Menu Plan Monday

Even though it's just George and I at supper I need to cook for six -- until lately that is.  Since George is not working like he's accustomed to, he is eating a lot less because he just isn't hungry. He's eating about 1/2 to 1/3rd's of what he used to eat and that takes some getting used to. The last few weeks we've had a lot of leftover food.  Enough so that I only spent $23 of our weekly $50 grocery budget and even includes some ground beef to stick in the freezer for future meals!


Saturday: Steak Fajitas  (this was about 1/2 a pound of left over steak that would normally not be enough to bother with, except to save to put with other beef leftovers to make a stew. We got a whole meal out of it this time!)

Sunday: Out to Big Boy for brunch (This was a first; I didn't serve anything for a late supper like I normally would)

Monday:  Meatloaf, Carrots, Beets

Tuesday: Sloppy Joes, 3 Bean Salad

Wednesday: Layered Spaghetti, Salad, Garlic Toast (I'm going to make 1/2 a batch of this)

Thursday:  Tuna Melts and Veggies with Dip

Friday: Homemade Pizza Night

All is Quiet on the Home Front

It's been a month now that George has been laid up with a back problem. After several tests and doctor visits the experts are not recommending surgery at this point. The spine specialist wants George to take 3-4 months off to let his back heal and to keep from re-injuring it during the healing process. So far he's stuck to this pretty well, and has only done a couple of really small things for customers. Probably more to get out of the house than anything. 

In our neck of the woods we are expecting about 15 inches of snow in the next couple of days. The shovel, snow blower and plow are at the ready and the wood box is stuffed to the brim. Can't do much more than that other than put on a pot of coffee and wait.

I'm kind of stumped on what to do for this week's organizing project. Only a few weeks into a year long project an I'm running out of creativity?! Obviously it's not because everything in our house has been organized into the proverbial "find everything I own in the dark" category of neatness. Seriously I'm just running out of enthusiasm, but while typing this, I just had the idea to clean up our bulletin boards so maybe I will have a project for this week. 

We've been having a fairly quiet and uneventful winter, not a whole lot going on. The garden catalogues have been filling up the mailbox in all their green gloriousness. Each autumn I'm so sick of taking care of plants that I'm kind of happy when frost kills them all and I can take a break for a few months. But by February I'm itching to start gardening again.  So what have you been up to? Ready for Spring?

The Year of Organization: Bedroom Closet Part 2

A couple of weeks ago I dug in and sorted out and organized all the hanging clothes in our bedroom closet. Whew! I am so loving having that mess cleaned up.  This week I tackled the rest of the closet: the top shelf and the shoes.

This mainly involved cleaning a bunch of why-did-I-ever-put-this-here-in-the-first-place junk off the top shelf, wiping off an inch of dust, adding a couple of pretty baskets to store the smaller items and Voila! the top shelf is a work of art. Well not really, but all I was going for is clean and neat and it definitely meets that requirement.

On to the shoes. So.... most of my shoes are rattier (is that a word?) than I remember.  What is the deal with me?! I work in a professional environment and do not have one pair of presentable dress shoes, slacks, blouse or suit. That will have to be remedied pretty soon. I packed up the out of season shoes for storage and cleaned up the pairs deemed in somewhat keepable shape.  This led to another project that I've wanted to do for years but kept putting off.  Meet my new "Shoe Care Basket" It's not fancy but it's wonderful to have everything we need to keep our footwear all in one location. Saves looking all over the house for that stuff.

Total Project Time: 1 Hour

High Tech Redneck

You might be a high tech redneck if you've ever been notified by Facebook that a relative is in jail.

Menu Plan Monday

Our menu this week will be pretty simplified for a few days. We ate out last night to celebrate my sister's birthday and George is going to up to the lake for a few days to be with his mom when she has surgery.

Sunday -- Dinner out at Red Lobster
Monday -- Tuna salad on crackers, Apple
Tuesday -- Scoop of Tuna Salad on top of a garden salad
Wednesday -- Chicken & Cheese quesadilla
Thursday --  Spaghetti & Meatballs, Garden Salad, Garlic Rolls
Friday -- Pizza Night

The Year of Organization: Paper Clutter

This week my Organizational project was trying to make some sense out of our paper clutter. Sunday afternoon I got on a roll and worked for a a good hour. Plus I put in about a  1/2 hour two nights this week. Some of the paper clutter was in the entertainment unit so that will help towards my plan of cleaning that out too.

