes me so sad and frustrated. Tomorrow, I'll be writing a post about making a menu for the week.