Dietary Restrictions

Hello darling Readers!

I figured I ought to throw a post up here about the required dietary restrictions that will be entering the house this weekend - as well as those already in place here.

First off: The Main Household:

• Mr. K is slightly allergic to gluten - and as such, we keep a low gluten household.

• KK is allergic to corn - mostly canned food for this kitty!

• I myself am allergic to aspartame (and thus too afraid to try the bevy of new artificial sweeteners on the market). Pineapple and cinnamon are not so very friendly to me, nor is beef. Ah, poor cow... how I love your flavor, but not your after effects. T_T

The Incoming:

• ZV is on quite a restrictive medical necessity diet; low acidity. It doesn't sound so awful at first - but then you realize you can't have citrus fruits or tomatoes! Or curry. I could cry.

Just for the weekend:

• S has Crohn's - there is very little food he can eat without the whole meal resulting in a lot of pain.

• Momie is allergic to wheat gluten (known as Celiac Disease), and due to medial necessity is now on a low-oxalate diet. At this point, it is easier to list the food she CAN eat - which, as she says, is "Air. Supplemented by water. That's about it."

Since Momie has the most restrictive diet of the lot of us, I figured cooking Thursday's dinner and Friday's breakfast and lunch with what's acceptable within her wide range of restrictions would be most frugal - one meal cooked means less time and money sunk to feed us all. I spent all morning practicing my Googlemancy and wound up with only two websites that have any recipes for a gluten-free low-oxalate diet - http://www.beallergywise.com/tag/low-oxalate/ is accompanied by the poster's blog (which is a great read!). I am particularly enamored with the GFLO sugar cookies! Our second (in my case, far more useful) find is http://www.lowoxalate.info/recipes.html - click through the tabs on the top of their page; all of their recipes are GFLO. ^_^

Love and best dishes!
~ the delectable Mrs. K

Let's call it a refresh, shall we?

Dearest Readers -

I do apologize for my excessively long absence from the glorious intertubes, net-nets, web-web, and other such online activities. Life, as they say, caught up with me - and I let my poor blog die off as a result.

Well! No more! I am making a commitment right here, right now - no longer shall I deprive my lack of an audience from my overenthusiastic zeal for frugality, food, and generally far too wordy updates on life in general.

A lot has happened since my last post - the least of which is the celebration Mr. K and I had over our second anniversary! We packed up and drove out to Saugatuck, MI - which should have only been an hour and a half of a drive from us. We decided to road trip it - and hey, getting lost was half the fun. Lake Michigan was indescribleable in it's rolling fog - the closest I can come to a proper telling is to say it reminded me of Scotland. Beautiful! Our lodgings were especially wonderful at the Kingsley house Inn B&B, and we are highly recommending the romantic qualities and superb hosts of the Inn to all our friends!

First off: the bad news. My car was stolen over Thanksgiving weekend. I ended up totaling the new car in a nasty accident in February (from which I have completely recovered! Fear not!). The car I now own broke down in Sterling Heights - nearly 3 horus from home. My mainstay job has ended. My husband is down to 21 hours a week and he does not qualify for underemployment benefits.

Now that the ick is out of the way, time for the good news! The nicest car I ever owned chose a good place to pop it's belt pulley - in my hometown, down the street from my parent's house! She was gracefully a quick repair at Plumbrook Auto Care. My husbands hours will go up in the fall - the lab has restricted hours for the summer. There is a chance he will be running his own lab once the building gets properly outfitted for students. Last night at 1AM TORNADO SIRENS woke us up, but thankfully there is no damage to our house, persons, or cat!

Oh - and the big news - TK moved out almost two months ago! He is getting along just splendidly in his new bachelor pad over on the southwest side of the city. Congrats on the move!

And speaking of moving out - we happen to have the delight of sharing our abode with friends for the summer! RK and her beau ZV have moved into the spare room so recently vacated by TK - we'll be supplying a roof for them between the end of their lease and the move into their new house! As a bonus, they've bought their own little ball of fluff, T, to befriend KK. Since both our kitties have all their claws - well, this will be an interesting dominance battle for sure.

This weekend is JAFAX, and as with any con it will be hectic. What with all the activity going on in this house, its going to be even crazier! We're moving the aforementioned trio in Friday, S is crashing on our couch for JAFAX, Momie (that's Mr. K's mother) is popping by to drop some home canned goods off for us, we've got a grad party to attend on Saturday, and after church on Sunday we'll be at JAFAX. Oh, and we may or may not have a few conscragglers crashing on the inflatabed. Or the floor, if the inflatabed refuses to inflate. Or both, if it does!

Woo! A full house indeed!

Oh yes - and for those of you who aren't in the know - JAFAX is the local anime convention held at GVSU. Come see us there! The whole crew will be over in the card corner as per our usual run of this con.

Ta Ta for now,
The Fantabulous Mrs. K

Happy Labor Day!

(photo subject to change once a picture of the festivities is obtained)

Hello Dear Readers!

OOO Look! An actual Photo!

Now you cannot complain about my postings being too verbose. Ha!

... Mr. K points out that a picture is worth a thousand words, and thus one could say I've just added a thousand words to my little post... to which I say "shudup." :P

I wish a happy Labor Day to each and every one of you. It is nice to have a day off! Mr. K and I are planning on lounging in the pool with the rest of my crazy family.