Paper clutter is my main arch nemesis. We have more of it than I can tolerate and it's not something that gets cleaned up and stays that way. Funny thing, we keep getting more and more of it! My usual method (that does NOT work) is to pile the stuff up because I'm not sure what to do with it. I keep piling and piling and then making little "sub piles" and then when company comes or there gets to be too many "sub piles" I hide them somewhere out of sight -- which explains why this project counts towards cleaning out the entertainment unit.  Does anyone else do this?

Step 1.

Locate all of my piles.  Done, check! (there were about 10 in 3 locations).

Step 2.

Breathe Deep and tell myself this IS doable. Then use the entire living room floor as a place to sort all that stuff into about 25 small piles.

Step 3.

Label file folders with the names of all those piles. Stuff papers in the folder. Place folders into the file cabinet.

Now, that wasn't hard was it?  I feel like so relieved after doing this project. Paper clutter causes me more mental stress and anxiety than I care for. It drives me nuts to dig through stacks of paper to find the one thing I need. And yet most of the time I feel powerless to get control of those piles of paper -- today I feel like I am in control of our paper instead of the other way around.

Update on last week's project: Our Bedroom Closet

Last week I tackled the hanging clothes part of the closet and left the shoes and the top shelf. Figured it was better to do something rather than nothing. I'm so glad I did that; now I'm really inspired to tackle the rest! This week I identified 2 cute shallow baskets that will fit perfectly on the top shelf. Next time they go on sale I will pick them up and use one to stash all the extra hangers. The other basket will be used to store the odds and ends that are lying around loose in there.

Be sure to visit Org Junkie for the full 52 Weeks of Organizing to gain inspiration and encouragement in turning your home into an orderly oasis.

Substituting Mashed Cauliflower for Mashed Potatoes

I did the cauliflower as mashed potatoes experiment and shared my experience here on my weight loss blog.

Have you ever used a substitute for mashed potatoes? Whether cauliflower, celeriac -- anything white.

Do you have any substitutes for anything food related that you recommend?

Our Feathered Friends

This year we have a few bluebirds that are wintering over at our place. How they find insects enough I'll never know. They eat a variety of berries and a little suet so that must be what's helping them along.  We sure enjoy having them!

Menu Plan Monday

I'm trying one new thing on the menu this week: cauliflower substituted as mashed potatoes. I hear using cauliflower as a mashed potato substitute is a pretty popular low carb thing to do. I'm not necessarily doing it for that reason. I really like cauliflower and wonder how it will taste; plus I plan to do a review of it on my weight loss surgery blog.

Here is this week's menu:

Sat: Hamburgers and homemade Steakhouse Potato Salad

Sun: Fish, Leftover Potato Salad, Mixed Veggies

Mon: Shepherd's Pie with mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes, Salad

Tues: Pork Chops, Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Peas

Wed: Kraut, Potatoes, Smoked Sausage, Cornbread

Thurs: Grilled Ham & Cheese Sandwiches, Baked Beans

Fri: Gas Station take out pizza. My husband asks for this every now and then. Imagine a few local yokels with questionable hygiene practises whipping up a pizza for you in a run down gas station/party store. And then, when you go to pick up the pizza you get to listen to several very interesting and educational (so educational you wouldn't want small children to hear...) conversations between the folks that hang out at the gas station and the employees. Yes, I admitted to living in an area where folks hang out at the gas station. So, now you know.

In other sad food developments this week, our chest freezer in the garage broke down. It's totally dead.  Now, that isn't really the end of the world because here in Michigan the whole outdoors will be a freezer for the next few months. We could just dump everything in 5 gallon pails and set it out in a shed.  But the really bad part of the deal was we didn't notice the freezer stopped working until everything was thawed and starting to smell. Thank God we hadn't filled it up with a bunch of expensive meat! We had a lot of frozen veggies, a few homemade desserts and frozen garlic bread that didn't cost us much.  After digging up the receipt and warranty information, it looks like we will be getting a new replacement for free.

