Menu Plan Monday

This weekend, I bought chicken for pretty cheap (1.88/lb for b/l s/l chicken breasts) so I foresee chicken in our immediate future. I cooked up some of it last night, but we ate that amount with the company we had over, so for this week, we will have:

• Chicken fajita salads (love love love these!)

• Chicken noodle casserole

• Homemade pizzas

• Leftover bar

• Breakfast for dinner

• Potato bar

• Enchiladas (chicken or beef, depending when in the week we have this)

That is not the list in the order of when we will eat the meals, but rather a guideline for our dinner plans. I can't wait to get the rest of that chicken made up later today! What I make up today, I will set aside for the meals for this week and the rest of it will be stored in my Tupperware Freezer Mate containers. Love those things!

Tackle It Tuesday

Today's tackle has been working on attacking Mt. Washmore (laundry anyone? I have plenty to spare!), getting our bedroom ready for our new bedroom set that comes some time tomorrow, and trying to get the adhesive and some black covering thing pulled up out of our basement and take it back to the cement floor. Oh and we also pulled up the carpet that was in the basement and took that and an old couch out. Both will be on the curb next week for trash collection day. Unless I get motivated to take it to the landfill before then. Highly doubtful as I have lots of other projects going on first.

Things that I have tackled and accomplished this past week, include rearranging furniture, moving bookshelves to our living room and unpacking multiple boxes of books to stock the shelves with. Going through the boxes and weeding out the books that I don't want to keep. Let's see, we also cleared out our den, moved in our couch and loveseat, took down vertical blinds from all of our bigger windows and sliding doors, put up curtains instead, put together an exercise bike, created chore lists for the kiddos that seem to actually be working! (yay for that one!), cleaned out my front closet, yeah...I think that's it. Or mostly it? I'm so exhausted. But I'm trying to get a number of things done before this weekend. I want my house to be in nearly perfect order before this weekend. I know that truly perfect order is not attainable, but I want the entire house to be company-ready. I don't care that no one ever goes into my basement, I want it to be done so that if a person ever were to need to go down there, they wouldn't be frightened. :)

I may go around and take pictures later on today, but for now, I want to get the post up. You can check back later for some pictures of the dones and the to-dos. It'll be fun, I promise!

Menu Plan Monday

 

It's Monday and that means it is time to plan this week's menu. So without further ado (because I have a household full of various projects), here it is:

Monday: take-out (major projects happening today)

Tuesday: dinner for the kids will be at Grandma's house, Hubby and I will do sandwiches or leftovers

Wednesday: beef stroganoff

Thursday: beef enchiladas (I made some this weekend that the kids said were the best that they have ever had and Hubby feels he needs to correct this, so he is making enchiladas to attempt to regain his status as resident best cook)

Friday: homemade pizzas

Saturday: chicken casserole

Sunday: tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches

That's our basic plan for the week. It should work out fine. And since the menu is planned, it  makes my life so much easier! :) Gotta love that!

Finish It Friday

Well, with it being Friday, I am supposed to be finishing up something that I started this week. Let's see...since I didn't do much of anything today, this may be a tougher post that I thought it would be. I guess for starters, I finished up Freddy's vet visits. Tuesday, he went to the vet for his rabies, distemper and two other vaccines. Today, he went to the vet's office for a grooming. They have a nice service there, that is affordable plus they express his anal glands as part of the grooming process, which is awesome. Because let me tell you, when my dog farts, it can make a dead skunk smell like a bed of roses. Seriously. Yuck!

Another thing that I wrapped up today was a job contact. I called someone earlier this week about a job and today I had my interview. It will be a while until I hear something for sure due to insurance regulations and such, but that is something else that is finished up today.

The other thing that I was starting to think that I finished up was my ankle. As in, done for. Not to be utilized again. I didn't use crutches yesterday and wore my brace only part of the day while we were working on things around the house. In all honesty, I know I overdid it yesterday. But I knew that I was scheduled to work tonight and I was planning on going in, despite the doctor's note saying that I couldn't. But I was just trying to prepare for the night. And yeah, no go. Once I was done with my interview today, I picked the dog up from the groomer, came home, put my foot up, had Hubby put my air cast back on and took pain medicine. It may have just been over the counter, but it helped some and then I fell asleep because that was the only way I could deal with the sheer amount of pain that I was in.

So, that's that, I suppose. Dog appointments and job leads. Complete for this week.

Relax and enjoy the skin you're in

It has been stressful for me the last month or so. You can certainly tell that by Wednesday's post which makes today's post seem all the more important to me. You see, I"m a day late for Thursday but wanted to do it anyhow, which means it's my day to do something for myself, encouraged by Katie. In addition to that, Rachel Anne's points for today are also for doing something for myself so that makes it doubly easy to get something in for today.

I have had a lot going on today so my plan for today is to steal away some "me" time by locking myself in the bathroom, filling the tub up with nice hot water, throwing in some bath fizzies and just relaxing. Oh my gosh, does that ever sound wonderful?! Plus, with my ankle, I'm supposed to stay off of it as much as possible and showering pretty much guarantees standing on my foot.

Plus, do y'all have any idea how long it's been since I've been able to just kick back and enjoy a nice long soak? Bliss, I tell ya. Pure and utter bliss. And there's a lock on the door. So that means kidlets and Hubby will just have to fend for themselves the whole time.

