Change is okay.

It is okay to make changes.

It is okay to make changes.

So why is it hard to let them happen?

Some one once told me I am a creature of habit. I never have seen myself as that, mainly because I don't seem to stick with anything well. I get an idea or some grand notion and shoot off the edge with it. Before I know it, it is pulling me in seven million directions overwhelming me to the point of just shutting down. I jump back in to menu planning, which I did really well about 10 years ago, and every time I stride forward it get kicked back a few steps. I have a wonderful menu plan all written out, haven't followed it one day this week.

So...I say...It is okay to make changes.

On the flip side of that, I have created some pretty great dishes and the family is eating what ever I put out there. Monday night I made an awesome chicken chile casserole. I used low fat cheeses and baked chicken to stick with my weight loss goals. I know it was good as hubby and both children had second helpings. On the down side, I am so used to cooking for more that I forget sometimes and end up making way too much. I could have made two pans and froze one, even thought about that at the time, but it was a new dish and didn't want to mess with freezing something that no one ate. In looking at the positive side, I have lunch for work...and then some. Then tonight, I had a little extra time to prepare so made a baked kind of hamburger steak dish with some steamed mixed veggies. The meat was good, the veggies didn't cook long enough. So goes it, but it was eaten anyway. Well almost, I cooked for four, son was home but didn't eat. While supper was cooking tonight, I was the eager little beaver and cooked up the meat for tomorrow's dinner change. I am making crock pot sloppy joe's. A huge hit with the family and the crock pot works on Wed. which is a crunch night for supper time.

As I was saying about jumping off the edge with good intentions. I have a passion for quilting. At least until my dad passed away. Kind of lost the interest in a lot of things when that hit my life. He was and will always be my hero. I finally got all the machines cased up and stored. It was harder in some ways not so hard in other ways. I want to be quilting, sewing, making things. I truly love it. But now my life is different and I have to change with that. Some day, I will be organized enough to quilt once again. Actually I am hoping to have the house in some type of order by summer so that when school starts back I can sew and quilt once again. When dear son goes off to college out of town, I will invade his room. Until then, it is only dreams of projects. I haven't stored my crazy quilt supplies away just yet, that was the last thing I was really in to before I went a little crazy and decided I needed to work. Now I just have not got it together enough for extras. I go to work, think about what needs to be done at home. I get home, think about what needs to be done at work. In retrospect, there are more reasons I should not be working than reasons I should. But, life goes on.

On a more positive note, I do have my organizing moments. I was able to get all the meat I had bought on sale bagged up and in the freezer. The ground beef was pretty much cooked up, not a lot to bag there. I used some in tonight's supper, some in the sloppy joe's, then bagged up two bags from the remaining. Worked out pretty well as it was a little over 4 pounds and I will get four meals from it. The pork chops came out to 5 bags, so five meals. Two chops in each bag. Thing is, they are so thick that we will be able cut through the thickness easily halving them. So, that is four chops a bag pretty much. The little chops that were probably the end pieces are in a bag by them self, found an interesting recipe that calls for cubed pork. Also have two roast that I bagged up as well along with some fish fillets we bought at Sam's Club. They were being given as samples and the taste was just awesome. So...I pretty much have a full kitchen to work with once again. Pantry is stocked, a few minor items that I need to buy some time, but not much at all. In the freezer I have chicken, pork, beef, and seafood. Now that is a great feeling.

Speaking of great feelings, that was having hubby see the fence patch job I did and seem to agree with it. Sunday night we had storms blow in and blew our fence down in to the neighbors yard. He has some missing planks on his gate, so of course our two outside dogs head to his yard, find the hole and out they go. This morning, I had not been at work long when son calls to tell me that all three were gone. Now that two outside ones will just come back or go sit on the front porch. But little Kit, well...he was just gone. I left work to find dogs, on the way to the house son calls to tell me he found them. I could have gone back to work right there, probably should have, but it just seemed that something needed to be done about the fences. While the fallen sections are not repaired, they are up at least for the time being. I bought some temporary fencing to go across the damaged sight as well. Another day off with no pay, man the checks will be lighter, but I had to take care of my dogs, especially little Kit. I have gotten so attached to him.

Okay, I have gotten a great start on organizing the place, am mindful of the budget and got the sale goods in the freezer. Soon, I hope, I will be able to sit down and work on crochet, quilting, crazy quilting, or some sewing. Until then, I choose to look at the positive. Since I am working, I am going to quit throwing money at the kids and problems, just want to watch that account grow.

I am off now to take a nice warm bath...since I am not freezing cold...and maybe make it to bed before midnight. Until next time.

Last Minute Changes

The beauty in life comes from all the drama of last minute changes. Like the saying goes, "best laid intentions" so it seems. I finally put down in print, a sort of commitment to stay on course, and then it all changes. I had the week end menu all set, but...things happen and it all changes.

