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November Menu Plan

November 2, 2009

This monthly menu planning and shopping almost entirely at once is really working out well for us. Breakfasts: Cold cereal, oatmeal, waffles, toast. Lunches & Dinners: As follows… On weekdays we have our large meal at lunchtime so that Jason can eat with us before he goes to work for the night shift. On weekends we have our large meal in the evening. For the other meal we have a selection of sandwiches, leftovers, quesadillas, pizza, quickie pasta, or the occasional snack tray with smoothies. Here is my plan for the large meals: Sunday, 1st: Italian chicken with carrots and rice. Monday, 2nd: Farfalle (bowtie) pasta with meat sauce. Tuesday, 3rd: Pork roast with mashed potatoes and corn. Wednesday, 4th: Tacos and fruit. Thursday, 5th: Chicken noodle soup and rolls. Friday, 6th: Hamburgers & fries. Saturday, 7th: Monterey chicken with potato casserole and skillet corn. Sunday, 8th: Beef stew and cornbread. Monday, 9th: Pork chops with baked apples and rice. Tuesday, 10th: Baked ziti with corn-on-the-cob. Wednesday, 11th: Chicken & gravy with Rice-a-Roni and carrots. Thursday, 12th: Pizza and watermelon. Friday, 13th: Chicken noodle soup and rolls. Saturday, 14th: Pot roast with mashed potatoes and carrots. Sunday, 15th: Spaghetti with...

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Too Many Dishes…

October 23, 2009

In my house, I am a real stickler for dishes being handled correctly. Many of my baking pans and accoutrements cannot be put into the dishwasher. Some other things can technically be washed in there but I prefer not to because handwashing will help them last longer by reducing damage and warping (i.e. my Teflon non-stick pans, wooden cutting board, air-bake cookie pans, etc.). I am blessed with a double sink, but when I have a heavy cooking day topped with last-minute baking, even those sinks get filled up pretty quick and overflow onto the counter and stovetop. Yikes! Last night I noticed that I’m coming down with a cold and was just completely wiped out. I made the executive decision to let the dishes wait til the morning. First thing this morning, I made some hot tea to give brief respite from my stuffy nose and sore throat and groaned at the mountains of dishes piled up all over my kitchen. Then I rolled up my sleeves, put on my big-girl panties, and got to work. Happy day! After shifting a few things to make a space in one of the sinks to wash I quickly realized that...

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Best night in 3 months…

October 15, 2009
Best night in 3 months…

I’m sitting in my living room. There’s a small fire crackling happily in the fireplace in front of me. My 3-year old son Jeremy is bathed and snuggled on Jason’s lap under his favorite blankie with his favorite stuffed fishy. We’re watching Ratatouille as all of us succumb to the Drowsey Monster and then we’ll slip off to bed.       I won’t forget this night for the rest of my life. Having my son back in my home for the first time in close to 12 weeks in most definitely a Finer Thing. I took ten minutes to toss this post up and now I’m going back to enjoying the last of the evening with my family. Tomorrow, Mommy & Me class on the Coast Guard base. Saturday is flea market day at which we hope to pick out a puppy. Sunday is church. And Monday is library day!

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Catching Up

October 14, 2009
Catching Up

I have been incredibly absent around here lately. I made my big huge photo-laden post right after I returned home from a week in California, then I planned October’s menu – that’s it, all I’ve done in the past month. That is absolutely pitiful blogging and for the four people or so who read this, I am so very sorry. In a lame attempt at some excuses: 1) I was exhausted from finishing my first trimester of this pregnancy, 2) I’ve been busily preparing my son’s room for him to come home to us this week, and 3) I’ve been doing crazy lots of crocheting.   Item number 1: First Trimester of Pregnancy. As I’ve mentioned from time to time on Twitter and Facebook, this pregnancy has been different in every single way from my first. With my first baby (Jeremy) I had no morning sickness (aside from a reaction to taking my iron supplement with a glass of milk), with this baby I was ill all day every day for the few couple of months. All that changed as I headed into the second trimester (last week) and I’m so very happy for that. I feel like my old self...

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Our new routine

September 2, 2009

Not long ago Jason volunteered for the night shift (4 pm – midnight) so that he would be home during the days with me and wouldn’t have to miss any prenatal visits. My first one was on his first day of work, so he obviously couldn’t get the time off, and he was really disappointed to have missed it. The usual span of time for a person to be on a night or graveyard shift is six months but he can volunteer to be on longer if he wants. The plan is for Jason to stay on nights until I have the baby, then he’ll get ten days of paternity time off, then he’ll go back to work and request to be put back on days as soon as a spot becomes available. As I mentioned in my “get it out to clear my head” rant yesterday, my car decided to freak out yesterday. The AAA tow truck showed up over 2 hours late this afternoon and couldn’t take my car to the mechanic before the service center closed, so my car is still sitting in my driveway. This creates a problem for us. Jason drives his truck to...

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Rant Rant RANT!!!

