February/March Goals

It's March already! How did that happen?

Time to review my February goals and set new ones for March.

These are the goals I set for February: 

1. Set up Baby Girl's nursery. We moved furniture around and got her moved in. She's doing great in her own room. We gave the full size bed to some friends as we no longer had room for it. There is still more work to be done. I have another large piece of furniture in there that I think will be better elsewhere. I still want to paint, get curtains for this space and put decorations on the wall. I knew this would be a longer-than-one-month project but it is coming together and we're very pleased with the progress so far!

2. Make several freezer meals. I met this goal! And am working on having a dedicated Kitchen Day each week to not only make freezer meals but work on food prep for that week. Even doing a few things ahead helps so much!

3. Continue to work on being a good steward of my grocery budget. As I mentioned last month, we trimmed our grocery budget to make more room for buying formula. This is a short-term sacrifice and one we are happy to make! Plus I love a good challenge! We stayed within budget for February due to some better planning on my part and an unexpected grocery blessing. I've been able to even find a few extras each week to stock our freezer and pantry. March is off to a good start as well!

4. Continue to implement good homemaking habits. I feel like I haven't kept up with this quite as well as I did in January. Some habits are sticking; some need more work! 

And here are my March goals:

1. Continue working on Baby Girl's nursery. We were given a baby shower last weekend which was so wonderful and sweet. We received many very nice and useful gifts! I need to find space for some of these things.

2. Start making garden plans. I hope to actually pull off a small garden this year. Our neighbor has offered to till my garden plot for me. I just need to clean it out and start making some plans.

3. Sell a few items we no longer need. Turning the guest room into a nursery has left me with some piles of things that we no longer have room or need for. A few of these items have resale value so I am going to work on selling them this month.

4. Declutter a few minutes each day. I'm starting with the most visible areas and working my way through the house.

5. Continue to implement homemaking habits. This is an ongoing habit for the year!

What goals do you have for March? 

January/February Goals

Time for new goals! But first, let's recap January goals...


1. Create some simple homemaking routines.  This has gone well. Little by little I'm gaining footing in this area. I've focused on slowly establishing new habits and that has been beneficial. This will be a continual goal of mine as I work on getting my home back under control. I'll be writing some blog posts in the future about these homemaking habits.

 

2. Do a Pantry Challenge this month. The pantry challenge went great! We used up a LOT of food. That said, spending $100 may have been a bit unrealistic for this season of our lives. I ended up buying a few more easy foods some weeks just to keep going and that's ok. I also got a bunch of marked down meats which we're still using.

3. Sew for my baby! My goal was to make a hat with some fleece leftover from her Christmas stocking. My sister sent her a box of goodies which included a hat that fits her with some room to grow. So I crossed this goal off my list!

4. Get back to eating a mostly low-carb diet. Not perfect but definitely moving in the right direction! Low-carb doesn't always jive with a moderate grocery budget but I am doing what I can and learning as I go. This will be a continuous goal too.


Now on to February!

1. Set up Baby Girl's nursery. This is a big project and likely will run into March but I'm working on turning our former guest room into a nursery. Lots of moving furniture around and decluttering will be happening in there for sure! I'm excited to get her moved in to her new room.

2. Make several freezer meals. I want to get back in the habit of keeping a better stocked freezer so I'm starting small this month. We're expecting guests in a few weeks and a couple freezer meals will help. Just tonight I packaged up a container of Turkey Taco Meat (made with shredded Thanksgiving turkey) and 4 containers of cooked brown rice for the freezer. Already working towards my goal!

3. Continue to work on being a good steward of my grocery budget. We recently trimmed our grocery budget to allow for buying baby formula. I'm tightening my frugal belt and am determined to eat well on a smaller budget! So far so good...but it'll take some time to get it fine-tuned.

4. Continue to implement good homemaking habits. As I mentioned above, I'm definitely making strides in this area and developing a good routine.

What are your goals for February? 

I hear Baby Girl waking up so signing off for today. Have a blessed day, everyone! 

January Goals

With our new addition comes changes to our home, so I've been thinking that some attainable  monthly goals may be more beneficial this year than a long list of lofty ones.

With that in mind, here is what I hope to accomplish in January:

1. Create some simple homemaking routines.  Baby schedules are forever changing but some simple routines will help to keep our home in order. Routines will also help with my daily productivity.

 These leftover food items from the fridge became a yummy stir-fry one night this week.

 2. Do a Pantry Challenge this month. This is helpful to save money and use up lots of odds and ends we have in the pantry, fridge and freezer. I do this annually and it's always a good time! My goal is to spend $100 or less on groceries this month.

3. Sew for my baby! I am itching to dust off the sewing machine and make some things. While I feel she does need more dresses in her life, my main goal this month is to try making her a winter hat. I have some leftover fleece to use for this.

