Back in the Swing

It’s been a little over a week since I got home from my visit with Chad, Nicole and Addie and I think I’m finally getting back into the swing of things.

Over the past few days, I’ve canned, gardened and gotten aggravated at Vince. Life has officially returned to normal!  🙂

Aldi has chicken breasts for $1.89 per pound (or something very close to that price). Friday afternoon we went to Aldi and got 5 packages of chicken breasts. That’s 20 breasts . . 20 BIG breasts. They were clean and pretty, very little fat. I was pleased with them.

My plan was to get up Saturday morning and start canning chicken. My plan was not to stay up til 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning knitting! But, I started working on the Anemone Hat and it was so fun and so challenging and so intriguing, I couldn’t put it down. After about midnight, I said to myself at least a dozen times . . you’re going to be sorry in the morning!

Yes, when Mr. Rooster began crowing shortly before 6 a.m., I pulled the quilt over my head and wanted so badly to go back to sleep.  But, I had chores to do and I might as well get up and get started . . so I did.

The chicken got canned and I told Vince . . some day I will learn things I should say and things I should not say to him . . but I said . . I wouldn’t mind getting 5 more packages of this chicken. Ahh . . a trip to town . . what that man lives for! So, about 3:00, we went back to Aldi. I was thinking I would get 5 more packs, put them in the fridge and can them on Monday. I was really tired and didn’t want to do more canning on Saturday evening.

At the meat counter, Vince said “How many packages do you want?” I said “5 will be good”.  Because Vince isn’t the one canning them, if 5 is good, then 7 is better. We got 7 packages. That’s 28 chicken breasts . . 28 BIG chicken breasts.

We got to the counter and I was putting the meat on the check out conveyor belt thing and . . oh, my . . what’s that smell? It smelled like rotten vomit. My hands . . whatever it was . . it was on my hands! I said to the checkout girl . . this chicken STINKS and I raced off to the bathroom to wash my hands! I said to Vince . . I don’t want to get this!

The checkout girl said “I’m thinking the mat in the chicken cooler needs to be changed and what stinks is the bottom of the packaging .. not the actual chicken. I’m thinking . . I don’t care! This smells so bad I don’t even want to take it home. Vince is thinking . . $1.89 for chicken breasts . . I don’t care how bad it smells. I’m standing there in line thinking . . either I get rude and say NO! PUT THESE BACK! I DON’T WANT THEM . . or I be the good wife and listen to my  husband and taken the stinking chicken home. We brought the stinking chicken home.

By the time we got to the car I was aggravated because even after washing my hands, I could still smell the stink; I didn’t want stinking chicken and I only wanted 5 packs and he insisted on getting 7.

Thank goodness we brought the cooler so I didn’t have to let any part of those containers touch my car. But, I also didn’t want any part of those containers to touch my fridge. When we got home, I opened them all up and sure enough, the chicken was fine. I went ahead and canned 12 more quarts, which was 14 chicken breasts, along with 2 quarts of chicken broth, and the remaining 14 breasts are in zipper bags in the fridge and I’ll can them this afternoon.

Once everything is finished and all the chicken is canned, I’ll be happy that we did it. It’s a lot of work but I guess anything worth having is a lot of work. And, I wasn’t seriously aggravated at Vince but next time I want 5 of something, I’ll tell him I want 3 . . unless, of course, we’re talking about yarn and then I’ll say I want 100 and hope he gets 150 but, really . . when was the last time Vince ordered yarn for me? Yep . . never has happened and probably never will.