This Week on the Dining Table

The "Please Make it Stop Snowing Because I am so Tired of Talking About Snow!" Edition.......

 

 

We got 3 storms within 48 hours late last week.  You can just make out a sliver of the top of the car parked on the roadside, behind that snow bank.  The driveway is turning into a tunnel configuration with walls 4 feet high on either side of it.  Nowhere left to put the snow here....bleh. 

 

Here is what was planned last week---

 

Sunday--Broiled Cod, Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Onions, Coleslaw
Monday--Beef Stroganoff, Rice, Sugar Snap Peas w/Red Peppers
Tuesday--Chicken in Wine Sauce, Noodles, Broccoli
Wednesday--Hot Dogs w/Coleslaw, Red Potato Salad, Beans(for Hubs/#2 Son)
Thursday--Quiche(freezer), TBD Veggies
Friday--Mushroom Parmesan, Salad
Saturday--Breakfast for Dinner or Leftovers

 

And here is what actually happened---

 

Sunday--Broiled Cod, Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Onions, Coleslaw
Monday--Beef Stroganoff, Rice, Sugar Snap Peas w/Red Peppers
Tuesday--Chicken in Wine Sauce, Noodles, Broccoli
Wednesday--Pizza from the freezer
Thursday--Breakfast for Dinner
Friday--Chinese Take-out
Saturday--Hot Dogs w/Coleslaw, Red Potato Salad

 Everything served as planned except the Quiche and Mushroom Parm and the last half of the week dinners were moved to different nights.  Since #2 Son & Hubs didn't leave town on Friday this changed the configuration of meals.  We got take-out to celebrate Valentine's Day since Hubs wasn't suppose to be home that evening so nothing had been planned.

 

I spent a total of.....*sit down for this one!*....$2.42 on groceries last week.  Hubs bought milk when he got gas on Saturday and I spent $.53 at Rite-Aid when I picked up a case of water and 2 bottle of peroxide(using up a $5 +Up Reward).

So after the week's spending, I am sitting at $290.82 spent in February with 11 more days in the month to go.  I seriously doubt I'll stay under $300 at this point for the month but I'll try to keep it as close to that mark as possible.

Going into the new week here are the leftovers we have.....
 Beef Stroganoff and rice, Chicken Fajita fixings and that's about it.

 

Here is this week's meal plan----let's dig deeper into the freezer and pantry---

Sunday--Leftovers
Monday--Dinner Out using gift card
Tuesday--Cheese Steaks w/peppers and onions
Wednesday--Rigatoni w/Meat Sauce, Mushroom Parmesan, Asparagus
Thursday--Fish, Sugar Snaps, Roasted Potatoes
Friday--Chicken Risotto, Salad or Leftover Asparagus
Saturday--Leftovers Again

That makes 4 new meals, 1 meal out and 2 leftover or planned over meal.

I have fish, chicken and roast beef lunchmeat in the freezer and I *think* I might have a small package of ground beef in there too.


What I need to purchase for this menu?.......Deli Cheese(for the cheese steaks), Salad Greens(I'll go on Wed. and find some reduced containers), Asparagus(on sale this week) and maybe 1 lb. of Ground Beef if I can't find any in the freezer.  We are also out of Sour Cream(something I like to have around)so I'll pick that up because it's on sale this week here.  One store also had Welch's Grape Juice on sale and I like to have some of the purple kind on hand. This should run me around $20 depending on whether I need Ground Beef or not and what it's going for this week/if I can find a reduced package.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

 

Sluggy

The 2014 Winter Music Tour

Like I talked about in yesterday's post, Hubs & #2 Son didn't go to his music audition down at VCU in Richmond.
Yes folks, the second half of the 2014 Winter Music Audition Tour has been canceled.
#2 Son had 4 different college auditions scheduled this Winter at 4 different schools.
He's had the Temple and Mansfield auditions and the VCU and Marywood auditions were on the blocks for this weekend and next week, respectively.

Well that plan changed earlier this week when #2 got some mail......

 

So he has gotten both his "Congratulations to our school" and his "Congratulations to our program" college letters from Mansfield.

Seeing as Mansfield was his 2nd choice(and Temple his 1st choice), he sees no reason to continue on with more auditions to schools that were his 3rd and 4th choices.

So he's going to Mansfield in the Fall.....for now.
We still haven't heard from Temple yet and we don't expect to hear from them until March sometime as their last audition date is February 23rd but the undergraduate deadline for applying is March 1st.

So we don't know the important stuff yet......
Like if #2 Son is going to be an Owl or a Mountie in the Fall.
And whether we will be required to shell out $28,032 or $21,010 in the Fall.

bleh.

Not that we get any non loan help from the Feds.
I fill out the FAFSA every year for some kid or kids and they always tell us our "expected family contribution" toward their studies is some ridiculous amount.