Making zucchini noodles with my new spiralizer- a Christmas gift.

4. Get back to eating a mostly low-carb diet. I've experienced some health issues in the past year or so and have found I feel so much better eating lower amounts of grains, sugars and dairy. This (understandably) went by the wayside when we brought Ilona home but I am getting back on track. And the Christmas cookies? They are finally almost gone!

Without realizing it, these four goals are all different categories: Home, finances, fun/creative, personal/health. A good balance and should keep me busy all month long. ;-)

Do you have any goals for January? 

 My main goal is lots of snuggle time with this little beauty!

The Freezer Challenge: Part One

I've enjoyed following along with The Frugal Girl as she cleans out her freezer and challenges herself to use up a certain amount of things each week. This post is definitely inspired by her!

We have three freezers--two fridge freezers and one large upright freezer. It's nice but sometimes food gets thrown wherever is easiest at the moment and it's hard to know exactly what we have and where it is.

Such is the case with our fridge freezer in our kitchen. I had thrown and piled stuff in there to the point that food would fall out whenever we tried to get anything out.

Last Friday, I planned an easy dinner of bratwurst and roasted okra and zucchini and yellow squash. At the last minute, I remembered a partial bag of hot dog buns in the freezer so pulled those out to eat with the brats (we typically eat them bunless but we had some buns left from having company back in May.) That inspired me to tackle this little freezer compartment the next day!

I pulled everything out after taking before pictures, of course. :-)

Everything was set out on our island and I sorted as to what was deemed "challenge worthy" and what needed to be moved to our big freezer. All the packages of meat went to the big freezer as that's where they belong and I kept the frozen vegetables in the kitchen. Some of the other odds and ends were kept out to use quickly.

Here's what I had to work with:

• Small container cooked spaghetti squash--put right in fridge for side for Monday's dinner.
• Small serving of soup--put in fridge for Monday's lunch.
• Lone popsicle--I ate it right away!
• Partial bag of mini bagels--these were thawed and served with Saturday night's Breakfast for Dinner and finished up for Sunday breakfast. Bonus points for this since I also had an opened package of cream cheese to use!
• Container of cooked turkey--I'll be honest here. I had used some of this previously in a soup and it was still dry and stringy so I threw it out. :-( 
• One hamburger bun. Seriously?!? (Again, left from company!) I thawed it and made it into cheese toast to go with random leftovers on Sunday night. That wasn't hard!
• Gallon bag of chicken bones and vegetable ends and peelings for broth. Immediately poured all this in the crockpot and made crockpot chicken broth overnight. I then used the broth to make a big pot of gravy to use for one meal this week and freeze the rest.

What went back in the freezer to use later:

• Ice cream--we don't need a plan for this. It doesn't stick around long here.;-)
• Various bread and individual sweet rolls left from the market. (I've been selling my homemade baked goods at a local Farmer's Market this summer and always have a few things left at the end.) Some of the bread will be used for lunches this week and the sweet rolls are pulled out for breakfast occasionally. 
• Package of "Sandwich Skinny's" (left from company)--maybe use these for quick broiled pizzas or tuna melts in the next week or two. 
• Fresh ginger--This stays fresh in the freezer and I peel and grate it as needed. 
• Ice packs--these needed to be in there for easy access and there hasn't been room. 
• A bag of homemade doggy ice cream portions aka Frosty Paws. These are for Willie as an occasional treat so they'll stay in there. 

I didn't tackle the door yet but that is mostly spices and homemade spice blends that get used naturally over time. 

After photo:

It's much easier to get things from the freezer now!

I'll do another update on my freezers in a week or so. 

Sunday Afternoon Food Prep

Happy Sunday!

I hope you all have had a relaxing Lord's Day. We were at church this morning then came home to pork loin in the crockpot, coleslaw, rolls and veggies for lunch. After cleaning up lunch, I took my traditional Sunday afternoon nap.

I love to nap on Sunday afternoon, do you?

When I got up from my short nap, I whipped up a pan of homemade brownies for a yummy treat. Then it was time to work on prepping some veggies for the week.

I love having produce all washed and chopped. It makes meal prep so easy! Just grab the prepped veggies and go. We like to eat fresh veggies with our meals. Having them ready means I can grab the container from the fridge and set it right on the table.

Today, I had some carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, radishes, grape tomatoes and bell peppers to use. Most weeks, I'll also prep fruit but the fruits I have on hand right now are bananas and apples and I don't cut those up ahead of time. So just veggies to work with today!

While I worked, Willie found a sunny spot to take a rest. He is pretending to rest but really was in a supervisory role, waiting to scoop up any veggie bits that may drop. He likes most veggies. So healthy. LOL

When cutting the tops off the bell peppers, I discard the stems and set the rest aside. Then I chop the tops up to add to scrambled eggs or on salads. I've seen some people throw them away but I don't. Waste not, want not!

