Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: December 1 ~ 7, 2019

[ReneeT]

Morning, All! Hope you all have a great day today! The deer hunters just pulled in, the grandkids are still asleep, and the coffee is about done so it's starting out to be a good day

The grandkids are going to help me decorate my tree today - since it's only 3' tall, it shouldn't take long, but we may do a bit more decorating. I so enjoy my time with the grands - we played UNO a couple of times yesterday, but I need to remind myself 'No UNO right before bed!' - they get way too wound up during the game I'm hoping to get them up to the pool today; an hour of splashing around pretty much guarantees good sleep - for all three of us

Prep plans for this week include a stock up shopping trip on Monday - gotta take the truck into the body shop to get the dents out where a deer ran in to it, so we are going to pick up a few things while we are in town:

CVS for buy one/get one free vitamins (stocking up on B-12 for night shift), Ensure buy 2/get $5 ECB deal, and batteries - CVS brand double and triple A batteries are also on sale buy one get one free in my area.

Rural King for bird feed and handwarmers (it gets chilly on night shift).

Wal Mart for a few cases of canned soups and to see if I can find a fleece lined camisole.

Aldi for the normal shopping plus a couple of case of fruits & veggies, lots o' coffee so I can take some in to work for the 2am slump.

The uniform shop to pick up a couple more long sleeve scrub jackets and maybe a zip front lined jacket in my scrubs color as well.


I've been really slacking at getting the winter kits/gear in the vehicles, so have to get that done in the next few days. Finally remembered what we did with the sleeping bags; that will help in getting the vehicles ready. I should probably add 'new lighters' to the shopping list as well.

I will be working on acclimating myself toward night shift this week as well - napping on my days off & staying up later at night to reset my internal sleep clock, finishing moving the plants around so I can pull the light blocking curtains in the quieter bedroom upstairs, getting one of the featherbeds out to the clothesline to fluff up so I can toss it on that bed and turn the thermostat lower, putting an electric heater in the bathroom to combat the turned down thermostat, adding fleeced lined leggings and smartwool socks to my scrubs hangers to help deal with the lower temps/less chaos on nightshift, etc...

I hear the short people moving around in their room; guess that's my cue to get the milk warming up for cocoa

You folks all take care out there this week; stay safe!

 

[SouthernBreeze]

Good morning to all!

We have a very busy day planned today and for the rest of the week. I'm hoping I can get a stock up run in among the hectic activities one day this week. Sam's has another sale going.

DS and DDIL are coming in from Texas, today. They will be with us until Friday. I'm gonna just enjoy our time with them doing whatever they want to do. I am a bit concerned that the trip home for DS doesn't wear him out too much. He may just want to rest for the first couple of days, once he gets here. He is the son with MS.

Ok, I've got to run. Family and friends will be arriving soon for our Home Church Fellowship, and I need to still get a few things done.

Praying that everyone has a very blessed week!

 

[nomifyle]

I'm trying to motivate myself to get away from the computer and get something done. I have to go to town tomorrow and run a couple of errands and I'll probably at least go to Save A Lot and buy some more green lima beans. I love those things but since I'm only eating meat right now I'll just have to store them for later. I did order a box of 96 rolls of 1000 sheet toilet paper from amazon, DH will probably have a fit but it is what it is. It was a good price per roll, .50.9 cents a roll, almost impossible to find that anymore.

I also ordered 6 10# bags of Domino pure cane sugar. When I go to town tomorrow I'm going to look at Walmart to see if they have any of the 25# bags of can sugar, last time I went they did not have any, but that may have been a different Walmart. We don't use much sugar, I probably have about 100 pounds on hand. DH does use a couple of tsp in his coffee, but sometimes he doesn't drink coffee.

ETA I also ordered a replacement cast iron grate for our wood stove, after 5 years the original one is warping.

Judy

 

[nomifyle]

Went to Walmart today and this one had the cane sugar, so instead of buying 25 pounds I bought two 4# bags. I didn't really stock up on much, more kerrygold butter for my stash and at Save A Lot I only got 4 cans each of green lima beans and sweet potatoes, this is just to build up my on my 52 cans. Save A lot had some good looking meat and I bought the 5 for 19.99 deal, three steak package, a nice size package of sausage and some pig neck bones. And I bought two more packages of pig neck bones, there is a lot of meat on those. I you just eat meat a variety helps. Of course I would rather be able to buy grass fed, but that's way out of my price range. The man that processes our pigs doesn't cut things like that.

