Here we go again...

Okay so I've done Flylady once successfully then moved back in with my parents and thus lost all habits. I started again awhile back but fell out of all that probably due to moving and just to much change in schedule again. But now I'm going for round 3, my plan is to use Flylady principals and ideas but not go full force charging in as I have in the past. She pushes for babysteps as otherwise you get overwhelmed and give up, 15 minutes a day is something I can handle most days at least. And I won't beat myself up if I miss a day of decluttering/unpacking if I worked/was away from the house for 12 hours. I've trained the man to make the bed when he gets up which is ALWAYS later than me.

First step is "shining your sink" I know how she wants it done, I know her method. I just don't wake up early enough to empty the dishwasher in the AM before leaving for work, and the man isn't too good on doing that on his own. He's a great helper but he's not awake before 6am like I am, and I leave the house by 6:20am. I need to suck it up and be mature about going to bed a bit earlier and waking up 10-15 minutes earlier as that's all it takes to get everything put away. And that's step one, so that's the goal tonight. Were going to order delivery, I haven't made it to the grocery store lately nor meal planned since my marathon plan a thon last month. So were resorting to the easy solution, having someone else cook and deliver. :-) Which is another reason for the desire for routine, but mostly I have set hours now, so I can more easily plan and mentally prepare to accomplish x, y, or z but I just don't do well doing it on my own at this point. I'm too ambitious and plan to much then when I'm tired after work I don't do any of it or if I'm lucky a little bit gets done.

Wish me luck.

Menu Plans

Here are my basic plans, as I said in my last post we went to a Warehouse store and stocked up on frozen chicken, and other basics. So that helped in my planning. I'm hitting up the grocery store tomorrow after work. Let the games begin.

Week of: Oct 23 – Oct 29

Chicken Parmesan w/ pasta Steak w/ mashed potatoes, green beans Chicken burgers w/ sweet potato fries Chicken meatball kabob's w/ salad Enchiladas – make extras Chicken Marsala - NEW

Week of: Oct 30 – Nov 5

Spaghetti w/ garlic bread Make-ahead burritos - NEW/ making extras Jambalaya Easy Cheese Tortellini Alfredo - make night before Tuna casserole Chicken Cordon Blue - NEW

Week of: Nov 6 – Nov 12

Beer Battered catfish w/ onion rings Chili w/ corn bread Meatloaf Bourbon Chicken w/ noodles Chicken and Dumplings (crockpot)

Some are old favorites, some are new. Some are things I haven't tried in a long time. Lots of chicken obviously, lol. I'm trying to incorporate at least one night a week to "make-ahead" cooking whether that be the crock-pot, or something I make in bulk and freeze some for later, or a casserole that I make the night before to be cooked later. I think there's at least 1 of those a week, so eventually that will lower the amount of cooking. The man offered to make Chicken Cordon Blu so I added that one, and he'll help in the kitchen most nights. Which is awesome. Wish me luck, I only planned 6 a week (will add one to the week of Nov 6) as we all need at least one night for leftovers, going out, etc. I take leftovers for lunch a lot as I work in a school and cafeteria food isn't always awesome. I do buy my lunch sometimes, but it has to be something "good."

Trying to overachieve

Today I've been revisiting menu planning....but not just a little bit. Like a whirlwind, helps that the man has math homework to complete and is busy upstairs leaving me to be with all my cookbooks and mini laptop. ::insert evil laugh:: but seriously after being stuck home for 4 days you'd think I would have attempted this previously and not spent most of Sunday revisiting and reworking my methods. I was home recently due to bronchitis with pharyngitis, which was most likely strep but the doctor didn't want to waste my or his time by doing the throat swab when he was already prescribing me to antibiotics. So I've been not just a little sick, but REALLY sick, per doctor's orders I've been home. Sleeping and spending way to much time on Facebook. But I get to go back to work tomorrow. :-D

Anyways back to the whole menu planning. I decided I was going to menu plan because I got an email that some website had a new planner option. Not wanting to go there. I was like I need to do this, so I carried my mini to the kitchen table and looked at the desk which had been piled high in the kitchen since we moved in...and decided it was time to unearth it. So I went through all the papers and sorted and tossed what needed to be dealt with, so now I sit at my desk with my swivel chair so I can turn and use the kitchen table too. It's not perfect but it's now usable space. Which is pretty awesome I might add. Anyways back to the point. I've been attempting to plan not just one week but one MONTH of meals. My problem has always been that when I plan X for Monday, Y for Tuesday I never want those items that day throwing off my entire week and making me have to rewrite everything as I used the dry erase method before. So I was looking around the internet and like the idea of index cards but not sure I'd use them but I might try a few just listing ingredients to help with grocery list making.

Anyways I came up with a plan I think will work for me, I created a word document that lists just "week of: date" then below I've bulleted meals I plan to make that week. But I make the sheet for the whole month/4 weeks, so it's massive planning but it shouldn't have to happen too often, and I'm basing it upon what's in the house now, what we stocked up on at Bulk store, and what I'll get at the grocery store tomorrow after work. So I can get the pantry staples were running low on and maintain that easier if I'm planning this far in advance that's the plan so far, it's still a work in progress but I'm excited and the man doesn't understand why. :-D So I'm blogging. I'll update on how it goes.

