I need your deep freezer advice

I thought maybe I had missed God's message about building an ark yesterday. Because the rain? It would not stop. It was coming down HARD and continuously.

That mini-ocean back there? When I went to bed on Sunday night, it was just a plain old field. It quickly morphed into a lake that made me want to put floaties on the dogs before I sent them out back to do their business.

And while I hated having my hair frizz all the livelong day (trivial!), I felt REALLY bad for Steve, who was having to sleep and work in it. Sam and I went to the commissary this morning to stock up on food needed to make ALL of his favorite meals this weekend. I know I personally didn't send him out there to do training during these past two weeks of miserable weather, but I still feel BAD and want to somehow make coming home a gazillion times better than usual for him.

I also found out (RIGHT after I got home!) that I will, in fact, be hosting a little FRG lunch get-together here at my house on Thursday. So.... that probably means another trip to the commissary! Wheeee!!

I was already planning on dipping everything in my kitchen in chocolate for Steve (as per my usual Christmas tradition), but I figure that a few women aren't going to put THAT much of a dent in his chocolate stuff (right?!?!), so I will set that out for my desserts. And I was thinking of getting some croissants and making chicken salad? The FRG leader is bringing some fruit. I'm not doing veggies because I know what a waste of human effort that is. Am I missing anything? I should probably have some drinks on hand as they probably won't want to drink milk or that NASTY Shasta cola in the fridge. Hmmm... "I'll think about it tomorrow."

Meanwhile, yesterday.... Allison, Sam, and I went to Nashville where they have been secretly hiding a Trader Joe's all this time! And no one told me! It was small, but filled with awesome stuff. I was surprised at how much I DIDN'T spend, but I got quite a few things that Steve and I will enjoy. (Sorry Sam.) They always seem to have a little spot set up where they are giving away samples of something or other. And yesterday, they were giving out samples of.... LATKES AND APPLESAUCE!!! It does seem a little odd that that sample would excite me to that level of all-caps, but Sam and I have been reading a Christmas-book-a-day, and yesterday we read about

LATKES AND APPLESAUCE. How appropriate. Of course, Sam couldn't actually sample it due to the whole gluten-thing, but I did remember to tell him how yummy it was. HA.

Another fun thing about Trader Joe's is the people watching!! You would not know you were in Tennessee if you went into that store. They were all really crunchy, granola, hippie-dippie-trippie folks that were doing their ACTUAL grocery shopping in there. ($$$$$$) It was entertaining, to say the least. We paid for our purchases and then headed home (in the rain). Sam screamed for the better part of the return trip, and I'm assuming now that Allison has enough birth control to last her into next year.

And that picture there? That is our little baby freezer, packed to the gills. I dare not find anymore milk on sale (it was a whole DOLLAR cheaper per carton that usual!! and there are 5 more cartons in my fridge...), or make anymore bread, or freeze anymore meat, or buy another frozen veggie, because I have rearranged as best I can. There is absolutely no more wiggle room in there. Do any of you own a deep freezer? Can you recommend a brand or model? Maybe you can tell me which brand/model to stay away from? We are clearly in desperate need of one and are trying to hold out for some after-Christmas sales. While I normally advocate buying things like this off of Craigslist, I'm thinking that if we're going to be shoving lots of food in there, I would prefer to know that it is brand spankin' new and not going to randomly shut off and die, thus destroying all of that food (which = $$$).