Regarding the chicken, I had never thought of putting them on a cookie sheet and freezing them individually. I buy the larger packs and separate them into freezer bags which have been marked with the cut of meat, the amount of meat (eiher by piece or weight depending on what it is) and date I froze it. :)

I went grocery shopping yesterday and stocked up on things we nornally have on hand, had new strings put on my violin, got a practice mute (baby doesn't like the high, loud sounds of the violin), and did some major rearranging of food storage. I'm not done with that but I'm getting closer! I had trouble sleeping last night so that's what I decided to do at around 2:30am).

Today I met with friends to play my fiddle, made lunch (lean burgers on the grill, egg noodles with olive oil drizzled over the noodles, salt, pepper, garlic and fresh parsley) and a tossed salad. Dinner is going to be something small....most likely soup. The wind here is crazy...loud and cold....tree bending.....blowing the bird feeders off the trees, etc. Yesterday we lost power for 3 hours so today I've been working on laundry and other things that require power so if it goes off, I won't be looking at piles of stuff that I should have done!

We used to have a second fridge but found that we rarely used it so we gave it away. It was nice to have extra water always cold in the summer time and sometimes for an overflow of fresh produce but we have streamlined our produce preparation to the point that that's no longer needed during the harvest season. We do have multiple freezers, some in use and some in use but not in the traditional fashion.

I also found our kitchen table-top this morning. It seems to be a catch all for mail and other paperwork. So everything has been sorted there and taken care of. At the moment, it is covered with cookbooks that were in one of the jelly cupboards that I am now using for food storage. I'll have to find somewhere else to go with those. I think I'll sort through them and get rid of some of them that I just don't use. I collect cookbooks and am particularly fond of the older cookbooks. We'll see.

I swear that Jeremiah is growing visibly each day. He can reach higher and higher so I am finding that I need to move multitudes of things. He is busy and curious, both very good things!!! :)

I'm hoping to play my violin some more today. I'm enjoying it more and more like I used to. It's wonderful to play with people who get together to play for the fun of it, who enjoy each other's company, no matter your skill level...something that I've never experienced before. I haven't had my violin out or the desire to play for some time (it's just been this past month that I've started to play again), I've missed it.

Michelle