This week will have a 'loose' meal plan. DH wants to go to his parents or have them come up to support them. Yesterday they went out in the morning and when they came back Mia, their miniature pincher, was lying on the porch. She had passed away during the short time they were out.

In addition to that, my mom has been at the bedside in ICU of her longtime companion. John has been in a nursing home for several months, and took a terrible turn for the worse the other night. His passing is inevitable, and its just a waiting game right now. Although she's stayed in the relationship more from duty (love passed a long time ago) she will of course still grieve and I need to be there for her. I am so grateful that our move occurred when it did as I am able to care for her dog and cats with ease and its one responsibility off her shoulders. While I was in driving distance before, a 6 minute drive makes it much easier then a 30min drive.

With all that said - here's this weeks dinner menu plan:

Sunday - Chicken and dumplings - one of our cool weather favorites!
Monday - moo shu pork
Tuesday - simple fried chicken
Wednesday - Soup and sandwiches, nothing fancy
Thursday - grilled steak, baked potatoes, mixed veggies  - recipe is for pork, but I'm using it for beef
Friday - dinner out somewhere per Joe's request
Saturday - BBQ with the new neighbors at our place, I think I'll do just hot dogs and these burgers, one neighbor is bringing pasta salad, not sure about the others.. we'll make do with whatever shows up, lol.. and worse comes to worse.. the grocery store is 2 min away, lol. May also make my favorite mac and cheese recipe for the kids as there will be 5 or 6 ( possibly 8 or 9) here as well, lol.

I am starving today, lol.

My breakfast was a lovely nutritional shake this morning, that held me over till about 10:45am. Then I started to get very hungry... a fact that was not helped when my coworker came into my office and started discussing hot fudge sundaes... ugh. Then I started having daydreams about Arby's roast beef sandwiches .. with double meat.

that should give you a good idea of how hungry I was, lol.

Over the years with Joe I have often had debates with him over the amount of money he spends on take-out. Since August was so expensive for us, I'm trying to limit my lunch budget to $0, until at least the next payday. Today that meant my lowly can of chicken noodle soup in the kitchen cabinet.

Sigh. Egg noodles don't have all that much substance when you're really hungry, lol.

However being a good girl, I dutifully ate (sucked down every last noodle) and decided to distract myself with the computer (not working all that great) and realized that I don't focus enough on lunch menu planning. I had started to do a bento box style lunch many many months ago, but fell off the bento wagon from life distracting me too much. Oddly enough I also recently found an article on bento box style lunches for kids and school and that got me thinking about it again, especially today with my simple can of soup, lol.

My work week is over until next Tuesday ( or will be at 5pm!).  So here's a plan for next week. These are shorter then my weekly dinner plans due to my odd schedule. Ideally I'd like to bring for lunch, what Joe and JP are eating at home... but Joe is unpredictable. I'm also toying with the idea of going home for lunch on the 2 days I'd need to pack a lunch and then we can eat a healthy lunch as a family. For next week I'm going to attempt to plan around what I know I have at home.

Tuesday - staff meeting - lunch provided by offfice
Wednesday -tuna melt on a wrap, grapes, oreo cookies

Friday - probably the same thing as I have lots of tuna in stock, lol. I'm not a big fan of most tuna.. but it works in a pinch.

I really want to invest in 2 sets of bento box, one for myself and one for JP. That way I know he's eating a somewhat balanced meal and the portions are a great size for my picky little sweetheart, lol.  The one's I've been looking at are by LapTop Lunch, but would really like to find something I don't have to order online... and that's a bit less expensive to start. Of course I could just go to a local Target or Walmart and pick up individual containers... but I like the idea of the sets, makes it more appealing. It will be interesting to see if the creative side or the frugal side wins out first, lol.

Oh! here's a nice looking one for kids - I may order this for when JP starts school in 2 years or so..  Goodbyn Lunch Box

Not going into apologies.. just restarting my happy little home blog, lol.

We moved last week into a new apartment. A new, bigger place with a dining room and no carpeted kitchen!!! The new place is great, and the neighbors seem wonderful. Already helped us out with a car issue on a truck we borrowed for the move just because. Peanut doesn't get to roam free anymore and I think she's sad over that, but I also think she and I are going to start going for longer walks down the road.. now that we live on a road with a wide shoulder.