Perhaps we can even talk my father into a good barbecue. *eyebrow wags*

TLDR: Oh come on, it's not that long.


Type atcha later,
~Mrs. K

Freecycle

I have just discovered the world of Freecycle, the online swap meet. It is absolutely amazing. I have a box of things here that I don't need/use anymore, and I'd like to get {insert such here}. Somebody out there happens to have one of my wants sitting in their box-for-trade and one of my surplus items on their want list. Freecycle is just a nifty (free!) local-based service to get the two of us in touch. A trade-off is made, two happy people get what they wanted and got rid of something they didn't make use of anymore. What a wonderful website!

Freecycle has numerous nodes based in many US cities. All you need to do is pop over to www.freecycle.org, find the metropolis nearest you and join their group. Easy as pie.

I figure I'll take all the things left over from the Great Purge Craigslist sale and list them as "Items for trade" on Freecycle. Who knows, maybe we will end up with a bookcase?

I'll post more as I get further into this lovely system... I'm still waiting for my acceptance email at the moment. ^_^

TLDR: You + Google{freecycle}=win.

Type atcha later,
~Mrs. K

Salivation Stew

Nothing like the smell of a tasty stew to warm up a house on a cool autumn evening.

I really should have taken a picture before showing Mr. K what we were having for dinner... I wasn't aware the man could eat so fast! I promise a photo for next time.

Tonight's fine dining experience was provided for us via the pallet of home-canned goods from my Mother-in-Law. She's a fine lady, bestowing upon us such delights!

We found within the preserves a jar of beef brisket... now, I don't eat beef very often, but this? Home cooked brisket? I can make an exception for such divinity on a plate. I shall consider it an endeavor to strengthen my intestinal fortitude.

One pint Beef Brisket + two pints of potato cubes + 2 carrots from the 'fridge + a teensy bit of pepper* and corn starch = BEEF STEW! I sliced up a loaf of Jimmy John's day old bread (50 cents per loaf!! Avaliable at a Jimmy John's near you.) Mr. K took one look at the tray and says "That's not going to be enough bread". If I had let him, we'd have gone through another loaf!

TLDR: I made beef stew for dinner. Scroll up a bit for the recipe if you're so inclined.

Ta ta for now!
~Mrs. K

PS: For those of you who are wondering, one pint = two cups. And yes, you can substitute fresh ingredients (just turn your Crock Pot/slow cooker/dutch oven over high heat!)

*Those who know me would most certainly expect a pepper-laden stew. I like Pepper.

Clutter-Buster 101

Greetings!

The less you buy, the less Stuff you have in your house and the more space you have to store the things you actually need. It's crazy. With three people and a cat living in a two-bedroom townhouse (complete with basement!) we had no room to store all our Stuff.

Realizing this, I went on a binge craze. I systematically categorized everything in our house, room by room, into five piles per room: Need to keep in this room, need to keep outside this room, infrequent use (store in high cabinets and/or basement), and Unused, which is divided further into "good enough to sell on Craigslist", and Donate.

After the Great Purge, I realized I had a lot of potential storage space that wasn't being used (underneath the couch skirt, a completely unused dresser! etc). After moving a few things from room to room and re-organizing, I made a list of what I wanted to organize better (baskets for the pantry/fridge/freezer/spice cabinet, a stable bookshelf). Taking the list from room to room (and to the Unused piles) I managed to find a few things. An ill-fitting counter top wine rack became the perfect towel holder in the linen cabinet. A completely forgotten wooden utility cart is now our kitchen chopping center. It's amazing, we have a whole new look without spending any money!

We also discovered a multitude of duplicates. Why do we have three power drills? Four vegetable peelers? Electronics we had already replaced, two chalkboards and FIVE badly stained whiteboards from our college days. There were things we didn't even know we had: we had even purchased some items because we didn't know we had one on hand!

All of this has led to a new creed: Buying only the needs lets us splurge on the big wants. A non-Depletable purchase is only valid if the item the purchase is replacing is broken beyond repair. (instead of a new computer, Mr. K got new RAM)

Do you know what I really want? I want to get us out of debt, to pay off the credit card and Mr. K's student loans completely. To not have to worry about money. And maybe we can even afford a vacation cruse with the money we're not spending to buy Stuff we already have a version of. Why spend beaucoup bucks on a new dress when there are beautiful ones on sale? Why buy something new when you can make it for half the cost (or even free!)

TLDR: Most everybody has the problem of too much Stuff and not enough room to fit it all. Most of it is duplicated elsewhere in the home. By paring down our stuff and one-use items, money is saved and space for needed items is gained.

Thank you for reading,
~Mrs. K

Terminology

Salutations!

I have had a request to further explain what/how I define Depletables, Eatables, and Stuff.
Eatables are the easiest to define; they're simply food. The secret is they go from your mouth into your body.
A Depletable is anything that is used up; shampoo, cleaning agents, toilet paper, etc. One-use items have been deleted from the Depletable list: any kind of wipe (sprays + microfiber are more cost efficent), anything individually packaged is admantly avoided.
Stuff? Well, that's everything else. Stereos, TVs, furnature... things we tend to replace before they've worn out because the shiny advertisements tell us the new ones are better.

TLDR: Oh please. :P

Type atcha later,
~Mrs. K