Homemaking, defined

I never really thought about the term homemaking till recently. Having a house now, really makes the term hit home, as it seems we spend every weekend with projects to continue to make the house a home. Today we started out pulling weeds and gardening in the front yard, then rearranging the still box filled garage. Then a trip to his parents as they were giving us their old dining room table. :-)

Then to Lowe's for boards to put in the attic and create a floor, and a few other odds and ends. We were at Lowe's yesterday too, home improvement stores are great, but it's not like grocery shopping where with a list you don't forget things. :-\ We're still learning.

But overall we've been productive. I'm working 50 hours a week right now so the house isn't getting the attention it deserves. Neither is my menu planning or cooking. We've started getting delivery and takeout more than we should. So I need to put forth the effort again to creating a weekly or bi-weekly menu might work better. As it's just the two of us, we can keep more in the freezer and in the pantry to prepare. 

Breakfast Rut

I get into a breakfast rut way to often, I get stuck on eating the same thing day after day and eventually get so burnt out I don't want anything to do with it anymore. The one that lasted the longest was 1/4 bear naked granola, 1/2 cup fat free yogurt, and blue berries and or strawberries. I ate that every morning for over a year, sometimes throwing egg whites or something else in the mix. I still don't have an appetite when I try to eat that breakfast anymore. I get stuck with eggs too, egg whites scrambled with some veggies, or over easy egg on a slice of bread with ham, etc. I get stuck.

So I go out searching for alternatives, I found a good list today that has a long list of easy to prepare items. Since the list is long enough it should help me keep some variety, as long as I don't get stuck on one of these items.

Breakfast Ideas:
25 Easy Breakfast Ideas for the Bleary Eyed!

Listmania

List making, something I love to do. I've tried apps on my phone, and while I have many lists on there. I always eventually go back to some paper versions too. Phone reminders and lists are great for alarms, like the one that reminds me weekly when I'm allowed to water the lawn with sprinklers (due to drought restrictions). But for everyday to do lists, I get in the bad habit of just closing the reminder. Or seeing it too late and feeling bad that I forgot to x, y, or z.

So paper lists, reminders, are awesome. I was reading my reader and came across this post: Sunday Planning it has an awesome resource for different free printables to help with daily chores/reminders, meal planning, blogging, and cleaning. There is a good variety, I haven't picked my favorites yet. But wanted to share.

Enjoy the weekend!!!

Blessings

Things that make me feel blessed this week:

• new travel coffee mug
• label maker
• post it notes that make me smile
• meals out with old friends

Always:

• family
• friends
• home
• food on the table

Green Thumb, who would have thought.

I've never had a green thumb, I always joked it was brown as all plants I ever tried to keep alive, let alone help them to thrive...didn't make it. Moving provided me with a large over grown backyard, which has a few plants that were obviously placed on purpose, not necessarily natural to the area. Didn't realize what they were till we got some much needed rain, and discovered we had a crepe myrtle in the backyard. Which was exciting as it had been discussed to put a new one out there. The other plants are still unknown, for now. :-)

Anyways, once the rain helped I began hose watering every few days as we are in a Stage 2 drought here in San Antonio. So the Crepe myrtle has began to flourish, it's pretty awesome as it has some great pink blooms. So here are a few photo's of it's progression.

The front yard needs some work, I just need to figure out what to do with it, as it has plants that are pretty drought resistant, but I have just never learned how to care for these things. The back yard has 2 rose bushes also that are all out of control with no blooms. Not sure if I can "save them" or if it would be best to pull them out and start over with something new. It's all a learning process but I'm enjoying gardening much more than I could have anticipated. To making things pretty and grow. :-)

Beer can chicken and other endeavors

So now that the kitchen is all unpacked, I've gotten back into cooking once again. Menu planning and all. So I'm going to make a "catch all" post for all the things I didn't get to blogging about. I probably tweeted about them, but that's not even a guarantee.

Waffles

So I'll start with my first attempt at making waffles. I'd had the waffle iron for a few years, but kept it in storage as it was too big for my old kitchen. Just used a box mix as it was my first attempt I didn't want to get to creative and wanted to learn how the iron worked.

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

Next up was my mom's spaghetti sauce recipe. I'd made this before but it had been a few years, as it just seemed like too much work. I typically opted for pre-made jarred sauce. But it was SOOO worth having the homemade sauce, and I didn't even let it simmer as long as I should have, but I waited too long to make dinner and just simmered a little longer than the minimum 30 minutes (while everything else was finishing up). Paired it with some whole wheat noodles, and garlic crescent rolls.

Next cooking adventure was Beer Can Chicken, this is something I'd heard about but had never tried. I had forgotten about it until I got a "Cooking with Beer" cookbook. Scanning through for ideas came across two recipes for beer can chicken, I mostly followed one with some help from this website also. As once looking into indirect cooking on the grill realized that would be more involved that I wanted to get. So I made it in the oven. Got the man to help with the chicken, but it turned out awesome. Super juicy and moist, and not beer flavored at all. :)

So that's a few of my cooking adventures recently in my new kitchen.