Meal plan for December 15-21st
I write this still sitting in my jammies, with hair unwashed and teeth unbrushed. I’m disgusting.
Nice mental picture, eh?
Jack has had a weird cough for about two weeks, and it got worse on Thursday night (during his Christmas concert at school). Friday morning he spiked a 102 fever and stayed home with Troy. We ended up taking him to Urgent Care yesterday (not my idea, because generally I believe most colds kids get are just a “wait it out and they’ll be ok” kind of thing), where he lapped up all the attention and the dinosaur breathing mask. They gave him a saline mist treatment just to see if they could break up his cough. Didn’t work.
The doc looked him over and said “the good news is, it’s not pneumonia. The bad news is, there is nothing we can do for him. It’s a virus and he just needs to wait it out”. To my credit, I didn’t turn to Troy and proclaim “I told you so”. I know, I’m so mature to resist the urge.
She did give us a prescription for cough syrup with a bit of codeine, but really he seems about the same today as he was yesterday. Just to keep him from getting worse, I kept him home today from church, no swim lessons, and no family dinner. My little nephew seems to catch everything that comes his way (I’m honestly shocked he didn’t catch my cousin’s pregnancy), so we’re giving him a wide berth.
Since we are just hunkered down today, I have yet to get dressed, because I’ve been working my ass off since I woke up. Why shower only to get all sweaty again from working? So far today I have:
- Defrosted our freezer in the basement
- Put a batch of chicken stock in the crockpot, using stuff I found in the freezer (I seriously have all the fixings for about 25 quarts of chicken stock). I’ll pressure can it tonight after Jack goes to bed.
- Made all the cloth giftbags for Christmas presents (I needed to “renew” my stash)
- Cleaned the bathrooms
- Cleaned the kitchen. Don’t worry, I cleaned the kitchen before the bathrooms…
- Washed all the bedding to decontaminate it after sick boy coughed all over his bed
And when I’m done with this post, I’m going to clean the chicken coop out and vacuum and mop.
How am I able to get all this done? I handed Jack the Roku remote this morning and told him he could rot his brain all day long. He’s thrilled, I’m productive, and we’re both happy. I figured his brain cells are safe from just one day of excessive TV.
I had to leave work early last week to let a contractor in to the house, and thanks to all that extra time, I was able to make all the lotion bars and chapstick I needed for Christmas gifts this year. I was also able to bottle up all our homemade vanilla extract (also for gifts). These chapsticks are for my friend’s boyfriend who likes to bust my balls for making chapstick. I wanted to make them “manly”, so I super glued some fabric mustaches to the containers.
The time was also dedicated to working on a Christmas quilt, and I was able to finish it up on Friday night.
Yes, I do look like a psycho, but I was so thrilled to be done with it. The quilt is for my boss (no, I’m not a kiss ass…she already loves me 🙂 ) who collects sea glass, hence the color scheme.
This morning I finished packing up all the gifts that need to be mailed, and really I’m only waiting on a few more gifts to arrive (or for me to finish) and then I’m done with Christmas. Phew! If you’re still doing your Christmas shopping, I have a post up from last week all about great last minute gift ideas.
I know I kind of disappeared last week in terms of posting, but I had shit to do, and frankly blogging just had to take a back seat for a week.
Ready to talk food (so I can go clean out the chicken coop…joy…)? Here is our dinner meal plan for next week.
Monday:: Teriyaki chicken (I found it in the freezer…), fried rice, lumpia (also from the freezer), and salad.
Tuesday:: Lasagna (from the freezer!), and big salads to counteract all that delicious delicious cheese.
Wednesday:: Chicken noodle soup (would you believe it’s from the freezer), salad, and garlic rolls.
Thursday:: The boys are making pizza, because I have to work late. I’d like to say they’re going to have salad with it, but I’m not a moron.
Friday:: Best night of the week – popcorn dinner!!
Saturday:: Chicken pot pie and salad. It takes so much time to make chicken pot pies, so I quadruple the ingredients (since I’m already making the mess) and make a bunch of pot pies for the freezer.
Sunday:: Family dinner at my parent’s, and then off to a baptism.