I ran some other errands and when I got home I could hardly get out of my van.

Judy

 

[20Gauge]

We took a trip down to Florida.

Went after chili, but also got a few other things.

Actually saved more than we spent in gas by twice. Always nice getting things that you can't get locally.

Also our first December harvest. Not sure if we will get more this month...

 

[SouthernBreeze]

I'm finally getting a chance to make a run into town today. I'll be going to WalMart for regular groceries, then on to Sam's to buy all my bulk food and supplies for storage. I also need to pick up a few more items at Sam's for Mom's Christmas gift boxes. We'll also be stopping in at Barnes and Nobel to add more books to our reading library. We have a list of the books we want.

Today will most likely be my last stock up run, until after New Year's. I'll reassess where I am after then. I'm really hoping I'll be able to slow down a bit on buying for storage purposes for awhile.

 

[Marseydoats]

I wanted to attempt the 52 can challenge that Judy is doing, so I added 15 cans of chicken to the stockpile this morning. I don't know where I'm going to put anything else, this house is just too small.
Walmart has holiday items and decorations scattered randomly thru out the store, and I was wondering if it was because they were out of a lot of things. They usually stuff all the holiday things in the garden center, even the wrapping paper. Most people don't go into the garden center this time of year, it's not heated, and it's pretty much empty. I could not find a single bottle of hand lotion in the store and I went thru the HBA aisles 3 times. The soft drink section was pretty bare and they didn't have any Dr. Pepper in cans at all, My Dad can't open bottles anymore. They did finally have some unscented cat litter, I was down to my last bag. There were 2 big signs on the dishwashing liquid about the shortage, last time there was just 1. The shelves were only half full.
Neither Aldi or Walmart had any unflavored gelatin, I'll have to get some at another store.

 

[summerthyme]

As far as places to store canned goods... what about under furniture? If you put the cans in cut down cardboard boxes or rubbermaid type containers, it makes it eas(ier) to retrieve them when needed. You csn usually fit them under beds and couches, and sometimes various dressers, etc, have enough room as well.

I woukd suggest making a master list of what you have and *where* it is... keep a few cans in the pantry for your regular use, and restock from the "under bed store" as needed.

You can also stack boxes of cans, put a piece of plywood on top, and then drape a tablecloth or pretty piece of fabric over it... it makes an acceptable (unless you have a fancy house!) end table.

Summerthyme

 

[nomifyle]

DH likes strawberry rhubarb pie, rhubarb will not grow here so I have to buy it. Walmart around here use to have the canned strawberry rhubarb pie filling and then they didn't. I found it on their website and am having it delivered to the closest store. I got tired of the several days late and sometimes never getting here and banged up cans being delivered by FEDx. We have 4 cans of the pie filling so I ordered 3 more.

My box of 96 1000 sheet one ply TP came for Amazon. Its 51 cents a roll and that is hard to find. I'm going to pack this TP away and rotate through some I packaged up 10 years ago.

Finding a place to store 52 cans is difficult and 52 cans of several things is even worse. I am rotating though.

Judy

 

[Illini Warrior]

As far as places to store canned goods... what about under furniture? If you put the cans in cut down cardboard boxes or rubbermaid type containers, it makes it eas(ier) to retrieve them when needed. You csn usually fit them under beds and couches, and sometimes various dressers, etc, have enough room as well.

I woukd suggest making a master list of what you have and *where* it is... keep a few cans in the pantry for your regular use, and restock from the "under bed store" as needed.

You can also stack boxes of cans, put a piece of plywood on top, and then drape a tablecloth or pretty piece of fabric over it... it makes an acceptable (unless you have a fancy house!) end table.

Summerthyme

milk crates are great if you want to pack & stack loose cans - they lock in and you can safely stack them over your head - I like to line the insides with stiff paper or corrugated to keep the dust out ....

 

[Barb]

I have found that they keep the hand lotions and creams in a different space than the HBA. You have to look for them.

 

[Marseydoats]

As far as places to store canned goods... what about under furniture? If you put the cans in cut down cardboard boxes or rubbermaid type containers, it makes it eas(ier) to retrieve them when needed. You csn usually fit them under beds and couches, and sometimes various dressers, etc, have enough room as well.

