I'm not "told" what to bring but the expectation is there that I already know what I'm suppose to bring so we just skip the conversation about it. So for any holiday get together, I am expected to bring bread/rolls. Now I know my family all prefers the asiago bread I make so I just make it because it's simple and I don't have to think about it. I could be adventurous and make a different bread item but if I did, I would probably still bring the asiago bread because that is what is "expected". I'm also expected to bring a jello salad. Specifically a version of "honeymoon salad" (The recipe we grew up with was lime jello, cream cheese, whipped cream and canned pineapple). I'm not a fan of lime jello so I make different flavors depending on what jello and what fruit I have on hand. I'm allowed to vary it in that matter but to make a completely different thing would be frowned on. I'm also expected to bring the bagged Kale Salad from Costco since I'm the only one who lives close to Costco and this is the only kind of salad my dad will eat and the rest of the family all enjoys it. So our holiday planning is X: I'm hosting (Holiday). Me: Okay seen you then. The same thing goes on to other family members. Everyone "knows" their expected contribution. There is no drama, no duplicates, and it's easy because we also have no conversation about it. Even my extended family when they have their family reunion operates the same way. Everyone has "their" thing to contribute. We just don't discuss it. If someone isn't there one year, well we probably won't have "their" item but no one will go hungry. If anyone attends outside of the core group they are welcome to bring or not bring things as they like.

Did it fly straight off the truck and hit you or bounce on the ground first? Googling says if came straight off the truck and hit you, it would qualify as not securing the load properly and you could possible seek compensation from them. Might not be worth the hassle but something you could look into. At the very least I'd report it and hope they get fined.

Ugh! I'm so sorry. I thought they were required to have loads like that covered.

I'll be really honest, as someone who works in rescue and heard so many stories of unloved, unwanted and abused animals, the idea of raffling off a puppy makes me sick to my stomach. I believe she has a good heart and it seem like a way to make money for something she feels strongly about but it really feels like it's coming at the expense of the puppy. A contract is certainly a good place to start but I also feel like background checks are pretty important. We've had people who have served jail for multiple animal abuse charges try to adopt from us. Without background checks, you would never know this. But please, I really beg you to reconsider offering the puppy as a raffle prize.

It's not super obvious but there is also 6 boxes of cracker jacks and 2 cases (of 12 bars each) of Go Macro bars. We love the go macro bars. I've never bought them but a google search says they sell for around $2.00 a bar.

The huge jars are pickled banana peppers like you see served on sandwiches or salad bars sometimes. There is 2 bottles of shampoo (or maybe conditioner, I can't remember as I just told the kids to put it in the bathroom). The metal cans are the mystery vegetable of the month. I haven't ever opened them because we don't eat canned vegetables. I just wait till I have a bag full and then offer them up on the group's Facebook page. Someone will always claim them. But from the reports I've heard they typically contain green beans but there have also been reports of beets and potatoes. The boxes under the Kodiak stuff are individual cups of coffee. As a non coffee drinker, I think they are the kind designed for a machine (which of course we don't have). I have one kid who likes coffee so she is going to see if there is some way to use them. I will never have to buy that kind of lightbulb again! I think this is the third month I've gotten them. I have a HUGE tote of lightbulbs. Between these and the ones I got from Project Home a few years ago and then Focus on Energy sends us some every year as well). The orange bags are cheese sauce. We got some last month too. I haven't used them yet because I've been focusing on eating down the freezer but it looks pretty good. My freezer emptying project took a big hit since lots of this went in the freezer but since it's only suppose to be in the 20's the next few days, I will make use of my outdoor "freezer" to hold stuff while I'm cleaning them out.