This week I spent a shit ton of money on groceries. $23.50 at the local farm for raw milk, raw local honey, and two dozen eggs. All six of the chickens we got in 2013 are molting (they look hideous), and our new Wyandottes this year aren’t laying at all right now. Once the natural daylight gets to less than 10 hours per day, chickens slow down or stop laying. Factory farms (and some family farms) use indoor light to trick the chickens in to thinking there is more daylight. But, in the winter, I just want to put on my yoga pants when I come home and chill as well, so I give the chickens that mini vacation. They’ll start laying well again some time in January, and until then I just conserve eggs, and occasionally have to buy them from someone else. I also spent $32.12 at the grocery store, $7.23 at our local butcher, and $88.82 at Costco.
I often get comments on these post about how I spend so little at Costco and how do I do that? I only post the food portion of my Costco bill for meal plan posts, but I’ll start including the other stuff and then sharing the breakdown. So, I spent $88.82 this week, and the itemized details are as follows:
- $7.89 for organic OJ that I need for a work event (and will be compensated for)
- $9.99 for 11 electric candles (originally $19.99, but they had a $10 off instant rebate that I couldn’t pass up) because these things rock for power outages. Curious five year olds and real candles are not a combo I can get on board with.
- $7.69 for a 42 mile roll of Christmas ribbon. Well not exactly 42 miles…just 21. With cloth giftwrap, I secure presents closed with ribbon and Costco rolls are huge and last forever. This roll was the second I have bought in three years.
- $7.99 for organic sliced pre-packaged apples (grrrrrr…) for Jack’s Christmas party at school.
- That leaves $55.26 in groceries for our family.
What are you having this week?
I love the quilt you made! I know it’s the same pattern you’ve used before, but what is the name of the pattern and do you remember where you found the fabric? I would love to make a similar one for our soon to be born baby boy. Thanks 🙂
The pattern is a basic log cabin quite from this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159030649X?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=159030649X&linkCode=xm2&tag=thisb02-20
I never look to see if the fabric has names (do they name fabric??), so I’m not help there. It’s all from Joanns, though some pieces are a few years old from previous projects. Congrats on your little boy!
Oh we had one of those dinosaur masks when my oldest was 5. Hope he gets better soon, my kids actually like being sick because they’re allowed to watch all the tv they want… it does make life easier doesn’t it??
I’m glad that he’s going to be alright!
Lovely quilt for your boss..she’s quite lucky! 🙂
I hope Jack is all better today. We shop at Costco too, about every six weeks. We wait as long as we can between trips and work from a shopping list. We like their huge jars of artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, etc.
I hope Jack feels better soon!
I finally got my butt in the kitchen and made some food recently. I made some turkey pot pie (from the 12lb local free range turkey that I bought for the three of us) and it was so awesome, that I immediatly set up three bags of all the ingredients and tossed them in the freezer. I think we will be having more of that this week. Funny thing is, we really loved the filling and only kinda liked the crust (it was good, but the filling was amazing).
Would you please share how you can your chicken stock? I make LOADS of bone broth when I actually make it, then it all gets frozen. And I SUCK at planning my meals and so my stock/broth is always frozen when I need it. I have a pressure canner, but and too chicken to try it.
I went to Sam’s Club this past week and spent just over $50. All if it was for my hubbies work holiday party and I won’t be compensated for it. Most expensive free party I have ever been too.
I just want you to know, I think your amazing. And I am so happy that I am at a point in my life where I am aware of the fact that I don’t have to try to be like anyone else (as I sit on my ass while every dish in my house is dirty and the couch is covered in laundry that needs to be folded).
Yum, sounds like a good week!
This post has a step by step guide for pressure canning: https://www.sustainablecooks.com/2011/10/canning-for-beginners-applesauce.html It’s for applesauce, but it shows how to actually use the canner. Make sure you read the manual that comes with your canner. My canner says 11 lbs of pressure for 25 minutes for chicken broth.
And thank you for the kind words; that’s so sweet!
I make my own chicken stock and freeze it because I am too chicken to try pressure canning too!!! I really need to get my act together and try. Write it on the new years resolutions!