I woukd suggest making a master list of what you have and *where* it is... keep a few cans in the pantry for your regular use, and restock from the "under bed store" as needed.

You can also stack boxes of cans, put a piece of plywood on top, and then drape a tablecloth or pretty piece of fabric over it... it makes an acceptable (unless you have a fancy house!) end table.

Summerthyme

My house is actually more of a cow camp (just a place to sleep), and we don't have any furniture. When the inlaws invited themselves, his Aunt had a fit because we don't have a couch. And we didn't have enough chairs for them to sit in. All the men had to stand up. I thought it was rather amusing. I am the original hermit.

 

[Marseydoats]

I have found that they keep the hand lotions and creams in a different space than the HBA. You have to look for them.

They used to be kind of in the middle of the store with the scented candles and home decor, then they moved them back to the make up area. Now that section is close outs. The home decor area is now all holiday stuff. I was just too tired to keep looking.

 

[nomifyle]

My house is actually more of a cow camp (just a place to sleep), and we don't have any furniture. When the inlaws invited themselves, his Aunt had a fit because we don't have a couch. And we didn't have enough chairs for them to sit in. All the men had to stand up. I thought it was rather amusing. I am the original hermit.

My house is a 30+ year old 14x56 two bedroom one bath mobile home. It seemed like a palace when we moved in here out of my FEMA camper, but between what I had in store and he had from his home in Illinois it filled up quickly. Right away he added a good size room on the front, which he claimed as his space. We have our wood stove out there at one end of the room and his desk and built in shelves on the other, in the middle we have a small round table and chairs. We use to eat at the table but I stopped eating what he eats so now he eats in the living room on a tv table in front of a tv and I usually eat in front of my computer. For about a year we sold stuff on ebay and that crap took up a lot of room, his built in shelves were over flowing with VCR tapes and DVDs. Now he has allowed me to store canned goods on those shelves be cause a huge amount of my canned food rusted around the edges in my pantry.

About three years ago some of my cousins visited and I struggled to have enough chairs for them to sit on in the "front room". Fortunately I have several folding chairs. I was a little embarrased but at least the house was clean. After that DH added a large room off the kitchen, initially he wanted it to be a formal dining room which would have been a waste. He put a second bathroom and a nice pantry in that room. I put a double size bed in that room along with bookcases along two walls. And a deep freezer at some point. There is so much food stacked around in there that that I need to repackage and just can't seem to get it done. Good luck getting to the bed.

I pray that I can get things somewhat organized before I die. But I'm prepared for an emergency.

I have a praise for today, a tire on my van blew out this morning sitting in the driveway. Its such a blessing it happened here at home and not somewhere out on the road. I am a blessed woman. My DH is such a sweet heart that he took it off right away and went to town to get a new one.

Judy

 

[SouthernBreeze]

We've been having a great time with our DS and DIL this week! They leave going back home tomorrow. I always hate to see them go. Hopefully, they will be back here soon after New Years. They are hoping to be moving from Texas closer to us within a few months. They are thinking of the Huntsville, AL. area.

Other than making a big run to Sam's, I haven't done anymore prepping of any kind. Too busy. At least, I got everything labeled, dated, and put away.

Before I had the extra bedroom to use as a pantry, I stored flats of canned goods under my bed and sofa. That's the only free space I had when first starting out prepping. Then, as things progressed, I moved the furniture around in our bedroom to make a vacant wall. I stacked cases and flats of canned goods against the wall, until it was all taken up. Didn't look too romantic, but it worked for us. When our last son moved out on his own, we then turned the extra bedroom into our pantry room. It was all a work in progress over a few years.

 

[20Gauge]

We have little furniture, much to my mother's horror. We plan on paying for the house first and then furniture. No one can visit us unless they plan to sit on the floor. LOL

 

[Freeholder]

We moved into this house with very little furniture. I got some things off the FB Marketplace, like a dresser and a couple of Hoosier cabinets for the kitchen, and a desk for my office area. But we don't have much sitting space, either. When we have too many people for the chairs in the house, I bring in the chairs from the patio tables, or even the folding camp chairs. If anyone looks down their noses at that, they probably aren't my kind of people. Eventually, once all the work on the house is finished, there should be space for a loveseat in the office, but there's no room for a sofa anywhere in the house, and we really don't need one. I hope I can find a loveseat that makes into a bed for when we have company and need extra sleeping space. As it is right now, when the grandchildren are here, my grandson takes one of our folding foam camping mattresses and sleeps on the floor in the dining room (alternative being a tent in the yard, and he's still a bit too much of a city boy to be comfortable with that, even at fourteen).