I love using Mason jars as storage containers. The produce stays nice and fresh. And they look pretty all lined up! The jars don't take much space in the fridge either.  Some folks report that it stays fresh really long this way but we usually eat it too fast to find out. Most of this will be gone within 4 days. By then, it will be time to shop for more fresh produce and start the process all over again. ;-) I use plastic Mason jar lids for my jars as you can see in the next picture.

The carrots and zucchini will be cooked as sides for dinners in the next few nights. I may use some of the peppers for fajitas this week since I have all the ingredients for that. The chopped peppers will most likely show up in eggs or on salad. I already have washed lettuce in the fridge.

This afternoon, I also hard-boiled some eggs and made egg salad for lunches. Since I'm working all day tomorrow instead of my usual part-time hours, I went ahead and packed up a lunch for me while I was at it. It's nice to have something ready to just grab really quick!

Prepping fresh produce definitely makes my life easier and helps to start my week off on the right path!

Goals For March (And Recap Of Yearly Goals)

Happy March! We are now in the third month of the year--January and February, where did you go?!?

 Daffodils blooming by the river by my parents' home.

Truly, the first two months of the year flew by. A case of head lice (my first, ewww!) and a nearly 2-week long trip to the West Coast to visit my parents helped time move quickly. Now that my hair is clear (Thank you, Jesus!) and I'm back from my trip, it's time to get back to working on our goals for the year.

Tea party with lifelong friends while visiting my parents.

My goal for 2018 is to be intentional. Below, I've copied my goals for 2018 from this post. My updates on each item are in italics.

Being intentional this year means:

• Not overloading my schedule. Doing pretty well with this. Some days are more overscheduled than others but I believe that's just how life is sometimes.
• Allowing time for rest and downtime. I don't want to be "busy" all the time. I've been able to sit down for a little while almost every evening after dinner so that's an improvement. I'm not a good sitter. (haha) I also tend to fall asleep if I sit too long.
• Being creative, just because. I like to make things and that is the first to go with a busy schedule. Still need to allow time for this. I try a lot of new recipes just for fun though. So that should count for something! 
• Continue decluttering the house. I'm using this chart to motivate me! And planning an early spring yard sale as a goal for getting the stuff out of the house and helping with my next point here. ;-) Yard sale is scheduled for March 17, weather permitting!
• Practicing frugality and carefulness in our finances in order to rebuild our savings and pay off some home debt we incurred in 2017. Due to several situations, a 2 week break from work for me over the holidays being one of them, the first couple of months of each year are tighter financially for us. By March and April, things seem to loosen up a bit and flow a lot better. We have been careful and hope to see more in the way of savings and debt pay-off soon.
• Creating simple home routines that I can be consistent with long-term and actually see results! This is going pretty well. I have been keeping up with my goal of cleaning up the kitchen each evening. It's not perfect but so much better!
• Continue reading God's Word with purpose and be part of a group that meets weekly to disciple others. In progress!
• Being careful to not let other's ideas and expectations of me dictate my daily life and decisions. This is an ongoing daily decision. I feel like I'm doing well with it though.
• Living mindfully. Making careful, deliberate and thoughtful choices. Slowing down and getting back to basics really helps with this!

My goals for March:

• Make tax appointment and get taxes done. 
• Schedule vet appointment for Willie. 
• Schedule physical for Andy.
• Finish packet of updated adoption paperwork--includes 2017 tax forms, updated vet records and a physical for Andy (already did mine) so this goal is contingent on getting those things done. :-)
• Continue with homekeeping routines. 
• Quick clean of bathroom each day. 
• Have a yard sale. 
• Start working in garden. 
• Drink tea often--a simple thing I enjoy!  
• Blog each week--I've missed it. 

 What are your goals for March?

Goals For The New Year--2018

Pretty summer flowers to remind us that brighter (and warmer) days are ahead!

I think it's safe to say that 2017 was not our favorite year! But even in the midst of a cancer diagnosis and treatment, God was so faithful to us and to His Word. He has taught us so much through this experience so in a weird way, I wouldn't really want to change it.

At the same time however, experiences such as these can wear a person down. It is just a lot to deal with!

As I go into 2018, I feel tired. Excited with the promise of a new, bright, shiny year. But just a bit tired.

My goals for 2018 include the word 'intentional'.

To me, being intentional means living life with a purpose, making choices that align with my values, aiming for a specific goal.

