FOOD!

I have two posts bouncing around in my head. Would you rather hear me break my vow of silence and gripe about foster care or would you rather hear about food?

Okay, food it is! Food has been totally kicking my butt this week. Our huge order came in on Wednesday and we were told to be at the drop location at 10am. When we arrived we told that the drop takes on average two hours. We didn't bring any snacks for the kids, nor anything to keep them entertained longer than 15 minutes. Ooops. The truck was late so that didn't help our time line, and I was offended that out of the 50 cases of food I had ordered only 28 had arrived. Since it was only half of what we were anticipating it fit nicely into the van. Lack of planning left us with a just about full freezer at home and 10 cases of frozen food that needed someplace to go. I emailed Jen and she rushed home from work to make room in her freezer. I brought over a bunch of stuff to her house and the rest I piled under winter jackets to keep cold until a new freezer could be procured. Then we went out to buy a new freezer, filled it with the food under the jackets and had NO ROOM left for the things at Jen's.

The other cases had us completely overwhelmed and Gary had to build an entire new shelving system that forced me to run out for 36 cinder blocks. Thankfully a friend had a garage full of HUGE boards that he sold to us for $3 each. An entire day was spent building shelves. By this point we were pretty much zombies from the work involved.

The next morning I had plans to pick up yet another food order from Serve with my friend S. We decided to lawn sale a bit before getting our food and she found a living room set priced at $50. To my Maine blood that was an insane amount of money to spend on a used couch so I step in and told the woman we would pay her $25. (S is from the south and I keep teasing her about her Birmingham Money Mind. In fact at another lawn sale she picked up a rug and I went to her and whispered ONE dollar. She offered a dollar and got the rug. Once we were away from the sale she admitted that she was going to offer $5 and thought maybe that was too low!) Anyway, the couch lady said no. In all my yard sailing years I have NEVER been shot down when making an offer. Not one time. So we left with a plan to send Gary back later because he was our master negotiator. I found a bunch of maternity clothes and tons of real tupperware, and even a set of Corelle dishes before picking up (more!) food.

We headed back to my house and S stayed with my kids so Gary and I could go buy her couches. The woman originally said she would take $25, then remembered that she had "just told a woman no" (yes, that would be me!) so she couldn't go that low. He got them for $30. But let us all be very clear, if I hadn't opened my mouth he would have gotten them for $25.

On our way back home we saw a sign for a freezer for sale. It was twice the size of the one we had just bought so we hatched a plan to have S's husband go get the couches and pick up the freezer for us on the way back, and oh yeah, (return the new one to the store). Only he didn't want new couches and seemed to have an agenda of his own for the day that didn't involve being our personal moving man. I know...I can't understand it either. Anyway, long story short it, moving two freezers and freezers full of food makes for yet another VERY long day.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the peaches. In the midsts of unbelievable amounts of food coming in, and new freezers and pantry space, I bought a case of peaches. Then I forgot about them and left them in the car during the heat wave. Ugh. One peach grew a beard and a couple got spots, but most of them were perfectly ripe, so I needed to get to work right away. We started first thing in the morning boiling, pealing, and chopping peaches and didn't stop until late that night. 55 cups of jam. I ran out of jars and lids so had to create a peach cobbler and throw some in the freezer for smoothies. WAAAAY too many peaches. The funny thing is that I tired to buy TWO cases but the store owner wanted to keep some for other customers.



Food details:

haddock, flash frozen, 25 pounds, enough to feed three families for a year $4.00 (for the entire case!) It was yummy, and $4 is less than I would pay for one fillet at the grocery!

Cheese, vacuum packed in 2 pound packages, 42 pounds, $27.00 (and the most expensive item on my invoice) We had mac and cheese last night and it was the best I have ever made.

Chicken, boneless skinless frozen in 2 pound packs, 36 pounds! $23.00

Salami, 12 1 pound packages, $11

Tide, 20 80 ounce bottles, $19.00

Everything else was 16 cents a pound. Cereals, salad dressing, marinades, crackers, cookies, barbecue sauce, mustards, pectin, baking chocolate, candy bars (Smores, Butterfingers, Turtles, Dark chocolate with espresso beans!!!, Organic chocolate bars, etc...) power bars, diced tomatoes, granola bars, taco shells, you name it.

My entire food order bill came to $164. That's about half of what I spend per week at the grocery for about 20 times the food.

Here are some pictures. It's amazing how on film it doesn't look like much.