It Was Glorious!

I made stuffed roast chicken today, with yams, green bean casserole, extra stuffing, and lingonberry sauce. I had never made my grandmother's recipe for stuffing before, but it turned out well. *B* popped a bottle of wine we received for housewarming, and we had a very lovely chicken dinner. I picked some flowers from the back garden for a centerpiece. The light is not as pretty as it appears through my window, but this is our table:
It is so good to be home!

After making lunch, I picked the rest of the chicken and got about 2 lbs of meat off of it. I will be making Mexican lasagna with the leftovers. I love it so much.

Recipes:
Grandmom's Stuffing
1 lb raw sausage
1 loaf of bread
2 eggs
Celery
Onion
Poultry Seasoning
Salt
Pepper

Mix together, stuff the bird, and cook the rest in a casserole dish. When checking temperatures, don't forget to check stuffing temperature.

Mexican Lasagne
Cooked chicken (cooked any way)
Mexican cheese
Flour tortillas
Salsa
Sour cream
Black beans (drained)
Diced chilis
Cumin

Mix together all but the mexican cheese and flour tortillas. Cut the flour tortillas into 1 inch wide strips. Layer as you would with lasagna, tortillas, chicken mixture, and cheese until none remains. Top with cheese and bake at 350 until hot and slightly brown on top.

First Disaster and New Arrivals

At about 5:45 yesterday morning, I was taking a shower, and *B* went downstairs to use the second bathroom. It turns out, our utility sink backed up, overflowed, and there was half an inch of water on the tile side! Okay, so at least it's on the tile side. Then, I walk over to the carpet side, and it's mushy :o( We've finally gotten everything cleaned up after using a shop vac, a rug doctor, a dehumidifier, and a number of fans. It turns out, the lady who used to live here dumped her grease down the drain instead of into a jar. My dad came over and snaked out the pipe. It was so awful, but at least it's fixed now.

As bad as yesterday was, today is good. My new stove came today! It's gorgeous. Check it out:

I can't wait to use it! Tomorrow, I'm making stuffed chicken, green bean casserole, yams, and lingonberry sauce. I finally made up a menu for the week. There's a much greater variety in our meals now, and they're nicely balanced.

A little fuzzy, but here is our menu:


Tonight was the last night *B*'s family was here, so we went out for dinner. But tomorrow, I'll be cooking up a storm! So excited!

Oops...

So last night I was full of all sorts of great ideas that I wanted to blog about. After three or four sentences, I apparently passed out right on my laptop! I guess I was tired...

Tonight, there was a huge sale at our local Martin's grocery store. I must say, I love Martin's. They have little scanners so that you can scan your food as you pick it up. That way, you can bag it yourself, and save time in line. I picked up 12 large cans each of corn kernels and green beans for half off. Total, we spent $120 on groceries worth $170. It should last us a good month, plus some for our food storage.

Our three month supply is now up to 9 cans of yams, 12 cans of corn, and 12 cans of green beans. A modest start, to be sure, but it's a start nonetheless.

I need to figure out a cleaning schedule for the house. It's hard to start one because I can't find any of my supplies yet. This weekend, I'm hitting the boxes hard. I'm hopeful that I can come up with or find a cleaning schedule that I can implement ASAP.

Creating a Home

Now that the homebuying process is over, now it's time for my favorite part - the homemaking process. There is so much I want to do. Now, when reading posts for building food storage, I can actually implement what I learn. I can keep a cleaning schedule rather than dreaming about a clean place to live.

The biggest problem I've encountered with the move: we can't put together a fair amount of our furniture because the ziploc with all of the hardware in it is missing.

We're Home!

All of our stuff is moved into our new home! I've spent the whole weekend cleaning, sorting, and cleaning some more. When we moved the boxes that had been in *B*'s parents' basement (with a dehumidifier), we found two whole boxes of moldy belongings! Some of them are clothes, and they will be washed first thing. The rest is kitchen pans/utensils. So to be on the safe side, I'm washing EVERYTHING before we eat off of it. We were very lucky, though, to have my whole family plus *B*'s best friend help us move. Everything went off without a hitch.

The biggest problem, so far, has been food. I have been sick to my stomach for two days now because we haven't eaten anything healthy since we've moved. On Friday, there was donuts and pizza. On Saturday, we had pizza for breakfast and my dad took us out to a greasy food joint. Today, I was served breakfast in bed (so sweet!) of donuts and juice (too sweet!), then we had fast food for lunch, and (ashamed to say it) kix krispy treats for dinner. Tomorrow night, I will be making chicken stir fry with tons of veggies for dinner.

One of the things I'm most excited about is our ability to FINALLY have a three month supply. As they were on sale at the grocery store Friday night, our three month supply started with.......canned yams! I consider them to be both very nutritious and a comfort food that we eat fairly often. I will be cruising those sales to build up our supply. We have an awesome cabinet that stores items on a swinging shelf system that has more shelves behind it. That will be our start. When we can afford it, we will be getting more shelving for the laundry area downstairs.

I get very nervous when I am the only person awake in an area (i.e. here at home). I start making up sounds and seeing things that aren't there. But I know it's all in my head. Right?

Moving Day!!

Today we close and move some of our stuff, then tomorrow everything else goes over! Our old bedroom is totally cleaned out.


And this is what resulted:


Tomorrow will be a looooooong day!

Starting to Get Nervous

We have three days until we're supposed to close. The USDA has not yet sent us approval for our house. The mortgage officer ran it through the pre-approval system and it said we'll be fine. But with three days left and no word yet, I'm starting to get really anxious. I don't know what to do. We're still packing, planning, and getting the utilities and everything switched over. But I am much less chipper and much more freaked out than I was two days ago.

It didn't help that I forgot to take my anxiety medication for the first time in four months this morning. While I was really leery to take meds at first, now I can not imagine living without them. I used to lie in bed thinking I was going to have a heart attack, I was going to have a stroke, or I was dying of cancer. I used to stay up for hours not being able to sleep because I thought I would never wake up. I am so thankful that I'm now mostly under control. Twice tonight I've had heart palpitations when I couldn't remember the last time I had had it previously. I will never forget my meds again.

One of my diversions is watching wholesome reality shows. I don't watch any of the "Real World" or "Survivor" type shows. While watching 18 Kids and Counting, they announced the impending birth of #19. At what point does it become irresponsible to have another child? Obviously, one answer is when you cannot afford that child. But does the onslaught of offspring that will appear as grandchildren factor into parental responsibility? Our earth has a hard enough time supporting who we have already. They're obviously free to do as they wish, but I'm still forming my own opinions on how many children I'd like to have, and I'm fighting people who say more than 2 are wrong.