I did finally turn the heat on last Saturday but by changing some routines, I've managed to keep it so the heat is only running at night. See, growing up my grandma always made a big deal about only running the oven really early in the morning during the summers so that the house wouldn't heat up. So I decided to use that logic and try to run my heat producing things during the day. Normally I load the dishwasher and run it just as I'm heading to bed. I often toss laundry into the dryer at that time to. So I've made it a point to only run those things when they will be finishing when we are awake. That way we can take advantage of the extra heat they produce when I was going to run those appliances anyways. Dishwasher is huge because we normally open it when it finishes and let all the heat out. Don't know how much it might be saving us but figured it can't hurt. Dog that has stitches figured out if she sits in this most convoluted position she can reach her stitches. She has now reopened the site. Will be calling in the morning and see if they think it needs to be restitched or if it's healed enough. She's still shaking tonight so I don't the fever is fully gone either. Ruby's Pantry was good. I was a few minutes late and missed my time slot so I ended up waiting a bit longer than usual for the next slot (the pre order go in every 15 minutes). However, the cash shares (400 of them are available for whoever shows up fcfs) sold out in 15 minutes. They've been selling out earlier and earlier so I will make sure to order as soon as the preorder opens. for next month. I'm going to swipe someone else's photo again because she does a much better job displaying than I do. Mine is exactly the same instead of one hashbrown and one mashed potato, I got 2 mashed potatoes. This is what 2 shares look like.

All I needed for groceries this week was milk. Stopped at Aldi's and they had almost no milk of any kind today. Bought what they had of the kind I wanted and will have to stop by again later in the week so I still have $77 left in the grocery budget. In my attempt to clean things out of the freezer, I wanted to use up a bag of the whole peppers I have for stuffed peppers. However since I'm out of hamburger I decided to create something new using italian sausage. So my pizza stuffed peppers was born. Kids asked what I was making and I told them, they all groaned and said how horrible it sounded. Now that they are eating it, they have all said it tastes pretty good. Currently have emptied 26 containers out of my 50 goal from the freezer. I also found a few more bags of frozen veggies and a big container of tomato soup so I'm feeling pretty good about the veggie supply now. Dog who had stitches last week threw up last night and refused food this morning and I had to take her back to the vet. She's running a fever, dehydrated and had just the tiniest spot of infection. However the vet said she's acting like she feels far worse than anything she can find a cause for. She had 2 of these episodes earlier in the spring which had resulted in several ER visits but never found a cause. She does have a sensitive stomach and I had to use some different things (like cheese and hot dogs) to get her medicine down so it's possible that the change is what threw off her system. But they got her rehydrated and gave her a shot of antibiotic. Good news was they only charged $45. I was expecting hundreds since that was the typical charge this spring. Ruby's Pantry pick up tomorrow. Normally they have a partial list posted by now but haven't seen anything yet. So no idea what I'm getting.

Breakfast are easy grab things (I'm not a morning person and I don't eat breakfast): cereal, oatmeal, bars, bagel or occasionally I'll make quick bread or muffins on some afternoon. Lunch is always leftovers or sandwiches. If someone choses sandwiches they are required to eat a veggie on the side. Either a cooked leftover or a raw one that they clean themselves. I cook meals Sunday -Thursday nights but they are big quantities of each. Leftovers are for lunches as well as the Friday, Saturday meals and Sunday lunch. There is a rule about the leftovers though: you have to eat the oldest food first. So no starting on your "favorite meal" while Sunday's leftovers linger. Sunday's leftovers have to be gone before starting on Monday's etc. That meals the weekends meals are still in good shape. If we run out of leftovers before Sunday night, then I will throw together something easy but the majority of the time that is not a problem. So only cooking 5 times a week isn't too bad. I actually leave all the mess in the kitchen till after the kids go to bed. I don't mind the cleanup at that point since I've had time to rest from cooking and the kids are no longer in the way for me to trip over and slow down the process.

I don't remember the name of this tool but we found that pointy corner invaluable for lifting the staples out of the floor. It didn't remove them all the way but got them out enough that it was super easy to use a pliers and a gentle tug to finish the job. It's still a big job but this made it a bit easier for us when we redid the carpeting in the whole house.