The Year of Organization: Our Bedroom Closet

This week's cleaning/organizing project was our bedroom closet. At last it's at least it's started! It's not completely done, but I spent an hour and 10 minutes working on just the hanging clothes part of the closet. For not having a lot of clothes, my husband and I sure had a lot of clothes stuffed in there! When I say we don't have a lot of clothes, I guess it should be clarified to "we don't have a lot of clothes we actually wear." 

 After close inspection of the before and after pictures it doesn't look like there's a whole lot of difference, but to me there is. 

Here is the before picture. The top shelf and the shoe area should be almost the same in the before and after, as I didn't do anything with those areas.The part of the closet that was driving me the most nuts was all the hanging clothes jam packed in there -- there's about 4 more feet on the right side that you can't see. There were so many old things in there that no longer fit; or were horribly worn that they were crowding out and wrinkling all the freshly ironed clothes hanging in there. It was downright irritating to weed through the unwearable clothes to try and find something I could wear.

Here's the Interim After picture. Most of my cleaning and purging was done on the interior 4 foot section that you can't see in this photo. Which by the way is REALLY hard to get to closet space, which is why most everything we don't routinely wear gets shoved back in there. I confess, when I first set the timer for 1hr, my plan was to work as quickly as possible, but for the first couple of minutes I just looked at the closet wondering where on earth to start and feeling like it was too overwhelming.  Then I thought, well, the timer is set; I'll just try to do at something for that time, plus I promised you all I would write about a project this week. Something about the accountability helps motivate me.

Last week's project was cleaning out and organizing what was left of our junk drawer. Let me tell you--- it has been absolutely WONDERFUL to have a neatly organized "junk" drawer. Twice this week I needed to quickly find something in there and it was so easy!! Just today my husband commented how nice it was that he could readily see if we had a certain size battery. I think he is thrilled I'm doing these organizing projects (I spilled the beans when he wanted to know why on earth I was photographing our closet: ).

Don't forget to visit Org Junkie for the official 52 Weeks of Organizing to get inspired to straighten up your little corner of the world.

A Different Perspective: Try Liking Yourself

Here in Blogland it is very easy to get just a glimpse of the lives of others and not the whole picture. Reading blogs has the tremendous potential to leave us feeling less than. Less of a wife, mother, housekeeper, or financial genius. If we aren't careful, we can end up feeling like we can't do a single thing right.

It is vital to remember when reading a blog (and looking at those gorgeous home photos), you are only seeing what the blogger wants you to see. You might not hear about the horrible fight the blogger had that morning or see the mountain of dirty laundry around the corner from the freshly cleaned kitchen. Those that are big into the financial/ debt free blogs should be especially careful to not let themselves get sucked into believing they are totally screwing up their lives because they have a different set of financial circumstances.

It breaks my heart to see women leaving comments on popular blogs saying they wish they were more like the blogger, handled money like them, raised their children like them and accomplished as much as the blogger. It almost borders on saying they wish they were the blogger.

We are all uniquely different with our own set of quirks and life circumstances. It just doesn't make sense that we compare ourselves to others (in real life or on the internet) and come away feeling bad. It's natural to desire to learn and grow and better ourselves, but when you stop wanting to be a better you and start wishing you were someone else; that's not good.

In the spirit of encouraging you to focus on how great you are, please share in the comment section something you're good at, a great accomplishment, a new thing you've tried that you were hesitant to do. Share anything that makes you -- you! Now, don't sit there thinking you aren't good at anything. Everyone is good at something, and most likely several things!

The Year of Organization: A Few Goals

There are several large and small areas in our home that would function so much better if they were a bit more organized and in some cases, totally revamped. There is also a need for some redecorating. Or, maybe first time decorating. I am about the worst decorator -- or more accurately NON-decorator you can imagine. I can live somewhere for years and never consider making at least some kine of effort to beautify the place. Remember how long it took me to order some simple window blinds? And, yet I love to see a comfortable, pretty home. It's just that I don't seem to have the vision for getting there.

Keeping a home neat, orderly and beautiful on a budget can seem pretty overwhelming. For me it often feels like there are too many projects calling my name and not enough time or money. So, not being sure what to do, I do nothing. It truly is amazing how not having your house in order really disturbs you. Well, maybe not you, but it sure is unsettling to me. To look at the same project that needs doing day after day, year after year; is discouraging. I'm hoping to use this 52 Weeks of Organization to get me moving in the right direction.