Being intentional this year means:

• Not overloading my schedule. 
• Allowing time for rest and downtime. I don't want to be "busy" all the time.
• Being creative, just because. I like to make things and that is the first to go with a busy schedule.
• Continue decluttering the house. I'm using this chart to motivate me! And planning an early spring yard sale as a goal for getting the stuff out of the house and helping with my next point here. ;-)
• Practicing frugality and carefulness in our finances in order to rebuild our savings and pay off some home debt we incurred in 2017. 
• Creating simple home routines that I can be consistent with long-term and actually see results!
• Continue reading God's Word with purpose and be part of a group that meets weekly to disciple others. 
• Being careful to not let other's ideas and expectations of me dictate my daily life and decisions. 
• Living mindfully. Making careful, deliberate and thoughtful choices.

Here's to an intentional year!

Have you thought about any goals for 2018? if so, would you please share them in the comments? Thank you! 

A Few Things For 2016

In my last post, I wrote a little about the doozy of a year that 2015 was for us.

I am always eager for a new year. January always feels clean and bright to me. New. Calm. Purposeful.

I tend to be all or nothing. So either I make all kinds of grandiose goals and crash and burn or I set no goals at all. Either way, not a whole lot of progress!

This year, I have a few areas I/we want to make some headway in so I'm writing them here as a way to remember.

• Health. Returning to a lower carb diet. For us, that means ditching most wheat and sugar products. Losing the extra pounds that have crept on this year. Simple whole foods meals.  Regular exercise. Learning more about natural remedies and ways to boost health.
• Frugality. Staying within my grocery budget on a weekly/monthly basis. Using some coupons to save extra on food and household items. Saving as much as we can to bump our emergency savings back up to a reasonable amount after a costly 2015. Continuing to save for our adoption. Revamping the budget to allow for extra baby expenses when the time comes. 
• Organizing. Cleaning, organizing and decluttering the house before baby. I started this in 2015 and continue to do a little at a time. Turning the guest room into a nursery. Get rid of extra stuff we don't need to make room for baby gear. Make some freezer meals each month to create a small stash for when baby comes. (Not knowing when the baby will come makes this planning part tricky. My mindset is to do what I can and not sweat the rest. It will all work out!)
• Being more home-centered. I worked a lot of hours away from home in 2015. While this was a blessing financially, being away from home so much has taken it's toll. I will not be taking on as many extra hours this year as a way to create some breathing room and allow me to focus more fully on what we feel my greatest priorities are and should be at this time. 

What are you focusing on this year? 

Five Relatively Painless Ways To Declutter

Having trouble getting started with decluttering and getting rid of stuff you know longer use? These five ways are a good place to start and depending on your attachment level, pretty painless!

1. Trash. Look around your home. Find anything that is obviously trash and throw it away. Newspapers, receipts you no longer need, junk mail, broken items. 
2. Magazines. I know we love our magazines but really, how many do we need to keep? A good rule of thumb is to keep 2 or 3 of the latest issue of each magazine to which you are subscribed. If you haven't had a chance to read a magazine that you've had 6 months or more, you probably won't. Most articles are available online now but you can also tear out something you want to keep, file it and toss the magazine. If way more magazines are coming in than are being read, it may be time to rethink your subscriptions and stop the flow!
3. Plastic containers. How many of the sour cream and yogurt containers am I actually going to use? It's ok to keep a few--I keep some to send leftovers home with friends--but be realistic. Toss the extras into the recycling bin and enjoy the extra cabinet space.
4. Partially empty personal care products. Is your shower full of partially empty bottles and your bathroom counter cluttered with all sorts of stuff that is rarely used? It's time to bite the bullet and toss, toss, toss! If it makes you feel better, commit to using some of this up before opening new bottles, but do it quickly before you lose your resolve. Have a bunch of free samples? Purge those too! Not only will your bathroom look so much nicer without all the bottles and clutter, it will be so much faster to clean. Win, win!
5. Clothing and accessories. For some this may be more difficult but it can be easy if you simply get rid of the items you haven't worn in a long time. When the seasons are changing is a great time to tackle your closet since you are changing out your clothes anyways! Are there items hanging in your closet that you haven't worn all winter? Weed them out! No need to store something you aren't wearing! The exception is dressy or formal wear that you may only wear a few times over the course of several years. I have a nice dress that I wear to weddings and other dressy occasions. Even though I use it once a year or less, I still keep it! Just make sure what you are keeping actually fits and is a piece you really will wear.

A donation box set in the closet for easy decluttering as I switch out my wardrobe for the summer. 

What are your best decluttering tips?

Using Those Organizing Containers

There's been more time for organizing the past few days since we've been snowed in!

We're preparing for an early spring yard sale so one of my February goals is to go through the house and do a pretty thorough decluttering! I'd love to clean out the sheds as well but don't know if I'll get that far this month. 

All of those Freecycled organizing containers are coming in handy; I've used more than I thought I would!  

