Chapter 24
Thanksgiving came and went and the only reason I paid attention to it is because it snowed making it a lot colder than was comfortable, and because my online sales were piling up and I needed to get out and take them to the post office. When I was finally able to the following Monday I didn’t go to Dunnville however; I took them to Overton. I was hoping to shave off a day – or at least a few hours – of shipping time by avoiding rural route issues. I also wore more makeup than usual hoping to hide the last of the black eye. I don’t know which was worse, the naked black eye or the hack job I did with the war paint.
If I’m honest I decided I liked my anonymity and intended on keeping it that way as much as possible. Something had changed. I’d fought the bad guy and … well I hadn’t won but I hadn’t lost either. I didn’t want a rematch but in a way that fight had empowered me and given me a confidence I had lost. It also helped me to be more confident in what I wanted … or at least what I was wanting right then.
I hoped people would just forget about me. I didn’t want to be known for being the orphan who tragically lost her mother and sister to a senseless vehicle accident. I didn’t want to be known for tragically losing her father and brother to workplace violence. I didn’t want to be known for tragically losing her innocence to people that were supposed to have been her friends. I didn’t want to be known for tragically losing her aunt to cancer. I didn’t want Celeste Dunn thinking of ways to “introduce me around” or Cindy “the social worker” Dunn keeping track of me, or Smith Dunn crediting me with more feelings than I had, or even Winn Dunn doing whatever he had been doing for whatever reason. I just didn’t want to be known, period, because I was tired of being judged. I was done with people and done with the Dunn family who were just a temptation and not a solution in my life. I was ready to go back to knowing no one and no one knowing me.
And with that decided I wasn’t going to let entanglements stop me from doing what it took to keep people from knowing me and from providing Teena with a life. Maybe it would be a one-parent kind of life but at least it wouldn’t be any more of a soap opera than I could help. I was lucky that the soap opera qualities in my own life hadn’t made me a real whack-a-doodle. I wanted something different for Teena and I was willing to fight and sacrifice to get it for her.
After dropping the packages at the post office – and they had a line just for pre-paid packages which was smart and efficient – I headed to a discount grocery store that I had looked up online. I also had coupons which I was going to use to full advantage. I started with four jars of Miracle Whip. The plan said four jars of mayo but I don’t like mayo so Miracle Whip it was. The stuff wasn’t exactly cheap and that led me to looking up a copy-cat recipe which I found at Top Secret Recipes
[1]. Since it called for canola oil, I picked up another two gallons of the stuff.
Also on my list to do that day was go to the bookstore (both new and used ones that I found through Yelp) because I wanted to figure out how to raise chickens so I could have eggs without having to buy them from the store. That’s one of those “hobbies” that I started to develop despite the expense. But that was later, I was still working the coupons at the grocery store.
The plan said that I was supposed to buy five pounds of rice per person that day but I’d already bought a big bag of rice at the warehouse club and planned to buy another one later that day. So instead, I bought rice mixes … yellow rice, red beans and rice, rice pilaf, black beans and rice, rice-a-roni flavors, and stuff like that. Not only were they BOGO, I had coupons to add to that sale.
I did my research and figured out how to make my own baby food, but I needed dried fruits and veggies to do it. I didn’t have a fancy dehydrator like Winn had shown me … yet. But before a dehydrator could do me any good, I needed to have stuff to dry. My research revealed that blanched veggies dried better than just fresh veggies and that it was a waste to dry canned veggies because, in essence, they were already preserved for long term. The next best thing besides blanching them myself which could be a lot of work, was buying frozen veggies. They were blanched and flash-frozen at the processing plants. It would save me time and effort even if those big bags of frozen veggies cost money.
I also needed to replenish my bubble water and discovered that it was still cheaper to buy it by the 8-pack at the grocery than it was by the flat at the warehouse club. Not much cheaper but a few pennies was a few pennies, especially when those pennies involved gas for my rolling tank. I put on my list to try and figure out how to make my own.
While I was stuck home in the snow, I found out at least in part why the water at the house was so nasty. There was a leak under the kitchen sink … nearly broke my neck on the ice that had formed on the floor overnight … and when I investigated where it was coming from I found there was a filter under the sink that had frozen and cracked. Let me tell you, that thing looked like it hadn’t been changed since the turn of the century. I had to look up on some youtubes how to do it, but I took it offline and re-hooked the water up directly. The water was actually better without the filter. It still had a lot of minerals in it but wasn’t nearly as awful as it had been. Another bonus was that the filters for the water pitcher lasted longer as well. Who knew a dirty filter could put crap in the water instead of taking crap out?
I added to my list to look out for a food dehydrator, a water filter, and something called a Soda Stream at estate sales, yard sales, and Craigs List. That was in addition to the things I was already on the look out for like Rada knives and smalls that I could sell online.
