Taking Stock

The zinnias are still in bloom; this was earlier this summer

Last October 1st, I wrote about inventorying the food in our freezer, thinking, smugly, "well, of course I know what we have in our freezer. Sheesh." And, as I confessed in that post, I clearly had no idea of what was in our freezer.

As September wore down and I started looking ahead to the coming winter, I thought maybe I should take a look in our downstairs freezer and see where we stood. It was only by pure serendipity that I came so close in time to the 2024 inventory (which was, admittedly, spurred in no small part as a result of emptying out my father's house when he moved in Assisted Living  and I came to see just how much STUFF he had in the house). So I blithely went down to the basement freezer and started moving, reorganizing, and counting up what it held. And, no surprise, I was just as stunned this year as I was last year. 

I dictated into my Notes on my phone and even a few weeks later, my discoveries crack me up:

Freezer notes

Other than 6 quart bags of historic apples, no apples.

7 quart bags of sliced onions.

Two bags of frozen turkey for justice bus.

Eight bags of hamburger buns for justice bus.

10 quarts of corn kernels; two additional bags of what looks to be corn kernels, frozen and smaller quantity probably for corn bacon quiche.

22 quart bags of zucchini and squash. Wow!! Far more than I hoped for!

6 quart bags of chopped sweet peppers, plus a gallon bag holding five individual small baggies of chopped sweet peppers.

11 Packages of chicken thighs, two each. Three packages of sliced turkey for sandwiches.

3 quart containers of already made navy bean soup. 

In frozen quartz containers: black bean soup, turkey/vegetable stock with note great for dumplings, lentil/onion soup, chicken stew (that would be from Boysel’s) chicken stew (small container, same source) 2 quart containers of meat stock/broth: maybe chicken?. Plus another quart of turkey broth in a quart container.

One pack of boneless chops.

Stopped inventorying all the ham slices packages, because arm started bleeding and I need to stop! [Note: I have fragile skin. A prior skin tear opened up while I was moving packages and containers around. All is well.]

But certainly far more than I did hope and feeling much more optimistic about getting through the winter for, truly, pretty cheaply while eating well. And we are still looking at local harvest: I have a lot of peppers in the garden, apples are coming into season. With luck, I can buy a lot of markdowns those at Kroger so the pies I make for Jaime and everyone else won't break us. [End of notes]

And since that inventory, we indeed have added apples (marked down, of course), 10 pounds of butter (a stunning sale that came out to $2.85/pound after applying a coupon to the sale price), homemade chicken broth, and more chicken thighs. We have FAR more zucchini stashed away than I had dreamed, which pleases me to no end. So I am not worried about what the fall and winter hold for us. Taking (some) stock of our food was productive and gives us both an idea of where we are. (And following up on the freezer, I did a partial inventorying of our pantry of foods: dried beans, rices, cereal, and so on. All is pretty solid there too.)

Taking stock of our freezer made me think about myself and about taking stock of where I am. As I have noted, the last several months have been overloaded, not always in bad ways, mind you, but overly full. At times, I feel as if Warren (who is also very busy given his business, his playing, and his new teaching duties) and I see each other in quick passings, and both of us are making an effort to find time each day to shut out everything else and just connect. 

As to the issues and demands personal to my time, I am still sifting through them. I even made a very, very rough "diagram" with categories such as "HAVE TO," "Do B/C Important," "SHOULD/NEED," and "Important/WANT TO." There are some items I cannot change, primarily that I am the sole adult child responsible for my father (HAVE TO). He is thriving in Assisted Living, which is great and a huge relief for all of us. But I am the one running the errands, handling his needs, and while I do not resent any of it, it can be exhausting. I am still recovering from the unexpected June hospitalization, doing well, but watching my health issues (SHOULD/NEED) and having to accept that the likelihood of my ever regaining my pre-hospitalization strength and energy is slim to none. (Probably none.) I am walking regularly, albeit not at my pre-hospitalization speeds (again, gone) and that is a plus. You get the idea.

I even noted I wanted to write more, bake more, do more photography, spend more time with Warren (Important/WANT TO). I even wrote "Travel??????????" 

In my last post, written as Yom Kippur came to an end, I wrote about how to move into the New Year with my putting more focus on repairing the broken threads of the world: "world" being this community and pieces of my life that I could do better at threading together. And maybe that's where I am in taking stock. 

We had our first light frost of the season last night. Warren and I covered the tomatoes, the peppers, and the deck planters with sheets. I am glad we did; there are still vegetables to ripen. There are still flowers to sit outside and marvel at. There is still time to watch the bees mine the flowers, the butterflies dance, and the small birds fly in and our of the garden. 

Small moments, little bits. All precious.