I've been going through cabinets and drawers tossing trash, filling the yard sale box and organizing a little if needed. 

Here are a few examples of my organizing projects so far. I'm very pleased with how these turned out. 

Nothing fancy but maybe these pictures will inspire you in your quest for an organized home! 

Pens and pencils in the junk drawer. 

Cloth hankies in a drawer. Previously they were just stuffed in any old way.

Summer skin supplies.

Medicine box. 

First aid supplies. 

The sunscreen box, meds and first aid boxes all fit perfectly in a cabinet in the guest bathroom. Much better than before! 

Ribbon!

A soft-sided bin used for socks. I used four of these type bins in my drawers. For my drawers. Ha! This is the only one pictured for privacy and to maintain my personal dignity. 

These soft-sided bins are from the Dollar Tree and work very well. 

I used this cute divided box with snap on lid for some of my jewelry. I really like this container and may use it somewhere else  in the future but for now it works nicely for jewelry. 

And that's all for today! 

**Are you in an organizing mood too or is it just me? **  

Organizing Containers

 We've been working to make my sewing/ guest room organized and functional. So when my husband saw a Freecycle offer for organizing containers, he responded saying that we would like them.

It turned out that these were being offered by our neighbor so he zipped down to pick them up and was back in just a few minutes.

And did I mention that there were 2 bags of containers? Two huge black garbage bags full!

Um, yeah.

I know I won't use all of these so if you are local to me and need storage containers, I am your girl! You are free to help yourself!

There are all kinds of organizing tools here from magazine holders to desk organizers to cleaning caddies. There was also a pile of Rubbermaid lids that had no boxes with them which went right to the recycling bin!

I did already pick out a few that will be very useful so in spite of the sheer amount, it was a good Freecycle haul!

All the hard plastic containers took a run through the dishwasher. I ended up running 3 loads which included some of my own containers that could also use a cleaning.

Oh and those big black bags all this came in? They were nice heavy duty bags so I saved them to use again. :-)

Now I'm off to organize!

**I find it funny that right about this time last year, I also posted about Freecycle!

28 Dinners for September

As I mentioned yesterday, to help with planning our once-a-month grocery trip, I made a list of dinners that we'll be eating in September.

I tried to take into account for Saturday and Sunday nights when I want easy stuff and also a few nights where we will be gone in the evening. For the nights where we will be away over dinner time, I just wrote in "Early dinner/big snack" and no specific meal plan. We'll either do leftovers or snack type foods that night like cheese, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, veggies, nuts, etc. We always have something of that nature on hand so it should work out great!

Most meals will be served with a veggie or salad which I will come up with at the beginning of each week. I will choose 7 dinners off the list each week and put them on my weekly menu plan.

There are some repeats throughout the month; these are listed in no particular order! Meals marked with** indicate freezer meals that I made after shopping day and are ready to cook and eat!

Warning: Lots of links in this post!:-) 

1. Sunday: Breakfast-in-a-hurry**
2. Sunday: Tomato soup, cheese melts
3. Sunday: Rice Salad
4. Sunday: Spinach and cheese casserole**
5. Saturday: Hot dogs
6. Saturday: Hot dogs
7. Saturday: Bunless burgers**
8. Saturday: Bunless burgers**
9. Early dinner/big snack: leftovers or snacky meal
10. Early dinner/big snack: leftovers or snacky meal
11. Early dinner/big snack: leftovers or snacky meal
12. Rotisserie-style chicken #1: Chicken salad lettuce wraps
13. Rotisserie-style chicken #2: Mexican chicken skillet
14. Rotisserie-style chicken #3: Chicken gravy over brown rice
15. Skillet spaghetti
16. Pumpkin curry soup (with chicken added)
17. Crockpot Pork Stew**(substituted pork instead of beef)
18. BBQ chicken legs
19. Crockpot Lentil and Rice Pilaf
20. Crockpot Taco Soup**
21. Crockpot Thai Chicken with peanut sauce**
22. Crockpot Italian Sausage with peppers and onions**
23. Crockpot Cheeseburger Soup**
24. Beef **and Veggie Casserole (used beef instead of pork)
25. Chicken, sweet potato, green bean bake
26. Meatza
27. Breakfast-in-a-hurry
28. Baked tilapia or salmon

**Many of my freezer meals this month were crockpot meals that I assembled in gallon bags and then popped in the freezer. These were very fast to put together!
 

How I Plan My Weekly Menus and This Week's Menu Plan

It's been a while since I posted my weekly menu plans here. But I still plan each week! For me, it's key to using the food we have wisely and minimizing last minute restaurant visits because I have nothing planned.

There are many different methods and menu planning calendars out there. What works best for me right now is to make lists of meals on a piece of notebook paper. Nothing fancy--anyone can do this!