I'm very excited to have a normal looking home that easily accommodates company. We had my IL's over for dinner last weekend, and my mom was supposed to be this weekend.. but was too tired (she still  works overnights). Planning menu's with Sunday dinners is more fun now that I can share meals with friends and family.

This weeks menu is:
Sunday- Mustard Crusted Salmon, wild rice blend, vegetable medley
Monday - Hot dogs, tossed salad, macaroni salad
Tuesday - Spaghetti and Meatballs, tossed salad
Wednesday - grilled chicken salad
Thursday - mu shu pork, steamed veggies
Friday - take out?
Saturday - Luau party!!! Pineapple and shrimp skewers, rum glazed ribs, terriyaki chicken on a stick, cucumber salad, tossed salad, homemade fruit punch

the luau party is because it's our month for a small group get together we started back in april. My gf found an affordable and easy tiki party menu which helped as my original plan was serve grilled pineapple on the burgers, lol.

my shopping list is well planned, although I need to hit up 2 stores to get everything. Its not terrible though as one is near a laundromat ( no more washer and dryer for me, sigh) so I can do laundry and shop at the same time.

Guess a little bit of dust has settled onto my little blog here. In the spirit of spring cleaning and getting back to routines and such I'm dusting it off to once again track menu planning and cost saving tracking.

DH and I have been having a good ole bout of issues stemming from his health and have gotten a little lazy about attention to detail in regards to budgetting groceries and planning meals. Needless to say our grocery spending is once again over what it should be. However I haven't had the heart to see how much and have decided on a clean slate.


Today I had to go grocery shopping. we were basically down to a few cans of soup and cereal in the pantry. It was getting a little desperate for organized, instead of on the fly, shopping. So off I went to 3 stores with a 3 year old. I'm happy to say we survived quite well.. and the only bad thing was a result of me rushing to do things when I got home.. and being exhausted.. and an incident with a large bread knife.,.. a new dvd to open.. and a finger of mine. OOps.. guess thats why they say not to play with knives. All's well except that I am sporting a Diego bandaid on my finger. Bandaids are now on the top of the next shopping list, lol.


Now for the menu. Week of April 25 - May , 2010


Sunday - Gourmet Burgers with a topping of brie and carmelized onions, side of tossed salad
Monday - leftovers - JP will be at grandparents all day and DH will be mooching dinner off of them. I work till 7 and am not cooking a dinner when I get home.
Tuesday -Meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy, steamed italian veggies
Wednesday - Tikki Masala (box mix from target to try) -sched is the same as Monday but I'll make this before leaving for work or make it tues afternoon
Thursday - Malaysian fried chicken over rice, haven't made this in ages and have some awesome curry for it
Friday - Meatball parm sandwiches
Saturday - chicken alfredo over linguini

Some weeks I just don't get arounnd to menu planning. For the week of  10/4 - 10/10 I had no plan. Luckily we made out fine thanks to coupons, but it wasn't the healthiest of choices.

Monday and Wednesday were Quizno's subs- Buy 1 get one of same size free.
Tuesday - chicken fried rice
Thursday - chicken cutlets
Friday - sandwiches after grocery shopping
Saturday - spaghetti and meatballs

the Quizno's coupons were a huge savings. $8 on Monday and for some reason $9 on Wed. Works for me, lol

I've been having a really eye opening experience with my coupons and smarter shopping. I now look thru the circulars much more carefully, usually while relaxing and watching TV. Doing this I am starting to stock up on items that we'll use and while using coupons as well.

I added up my savings since I started using the Couponizer... in 2.5/3 weeks of use I have saved $110.  Not bad when my first goal was to have the couponizer pay for itself at a mere $23.70, lol. What I have also noticed though is that we are not doing a full grocery shopping every week. Now we have enough to go every other week, with just a brief trip during the week for little things. Generally not more then $10.00. I'll have to start tracking that so I know the savings there as well.I'm also starting to stockpile a 3 or 4 month supply of items so that I do not have to buy them if not on sale. we have enough laundry detergent for 5 months I think, lol.

This morning I was reading a news report where food prices are once again predicted to rise in 2010. Thats giving me more incentive to be even more diligent with being smarter with grocery costs.

Now to this week's menu... 10/11 - 10/17/2009

Monday -Barber's Chicken Cordon Blue
Tuesday - potato battered cod
Wednesday - Slow Cooker Pot Roast
Thursday - Spaghetti and Meatballs
Friday - Quizno's - coupons good till 10/25
Saturday - chicken parmigian