This year was no different.
FAFSA indicated we are expected to contribute......$42,803 toward our son's educational needs for 2014-2015.
Now look at the two amounts above for those two schools.
Do either of them even approach $42,803 a year?
No, they do not.

The only school that came close was Marywood U., a small local private school at $46,556 if you lived on campus, but they estimate will cost $33,390 if you live at home(and #2 would be living at home at least for a couple of those years).  And that is before the $10-$15K merit scholarship they promised he'd get if he attended that school.

You see, FAFSA considers us "rich".  Because we've scrimped and saved and paid everything off, don't live off of credit cards or have debts, and we have a nice pile of cash because we live so far below our means.
Hubs makes a good income but if he spent like his colleagues seem to do(bigger houses, expensive vacations to Europe each year, nicer cars, etc.)we'd be struggling to pay our bills like they are.

The problem with paying for college, besides just paying for college, is that the Feds think if you have a pile of cash in savings that it's available for you to spend it down on college costs and they expect you to do just that.
They don't take into consideration that first, we are OLD parents.  We had our kids late thus we are "this close" to retirement.  We don't have years to go after sending our kids to college to recover from spending down all this money like people who have their kids in their 20's and very early 30's do.
In addition, most of this pile of money we have saved is earmarked for our retirement years.  It is not in a protected retirement fund like a 401K so it is counted against us when it comes to measuring what parents have available for educational funding and how grant money is doled out and to whom.

Even with the portion of our savings that IS earmarked for #2 Son's college funding, he will still need to come up with about $15K more over the course of 4 years to cover the least expensive of the 2 schools where he wants to go.  And that doesn't take into consideration the costs going up(and they do every year)over the next 4 years.  Plus a car and car expenses which he will need his Senior year to do his student teaching(definitely if he attends Mansfield and perhaps if he is at Temple, in a big city, if he has to teach in the suburbs).

But the FAFSA folks will only allow us unsubsidized loans because of our level of savings.  So we are hoping for a small merit scholarship from whichever school #2 Son attends to offset just a tiny piece of the price tag on school.  Both our other two kids got something where they attended for academic merit.  If #2 Son gets anything it will be on the strength of his artistic talent, but those kind of awards are even fewer and farther between.

Hubs is probably going to retire from his company before #2 Son graduates with his degree, so I am wondering when we no longer have an income coming in and are living off of these savings, how that will affect the FAFSA formula.  We would still have most if not all of our pile of savings at that point but no regular income.
So there is some unknown for us there, as we hadn't dealt with college in this particular circumstance before.

Anyway.....I didn't mean to turn this into a FAFSA and College is ridiculously expensive tirade, but I did, didn't I? ;-)

We are happy for our son, that he got his admittance wish(at least one of them),and we are crossing our fingers he gets some sort of financial award from somewhere.

And I am counting the days until he leaves in August and is no longer destroying what passes for clean in my kitchen....WoooHooo!

Sluggy

 

Turnpike Yikes!

Well I am so glad Hubs and #2 Son called off the trip to Richmond, VA they were suppose to take this morning.
They would have been traveling on the PA Turnpike to get there.
Here is a shot of what the Turnpike outside of Philly looked like this morning......

Massive wrecks and closed down in one direction.

There is a no-audio film of some of this mess on Yahoo HERE.

A report from local news station HERE.

More HERE

I've driven on that stretch of turnpike and the folks on there drive like nutballs!
I am always sure someone is going to crash into my ass as they ALL tailgate.

I sure hope nobody lost a loved one in this today.....

Sluggy
 

Nothing Says Love on Valentine's Day......

....Like a Snowdrift!

Yes, my back deck has almost disappeared!
Save the path for the dog to go out to the yard.

We got another 12 inches between yesterday's storm and the second storm from late last night.
There are 4 foot high banks of snow lining the driveway out front and we may get our mailbox shoveled out by April.....

Seriously.
Over.
Snow.

Well it could be worse, right?
It could be like in 2007 when a nor'easter hit here on Valentine's day, closing all the roads and the interstate and people had to spend the night in their cars.  On local tv, they were asking for people with ATVs to drive to the nearest interstate entrance/exit and go pick up people in cars to get them to shelters.  It was a mess.
Check out this old news report HERE.



This is my new mantra.....
 

Raise your hand if you are sick of snow!

Sluggy

The GroundHog Must DIE!

So when we finally moved out of the "Bowels of the Poconos"........
(You know, where we use to live until 2000......where it was de rigeur to get 100 inches of snowfall in an average year.......and where I took this photo.......I think it was in 1993.)

Anyway when we finally  moved from there, we settled in this teeny tiny town in this part of PA.
NOT in the Poconos mind you.

We figured our "large accumulation of snow" days were a thing of our past.

Let me just say for the record......
"HA!"

Look at what it's doing again this morning?



I think somebody needs to drive west of here and assassinate a certain groundhog......

Do I see any volunteers out there?!?

Sluggy