I make a list of breakfast, lunch, supper and snack ideas based on what I have on hand. I usually list 6-7 supper ideas--sometimes we don't use them all. Whichever meals we don't end up using get put on the next week's list.

We eat mostly eggs for breakfast and then I'll add a 1 or 2  other ideas to my breakfast list to keep it interesting. I will often make a more extravagant breakfast on Saturday mornings if we have time.

Lunches are based mainly on leftovers and some other quick and easy ideas in case we don't have leftovers.

When I make my menu plans, I plan almost exclusively from what I have on hand in my pantry, fridge and freezer. I don't grocery shop every week so I try to keep the basics for our meals stocked up to give me a good amount of cooking options!

Sometimes my meals don't make the most sense and may not seem to always go together. We don't really care about that--I do try to balance the meals with appropriate amounts of protein, carbs and vegetables. I've learned to just use what we have for the most part and skip making that extra trip to the store! We haven't gone hungry yet!

My menu ideas are pretty simple. It doesn't have to be complicated! In fact, over thinking this  and trying to come up with a bunch of blog-worthy meals can be overwhelming and stressful. What do we eat and what do we have on hand? When I answer those questions and not worrying about it being fancy or "right", my menu plan comes together in minutes instead of a long drawn-out task. It's ok to have peanut butter sandwiches or cheese toast on the menu! Sometimes I don't know what to make specifically but I know I have a pound of ground beef. So I'll just write "something with ground beef" on the meal plan. We often have Pasta Night on Friday. This week, I wasn't sure what I wanted to make so I just left it at Pasta Night. I'll come up with something by Friday night! At least I have an idea of what we're going to have. Sunday nights are usually leftover nights.

I keep a variety of bags of frozen vegetables in the freezer. My grocery store puts these on sale every 4-6 weeks for $1 a bag. I stock up and buy 10-15 at a time when they are this price since we eat a lot of veggies. If I don't have fresh veggies, I just choose one of those to go with our meal. Cheap and easy!

This summer, I've been keeping fresh veggies cleaned, chopped and ready to eat in the fridge. We pull these out to go with almost every weekday lunch.

I've found this way of meal planning really helps to make use of fresh food I have and prevents waste.  I plan some meals for specific days and then just use the others as we want to. I cross the meals off as we use them.

We like to have an afternoon snack so I plan for those on my list--usually fruit!

My menu plan for this week:


Breakfasts

• Eggs- will fix them different ways
• Berries, Nuts and Coconut 
• Eat Out

Lunches

• Leftovers
• Picnic lunch--rice salad, salmon, cheese/rice crackers, hard-boiled eggs and fruit (Sunday)
• Egg salad, rice cakes, veggies
• Cheese toast (sprouted wheat bread), tomato soup, veggies
• Egg drop soup, cheese and rice crackers, veggies
• Rice salad, hard-boiled eggs, veggies

Suppers

• Eat out (2x)
• Chicken gravy** on rice, zucchini chips
• Spicy Dijon chicken**, mashed butternut squash, veggie
• Pork carnitas rice bowls** with cheese, sour cream, black olives, chopped tomato and sliced green onions
• Tilapia, sweet potatoes, veggie
• Pasta Night

Snacks

• Pineapple popsicles
• Nuts and raisins
• Berry smoothies
• Canned peaches
• Leftover pancakes with peanut butter, canteloupe and blueberries
• Berry popsicles( made from leftover smoothies!)

  *My birthday is this weekend so there is a little more eating out on the menu because of that! My husband will take me to dinner one night and his parents are coming for an overnight stay and want to to take me out for breakfast to celebrate!

**Previously frozen foods.


This post is part of Menu Plan Monday!

Cleaning Bookshelves

Earlier this year, I signed up with Spring Clean 365: a task a day to keep our homes clean and in order.

I haven't been able to keep up as much as I'd like but I still try to do what I can when I can. Basically, I've been trying to do the daily tasks that I need to do and have time for.

This is difficult for me. I'm an "all or nothing" sort of person. But I'm learning. Slowly.

Anyways, recently one of the daily tasks was to take all the books off the bookshelf and dust well, then replace them.

Before: (Picture taken when we moved in so not all shelves were filled yet!)

This was something that definitely needed to be done! The books also needed to be organized by genre--we just threw them on the shelves any old way to get them out of boxes when we moved in last June and I still hadn't found time or energy to change them.

One afternoon last week when naptime lasted longer than 1 hour, (Yeah!) I started in. I began with the intent of only working on one bookcase but since I was reorganizing the books, I soon started on the other shelves too. I took all the books off, dusted the shelves well and left the books in 3 piles: Keep, Get Rid Of, Maybe.

The biggest pile was Keep.

