The Price of Groceries

Hello, friends.  When I first read the Medical Medium information about our exposure to heavy metals from multiple places, I'll admit I was skeptical.  I was desperate enough to try, and found that following his protocols for removing them have just about totally healed my eczema.  This week, I read about significant spice contamination here, which I'd not heard.  I do grow and preserve basil, oregano and thyme, which seem the most concerning, but have bought thyme in the past, when homegrown didn't keep up.  I plan to be more diligent in harvesting it this year.  While sweet potatoes were baking for a dinner, I made a blueberry/blackberry pie using our frozen berries, to make good use of the oven.  I printed and filled out a mail in rebate form.  

our first ever mayapple bloom

After painting orders on Monday, I canned the vegetable broth.  Kale was harvested, to go in quinoa kale salad.  One dinner, I made fried potatoes from home canned, with peppers, onions and garlic.  In between thrifting, my sister and I had a lovely lunch out on Wednesday.  The day was beautiful, and we were seated on the patio.  I only thrifted a handful of things, including a cotton nightgown ($1.99), 10 linen napkins ($4), a wineglass which J requested ($1), 2 coordinating wired ribbons perfect for a spring mailbox bow ($3.98), and an office supply that ended up having a missing part (.50).  Though I prefer a physical book, I wasn't sure when I'd be going to town again, so downloaded an ebook from the library.

Thanks to inspiration from April, I've started keeping track of grocery prices this month.  Many years ago, when I was more traditionally employed, I had a budget, which I kept up with well.  Once I became mostly self-employed, that went out the window, as my income was all over the place, rather than being consistent each month.  I know we spend a great deal on groceries right now, mostly due to my following MM guidelines.  I'm able to shop at Harris Teeter once a month, after an appointment (close to an hour away), and can usually get a much better deal there on organic celery (currently $2.99/large stalk; I need one a day), but it currently costs $3.99/ pack at Food Lion, and I use almost two packs a day, to make 16 oz of juice.  So, if only buying from FL, that's basically $240/month.  Yikes!  For several months last year, I upped it to 24 oz a day, so close to $360... in one month!  So, it's definitely a commitment of funds and time, but I'm still so thankful to have found something that actually healed my eczema.  I'd much rather use my time and money for fruits and vegetables than prescription drugs, Dr's visits and procedures.  I'm doing so well, I think I'll soon try dropping back to 12 oz. a day, and see how it goes.  Those prices don't include our usual groceries, or all the other produce needed to follow MM recommendations... lemons, apples, bananas, oranges, cilantro, wild blueberries, aloe.  Thankfully, they're all cheaper than the celery, but expensive enough.  It's wonderful we have a good amount of homegrown foods to add to the mix.

Before we headed to meet friends for dinner and a concert on Saturday, it occurred to me J & I could run by a Harris Teeter before we met, which added 9 mins. to the trip.  We did that, and I bought seven of the celery, plus a few more produce items I was getting low on.  It's a stretch to put all of them in the refrigerator.  I chose the largest ones they had, and they're huge, but they'll do me for over a week.  If I purchased more than that, they'd be turning brown.  Hopefully, these will all be in good shape until they're used.  It's a balancing act, between what there is available, sometimes few to none, and how many will stay in good shape before used.  We were up late, so I moved slowly on Sunday.  It likely being our last cold spell, I wanted to process some of the winter squash in storage.  I gathered all the spaghetti squash and hulless pumpkins, and baked them in succession.  The sp. squash were baked for a short time, and cubed, with the intention of canning this week.  I've not canned it before, and there are differing opinions on it, but I'm going to try it this year.  There's just too much to add to the freezer.  For Easter dinner, I roasted asparagus, carrots and potatoes with herbs.  I hope yours was enjoyable, if you celebrated.  Take care, friends.