Last year when DD put up the Christmas tree the lights didn't work. It's a fiber optic tree with a single bulb at the bottom. I replaced the bulb with the spare in the box and it still didn't work. There was quite a bit of dust on the fan and around the bulb (it's halogen). I tried to clean it but to no avail but since that all happened the same week where I got 5 foster puppies who suffered intestinal distress from transport and my builder let me know that they wanted to start on the sunroom 5 days later (we dismantled the entire old deck although we had zero experience with any of that type of work). I just let it be and we had no lights on the tree for Christmas. I tried looking after Christmas for a new tree but just couldn't find anything I liked. So in trying to get ahead of the tree buying period, I have been looking at trees for several weeks already but I just love the unique look of the fiber optic strands all lit up and everything else just seemed meh to me. I couldn't find any fiber optic trees over 4 feet and I wanted at least 6 preferably 7 feet tall. So I pulled out the base and looked at it again. Really couldn't see anything wrong and it was running just no light. At some point a faint memory crept in, of me changing the bulb and sticking the old one in the box and tucking the box back into the case because the information about type/size of bulb was printed on the box and I didn't want to forget what I needed. So with that thought. I went out a bought a new bulb. Sure enough it worked! So I spent $8 on a light bulb instead of hundreds on a tree. And the new bulb is LED so I no longer having to worry about keeping everything away from the base because it got so warm. Vet visit was expensive but about the amount I expected and still so much less than an emergency visit. 3 stitches and 12 days of cone wearing so she doesn't lick it until the stitches come out. Problem is dog who did the biting and dog we got bit are at fierce odds with each now and I can't even leave them where they can see each other or they both go into attack mode. Didn't get yesterday's planned meal made because after sitting with the dog all day to keep her from licking it until we could see the vet and then coming home, I just didn't feel like cooking but since I had been so good about follow it earlier in the week, there was plenty of leftovers to go around. Sprouts from Sunday we ready and they got demolished. Rinsed the jar and started another batch. I much prefer paying a few cents for seeds than the $2.00 a container from the grocery store. Even with the vet visit, I think I still have a little wiggle room in the budget but I'm going to try to stick to the original goal just because it forces me to use stuff from home. But I'm also going to try to set a goal of using/emptying 50 items from the freezer by November 22 since I need all the space I can get for the beef that will be ready that day. So on that note, I pulled out 3 packages of organ meats and sliced them up and put them in the dehydrator for dog treats. And I pulled out a package of frozen bread balls that I got from Ruby's Pantry and made a batch of Monkey bread (bonus points is it also used up 2 packages of seriously old butterscotch pudding and some cherries where the jars had gotten spilled on and were super sticky). So 46 items left to go.

Sorry to hear of all the troubles you are having with DS. Hope things turn around soon for him. Sounds you like have been very busy getting all that food put up. I have several bottles of vanilla brewing too. I've always heard for best flavor to let them sit a year so mine are tucked away till next spring. For more immediate use, I just made a half gallon of vanilla paste and have been using that in the baked goods. It's quite good!

And this is why I hate clothes shopping so much. It's like laundry and dishes, even if you think you have everything done, in a matter of seconds you won't be. Congratulations on finding a good deal on the couch. Hope it's nice and comfy.

Morning started good, got the hanging weight on the beef and it is a smaller one this year (which is actually okay because a half is a bit much for the year but 1/4 is no where near enough). He did raise the price 50 cents a pound (which I was actually glad for because he has been charging me the same price since 2017 and he already told me my 1/2 pig would be the same price, I know his costs have gone up and I sure don't want him going out of business). So I was feeling really good because I know that even with the processing fees (that I won't know for 2 weeks when it ready to be picked up) that it will come in under what I have in the account so it gives me a bit more room for spending on groceries. Then I went outside to work on this last nice day and had the dogs out with me. Two of them got into it and now one has a nickel size chunk missing from her thigh. Sent a picture to my rescue coordinator because I didn't know how to assess how serious it was. She sent it to the vet who said, yep needs stitches but at least they could do it in the office versus sending her for emergency care. Thankfully it's not bleeding much and I have a cone that I could put on her to tide things over till our appointment in a little while. So I'm sure a good chunk of what I thought was extra is likely getting spent today. My pet fund was just getting a positive balance back after all the ER visits this spring. Does anyone have pet insurance or at least recommendations on good ones? I've looked several times and I always get overwhelmed with the choices and never get started. I'm starting to think it might be a good idea with this group.

I wonder if you got a Speed Queen during their "bad"years. 2016 was the last good year from the original run. I believe the bad years were 2017-2019 but I may be slightly off on that. Mine is a 2016 and I've never once had an experience like you describe even with tightly folded clothes or overpacked machine.

