domesticity, I am your master.

Everyone, stop the presses. Those of you who have presses. The rest can just... look over here for a minute. I bought a deep freezer. Wait! That's interesting! Stick around!

Years ago, I read The Complete Tightwad Gazette, and I got lots of ideas about being frugal. I'm into being frugal, to the point that it's a tiny bit of a neurosis. Like, I don't reuse baggies or wash foil, but I get my money's worth out of a Kleenex, and I buy all our clothes at thrift stores, because come on, new clothes are ridiculously overpriced. Stuff like that. But in this book, she teaches a lot of good practical tips for saving money and living simply. It was before the internet, so some of the stuff is goofy, like phone books. Ha! Phone books.

Anyway, that book and others like it have always caused a yearning in my soul to have a deep freezer and buy meat on sale and always cook inexpensively and creatively. But I never bought a deep freezer, and buying meat always stressed me out because I overcook it and it's so pricey. I just make stew. All the time.

And stew is great, when you have a community of people around, either living with you or coming in and out, eating occasionally. Beans and cornbread, lentil stew, that's how we roll. But I'm trying to grow up and learn how to cook real meals, you know, that go on a plate and have multiple items on that plate like meat, vegetable... you know the drill. Somehow I never got this down.

So we had an alloted portion of our tax return (may Obama live forever) for home purchases, and I found a deep freezer for $60 on Craigslist and I bought it. Then we drove to the end of the world and picked it up, with the MOG muttering under his breath and arguing with the GPS the whole way.

It looks great, I'm stoked. I signed up for e-mealz.com and I'm about to get super organized up in here and start meal planning and cooking some good stuff. And freezing stuff! Then you can come to my house and eat at the table with a plate. Or, if I've regressed, you can eat some stew on the futon. Well, in a bowl on the futon, it's not that bad.