Money in the bank, food in the fridge, birds singing

 Mostly. Both food money and SSA came in today so we did half of our major shopping for the month. Got my new phone ordered, and is on the way, we have one more load of grocery shopping to do and then sit back and let the dust settle for a bit.

To this day I remember the little purple finches that nested in a fake rubber plant we had on the patio when I was about 5 or 6. Still my all time favorite birdsong aside from the California Quail.

I also did some struggle meals yesterday with two cans of pinto beans, corn tortillas and cheese. Turned out much tastier than the midday meal of cream of mushroom soup mixed with rice and vegetables. Yesterday I woke up with a kinked muscle in my back and was in pain most of the day. I'm glad we didn't have to do any shopping then.

Finished off the jar of green salsa and the last can of fire roasted Rotel for salsa. The beans I must say turned out really good! But I really need one of those immersion blenders because the skins of the beans make it not very smooth but the spices were just right and instead of using olive oil as per the recipe I used a little bit of lard that I bought a month ago. Made all the difference in the world for flavor!

Then before that we used the last two pieces of chicken and the last of the potatoes. I have discovered that Bisquick makes an excellent coating for frying/cooking chicken. The original recipe from the box had you melt butter, well I don't have butter but I have oil and lard. The chicken was coated with my Mexican rub mix and sat for an hour or so, used the last of that rub on the potatoes after coating them with oil, smeared lard on the dish then used the roasting rack  above them in the dish. That is definitely a do again but needs some ranch dressing for the potatoes. 

So my phone is ordered, made sure they had the right shipping address as it defaulted to my previous, previous, previous address again. That should be here by the end of the week then might have to take it to the local store to see about getting it to recognize my sim card as this one still doesn't so nothing has been saved on it.

So that's my shopping excitement for the week. I bought the 10 lb log of hamburger at Costco, an herb and butter marinated pork loin roast that Jon remembered seeing a recipe for involving a crock pot and an eight pack of chicken breasts for meat. Water, cereal, a block of colby/jack cheese, two packs of bagels and a tub o' cream cheese for $128. That's about a third of our food allotment money but three of those things were on my other grocery list so we're doing pretty good on that. Mostly canned goods, bread and other supplies are needed at 4FL/Kroger. If I can get more chicken and maybe a chuck roast or two I can plan out our meat meals for the  month so we don't run out before we get more money.

Jon is still waiting for his birth certificate from New York. We won't know whether they received it or not or if it got lost or anything unless that office emails him. It's been at least three weeks so still crossing fingers. He's got his doctors appointment this month sometime and I still need to contact Sharp and figure out whether I need to make an appointment as a new patient or use my previous doctor. That's a phone call which I dread to do like most people.

Have to see what I'm going to owe SDGE for this month, as when I checked two days ago it said zero is due but there was $126 charge on it so it's kind of confusing. I think it's on auto pay and is due on the 11th. Will keep tabs on that for sure, do not want to miss that payment at all.

Almost time to head out again for second round of shopping.