I got more peanut butter at the store even though it wasn’t on the list yet because it was on sale. I also added to my medicine cabinet. And a girl who eats lots of peanut butter and cheese needs her daily fiber or she’ll need even more in the medicine cabinet and that is a universal truth. So I also picked up instant oatmeal, quick oats, and old-fashioned oats, but I got it in store brands instead of name brands. I knew there was a difference between the different types because when we made cookies at the holidays different recipes called for different kinds. I eventually learned to make my own instant oats from a recipe online
[2] and that saved me lots of money because in addition to peanut butter, cheese, and tomato soup I eat a lot of oats and you can guess why. And a little secret, if you put a spoonful of that fiber that dissolves to nothing in water you are going to stay regular no matter what you eat.
Beyond the rest of it, for this grocery trip I decided to focus on the things that would help me start canning and since I was going to start with the BWB (boiling water bath) method that meant non-acid foods and the easiest lesson I found for that was how to make jelly with store-bought fruit juice
[3]. I headed to the drink aisle and started with the flavors of juice that I would normally drink that was both 100% real juice and no-sugar-added. The recipe said the juice could have added sugar but that if it didn’t instead of regular Sure-jell I would need to use the Low/No-sugar type of Sure-jell. From there I headed to the soda aisle because I had also found that you could make jelly from soda
[4] and I was determined to try it. I’ve since found out you can make jelly from flowers
[5] and from wine but that was down the road.
[6][7]
Of course, that meant looking for the Sure-jell and they didn’t have any. Didn’t carry it because they consider it a specialty item. They did have baking soda, baking powder, and canned tuna on sale, so I got that, got through the cashier line and headed to wallyworld which in all honesty I had been trying to avoid because I didn’t want to think about Christmas.
I bought all the packages of Sure-jell and liquid pectin they had on the shelf and refused to feel guilty about it. They had half-gallon jars so I picked up three four-packs of those. Not because I planned on putting jelly in something that big but because they would help me store sugar and stuff like that because one of the big things we were always doing battle with at Vintiques was mice. And it wasn’t because of the café though that didn’t help. It was because the strip center the store was in had an alley in the back where the dumpsters were, and on the other side of that was the grassy embankment of the river that ran through that part of town. Anything in plastic or paper in the café was a disaster waiting to happen and I had finally bought enough food I was worried about turning my pantry into a mouse buffet. I definitely added to my “Be On The Lookout For” list glass canisters and metal containers. And I started a supply of sticky pads and rat poison though that would change when Teena got mobile.
Also at wallyworld I picked up some hygiene items instead of going to the drugstore. High on my list was a bottle of Midol for me and teething medicine and diaper rash stuff for Teena. I looked at my list (I can access my OneDrive from my phone) and checked to see if there was anything else I thought I needed. If I was going to be out spending money I might as well make it worth the drive. Well, I got a couple of extra fuel cans after finally digging out the lawn mower and thinking about that stuff since I was the one that did the landscaping just like I did the small maintenance at Vintiques. I remember we used to do the lawn stuff all together – Dad, Robbie, and me – and it made it fun and go faster. Afterwards we would sometimes just take a drive to nowhere and get an ice cream on the way home or something like that. I missed it when they were gone and still do. It’s the one thing that Aunt Nita was never interested in, mostly because she had most of her time elsewhere. I think it is why I’d been susceptible to trying to find a way to be on the inside again.
I remember Aunt Nita used to say, “Your father is a good man Edie. If I could find one like him, I might just get married.”
I think she grieved for my dad as much as I did there for a while. For both of us it was like the end of a chance at something different. I get that Aunt Nita may have had unrealistic expectations where Dad was concerned but it took a long time for me to put two and two together. I don’t remember him being the same way about her though and I’m not interested in making up a tragic fairytale over it either. Sometimes life just sucks and you have to accept that a fairytale happily ever after isn’t in the cards.
I didn’t need to mow the lawn, but I would at some point, and it wasn’t a bad idea to keep extra fuel since I lived so far away from a gas station. I knew already that I needed to add stabilizer to the fuel if I wasn’t going to use it right away and that I had to have fuel for my vehicle and separate fuel for the lawn equipment that didn’t have any ethanol in it. That had been one of my father’s pet peeves and I’d taught Aunt Nita to continue it. Of course with most things being electric or solar charged these days most people haven’t got a clue but since I do I decided to make sure that I get it right to cause me fewer problems than more.
I hit the warehouse club up again for another giant bag of sugar and another big bottle of honey. And from there I headed home, by way of a different gas station this time. I had a baby to feed, homework to finish, a term paper to write, and a science experiment to prepare for.
[1] Kraft Miracle Whip
[2] Easy Instant Oatmeal Packets
[3] How to Make Homemade Jelly from Bottled or Frozen Juice - Easily!
[4] Make it Mine Soda Pop Jelly
[5] 20 Delicious Flower Jelly Recipes You Should Try * The Homesteading Hippy
[6] Make it Mine Flower Jelly | Better Homes & Gardens (bhg.com)
[7] Make it Mine Wine Jelly | Better Homes & Gardens (bhg.com)