This week's menu...1/18-1/24

This week is going to be relatively simple...I have a busy week ahead of me! My daughter's last game is today...she's a 7th grade cheerleader. My oldest son turns 10 on Thursday and he has chosen to bring my mini apple pies in to school for his birthday treat. They're easy, but time consuming so most of Wednesday will be spent making those. Add in two birthday parties, a couple of Doctor appointments, and the usual homework/running around, I won't have much time! I'm doing the pantry challenge this month, so I won't need to go grocery shopping, at least! I will have to make a run for milk, apples for the pies, and plain yogurt for gyro night, but that will be all my shopping!

Monday - taco salad with the leftover taco meat from a couple of days ago ( I switched up a couple of the days last week, and we had tacos on Saturday...I'm not actually feeding my family meat leftover from last Wednesday!)

Tuesday - gyros, spinach pie, and greek salad (the gyros are made with ground beef, but taste *exactly* like real gyro meat...I'll post the recipe on Tuesday!)

Wednesday - chicken/broccoli/peapod stirfry

Thursday - OUT! Birthday boy's choice. And birthday cake.

Friday - Baked chicken breast, glazed carrots, green beans

Saturday - Pizza pasta bake, green salad

Sunday - Chicken quesadillas

This week's groceries...I saved 83%!

I don't shop like a normal person, so this by no means is what we are eating this week. I coupon and shop sales and stockpile when I find a great price. I also like having a lot of everything we could possibly need in this house, so if something happens we don't have to go out for it. This has come in really handy when we've been snowed in! I have plenty of meat, veggies and fruit, some freezer meals I've made, and bread in the freezer. I've been doing a "eat from the pantry" challenge this month, but only half assed. I do that as it is on my own in December, so we were running low on some stuff. I've given myself a budget of $50 a week to round out what I have. So now here is a rundown of what I got this week (all of it was from Meijers).

1 2 liter of Mt Dew
5 Betty Crocker cake mixes
1 big jar applesauce
1 box of decongestants (I include all toiletries, OTC meds, etc in my food budget)
12 bottles of Wishbone salad dressing
12 cans Spaghetti O's
6 Digiornio pizzas (FREE! thanks to Houseparty, which I'll discuss in a seperate post)
9 boxes of Lance cheese sandwich crackers
1 bag pretzels
7 tubs Betty Crocker frosting
4 cans of coffee
4 Betty Crocker Supreme brownie mix
16 bags of Chex Mix
8 jars of Skippy peanut butter
5 bags of Dole romaine lettuce
8 boxes Green Giant frozen veggies
51 Fruit Roll Ups (yes, that says 51)
20 blocks of Kraft cheese


I spent a total of $63.63....total before sales and coupons was $376.63!!! And before I get grief for the crap I bought, those fruit roll ups and the crackers will last until the end of the school year for lunch box treats and school snacks for all 3 of my school age kids! They also take fresh fruit, string cheese, granola bars (which I make), muffins, etc. This is not all I feed my family, lol! I'm also aware I went over my $50 budget, but I shouldn't be spending more than $10 next week, so it will even out!

Groceries and Insurance

Had a great shopping day at Meijers, which I will go into detail with tomorrow. Then I went to pick up the Adderall my 7 year old son was prescribed today. $154.00. *thud* And that's *with* our insurance. Good thing I shop cheap for food, or we'd be starving.

Planning, Organization, and Procrastination

So I'm sure it doesn't take most people 42 years to figure this one out, but I'm not most people. I have a problem with lack of planning and organization, and am the Queen of Procrastination. I have spent years living in the moment, not worrying/thinking about tomorrow, and back when I was in college and in my single days, it seemed to serve me well. I prided myself on being spontaneous. I abhorred planning for *anything*. I liked to be open to anything. Case in point...when I was 24 I was lucky enough to be able to travel to Australia with a friend of mine. We didn't plan farther ahead than having our plane land in Sydney. Where would we stay? Who knows! We'll figure it out when we get there! And it worked, and worked well. We were standing in line to exchange enough money at the airport to get a taxi into town and were approached by a man who happened to own a youth hostel. We were able to stay in our own huge room with kitchenette for $8 a night, plus they gave us a ride back to the airport when we left.

So what does this have to do with my life today? Well it seems that this attitude, and this lack of planning does not serve me well now. That load of clean laundry that would be so easy to put away when it's just one load? Not so easy when I put it off and it becomes 5 baskets of clean clothes that I have to scramble to search through to find matching socks for my son when he informs me that his sock drawer is empty, 5 minutes before the bus comes. You would think I would have figured this out before now, and I have. And then I forget how much easier it made my life and let the laundry sit again. I need to remember it every day.

Meal Plan for the week

I'm partly following a pantry challenge for the month, but am slightly low on some things because every year I do a mostly eat from the pantry month in December. Mainly because the last place I want to be in December is the store. I worked retail for many, many, many years and got my fill of Christmas shopper crazy on me. Or maybe it was just a couple of years but felt like a lifetime. So while I'm still mainly doing pantry eating, I do have a budget of no more than $50 a week to add to what I have already.

Monday...ate at McDonald's (this was planned...the kids all had gift cards they got for Christmas...dinner was on them!)

Tuesday...Roast chicken with roasted potatoes and carrots, tossed salad, and yeast rolls

Wednesday....Taco night

Thursday....Leftover chicken, steamed broccoli, rice

Friday...Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread

Saturday....Grilled cheese and tomato soup

Sunday....Pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit

Lunches will be leftovers or sandwiches (it's usually just me and my 4 year old during the week), breakfast is cereal, eggs, or oatmeal. Snacks are fruit, popcorn, cheese and crackers, toast, yogurt.

Me, Myself, and I

Instead of a few concrete New Year's Resolutions that I would probably break before the groundhog sees his shadow, I decided this year would be different. For a while now, I have been getting antsy. Like something's just not right in my life, or not all it could be. I'm not unhappy, but I just feel like for years now I've been searching. For what, I don't know. Or I should say, didn't know. I've recently realized that, buried beneath four kids and a husband and a house and a mortgage, I somewhere along the way lost me. I stay at home with my kids, and while I love it and am so very thankful that we're in a position for me to do so, my life has become so routine, I have forgotten all the little things that make life an adventure. I've come to the conclusion that one of the things that will help me bring creativity and me back into my life is organization, which I'm sorely lacking on. It sounds so condradictory (is that even a word?), but by reorganizing it all, things will be streamlined enough to find space for me. My goal this year is to do an entire makeover...of my house, my routines, and my life. I have the best kids I could hope for, and the best husband I could have dreamed of...I owe it to them to give the best me I have.