Once I was done with all 3 bookcases, my husband came in and looked through the Maybe and Get Rid Of piles and put a few of those books on the Keep pile.

I love to read and enjoy books but maybe not as much as I used to. My husband isn't much of a book reader. There are some books that I definitely want to keep but I don't have a problem with getting rid of the ones I don't read and probably won't read again. I can get most of them at the library anyways.

I know some of you are gasping right now that I would so easily part with books! I'm sorry.:-)

One of our bookcases is rather unsteady and the back keeps falling off so I had the thought that perhaps all the books would now fit on the 2 bookcases and I could move the wobbly one out. We could use the extra space too!

After: 

We packed up one box of books to part with and the rest fit perfectly on the two bookcases, including one shelf of cookbooks. That made me happy!

I'm also happy to have this cleaning task done for a while!

Thinking Ahead To Christmas 2013

Every year, I have these grand plans of getting my Christmas gifts and projects done way ahead of time. And every year, I'm scrambling at the last minute.

We live away from all of our family so either we ship gifts or travel; usually both, since there's no way we can get to everyone over the holidays. Since it's highly unlikely we'll get everyone together in one place.

This past Christmas was the first time we didn't ship or find creative means of "shipping" gifts to everyone! My family was here from the West Coast and then the day after Christmas we traveled to Andy's parents to be with his family which isn't as far away as the West Coast, thankfully!

Anyway, it can be a hectic time getting everything and us ready to go!

So I'm thinking of a bit different strategy for this year--possibly working on a couple gifts each month?

I could at least try it.

Our Christmas list is fairly short. We don't give gifts to everyone we know. We have 16 family members (parents, grandparents, siblings and spouses, nieces and nephews) that we give gifts to. We keep things fairly simple here, usually in the $5-$10 range per person. I like to make a lot of my gifts if I have time. Some gifts will cost $0 because of having the supplies already and then for some one else, we may purchase something that costs $15. It all shakes out in the end!

This year I enjoyed giving small bags of goodies to our neighbors and mail carrier. I also usually give something small like that to my childcare families. I don't usually give Christmas gifts to the children I babysit. I do however help them make a little something for their parents! These gifts are very inexpensive.

At Christmas this year, I started taking notes of some things that would be good gifts for family members, including some favorite candy or snacks. I knew I would forget by next Christmas if I didn't write it down so I immediately started a list on my phone which I can transfer to my notebook later.

This week, I've been working on some fabric gift bags for us to use each year. I've wanted to make them for several years and then would wait until the last minute when I didn't have time! So that's my first project for the year.

Time to get moving!

Have you started to plan for next Christmas yet?

**I already had this post written when I read Monica's post for today! Apparently, I'm not the only one who is already thinking about Christmas!

Pinned It, Made It: Hanging Christmas Cards

It's once again time for Pinned It, Made It Monday and I'm sharing the super simple way we hung our Christmas cards this year!

The idea came from this pin and this blog: Tie ribbon around the cabinet door like this:

Then hang your Christmas cards and photos on the ribbon like this:

I used clothespins to clip the cards and it worked great!

Pretty sure we'll do this again next year!

**If you have a minute, head over to Country Girl At Home to check out the other Pinned It; Made It posts!

Spring Cleaning 365

Have you heard of Spring Cleaning 365?

When you sign up for their email list, you'll receive a daily email with that day's cleaning task. Most tasks can be completed in 15 minutes or less.

I received my first email on New Year's Day and so far really enjoy it!

Well... enjoy may be a stretch but for someone who really doesn't like to clean and doesn't have long stretches of time to devote to deep cleaning, I think this will be very helpful in staying on top of things! And a nice addition to the basic cleaning I do each week already.

One positive aspect of this project is the fact that I can participate when I can and skip when I can't. I like that it's possible to just jump in where you are without feeling like you're way behind.

Today's task was to clean the refrigerator, which I'd already planned to do this week before grocery shopping. We were out of town all of last week so we had eaten up most of the food in the fridge before we left. So the fridge is pretty empty.

My sister is probably twitching right now--she always comments on how empty my fridge is! And this is even emptier than usual.

No worries--the pantry and freezer are fairly well-stocked so we've been eating very well. But I really do need to grocery shop this weekend!

This was an easy task--take everything out and wipe shelves down with soapy water. I cleaned my produce bin as well; it needed it. Refill fridge.

Total time: about 15 minutes!

For my January habit, I chose to work on my office/sewing room for 5 minutes each day. In 30 days, I hope to see a huge improvement! But already, I can see my sewing table again!

Would you like to accomplish a cleaner more organized home this year while only investing a few minutes each day? Sign up for Spring Cleaning 365!

