My Tireless Retirement – Week 198

 

Hello friends!  How is everyone?  I hope you are all doing well and your needs are being met.  Our weather has cooled with overnight temperatures below freezing, however we are still warmer than average and have had a lot of rain with our El Nino winter.  How is the weather where you live?

 

Last Friday morning I was awake at 3:00 in the morning and could not go back to sleep to save my soul.  My first thoughts upon waking were how my heart hurt for Minneapolis and all that had taken place there as well as how our federal government chose to respond to that atrocity.  I appreciated the honest emotion of their mayor too.  I couldn’t shut off my thoughts so I just got up and started my day.  I also worked all that day at the senior center (and we were busy!) so by the time I got home I was physically and emotionally exhausted.  I immediately took a hot bath, put on my pajamas and fixed one of the frozen pizzas the BFF had stashed in my freezer for just such an occasion.  And I was grateful to have it too.

 

I started gathering up items from the freezer, fridge & pantry to use up

I went to bed on time that evening and slept in until 10:00 Saturday morning!  It is rare for me to sleep in, but even more so for it to be that late in the morning so I’d say I was very tired.  I slept straight through the night, again something I rarely do, and when I got up I felt rested and reinvigorated so I puttered about the house getting my chores done, fed and took care of my animals and sipped my coffee while I slowly began my day.  It was the perfect start to my weekend.  I also pulled out some items from the pantry and freezer to start a meal prep for the week ahead.  You all know how much I love quality time spent in my kitchen!

 

I did a lot of die cutting

I used up a lot of scraps this past week!

I had made some die cuts with my Sissix the week prior and the kitties found them and decided to do some paper crafting of their own – little brats!  They had some fun, to be sure.  It gave me the excuse to get back to it and get crafty and that is how I spent the remainder of my Saturday.  Paper crafting and watching some TV while I worked.  Perfect!

 

I sliced up and blanched carrots & celery for the freezer

These will be super handy to add to future meals & recipes

I saved the blanching water along with some veggie
scraps to add to my next batch of stock 

Sunday morning I woke up inspired to do a little meal prep.  I had purchased a large bag of carrots as well as about a half bunch of celery that I wanted to peel, cut up and blanch for the freezer.  I ended up with a quart bag of sliced carrots, a sandwich bag of chopped celery and carrots for soup and then a snack size bag of celery for a future recipe.  I am happy about that and even happier that nothing went to waste as some scraps went to the bag in the freezer to make broth while the rest went to the bunny and the chickens.

The girls love kitchen scraps

 

Thank you ladies!

I decided to make some pasta meat sauce and use up a bunch of odds and ends in the kitchen freezer, fridge and pantry (older jars of home canned meat) and it made a huge pot of sauce.  I had a box of lasagna noodles that had been hanging out in the pantry for a while so I used that to make three lasagnas.  One I cooked for this past week and the other two were wrapped and put in the deep freezer.  I have enough lasagna stocked for the entire year and I used up a ton of stuff – cheese, cottage cheese from the fridge plus frozen sweet bell pepper, crushed tomatoes and grated zucchini from the freezer.

 

A huge pot of "clean out the fridge & freezer" sauce

I watched Youtube videos while I was cooking
Three lasagnas - 1 for now, 2 for the deep freezer

It was time to wash all of my bedding so while I ran loads through I did some paper crafting.  I used up some of the die cuts and scrappy bases I had made the day before to create sixteen birthday cards.  I also used up a lot of embellishments I had in one of the drawers of my craft organizer.  Slowly, but surely I am using things up.  My paper scraps drawer is looking so much better too.

 

After clearing out the fridge/freezer I had a few dishes,
but no food waste!

I still had a fair bit of produce left after cleaning the fridge

With many items cleared from the refrigerator it was the perfect time to go through everything in there and take inventory of what I had.  I took everything out, wiped down the shelves and wiped out the drawers and then reorganized everything.  I place leftovers to be eaten all together in one place so I can focus on those first and then on Tuesday I ended up putting the lasagna I had made up into the oven for supper.  Since I had the oven on I also added a no crust pumpkin pie I made using sweetener in place of sugar to lower the carbohydrates.  It was delicious!  So was the lasagna!

 

I stopped at Winco to pick up some staples I was low on
Fresh blackberries were $1.28 a pint!  What a treat & quite delicious!

After work on Monday I stopped in at Winco to pick up a few items I was running low on.  Along with some fresh produce I picked up half a dozen bags of frozen vegetables to add to the chest freezer in my LTFS.

 

I made cards to use up & clear out my scrap paper drawer
Huge progress was made! 😃

Pretty embossed Christmas cards

My days off were Tuesday and Wednesday and I spent the majority of that time crafting.  I am on a mission to use up some stuff!  And that I did.  More items from my stash were transformed into greeting cards and embellishments for making journals and other things.  Last week I ordered a set of replacement blades for my paper cutter, a box of 100 white envelopes, a new set of dies (on sale) to help me complete my projects.  I am only planning to purchase necessities, not extras this year.  I have so much beautiful papers to use up right now.  I definitely don’t need to buy any paper this year.

 

I had so much fun!

That was how I spent my latest week in retirement.  How was your week?  Take care and stay safe my friends.  I wish you all the best in the coming week.