freezer snafu, hold the cool whip and frozen veggies

Before we ever left for Vancouver we ran into a little freezer snafu.  I had been gradually cooking up dinners and freezing them in large zip loc bags to pack for the trip.  We planned to feast on sloppy joe's, turkey (that was the only meal not frozen), chicken cacciatore, and leftover mostaccioli from Eddie's grad party that had been in the freezer since June.  I also whipped up enough additional servings to feed the male family members who would be home for a few days before flying out to join us.

One night while I was making dinner, I noticed water dripping out of the freezer every time I opened it.  As with most debacles, I blamed Tank.  (group moan:  'oh, poor Tank').  I suspected that when he returned from landscaping in the heat he emptied his cooler, rinsed his freezer packs in the sink, and then stuck them in the freezer.

Me:  'Tank your freezer packs are still dripping with water.  Next time dry them off.'

Tank:  'Sure'  - he responds this way for most things just to get me to stop talking to him.  Yes, you are right to assume that this can be very irritating.  Silly me.  Once he paid attention to what I suspected him of, he was like 'I didn't rinse my freezer packs off.'

After dinner, I got out ice cream.  It was Lad's 21st birthday and the kids were eating cake, but I celebrate with ice cream.  The spoon plunged deep into the ice cream way too easily.  Oh shit.

Our freezer was defrosting.  My to-do list was lengthy so I was frustrated that I now had to clear out  the freezer in a hurry.  I tossed some stuff.  I set stuff that didn't have to stay frozen aside like Nestles chocolate chip morsels.  I loaded laundry baskets with food and ran down to the basement to see what I could fit in that freezer.  The answer:  not much!

Laundry basket appears overflowing in the bottom right corner.  The bonus is lots of ice cream got eaten last night, and no one got in trouble for it.

I emptied out the basement freezer.  I eliminated cardboard boxes with one or two items remaining to conserve space.  I juggled and maneuvered and prioritized and utilized the freezer door space differently.  In the end I realized that I may never again need to purchase cool whip or frozen bags of vegetables.  Oops.

I called my mom and she agreed half-heartily to accept some of my freezer goods into her freezer. My folks have a freezer in the kitchen and another one in the basement and maybe one in the garage.  There are two of them.  Space was not an issue, but Mom does not like things out of place.  Reason #437 why I must have been adopted.  I wanted to ask her when the last time was she even opened the mostly-empty freezer in the basement.  She uses it to stock pile cookies near Christmas but THIS WAS END OF JUNE!

Now what was I going to do with all of the meals-to-travel-with that were supposed to be frozen until we left the following week?  For the moment, I shoved the dinners that I made that day in the fridge thinking I would just have to keep them there till I could freeze them in a few days.

Then I helped myself to another scoop of ice cream.  There is more to this story, and I wish it involved more ice cream eating, but sadly no.