I got up this morning, made breakfast for hubby and DD12, yes I actually cooked breakfast. Got the coffee going (for hubby, can't stand the smell of coffee myself) set the oven to preheat and got the biscuits ready to bake. While they baked I fried up 1 1/2 pounds of bacon. Yes I know, that is a lot for just three of us, but I needed cooked bacon for the marinated green beans and the left over bacon is in the fridge ready for hubby to build his favorite BLT. Then I cooked the eggs and we three had a rather nice breakfast all together. I then cleaned up the kitchen, did the dishes and all (yes I know, me doing dishes?) and set about preparing the green beans to put in the fridge and marinate until supper time.

The beans are still marinating.

Somewhere after putting the beans in the fridge and before supper the schedule went totally out the door and in to oblivion. First of all, the dark dreary fog and rain caused us all to sleep in later than normal. By the time all three of us were up and about with tummy full of breakfast it was time to make a store run. I got a gift card for Christmas and was determined to find a pair of black and a pair of brown dress slacks with it. Well, poor hubby followed my directions to the store only to find out that we couldn't locate that one so off to Walmart we went for hubby to return his toy and for me to get a few things we needed. Brown hair color for one to create this wonderful reverse frost job. Did you hear my sarcasm there? Then, it was off to the WinCo Grocery which is of course only on that side of town, the opposite side of town from where we live, to pick up a couple of more chunks of the fillet Mignon that was so amazing tasting last night. Read yesterday's posting. Hubby was not feeling up to snuff and I knew it was time to take him home, so that is where we headed dropping J (DD12) off at my oldest DS and wife's apartment. DDL has boldly taken J shopping two days in a row now. I am deeply grateful for this. At any rate, after getting home, I decided to hit the store location I knew was there to use the gift card for some black and brown slacks. Man did I exceed that goal. Burlington Coat Factory is awesome. I added a little bit to the gift card and came home with 17 items. Okay, one was for J which was marked down to 4.99 and two of the tops I bought for myself are being returned tomorrow. They swallow me. WHAT AN AWESOME FEELING! I know have a full week's worth of wardrobe to wear to work that does not involve denim. I just have decided it is time to evolve a bit with my personal appearance as far as the career is concerned. I was especially delighted that the pants were all size 18W, considering that two years ago this time I was wearing size 24W. That is three sizes and I still have about 80 pounds to go to be to goal.

It took me twenty years to let myself get this way, guess I can give it a few years to go back. At least I can say that I am doing it all the right way, healthier eating and exercise. It is staying off for the most part, had a little backwards trip there, but very short and that is a direct result of my lack of gym time. That is on goal to correct itself for the new year. Have a new support system in place as well. That being J asking me to take her to the gym (she likes the rock wall) and DDL goes there regularly and even has my son going now too.

Back to the focus of this post, menu planning.

I got so caught up at the store that I lost all track of time until hubby called to check on me. Had told J she needed to be home by 5 so I could take her to get her nails done, here it was 5:10 and I wasn't even headed to check out. Oh well, she had gone to gym with DS and DDL and was running a bit late as well. After checking out I headed to the car and start running the time constraints through my head. No time to make meatloaf, but had some pork chops thawed and of course the beans only had to be heated, mac & cheese wouldn't take long, still doing okay here so called home to have them start the oven preheating. I could get the chops in the oven and they would bake while I took J to get nails done. Hubby informed me he was hungry and that we had some how missed lunch so to bring home a pizza. I gave in, picking up his pepperoni and my box of wings from the pizza place. They have the best BBQ wings. So, home I go, with the food, sweet little J runs out to the car and takes the food in then back to the car to go to the nail place. I then stopped at Subway for her on the way back home.

Now, since the planned menu was not prepared, that will be tomorrow's meal. Well with a couple of changes.
Sunday: Pork chops, marinated green beans, mac & cheese, cheese cake. Not sure if this is lunch or supper yet.

The ground beef thawed for the meatloaf will now be made in to stuffed peppers. Since I hit a big sale on bell peppers when we got the meat tonight. I will have them ready in the fridge for DS G (college doesn't start up for another week) or hubby to pop in the oven and bake on Monday for supper. I have to go back to work and am sure there is a pile of paper work waiting on me. I kind of figure that cooking up a few dishes in advance would be no different than cooking up the dishes for the meal. You know, I am making 6 dishes, just 3 for freezer and 3 for the table. If I do that several times, the freezer will be packed with dinner that just needs to be pulled out. That is why I am finishing up the menu plan for next week (probably two weeks) and bit by bit cooking it ahead. Yesterday, found some really great sounding recipes from my Yahoo groups that am going to try out. Mostly for the crock pot.

That is about it for tonight. Will post my menu plan for the week tomorrow night. Darn it, all that running around and I forgot to get milk. Oh well, guess I will be getting out early in the morning. Hmm...blueberry pancakes are sounding really good. Haven't told hubby, but am going to make my best effort to make myself go to church once again. That is a whole other story better left untold I think.

Organizing

Well, since my dear little daughter age 12 took the photos, guess I should show you our cleaning.