Here's a list detailing several of the home type projects I would like to accomplish this year. Now, it's not likely things will work out where every single thing gets done and that's okay. I will be happy to be able to cross off even 1/2 of this list.

Laundry/Mudroom Redo

• Repaint laundry room (I love our colours, so I'll redo it in fresh paint, which means repainting will be only a one coat job!)
• Paint both doors in the laundry room
• Hang a decorative shelf over the washer and dryer, find cute things to set on it and some sort of a plaque or wall lettering. There are so many inspiring ideas here!
• Paint the cabinets 

Living Room

• Trade out a dresser that I use for filing storage and replace it with a wooden 2 drawer later file (we have a few home businesses, remember so we do have some office type furniture in the L room)
• Hang some pictures of my husband's photography (haven't hung but one picture since moving in. Clearly I NEED help!)
• Organize the entertainment center
• Find a finial for a couple of lamps to hold the lampshade on securely
• Find a home for our stash of extra blankets, other than the rocking chair
• Replace the rocking chair with a small Lazy Boy type chair (hopefully found used on Craig's List!)
• Replace lace curtains and rods at 4 windows

Bedroom

• Organize our closet by ruthlessly getting rid of (selling, and donating) clothes that don't fit me anymore
• Think of a way to better utilize our under bed storage
• Hang one or two decorative wall hangings
• Have George build a linen storage area in an unused area under the staircase

Bathroom

• Figure out a way to better organise the linen closet
• Find a product that actually removes rust stains

Hall Area

• Organize our bulletin boards into one larger one that looks at least a little decorative.
• Organize the hall closet and try to find a way to make this tiny space more usable

Kitchen

• Clean tops of cabinets. Any ideas for anything that would look pretty on top of them? I was thinking some kind of greenery. My mother in law stores her collection of cookie tins and that looks great, but I don't have a collection of cookie tins.
• Wash outside of cabinets with Murphy's oil soap

Menu Plan Monday

In the interest of getting out of our menu rut; I'm trying out a new recipe this week -- Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole. I love "real" chicken cordon bleu, but not all the work and the frying so we will see how this casserole turns out.  Here's our menu:

Sunday = Beef & Bean Enchiladas
Monday = Leftovers from Sunday + Mexican Rice
Tuesday = Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole, Broccoli
Wednesday = Layered Spaghetti, Garlic Toast, Salad
Thursday = Tuna Salad Sandwiches & Bean Soup
Friday = Hawaiian Pizza

Frugal Friday: What I Didn't Buy

Being frugal is not just about saving money. It's also not spending money to begin with.
One of the most frugal things we do that saves us the most money is to not buy stuff we think we want that we haven't purposely set aside money to purchase.

Here's a great recent example:  I've been in a major organizing mood lately. It would be so wonderful to use all these cute little and big containers to corral all of our stuff.  For a while now I've been eying several adorable little bamboo storage containers, similar to these. Granted, they are a little cheaper at The Container Store than they are at my grocery store, but the point is, they aren't really something we need.

Of course we allow room in our budget to purchase some things we simply want but don't really need. But we don't go hog wild with that plan. If we did we would not be able to meet any of our financial goals.

This post is linked to Frugal Friday.

The Year of Organization!

With all the organizing tendencies I’ve been having lately I was delighted to see Laura over at Org Junkie is hosting a special 52 Weeks of Organizing post series. Every Friday Laura will put up a post about organizing and anyone interested can share about the organizing projects they've done that week, write up a blog post and link up if you are a blogger. Or, you can share what you've done in the comment section.

It’s not about spending your whole week totally rearranging your house and life Do as little or as much as you like and come meet up to share what you’ve done!

I’m so excited to share my latest organizing project with you here today as part of the 52 Weeks of Organizing. You can put it down that I won’t be dedicated enough to stick it out for the full 52 weeks, but here’s what I’ve come up with this week. Be sure to visit Org Junkie each Friday for lots of great ideas, encouragement and inspiration to get your house in order. Seriously, I mean that.  Even on weeks where I'm not doing any actual organizing I'm going to tune in just for the inspiration. The creative ideas of other homemakers can be so inspiring!

This week’s project is our junk drawer. Time: 20 min

We all have one or more of these don’t we? Our main junk drawer is in the kitchen and it’s a catch all for all sorts of I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-it-let’s-get-it-out-of-sight stuff. When we moved here four years ago, we simply emptied the contents of the junk drawer in our old kitchen into this one. Well. That was easy. Now that the drawer is getting so full that stuff is spilling out the back of it into the bottom cabinet it’s time for an overhaul.

