December 2022 Frugal Chat (when Autumn turns into Winter)

[Ciel21]

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[coupon girl]

The winds are unreal ,as i sit in my upstairs spare room ,i swear the screens are gonna blow off.Our garbage was today and they came for blue boxes at 2.30,i was out there to retrive them ,tooo cold and windy for me .

[Frugalbigmama]

What a great lazy afternoon. Had a shower and then went to GT. (Mixed greens, chips, chocolate bars and Chapman's Ice Cream x 2 (had to use 2 x $4 coupons that expire next week) on sale.

Now I have burgers cooking in cast iron pan, gravy simmering and fries cooking in the air fryer. So good and so bad
My neighbours just had delivery. I thought they were away since they haven't done their driveway. He is going to regret it tomorrow! The end is full of boulders and will now freeze.

[flemeth]

@lilo0003 hope you feel better soon

[harbie]

We didn’t get as much snow as they predicted but we have ice pellets and some freezing rain. Oh joy!

I’m proud of myself. I held off until 2:20pm before hitting the Baileys . We have the non dairy version and I’m doing it straight. Can’t risk diluting it with coffee .

I’ve been tackling mount laundry since I’ve let it grow when I was working. Maybe I’ll reorganize the fridge. Need something to keep me busy while the laundry is washing/drying.

Tomorrow I’ll walk up to IGA and pick up some vegan cheeses since we already ate some and promised my parents some. Oops . The weather should just be wet so I’m ok with that.

Say warm and safe everyone.

[lilo0003]

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. All things considered I don’t feel that bad. I have the cough and stuffy nose. I have isolated myself in the basement. Good thing is this is our family room we never use and we have the comfiest couch imaginable down here so no hardship. We also have a spare bed so I have a proper place to sleep. The goal is to keep everyone else healthy so father in law can come Sunday. The rest of the family is testing negative and my second test today is still positive but not the instant screaming reaction the test strip had 2 days ago. At this point testing is pointless because you can test positive months after so it’s all about the number of symptoms you have.
DS1 and DH did the last of the grocery shopping today. It’s incredibly windy but so far the storm is not as bad as predicted. Tomorrow I will make the sausage rolls and DS2 will prepare the beef Wellington as he let’s it set for a day prior to cooking. It’s kind of nice to not be out in the last mad rush before Christmas.

[SassyAshley]

All of the Christmas baking is done and Christmas has been postponed LOL.

Although I think this is the first year, I got all of the baking done in one day and it wasn't like I started at 6 am and baked until midnight.

I 100% think this scaled-down Christmas is the way to go. I am not stressed, I did get a little frustrated but all and all this was a good experience this year.

I made the ooey gooey chocolate crinkle cookie dough first as it had to go in the fridge for 2 hours. A few things, even after refrigerating the dough it was still hard to work with. It was super sticky and thick so I could not use a cookie scope and had to literally had to use my hands and scope them but hand, even using a spoon did not work. They are good but I expected more Chocolate Flavour, hoping they are one of those cookies that after they sit overnight the flavour will come out a little more.

Then I made the Almond Sprinkle Cookies, I was worried about these ones. The recipe said it might look like the dough is not coming together but to keep mixing so that made me nervous but they came together no problem. They are good a little crumbly but I think they are meant to be.

Lastly was the Peanut Butter Cheesecake. Turns out we do not have a 9" springform pan, well I am sure we do somewhere in the basement but I did not want to dig through all of the boxes. So I made it as a 10" instead, since the photo shows the 9" pan was close to full I was worried about trying to go down to an 8". Everything looks good but cannot really taste test it without everyone knowing.

I had hoped to be done earlier but we took over an hour off at lunch trying to decide what to have and then make it so I feel a little behind but happy to have it done and not have to think about it.

I cleaned as I went so the kitchen is clean and ready for tomorrow. Cleaning as you go is the only way for me, otherwise when you are tired you have a stack of dishes to tackle and I will be super happy to not wake up to a dirty kitchen tomorrow.