Kathleen

 

[SouthernBreeze]

We've been living in our home for 35 yrs. It was an old (1930's) wood frame house that needed lots of work. We saved and saved, until we were able to start doing a little remodeling, and paid cash as we went. Took about 5 yrs., until we got it the way we wanted it. Not much in furniture at that time. All of our money was going for remodeling. Once the house was finished, CaryC started building our own furniture. He's very skilled at it, and by building it himself, we were able to add furniture piece by piece. We're still using that same furniture today.

We don't have a guest bedroom, so everyone who sleeps over here has their choice of a camping cot, an air mattress, or foam pads for sleeping bags on the floor. All weather tents are also available. All in all, that's what we have, and no one complains.

 

[nomifyle]

For the last couple of months or so I've had a problem with delivery on things I've ordered online. Fedex is the carrier and on a rare occasion UPS.

On Sunday I placed an order with Walmart online to be delivered to the store. The shipment is now delayed for two days, we'll see the condition of the package when I pick it up.

I ordered 6 ten pound bags of Domino sugar from Amazon. To date I've received one package, I got a message from the seller and their records say 4 have been delivered and two were damaged. I don't want a refund, I want my five other bags of sugar. The carrier was Fedex.

A few weeks ago I talked to a representative with Fedex at the nearest Fedex location and was told they are having a problem with the delivery person on my route. Well straighten it up already.

I did get my 96 rolls of TP but the box had a gap in the top and if it had been raining it would have been ruined.

Last time I got canned food from Amazon it looked like the robots had just dropped the cans in the box with no packaging.

Judy

Judy

 

[Illini Warrior]

For the last couple of months or so I've had a problem with delivery on things I've ordered online. Fedex is the carrier and on a rare occasion UPS.

On Sunday I placed an order with Walmart online to be delivered to the store. The shipment is now delayed for two days, we'll see the condition of the package when I pick it up.

I ordered 6 ten pound bags of Domino sugar from Amazon. To date I've received one package, I got a message from the seller and their records say 4 have been delivered and two were damaged. I don't want a refund, I want my five other bags of sugar. The carrier was Fedex.

A few weeks ago I talked to a representative with Fedex at the nearest Fedex location and was told they are having a problem with the delivery person on my route. Well straighten it up already.

I did get my 96 rolls of TP but the box had a gap in the top and if it had been raining it would have been ruined.

Last time I got canned food from Amazon it looked like the robots had just dropped the cans in the box with no packaging.

Judy

Judy

what I find strange as hell is Amazon's new Prime deliveries >>>> they have gone Uber like with everyday people making the deliveries in their unmarked private vehicles - no uniforms or anything indicating Amazon ....

a local woman on FB posted that a car pulled up in her dark driveway at nearly 10pm - some person banging on her door claiming Amazon delivery ....

and there's been alllll kinds of local trouble from thefts to kidnappings ....

 

[nomifyle]

what I find strange as hell is Amazon's new Prime deliveries >>>> they have gone Uber like with everyday people making the deliveries in their unmarked private vehicles - no uniforms or anything indicating Amazon ....

a local woman on FB posted that a car pulled up in her dark driveway at nearly 10pm - some person banging on her door claiming Amazon delivery ....

and there's been alllll kinds of local trouble from thefts to kidnappings ....

even out here in the woods UPS has hired people to deliver from their own vehicles. One left a large box of expensive freeze dried foods on a major state highway leaning against my mailbox post. I did find it before something happened to it but I was made as hell. I'm friends with the usual UPS driver in my route and texted him what happened and I received a call from the local UPS station apologizing for it.

Judy

 

[Illini Warrior]

even out here in the woods UPS has hired people to deliver from their own vehicles. One left a large box of expensive freeze dried foods on a major state highway leaning against my mailbox post. I did find it before something happened to it but I was made as hell. I'm friends with the usual UPS driver in my route and texted him what happened and I received a call from the local UPS station apologizing for it.

Judy

Xmas time they hire extra drivers with the promise of a temp job becoming full time >>> so they rent just about everything out there with 4 wheels - might not be a private vehicle could be Enterprise