Organized Art Cabinet

Even though we have a play room now, we keep most of our arts and crafts supplies in the kitchen. We typically do these sorts of things at the kitchen table and it's nice to have everything easily accessible and out of reach of the toddlers.

I must admit, I feel spoiled to have so many cabinets in my kitchen that I'm able to devote one to non-kitchen items!

The art cabinet hadn't been properly organized yet; most things were stuffed in every which way and the organizing containers I did have in there were too big for the space making it a pain to pull anything out!

I rarely purchase organizing containers for a project but eventually I figured a few bucks would be worth having this area nice and neat! I just wasn't coming up with enough recycled containers on my own that were really what was needed.

I found these clear plastic bins with snap-on lids on clearance at Target for $2 each. I took a chance and bought four hoping they would be the right size for the space and the items being stored.

They worked great!  Labels were created from scrapbook paper scraps and packing tape. A plastic salad container was pulled from the recycling bag for stickers and I used one of the bigger bins from before to house all the random craft supplies that are not needed as often (pom poms, foam sheets, pipe cleaners, etc.) on the top shelf.

Next to our art cabinet, there is a skinny cabinet with 3 shelves where I've stashed some extra stuff like crayons, markers and colored pencils for older kids, some large bottles of paint, and some small toddler activities.

I love how these shelves are organized and how easy it is to pull out supplies and activities for the little ones!

This Week's Meal Plan

With buying a house, moving, vacation and an incredibly full schedule this summer, my routines, menu planning and  planning in general have fallen by the wayside. This week's menu plan is an attempt to get back into the swing of things. Being organized keeps our home, life and finances flowing much more efficiently!

We've been making good use of our local farmer's market this summer, seeing it more as a grocery stop rather than a novelty. I don't necessarily think I save that much money over buying produce at the grocery store overall but we are buying local and getting much better quality food, much of it being unsprayed and heirloom varieties for the price of conventional produce. We hope to be able to grow more of our own produce in the future--a fall garden is in the beginning stages right  now-- but until then, getting to know local farmers is a good thing!

After a couple of months of being more relaxed in our low-grain eating style, we've eased back into it and can tell a positive difference in how we feel. One of the disadvantages of eating a healthier diet, we've found,  is that our bodies can tell right away if we're not eating right! I guess it would be an advantage too, because if we know we're not going to feel well, maybe we are more apt to make wise food choices.

Monday
B- Scrambled eggs
L- Leftover buffet
Snack- Watermelon, dark chocolate
D- Sausage, zucchini, pepper and mushroom stir fry, rice

Tuesday
B- Scrambled eggs, avocado slices
L- Leftover fish, cottage cheese, raw veggies
Snack- Watermelon
D- Crockpot chicken, sauteed green beans, baked sweet potatoes-- Using the rest of the chicken for several more meals this week!

Wednesday
B- Sunday hash and poached eggs--we love this!
L- Chick-fil-a Appreciation Day--Excited to show our support for this company that publicly stands for God's principles! We enjoy their grilled chicken salads, too.
Snack- Kiwi, yogurt with honey
D- Chicken Salad on greens, deviled eggs, raw veggies

Thursday
B- Scrambled eggs
L- Roast beef and cheese lettuce wraps, raw veggies
Snack- Bananas and peanut butter
D-Chicken gravy over rice, broccoli

Friday
B- Scrambled eggs
L- Leftovers or salmon patties
Snack- Smoothie
D- Stuffed jalapenos with bacon and rice (fresh peppers from farmers market!), veggie plate or salad, cheese slices, rice chips

Saturday
B- Crustless quiche with eggs, cheese and leftover veggies
L- Packed lunches
Snack- Nuts, dried fruit
D- Hot dogs, pickles, veggie

What are you eating this week?

**This post is part of Menu Plan Monday!

Organizing Receipts and Stuff

While I enjoy organizing, keeping track of papers and receipts is not something that I do well with consistently. And with as many cottage businesses and income sources as we have, this is not good! We need to be organized and not have important papers floating all over the place.

Obviously, we need to keep up with things a little better so that tax time is smoother. And keeping paper piles from appearing all over the house would be nice too.

I had this accordion file that I was using to keep my whole coupon inserts in. After a few months, I realized that it was full, organized carefully by date and everything but I pretty much never referred back to them to clip a coupon out after filing them. It was then that I decided to ditch keeping the whole inserts and just pass the coupons along after I went through and clipped the ones I thought I'd actually use.

So I emptied this file out and labeled sections for all our home-based businesses and a few other areas that require holding onto paperwork or receipts.

It's been a couple of weeks and so far it's working really well. Instead of paper piling up around the house, we've been able to file them right away and have them all in one place.

And that's a very positive thing!

Inspiration for this organization project came from Small Notebook and Simple Organized Living, both of which never fail to inspire me to live a more simple, intentional and organized life!