Sneak Peak

 Well. I really can't say that I've gotten a lot accomplished this week. Not in terms of something I can see, or put my hands on, at least. I did get My Rose Log Cabin quilt loaded and started. I have 2 rows of it done, with 10 more to go. I'm doing a petal shape in the rose section and a leaf shape in the dark green. I'm doing continuous curves in the flying geese, and a fern type leaf background fill in the light green and beige areas. I'm happy with the way it is looking, but it is taking forever, mostly since I haven't had large chunks of time to work on it.
My husband and I have been spending a lot of time talking and planning lately. He has lost a lot of his hearing due to Meniere's disease, which has impacted his ability to work. He is a nurse, and being able to hear the patients is rather important. So, he'll either be going on a disability pension,

or he'll be retiring. Either option involves a large decrease in our income. And of course, it is no where near as simple as that, when dealing with hospital corporations and their "protocols" they have to follow in cases like this.
We've made a few decisions. We are going to be purchasing a new freezer to replace the one that died shortly after Becca's wedding. We'll put in a small vegetable garden this spring, and then attempt to go out to the farms in our area and freeze fruits and vegetables in season. There are a lot of organic farms very close to us that sell both vegetables and beef, pork and chicken.
Yesterday, after going out to see about ordering a new front door, we went to pick up a few groceries. I must confess right here that I haven't been out to do a major grocery shop in quite a while. Scott does the majority of our grocery shopping.  (He takes such good care of me) I was absolutely knocked over by some of the prices, especially for the ground beef. They wanted $7.99 for a one poundish package of lean ground beef. I remembered reading not that long ago  Judy Laquidara's post about her meat grinder. I pulled it up, re-read it, talked to Scott about it, and the possible cost savings in the long term. On top of that, there have been e-coli scares about ground beef here lately, and our wonderful government is talking about cutting costs by reducing the numbers of meat inspectors out there. So, we've ordered one. The other thing that blew me away was the cost of a loaf of bread, over 3 dollars for a good one. So the bread machine has been put back to use. And then, as if that isn't enough, I've been seeing posts lately for making our own laundry detergent. There is a good one about it here. So, after the last of our current bottle is done, we'll be doing that as well. In the past, I've been the one to do the vegetable prep and freezing, the bread making and the vegetable gardening. But Scott will now take it on, once I show him how, since he will be home, and I'll still be working. All this has taken up TONS of time, just with the research and the talking about it. But I'm hoping we're over the hump, and on the road to putting into practice some of what we've been talking about. The first step is done, the freezer is ordered, and will be picked up May 5th. If the meat grinder is here by then, we plan on going out to our local Costco and picking up a couple of their large beef cuts and making some ground beef. And I'm going to order some chickens from a local organic producer to put in the freezer, as well. I'll put up the occasional post about how it is all going. Somewhere in all this there has to be time to quilt. (sigh)