Cheese, towels, batteries (can't get any more miscellaneous than that)

My first order for freeze dried foods were shipped today.  I ordered a case of cheese.  Even though I learned how to can cheese, I still want a supply of freeze dried.  It will take up a lot less space, although the price was quite high.  I don't know the actual cost between the freeze dried cheese once it's rehydrated and fresh cheese.  I remember figuring out the the white meat chicken came out to about $7.00 per pound as rehydrated meat.  It's about $2.00-$3.00 per pound fresh.  So about three times the price of fresh food.  The shipment is supposed to arrive on Wednesday.  I'm going to open one of the cans up and leave the others sealed.  I ordered 1 Colby jack, 1 mozzarella, 2 cheddar, and 2 Monterey jack.  Which should I open?  Probably will open the cheddar.  Then we can have a taste test between the fresh, canned cheddar, and freeze dried cheddar.  I'll let you know the results.

Today at work I was given six battery adapters.  They make a AA battery fit into a C or D battery slot.  I'd never seen anything like it.  Since I have an unlimited supply of AA batteries this is something to use for items that take C or D batteries but I rarely use the item.  This way I don't have to keep a lot of C and D cells on hand, just the AA.  I'm not suggesting everyone goes out and buys these adapters and stops using C and D batteries.  Rather, it's for short term use items only.  Unless you buy cheap junky batteries, a D battery should have more power than a C and a C should have more power than a AA.  Therefore, if you are using the AA, it will provide the power but for a much shorter amount of time. 

This evening I spent time working on gifts for friends and family.  I'm decorating hand towels with Christmas fabric, Hanukkah fabric, and sports teams (not shown).  It's a really easy to make gift and doesn't take that long to put together, especially if you have left over material laying around.  I asked friends and family for their left over fabric.  Items such as these just take a strip about six inches wide and about 18 inches long.  That is stuff that's thrown away by other people as scrap. 


If you want to make a gift like this the best time to buy the towels in during the January white sales.  These towels shown are from Walmart.  Not on sale they cost $2.97.  On sale about $2.00-$2.50 each.  A package of iron on interfacing costs .95 and will make 8 - about .12 each.  You can make about 12 strips per yard of fabric.  The fabric, if you had to buy it at $4.00 per yard would cost .33 per strip.  Total each towel costs $3.42 if you pay full price for all the materials.  Using scraps and sale towels these average about $2.25 per towel.  I've made some for Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and other holidays and seasons.  It's a cheap, easy to make, useful gift.  OK, not really survivalist items but even in the darkest of days if you have simple little items such as these, it will make things better.

I haven't sewn the trim on yet, it's just pinned.  Tonight I got the strips cut out, interfacing ironed on, the strips pinned to the towels.  Tomorrow or the next night I will get them sewn on.

We finished up the Thanksgiving left overs.  Tomorrow I have to start cooking once again.  The kids have religious school tomorrow afternoon so maybe I'll throw a soup together for the crock pot before I go to work in the morning.