THE CORN EPISODE

Anyone want to know what I did today?  I have corn coming out my ears.  My mom and I went together and got corn to freeze.  I did 5 dozen ears.  If you’ve never frozen corn, this is what you do:

Husk and silk.  

Boil for 4-1/2 minutes, cool in basin of cold water (or in my case, sink)

Cut the corn off the cobs, put in freezer bags

 

Sounds simple enough, right?  With kids, not so much. Can I bare my soul here and show you all what my kitchen sink looked like earlier today?

But it is a wonderful feeling that I now have 14 beautiful pints of corn to put in my freezer.  And I know what is in it.  And I know that no one accidentally dropped gluten in it.  And I know what it looked like before it went into the freezer bags.  And best of all, it was really economical.  Not free by any means, but really how little can you possibly pay for a bag of frozen vegetables?

I paid $12.50 for 5 dozen ($2.50 a dozen).  I got 14 pints.  That is $0.89 per bag.  Pretty decent.  And it tastes better.  Here’s my final product:

So now, I have a confession to make.  I had a REALLY bad day.  I got up at 5:15 to work (I work full-time from home, if you didn’t know, and NOT on my blog, that’s extra).  Kayla got up at 5:15 too.  I worked for an hour. Hannah got up at 6:15.  So I gave up.

Then I thought, we’ll go out.  Because sometimes it is easier to go out.  So we went to the garden.  And the park.  And CVS.  And the McDonald’s play area.  And the library.  And they were bad.  I got evil looks from strangers, like I am “one of those” moms.  You know the ones.  The ones that cannot control their children. And it rained.

Then we came home and ate lunch.  We were scheduled to go to my mom’s at 1 to do the corn, and I remembered at 11:30 that I had no freezer bags.  And the best deal was at Target.  And since I obsessively cannot do anything except the best deal, I took the 15-minute drive to Target, in the pouring rain, with both naughty children.

At least the Target trip was successful.  Here’s the breakdown:

40 count quart size freezer bags on price cut for $3.79

15 gallon size freezer bags on price cut for $2.39

Jif To Go $2.19 (I was FINALLY able to find this in stock!)

Three Dannon Activia 4 packs at $2.09 each

Two packs of Sharpie markers $1 each

 

Used:

$1/2 coupon from the 8/7 insert

Stacked with the $1/2 Target Ziploc coupon previously found here

Jif To Go free item coupon that I posted about here 

Three $1/1 Activia Target coupons found here

Three $1/1 Activia manufacturer coupons from my binder (that my hubby found at the doctor’s office – we pick them up wherever we go!)

Two $1/1 Sharpie Target coupons previously found here

 

Total Cost before coupons:  $18.53

Total Cost after coupons:  $4.24

 

And if anyone wants to know what I got at CVS, that was rather successful too:

Raisins $1.89 on sale

Gold Emblem Popcorn $1.37

Prilosec OTC $10.99 (with $2 ECB)

New CVS body wash

 

I used:

$1/1 Dried Fruit coupon from the CVS magic coupon machine

$2/1 Gold Emblem snack item product from the CVS magic coupon machine (Yes, this was for 11 ounces or larger.  I made a mistake, I guess popcorn is really light, but the cashier was not concerned and put it through anyway.  Whoops!)

FREE CVS body wash coupon previously available here

FREE Prilosec 14 count coupon that my neighbor gave me (she doesn’t use it, my husband does).  No idea WHY she gets such great coupons, she gets better coupons than I do, and she claims she has never signed up for any. 

 

Final Cost:  $0.26, plus got a $2 ECB from the Prilosec

I used that, plus my $5 Beauty Club ECB that printed when I walked in the store, to buy Children’s Ibuprofen, making it virtually free.  

 

Now, back to the story….

Got to mom’s on time, put kiddo #2 down for a nap, but guess who didn’t want to sleep at Grandma’s?  Was awake for a half hour until her sister went in, unbeknownst to me, and took her out of the pack and play because “she was crying”.  Gave up on the nap, packaged up all the husked corn, and went home for the nap.  Somehow I managed to get most of it done before she woke up.

So would you believe, now I cannot find the ibuprofen from CVS?  Somewhere in the course of my crazy day, it disappeared.  And I still have most of my day’s work to do yet today.

But, despite all of this, I am thankful.  Because my children are healthy enough to be bad.  Because I have 14 pints of corn in my freezer, when many people do not know where their next meal is coming from.  Because I got such great deals on the things I needed today.  Because I have family and friends who love me.  And because the God of the universe loves me.  Really, despite a crazy day, I should be very, very grateful.