My Tireless Retirement - Week 44

 

Hello, hello!  Another week has slipped by and February snuck in I see.  That is okay because I'm ready for warmer weather and the only way for that to happen is to get through these colder months.  It has been cold here, that is for sure.  We made it into the single digits one day last week! With most of our lows in the teens.  Yikes!  Not a lot of sun either, but it did come out for a bit here and there.

 

I went through my spice cabinet once again and put everything into small Mason jars I had
I used some white return address labels I had in with my office supplies to make the labels

 

I've made it through my decluttering checklist for the second time now and I've filled up two more trash bags with donations (still need to drop off), taken in another full bin of glass to the recycling collection container at the supermarket, filled up my big blue wheelie bin with recycling twice and my trash wheelie bin once.  Despite the cold winter temperatures I did make it out to the garage and went through quite a bit of what is out there.  I went through most of my home improvement supplies, yard and garden stuff as well as all of my auto maintenance and cleaning supplies.  I got rid of some stuff and then reorganized what I had decided to keep.

 

Got a little touch up painting done on the cabinetry throughout the house

More decluttering in the pantry and I pretty much have the top shelf clear
with only my extra egg cartons up there and some catnip, for obvious reasons

I grabbed one of my craft paint brushes and a pot of paint in the garage to do a little touch up on my cabinetry throughout my house.  I'm impressed that my paint is holding up as well as it has and that it has been well over two years since I last touched up anything, but sometimes you ding a door or scratch a drawer and it just needs a little dab of paint to make it look good as new.

 

"Yeah, if you could come back later and make the bed that would be great"
He was so worried I was going to kick him out, but I came back later

I decided on one of the really cold days last week I'd heat up the oven and do some baking.  I was low on bread so it made sense to get it all done in one big session.  I made a couple loaves of whole wheat bread, two loaves of pumpkin raisin bread, two loaves of apple cinnamon bread and a dozen and a half blueberry muffins.  A friend came by for coffee and I sent her home with some bread and half of the muffins.  I wrapped and put most of what was left away in the freezer and that should keep me well supplied for quite a while.  I won't need to bake anything for a good long time and I'm ready next time someone shows up for coffee.

 

I didn't use the tots, cheese or peas & carrots yet, but hopefully this week they will see some action

After spending the majority of the month cleaning out what I had squirreled away in my kitchen freezer I was expecting I might need to do some cooking this past week, however I still had leftovers to work through until Wednesday.  Then I shopped my freezer again and pulled out meat to make a meat loaf and some veggies I thought I might use as well as a package of cheese.

 

Blurry picture, but delicious anyway 😃

I used some of my "regrown" scallions to garnish the baked potatoes
They are almost as tall and full as when I originally bought them

I did make the meatloaf in my medium sized slow cooker and baked four potatoes in my smallest slow cooker which worked out perfectly.  They were both done at the same time.  I steamed some broccoli and cauliflower to serve along with the meatloaf and a baked potato.  There were loads of leftovers to keep me going the rest of the week.  On Friday I made a half recipe of crack chicken in my smallest slow cooker and between that and the meatloaf I was pretty much set for the weekend and I still have leftovers.

 

I had three of these in the freezer and they were starting to get a little frosty

Eight lovely pints of meatballs in tomato sauce for my long term food storage

Last summer I had happened upon a great deal on sausage meatballs marked down to $1.99 a package so I purchased several of them.  I cooked them, made some seasoned tomato sauce and got all of those canned up along with a stray package of Italian sausages that I found in the chest freezer out in my garage.  I had cooked some of those meatballs a few months ago and found them rather salty so I put them into my medium slow cooker with a lot of water to cook them and leach off some of the salt.  I also didn't add any salt to the tomato sauce I made.  Hopefully those two things balance it all out and they won't be so salty now.

 

I finished up the pumpkin pancakes I had in the freezer and the bacon last week

How was your January?  Did you tackle any projects or work on a particular goal you had set?  I hope you all enjoyed the first month of 2023 and stayed warm and healthy.