September 1, 2009

My last couple of days haven’t been all that great. Actually, I can’t say it that way, it’s been the last week but off-and-on, culminating in today. When we left California, we still had about a year left on our DirecTV contract. Upon moving to Alabama, we hooked it back up and switched from the $75/month premium plan to the $29/month family plan to finish out our contract. We got AT&T for our land line and DSL internet. AT&T owns DirecTV, so we were able to get a good deal on a bundle. However, the phone had annoying static and Jason had horrible issues with the internet. While he was playing World of Warcraft he’d get kicked offline every 15 minutes or so. During the day while he was at work, I’d have to reboot our router every few hours because it would randomly lose connection with AT&T. Jason called Mediacom and found out that they would pay up to $300 to buy us out of our DirecTV contract if we switched over to their cable TV; also, their internet promised to be much faster than AT&T could provide. We happily switched our TV, internet, and phone over to...

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Menu Plan, month of September

September 1, 2009

This is my first shot at planning a full month of dinners. I picked a good month for it because I’ll be out of town visiting my family for a week and will be leaving Jason and his mom to their own devices. I never plan breakfast, we’re all grazers in the morning and are happy with a bowl of cereal. With Jason having switched from the day shift to nights, we’ll be switching our main meal of the day from evening to lunch time so that he can have a good filling meal with the family before heading off for work at 3 pm. Here are our September lunch plans: Tuesday, 1st: Tuna salad sandwiches, chips & dip, & fruit. Wednesday, 2nd: Monterey Chicken. Thursday, 3rd: Pot Roast with carrots and potatoes. Friday, 4th: Chicken & gravy with corn and Rice-a-Roni. Saturday, 5th: Shake & Bake pork chops with crash potatoes. Sunday, 6th: Orange Chicken with Veggie Fried Rice. Monday, 7th: Spaghetti with garlic breadsticks. Tuesday, 8th: Pork Roast with mashed potatoes and applesauce. Wednesday, 9th: Chicken Noodle Soup Thursday, 10th: Tacos and green salad. Friday, 11th: Roast turkey breast with baked potatoes and skillet fried corn (the way...

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Menu Planning 101: Assignment 2

August 27, 2009

Last week we came up with 15 of our family’s favorite meals. This week’s challenge from The Happy Housewife was to add another 5 meals and list our favorite side dishes. My first list of meals from last week included our absolute favorite main dishes. This week I’m adding a few meals that we like to splurge on once in a while: Taco Cheese Dip Breakfast for Dinner (eggs, potatoes, pancakes, homemade muffins, waffles, any combination of breakfasty foods) Big Chef Salad with veggies (uncooked sweet corn and raw carrots) and different meats (turkey or chicken, salami or pepperoni), shredded cheese, and fruit like raisins, craisins, pineapple bits, mandarin orange slices, apple chunks. Basically a mish-mash of an antipasto tray mixed into salad greens. Hot Dogs (I have a weakness, but I try to keep it in check and at least buy the quality hot dogs) Orange Chicken We don’t really worry about too much variety in side dishes, we’ve got our favorites and stick to them: Carrots Mashed potatoes Rice A Simple Walk’s Simple Pull-Apart Rolls Potato Cheese Casserole Rice-a-Roni Corn on the cob Baked potatoes Green salad Tater tots Guacamole with chips Fruit cocktail Peaches Pears Pineapple...

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Menu Plan, week of August 24, 2009

August 24, 2009

I was really not in the mood over the weekend to menu plan. We had a couple of unexpected expenses pop up last week and our grocery budget suffered. We’ve got plenty, but I wasn’t really up for an “eat from our pantry/freezer” challenge quite yet. So, here’s what I came up with for this week. Not bad stuff, we’re actually having some of our favorites in spite of my unpreparedness. Monday: Breakfast for dinner, eggs with fried potatoes and fruit. Tuesday: Beef stew with Kate’s pull-apart rolls and leftover green salad. Wednesday: Corn-flake and parmasan crusted chicken with carrots and mashed potatoes. Thursday: Cheese enchiladas and rice. Friday: Our last box of Hamburger Helper which traveled from our California pantry to Alabama. Saturday: BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, and Pioneer Woman’s crash hot potatoes. Sunday: TBD. I have absolutely nothing planned for Sunday. The fabulous dinner I had planned for the weekend before last when we thought friends were coming to dinner wound up being turned into a basic family meal because Jason never actually confirmed the plans with his work buddy. Major oops on his part. Well, he’s re-upped the invitation and this weekend is a...

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Menu Planning 101: Assignment 1

August 20, 2009

Last week, The Happy Housewife challenged her readers to an assignment. She’s starting a series on how to menu plan and this first assignment was for each reader to come up with a list of 15 meals that their family wanted to eat. Now, I’ve been menu-planning for just about a year now and have really enjoyed it (even though I have often forgotten to post our menus online). I do a week-by-week, Monday through Sunday plan. Depending on our available funds when I’m planning out the week, sometimes I make a list and shop for everything I need to make the meals I chose, and sometimes (when we’re broke) I plan meals around what’s already in our pantry/freezer/fridge. So far, my “fly by the seat of my pants” menu-planning method has been working for us, but since we just recently switched from two incomes to one, and from a 3-person household to a 5-person (and by next spring, 6-person), what I hope to get from Toni’s Menu Planning 101 series is to go from a weekly menu plan to a monthly plan and learn how to make our planning more frugal by stretching our meat with more vegetables...

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