Dinner was Slow Cooker Garlic Parmesan Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans. It was okay, I think next time I would use more onion and a little less Garlic, it was a little overpowering.

Tomorrow I plan to make overnight Cinnamon Buns that I will bake off Christmas Morning. I believe the plan for Christmas day is a Roasted Chicken with Potato Stuffing, Roasted Potatoes and a veggie, maybe Roasted Butternut Squash. Will need to make the Bread Crumbs for the stuffing tomorrow.

Time to relax. The storm is still storming outside, the power winked a few times and went out for about 30 seconds, it seems to be getting more windy now.

[SassyAshley]

Good Morning Everyone,
Woke up at 5 am this morning and I am super happy about that, mornings have been a struggle for me but I am such a morning person, it has been a struggle. I love being up early doing all the things in the morning, it sets the tone for the day for me. But I did not get up until 6 am as I laid there listening to the wind and thinking how warm and comfy my bed is.

It is still extremely windy here and looks like we have a few more hours of wind then the snow is supposed to start again.

Trying to figure out dinner for tonight, my goal over my break is to get back on track with Dinners, as I find once we get back on track it is easier to stay on track but it is getting over that hump. Originally I was thinking of making a Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Potatoes and Carrots but we had Mashed Potatoes last night and are having Roasted Potatoes tomorrow night so now I am thinking we should have something without Potatoes.

Right now I am thinking of either Spaghetti Squash Chicken Caprese Bowls or Mozzarella Chicken over Pasta. I want something without leftovers as I am a little tight on Fridge space right now, I have a cheesecake in there plus I need to get some stuff in there for our Christmas Dinner.

Time to get going and get some stuff done.

Merry Christmas Eve

[Frugalbigmama]

Morning!

Our power went out at 945pm last night. Tree down on power lines and lots of people were out. I heard the fan come back on so it wasn't off too long
DS was told not to come into work which was great. Power cleaned this morning.
Clean laundry put away and a load washed and hung to dry. Just made breakfast. Will tidy up the kitchen and then keep at the cleaning.

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas day everyone

[coupon girl]

My power just went out for 10 minutes and i thought my desktop was fried ,but now power is back on ,its the darn winds .

[harbie]

The warmer rains have arrived. Bring on the floods . At least the frigid temperatures are gone.

Another chill day here. Might dive to grab a coffee and getting some facial beauty masks so Dh and I can have a night of beauty. Yes, he indulges me .

A run on the tread is on the list as well as a strength class.

[Ciel21]

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[Frugalbigmama]

We had to cancel going to our annual family Christmas Eve party . It was just not risking the drive
We were offered a back up plan for a full turkey dinner gathering in the next town but it is not even worth risking driving there. They had all there company cancel as well due to sickness and weather.

So Christmas Eve nachos it is!

Will go out later and get some fresh air and shovel the walkway.

[cath007]

Happy Christmas Eve !!!
Yeah yesterday dad work was cancelled because of the roads where too dangerous

[SassyAshley]

My get all the things done day did not happen.

I took a shower to find my ambition and get going, but it did not work. After my shower, I curled up on the couch under my blanket and watched a Christmas Movie.

Pretty much all I got done today was making the Cinnamon Rolls for tomorrow, they are in the fridge rising and waiting to be baked off tomorrow. I made dinner but had to come up with plan b. We had a late lunch and when dinnertime rolled around we were not hungry so when we got hungry, I took the Chicken Chunks I had out, cooked them up with some mushrooms and made mushroom gravy and served it over the leftover mashed potatoes.

Oh I forgot, I did chop up some Romaine so it is ready to make Salads and I did bring a bunch of stuff up from the basement to restock the kitchen. But I only brought the stuff up, still need to restock.

Mom is making Butter Tarts and we are watching White Christmas.

Oh and we changed up our Dinner for tomorrow, decided to switch to Prime Rib, it seemed easier, so it is defrosting in the fridge.