I'm linking this up to Katie's "Time For Me Thursday" post and Rachel Anne's "Home Sanctuary" post for today.

Points for today:50 points!
Points for February: 430 points!

When It All Comes Crashing Down...

I'm kind of in a dumpy mood tonight. Yesterday, I had some things that I wanted to get done and in the end, I was only able to accomplish a small portion of it. While coming down the stairs from the bedroom level of our house, I rolled my left ankle and fell down the stairs. It hurt like crazy and I just laid there for a minute, trying to get a grip on the pain and inhaling deeply. And also realizing just how badly our carpet needs to be cleaned. Pee-eww!!!


But I managed to get up and spent the rest of the day trying to do the best that I could. My foot and ankle hurt but I just stuck it out and did my best. The pain mostly went away until later in the evening. Then it was back and absolutely horrible so I went to sleep.

Woke up today and could barely walk on it. Decided to go ahead and get it checked out. The good news is that it wasn't fractured. It is just a sprain. The bad news is that it is a sprain. Did you know that bones take only 6 weeks to heal whereas ligaments and muscles can take up to a full year?

The doctor put me in an air cast, which is like a splint. It has two air chamber thingies that I blow up with a tube and then I strap it onto my leg. The two chambers are connected to each other by this strap thingie that is under my foot. And so I am supposed to wear this until I am able to walk without pain or 3 days, whichever comes last. And he put me on crutches, which I am supposed to use for the next week at least. It's just depressing.

We have had such a horrible run medically since I started the job in the little town. I have been in two car accidents, I had a sinus infection that was so bad, it blew out both of my eardrums, JoNo has had bronchitis, Hubby had influenza, then he had to have emergency oral surgery, I had bronchitis, I sprained my ankle. And then of course, there are other illnesses that are of a less severe nature. I'm just done. I'm exhausted with this stuff. And I'm afraid that I'm going to end up losing my job.

I have been looking for a new job anyhow. Technically, I shouldn't be working at my current facility because of the family supervising family rule. And there are some issues between me and my co-workers. And I really prefer home health to facilities. But I haven't gotten any of the jobs that I have applied for. It doesn't help that my attendance at my current job has sucked either. But it isn't like there was a lot I could do about it either.

In other news, I have another job interview on Friday. This one is for private duty home health, which is my absolute favorite. And I will probably try to see if I can get some hours with my other private duty lady as well. I'm seriously scared about the future of our financial status.

It will work out though. I know it will. And it doesn't help to worry about it because worrying doesn't solve the problem. What does solve the problem is taking action and that is what I have done. I have put in applications, I have had interviews, I make contacts daily and I keep my job search open.

So if I can get the job on Friday, that will help and if I get some hours with my other lady, that will help even more. It won't be enough, but it will be some extra. And I put an ad on craigslist tonight to try to generate some more leads as well. We'll just have to see how that goes.

 
And the whole parenting thing - yeah, that's going a bit rough right now too. I am trying to figure out the best way to handle screen time and chores and allowance and privileges and I thought I had a good system worked out and then today, my system turned on me. Hubby and I had decided to limit the kids to one hour of screen time per day during the week. And it only happens after their chores and any special requests have been completed. Then on the weekends, they can have up to three hours each day, but once again - only after chores are done. Allowance will be given every so often (we were trying to decide between weekly, every other week or once a month) and the amount was to be $1 for each year they are old. So Natty would get $10, JoNo would get $7, Punky $4 and Boo $3.

But then yesterday, JoNo buckled down and really kicked tail on helping out around the house, knowing that I was in pain and I totally appreciated it. I didn't even ask him to do anything beyond his room and to just do a quick sweep through the den. Oh yeah, and he also cleaned up the yard outside too. Meanwhile, Natty moaned and groaned and complained about having to do any chores and not being able to just play video games right away, so on and so forth. In the time that it took JoNo to clean up his half of their room, the bathroom, the den and part of the kitchen, Natty got almost half of the living room done. It was ridiculous.

Then today, JoNo brings home his book order and shows me the books he wants to get out of it and asks how much he earned for helping out yesterday. When I tried to explain it to him again that chores just needed to be done before screen time and that allowance was going to be a set amount every so often, he got tears in his eyes because he had worked so hard yesterday and he was wanting to use the money that he earned to pay for some new books.

Yeah, I suck. So I need to figure it out. I'm thinking that they will have their set chores to do to earn their screen time, they will have their allowance that they get at whatever interval and they can earn money for doing extra work and going above and beyond. I think that might be the best solution. I just don't know. This parenting gig is tough!

I just have lots of things to sort out and figure out and hopefully soon, it will all come together. And in the meantime, my carpets really need to be cleaned and I'm not supposed to bear weight. Oh Hubby!...

Tossed It Tuesday

   

 Well, if you read my last post, you would see that I had cleaned out my pantry. From my pantry alone, I tossed out 8 boxes of expired foods, around 12 cans of expired food, and a bag of potatoes. I also got rid of some old chairs that were breaking and weren't in good enough condition to repair. We finally got the high chair out of the house too. I sorted though some books and got rid of some of those and of course, the great laundry sort continues!

Some things that I am planning to get rid of this coming week include: a couch that has been water-damaged from our basement flooding.

Some carpet that has also been water-damaged from our basement flooding.

Shoes. I am finding that we have TONS and TONS of shoes.