I'm a dog foster mom (I've had 20 in the last year) so I just want to state up front I'm a bit biased about having dogs in the house. You love dogs, you've lived with dogs, you already know you want to live with dogs in the future so what is to be gained by waiting? Yes your heart is broken but that pain is going to be there with or without another dog in the house. And frankly (this is where my bias comes in), I can't help but think having another dog to love on would help ease the pain of losing your best friend. When you add to it there are thousands and thousands of dogs across this country desperately waiting for a family, you would truly be blessing that dog by welcoming him or her into your house sooner rather than later. One of the rescue groups I follow (that transports to my state and many others) just wrote this today: "You may or may not know that one of our local shelters has been euthanizing 20-30 dogs almost daily, even litters and puppies make it on the euthanasia list. There’s just simply not enough resources to help all the Houston dogs in need and it’s a constant struggle. Dogs are typically given 2-3 days to find a plan otherwise they’re in jeopardy and many dogs lose their life daily." I don't in any way mean that to make you feel guilty if you need to wait just trying to bring awareness because many people don't realize just how bad it is. But in order to make sure you are making a good choice for your family, does your shelter offer dog walking opportunities? Ours has slots every morning where people can come in and walk dogs. Its great for the dogs to get out and have more interaction and great for people to get exercise. It could give you an opportunity to have contact with dogs until you feel like you are ready to bring one home but also you might just fall in love with one. But it's a no pressure situation while you sort through what is best for you. Meet and greets are great but I think sometimes there is pressure when that face is staring at you to decide right then and there and it's can be a bit harder to be objective about whether that is the right one for you.

No but thus far it hasn't gotten that cold yet. We had one morning that it 63 when we woke up but otherwise it's always been in the upper 60s to low 70s. Right now it's sitting at 69 and with the exception of me, everyone else is perfectly comfy with their short sleeves. But we do have a huge front window with southern exposure so if there is any sun out, the main areas (living room, kitchen and dining room are all open to each other) can easily get into the mid 70s even with freezing temps. If it regularly dips below 67-68 I'll turn the heat on for the season but we just haven't needed it yet.

Oh your poor DH! I'm glad he got it working and hopefully he can go to bed early tonight.

Oldest DD first heard about my grocery plan for the month. She uses lactose free milk that no one else uses and even then it's only sporadic so I don't regularly have it on hand and she just lets me know when she is in the mood for some. She of course was in the mood but when I told her my plan she asked me how much it was and handed me $6 so I could get her a gallon. (She is an adult and works 30+ hours a week. She is also in school full time but lives at home rent free and her tuition is fully covered by grants and scholarships. We cover her living expenses 100%. In other words she has plenty of disposable income so I didn't feel the least bit bad about letting her buy her own milk). So with my budget now at $98 for the month, I spent $15. $83 left to go (I do have a bunch of change if I really need to scrounge but I'm not ready to put that much effort into it yet). I have fully stuck to the menu plan I made. This is already been a good plan since it forced me to take stock of what we have and I was able to rescue some things that in another day or two would have been goners. I started sprouts Sunday night since I knew veggies were going to be a bit harder. Three kids noticed the jar on the counter and we actively excited to see them growing again (I tend to slack off over the summer since we get plenty of fresh veggies from the garden). Snuck some parsnips into last nights meal (Bierocks) and then a small squash into tonight's (Bacon and Kale Skillet with lots of kale from the garden). Tomorrow is planned to be chicken cacciatore which will let me hide some of the eggplant in. Then Thursday or Friday (depending on when the sprouts are ready) we will have wraps with the extra chicken and sprouts and I think I still have a couple of peppers in the fridge, a shredded carrot and some onions). Was trying to figure out a new variation of stuffed peppers since the hamburger is now gone (unless I find some hiding when I clean out the freezers this weekend). I have lots of italian sausage so I think I'm going to do italian sausage with Isareali couscous and mozzarella and asiago cheese for a pizza flair. I have about 80 peppers in the freezer ready for stuffing so this will also help me make space in the freezer. My beef went in to the butcher today. They said it will be ready in two weeks. So I have two weeks to eat down the freezer plus Ruby's Pantry is next week (which always involves something going in the freezer), so even if I wasn't trying not to spend money on groceries, I would have had to put a hold on most things anyways so we can eat down the freezers a bit more because right now there is nowhere near enough space. I'll be canning french onion soup as soon as I get a block of time. I still have a bit over 200 pounds of onions from my last produce auction run. We love french onion soup and it's so nice to just be able to crack open a jar. Just got to clear the time to get it done. Still haven't turned the heat on yet so that will help that budget account too.

