Sorry, guys. I made a loooong post and blogger ATE IT! And I was so mad I didn't come back here for a while. Because I'm mature like that.
My refrigerator is broken and I'm eating out of a cooler this weekend. Meh. The repair person won't be here until Monday, and I felt like I just wasn't strong enough to say, "Hey. My son and I have many food intolerances, so is there any way you can get a repair person over here today to look at it?" Although they did want me to unplug the fridge for 24 hours and then plug it back in, and we did that (we plugged it back in a few minutes ago. So we'll see if that helps. If not, I'll be acquiring a new fridge on Monday.
I guess I could tell you how I coped with the news. Once I realized the refrigerator portion was a goner (the freezer was still working), I stayed up until midnight and cooked ten pounds of ground beef and scrambled two dozen eggs. I let it all cool down as much as possible, and then I put it all in the freezer in single-layer bags or single serving bags so everything wouldn't stick together. It was all reasonably frozen in the morning, so I stocked the cooler with all of that plus what few ice packs and frozen food we already had in the freezer. So far most of the food is still frozen, so that's good. The biggest loss was my husband's organic milk, which was a real shame, but other than that, we were mainly out of food (I had bought the ground beef just hours before), so I think we're pretty fortunate, all things considered.
Tonight I'll evaluate the cooler. We may need to go out and get ice as the food level goes down, and I have a LOT of food in the cooler, so I think we'll be OK. If I do have to go get some food, I can cook it, cool it down, and then put it back in the cooler too. I really had to think about what I was going to do if things got too warm and I was really freaking out, but now that I know my options, I'm OK.
I hope you're all having a better weekend than I am! :)
