Hunkering Down

I don't know if it's the economy, the return of fall (thank goodness!), nesting, or preparing to live with my income cut in half (I'm only going back to work part time after Caitlyn is born), but lately I have the urge to hunker down and get cozy.

I've started restocking the pantry - I could actually see the shelves in several places, which makes me nervous, like we don't have enough food on hand (odd, since I haven't been hungry a day in my life, but I'm weird that way). We cleaned out the big freezer (I still need to do the little one), and now I'm prepping food for easy meals come December. I have a list to work from, and I've decided to make one thing each weekend, as my schedule allows. Last weekend I made a big batch of meatballs, enough for four meals. We ate one as spaghetti and meatballs, and three went into the freezer.

I've gotten back on the internet (as much as my sore tailbone will allow, anyway), and am back to reading the frugal websites. I've also put down the childbirth books (I'll pick them up again in a week or two, I'm sure), and have gone back to reading my cookbooks, refreshing my meal ideas.

Although I let my garden go this year, I've been keeping an eye on what's still out there, thinking about how I can salvage it with my limited energy (which has come back a little bit in the last week or so, amazingly). Same with the apples that my parents didn't take - I gave them most of them, but there are still some left on the tree.

I've reworked the budget a couple of different times, just to see how much we can save even though our income will go down. Like everyone, our big savings has been drastically cut with the dip in the market, but I know it will come back eventually, and I know that now is the time to be setting more away if we can.

We're working on some big house projects that we want to finish before Caitlyn arrives. The new heating and cooling system will be installed on Monday; we got a new garage door opener yesterday (the old one hadn't worked since shortly after we moved in). I don't know if we'll get our pathways installed in the front yard this year or not, depends on the weather, but at least we finally have grass!

We have about two years' worth of firewood in our backyard, so bring on the cold!

All in all, I'm rapidly becoming a major homebody, more than normal. Now I just have to get my schedule to accommodate that urge!