This is the main pantry. The photo on left is the top portion. There is actually three shelves, but my teen photographer didn't think to point up to get the whole effect. The photo on the right is the bottom section and is the three shelves shown. We have an overwhelming problem with these pesky little brown moths that come from the most destructive little maggot looking worms that I have ever seen. They eat through anything and everything. Any wrapper there is, cardboard, foil, plastic coated makes no difference. They are in the cake mixes, Ramon noodles, pastas, crackers, even pudding boxes. I keep cereal and flour in big plastic containers, but if the kids don't get them closed completely they get in. I can't even begin to count up how much money I threw in the trash because of the worm infestation. Brand new bags of chips that had not been opened had moths flying around inside. Oh, and one swat does not kill them, takes at least four or five and if they land on the floor have to stomp them about three times.

Yes, very annoying.

At any rate, I know have cleaned out the cabinets, pulled out the old shelf paper, sanitized the cabinets and put all new shelf paper down. I also bought these little moth repellent sachets with lavender in them. Since there is no exposed food, it is all in closed containers, I figured it would be fine, especially since the box states it is safe for pets. I can already tell a difference. I also made a list of just what and how much I have on hand so I know if I can make a recipe or not. My new goal for the new year is to be more organized in all aspects of my life so have been working on planning out menu plans and getting it all in to a system that I can manage and work with. I have the latest version of MasterCook on the way which will organize my recipes, pantry inventory and cost, once I take the time to type it all into the proper places. That is good for the budget which I am working on slimming down along with my own weight. MC is great for that too as it gives me a nutritional analysis of each recipe. I am also getting back to the pantry challenge. In other words, will see how long I can go with out going to the store. The goal is to use only what I have on hand, there for saving me money as I can buy the sale items easier. I also defrosted the freezer and sanitized the inside before making a list of what I had in there as well. While I was at it I cleaned out the side by side fridge and freezer, sanitizing the inside of it before tossing all expired items and bits and pieces of left overs. Hmm, maybe I should have saved those, could have used the crop of penicillin growing to fight off this cold (that all four of us have).

So, I am starting the new year with a well stocked (probably overstocked) pantry which I actually know what it contains, a very well stocked freezer (was surprised at how much I actually had) which actually has an empty shelf just waiting for some casseroles to be served at a later time, and can actually find all my pans and left over dishes.














The before and after photos of my cookware. While I was at the grocery store, New Year's Eve, standing in line for literally hours (had to hit 3 stores to get my list filled) my wonderful little daughter became a bit bored as she waited patiently for me to return so occupied herself with cleaning out and lining every drawer in the kitchen. What a job, to give you some idea, she is 12 and found the syringe I had to use to give her oral medicine when she was a toddler. Found packets of yeast that expired in 2004.

I took today off from the cleaning. As I said, am fighting a head cold and just needed a break. I spent most of the day looking over new recipes to try, figuring out a menu plan for the coming week and visiting some really amazing blogs of extremely organized homemakers. Envying them as well. I work 40 hours a week, like the majority of homemakers, and in looking at my present life can see that I am not handling life well at all. I plan to work on that. Therefore, the organizing. Trying to delegate out some task a bit as well. I leave at 7 in the morning and not back home until 5:30 making meals the hardest thing to cope with. I have already learned to let the laundry go until the week end. However, the meal issue is a major one as it is causing a problem with getting time for the gym. It is either eat and then work out on a full stomach or work out and eat the supper meal at 9. Neither is a positive aspect.

You know I have to.
so here it is. Okay, daughter's photographic skills are a bit undeveloped, and red eye correction does not seem to work on yellow eye, but hey, the effort is there. This is Kit, my new baby that was rescued from the middle of a country road that he had been dumped out on. He is still young, vet puts him at around 6 months, but he has stolen every heart around here. I just cannot imagine the coldness of a person that would allow them to throw out a puppy like that.

Tonight's meal: grilled fillet minion with baked potato, salad and homemade Hawaiian bread.

Man was it good. We got a deal on the meat and hubby is wanting to go back tomorrow and get some more. It was in a cryovac pack, uncut, and a fraction of the cost of buying that cut already trimmed and packaged. We were able to cut the steaks to the thickness we wanted and for $12 we ended up with 6 nice size steaks (comparable in size to what you would get at a restaurant) plus some pieces that were more like strips instead of steaks. That comes out a little less than $2 per steak. Weight wise, the difference was $2.97 per pound as opposed to $9.98 per pound. We have a vacuum sealer and will cut up the next one and seal in packages for the freezer. HUGE money saver.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, taking daughter to get nails done, hair cut, and am then going to give her a reverse frost. She is already blonde so am giving her brown highlights, maybe with a touch of red to match mom. Shh, don't tell her that though. Then, have to start on bathrooms and my bedroom before heading back to work on Monday. Sadly, it is times like this that make me miss being a stay home mom. It is getting harder and harder to head to work each day, emotionally that is, but thankfully I have a really good job for the most part.

Weekend Menu:
Sat:
Meatloaf, marinated green beans, mac & cheese, cheesecake (leftover from New Year's)
Sun:
CP Quick Chicken Mole (new recipe), Frito Salad, rice

I will post the menu for next week on Sunday.