Thank you for the offer. That is so very thoughtful! But please don't worry we have more than enough to eat, just won't be exactly everyone's favorite. I am a big believer in stock piling when things are on sale and I do tons of gardening and preserving. I will have to do a bit more cooking from scratch instead of taking the easy way out and buying stuff (such as bread) but it's totally doable. To put it in perspective, with the exception of fresh fruit and veggies and milk and eggs, I could go 6 months without grocery shopping but we get tired of frozen, canned and dehydrated food and prefer to eat fresh. So for one month we will forego some of fresh choices (like lettuce that has gotten soooo expensive) and eat more of the preserved stuff. Not a bad thing in the scheme of life because it's good to rotate through anyways. The kids will just gripe because the fresh veggies I have on hand are not their most favorite but I can usually work them in so they don't object too loudly to things like the squash and eggplant.

Did some number crunching over the weekend and realized I didn't have as much set aside for the half beef we are getting this month as I thought. If I add this month's grocery budget to it, it should come out close to what I expect the beef to be. So in an effort to not go horribly over budget as well as reduce the amount of food in the freezers (so I have enough room for the beef), I'm going to do my best to have an almost no spend on groceries for the month of November. I do have $92 in my grocery cash in my wallet so for the few things we absolutely can't live without, that will be my funding source. I made of list of 13 different meals that I have all the ingredients on hand to make (and that I have enough to cover multiple meals if that ingredient is used more than once). Since I cook big meals, we typically get 2-3 meals out of anything I make. There are a few things on the list I could probably make twice if necessary. The big thing is I don't have a lot of veggies on hand (besides what I planned for the 13 meals) and with garden pretty well done for the year, I don't have much to supplement. I will start sprouts a couple of times and that will give us some fresh veggies and I'll pick up a little at the store with my cash. Hopefully I'll get lucky and get some from my Ruby's Pantry share. They moved it up a week so it's only 3 weeks between this time so that will help. My sister offered me some swiss chard but I declined because I had no idea what to do with. After doing numbers, I told her I changed my mind so I will have at least more veggies to experiment with. Hopefully I can find something to make that my crew will eat. I have no idea if I can stick with that budget but I'm sure going to try (at least until I get a final number for the cost of the beef). Also I don't host Thanksgiving, my mom does and I just bring sides most of which I have ingredients for on hand. I just realized I will probably have to grab a bag of Kale salad from Costco for this. I do have Kale growing in my garden so maybe I will experiment before hand and see if I can come up with a close substitute (although I know I don't have any brussel sprouts).

The only time I've seen them is a) when they open a new store and less often b) an occasional promotion only to those in the city it is located in. I live 10 minutes from one but it is technically in another city. The store has been open 10 years (if I remember correctly). I've seen twice in all that time where they offered a promotion to people who lived in that city. It was not available to me (who lives in the much larger community that is basically on its doorstep). The discount was minor in the scheme of it (I think maybe $20 off and only good for one year). I suppose it's possible other Costco's offer other promos but that is how the one closest to me handled it. When they opened the third store in my area (and the one that I would guess is closest to you). I got several flyers in the mail about it opening and how to join but no promos. Since they were telling me how to join, I'm guessing they didn't pull the info from their current membership list.

I work in a greenhouse March-June. It's family owned so the hours can be very intense so yeah spring cleaning is NOT a thing around here. However, right after I put the gardens to bed for the winter and finish the canning then yes, I very much turn to fall cleaning to recover from the 6 months of doing the bare minimum while I gave the majority of my time and attention to outside work. Today it rained all day and was the first day of Fall cleanning where we reorganized the downstairs storage room (mostly food but extra dishes like my canning equipment etc) and started working on the utility room. No matter my good intentions to always put things away in the correct spot after using them (or resupplying in the case of food stuff), somehow those two areas always look like a bomb went off and we have to sort and reorganize.

The legal minimum wage here is $7.25 but I haven't seen any job postings where wage number was included for anything under $12.00. So while employers can legally pay less, in actuality they probably have to pay more if they want to actually have employees. My daughter works at a fast food restaurant where starting rates are $14. They have lost at least a dozen employees in the last couple of months because they are all going to other places that pay more (or at least that is the reason they are sharing with co-workers).

Put it in an airtight container with a slice of fresh bread.