Here it is in all its junky glory ---- boy, have we ever got a lot of stuff in there! This is still going to be our odds and ends drawer, but it has to be neater. Usually we spend several minutes rooting around in here trying to find what we are looking for. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought extra AAA batteries because I couldn’t find the two packages that were already in the drawer. So frustrating!


Pointers For an Easier Junk Drawer Clean Up

• Decide what all should regularly be stored in the drawer

Are there some things that might serve you better if stored elsewhere? Can you create a new little storage space, shelf or basket for those item? Oops -- that's another project!

• Find another place in your house to store other things

I tend to toss packets of garden seeds, and string into our junk drawer. We have a dedicated place for those things; I just need to make sure they end up there instead of the junk drawer.

• Throw away stuff you aren’t going to use

We have empty matchbook covers, partially disintegrated rubber bands, crumbs!? little scraps of paper and gum wrappers. Hello, how did those ever make it into the drawer in the first place?

• Put stuff back where it belongs
• Use snazzy little containers to keep like items corralled together

 I want to go out and spend $50 on those adorable little bamboo containers that I’ve been admiring at the supermarket for the last several months but I can think of a lot better things to spend $50 on than containers. So, I’m making do with what I could scrounge up around the house.


As an aside… my husband and I are both addicted to cute little containers… errr…. We should probably substitute the word clever for my husband’s containers. He would cringe at the thought of cute containers. If we ever won the lottery you would find us at a container store going hog wild instead the Ferrari dealership. Okay, and then a boat shop.

What do you want to organize?

Menu Plan Monday

This week I was able to snag a few really good grocery deals. Our local Meijer had Taco Bell products 1/2 off which is just about unheard of good; too bad I didn't have any coupons to match with the sale price, but it was still such a good sale that I picked up several cans of re fried beans for 47cents each and salsa for 87 cents.

Every few months I make a stock up trip to Walmart for the things I don't normally buy at the grocery store and this Friday I went to do that, plus check to see how their white tuna compared in price to my grocery store. (No coupons and I was willing to pay full price because tuna salad sounds so good this week)  I picked up 9 large pouches for $1.48 each which was a really great deal compared to my regular grocery store. Turns out $1.48 was a really great price for Walmart too -- they turned out to be mismarked. But, because we have a terrific consumer protection law here in Michigan I got the tuna for $1.48 each PLUS a $5.00 penalty the store paid me for their error.   


Monday: Sweet & Sour Meatballs, Augratin Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts

Tuesday: Taco Bake topped with lettuce, tomatoes, salsa & sour cream

Wednesday: Tuna Salad Sandwiches, Fresh Veggies & Dip

Thursday: Polish Sausage, Kraut, Potatoes and Corn Muffins

Friday: Homemade Cheeseburger Pizza

Our New Year's Day

One of the things I like best about my family and Georges is there is no pressure to be someone you are not. And for me, that translates into not hosting a fancier, more elaborate get-together than you have the means to provide.

Today we had George's newlywed brother and his wife over for dinner and it was nice.  Sigh. It was just so nice and simple. We sat around the kitchen table with hot cups of coffee and shot the breeze for a little while and then emptied the oven of its contents that were in there keeping warm and simple as that we had dinner. Nothing, fancy, just what I was going to serve for dinner anyway. After dinner, more coffee and visiting and we all said our goodbyes with a promise from everyone to take a good  nap afterwards. I tell ya, this low-key holiday stuff is great!

Is It Spring Yet?

We've had a little mini heat wave the last few days, it got up to 52 degrees yesterday and melted all the snow!  Goodness, was it ever a treat to run errands yesterday in long sleeves and no big heavy coat to burden you down and gloves to lose. Today is the end of it though. This afternoon the temperature grew steadily colder so that now at 7:30pm it's 23 degrees and expected to drop to 19 tonight. Traditionally every year we get what we refer to as a "January Thaw", I don't know if other parts of the country get something like this or not, but man, up here in Michigan we sure count on it as a way to help us make it through the winter. It usually lasts a good week or 10 days and after this little mini heat wave, I'm ready to move right into the January Thaw and then on to Spring.