A year ago yesterday, my husband and I suffered an early miscarriage of our first child. We kept it quiet and I didn't talk about it because, even though she wasn't planned, I loved her desperately and to this day I grieve for her. However, it's been a year and it's time to break my silence. I need to heal, and part of that for me is sharing. I'd like to share with you a letter I wrote to her yesterday. If you'd like to see, click the Read More on the bottom right-hand side of this post. Thank you for caring, it means a lot to me.
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Can you believe it's already February (this meal plan counts as Feb's first week)? I'm starting off the month budget-friendly. I'm trying to skip the trip to the bank and shop for this week using leftover cash from the previous week. Definitely accomplishing this by relying on my pantry. I'm still avoiding using my slowly-growing stockpile of ready-to-eat frozen dinners, those are for a rainy day!
Overview Thursday: Mac N' Cheese with Turkey Sandwich Friday: Ricotta Pancakes Saturday: Loose Meat Sandwiches (haven't gotten to these yet) Sunday: Eggs, Sausage, Toast Monday: Night out Tuesday: Breaded chicken with couscous Wednesday: Jambalaya Instructions Thursday's Mac N' Cheese with Turkey Sandwich No one should need instructions for this! Friday's Ricotta Pancakes I'm cheating and using a pancake mix and added our fresh ricotta to it. Saturday's Loose Meat Sandwiches Recipe is in a previous meal plan because we still haven't made these (I've been sick and eating simply) Sunday's Breakfast-for-Dinner Eggs over easy, sausage, and toast all made on the griddle/toaster! I might get some bacon for Hubster, maybe. Tuesday's Breaded Chicken with Couscous Super simple, coat trimmed and flattened chicken breasts with egg wash and coat with breading. Cook on the stove with EVOO 'til done. Prepare couscous according to directions on box (in this case, the microwave directions are just as good as stove top). Wednesday's Jambalaya I just need to remember to thaw the meat! Then follow directions on box for cooking. Hey everyone!
Today I: Put away dishes and loaded the few dirty ones we had. Ordered more trashcans (I like the two I got so now I'll have one in each room). Checked out other blog hosts, just to see if there's something else I like better. Started a facebook page, join me here! I'm not doing much with it, but I didn't want my name taken and I have some plans for it floating around in my head ;) Found LoraAndLayton on YouTube! Check her out, I love her videos and I love that she's dealing with much the same things I do (healthwise) so her perspective has even more meaning for me. I'm planning on running around and doing some laundry, so I'm going to go do that now. Sidenote: I made The Pizza today and it was so amazing, I'll post on that later. Still feeling off, so I'm not doing much extra blogging at the moment. Ciao! Yesterday I didn't post because I literally played Minecraft all night. I was still feeling really crappy and the house was in okay shape so I left it. There weren't enough dishes to run a load anyway. I did make ricotta pancakes (and chocolate chip for Hubster) for breakfast before we went to bed for the day. It was my first time making them (I made ricotta and mozzarella the other night, I'll do a post on them soon). They are SO good! I love the little 'something' that it gives the regular pancakes. I was super lazy about it and used a pancake mix, though. Whatever.
Tonight we had dinner with the in-laws and dropped off their dog. The cats did well, having her an extra night got them to a point where they ignored the dog almost completely (pretty awesome achievement in two days!). This is getting our meal plan for the week completely off, which is totally fine. We're having the pizza for dinner next, can't wait! Tonight I am not accomplishing much. A load of dishes and that's about it. I did make the bed, so that's nice. Really it's just more Minecraft and vlog watching. I'd make the cheese post but I'm doing it after making the pizza. I may work on some product reviews for upcoming posts, it's good to get ahead on things! Not much of a check-in, but there you have it! Hey everyone! Sorry I skipped another day, I was totally exhausted. Last minute my in-laws asked us to dog-sit, which of course I was happy to do. I was going crazy last night to get my house to an appropriate state of clean in each room, all that energy made me feel super icky again so I collapsed into bed after they dropped Brindle off. So here's the check-in for today and yesterday.
Friday Made bed Went into town on Friday, bought groceries and brought home burritos. Trash EVERYwhere, clutter EVERYwhere put away/tossed. Backroom is cleaned and vacuumed, devised a way to stop the bunnies from making messes (oh boy are they PISSED!) Bunny litter changed. Kitchen swept and mopped. Dining table oiled (it's a nice dark wood piece and I treat it like furniture to keep it's shine). Bathroom wiped down, swept, rugs vacuumed. Kitty litter scooped and area vacuumed. Rest of the house vacuumed. Blankets folded and put where they actually go... Decorative pillows are ACTUALLY ON THE COUCH! Saturday Play with the dog (and laugh at the cats totally freaking out) Did not make the bed today. Another load of laundry done, not put away yet. Dishwasher was run, not put away yet. 3/4 boxes left in the house are sorted out. TONS thrown away. Not everything is put away yet, I need to clean out the bathroom closet to do that (3 boxes were bathroom stuff). -I'm still working on this, so I might complete it before bed.- I made mozzarella! Took forever, but it sure does look delicious! First time doing it, so I'll do a post on that later (after a taste test!). I need to get this stuff put away so this place isn't a disaster when they come to pick up their dog Sun night. Back to work with me! Today I refolded clothing in the PAX unit to fit into the nice boxes and made it all clean and organized. Then I played Minecraft all night feeling miserable and sleeping on and off.
Thursday: chicken noodle soup
Friday: chicken BBQ (from my frozen supply made last week). Saturday: Qdoba (picking some up after going shopping - Hubs is buying, so it doesn't count as a night out!) Sunday: Homemade pizza (with homemade mozzarella!) Monday: Loose meat sandwiches (we didn't make them last week) Tuesday: Mac n' Cheese with deli sandwich Wednesday: Night out! No recipes to post this week. If you're interested, our pizza will be a store bought crust, red pizza sauce, mozzarella I'm making at home, chicken, banana peppers, tomato slices, basil, and red onion. Really looking forward to this! If you'd like the recipe for the loose meat sandwiches, you can check out last week's meal plan here. Hey everyone, sorry I haven't been around. Seems I've come down with a bug and sitting down to write a blog post wasn't really in the cards. I did get things done, but it left me so wiped out I just went to bed. Two nights ago I finished ALL laundry. It is done! Everything, down to the pillows I had to wash, is done and put away. I even sorted out all the socks and boy, did I throw away socks. Take a look - Wow, what a joke! I took all our socks out of the sock basket and just poured them out onto the bed. This took forever to sort through, especially because cats kept picking up socks from the organized piles and moving them around. Cute, but definitely not efficient. Thank you, cats. It did get better, take a look at this - If I didn't have a sock match, or if it had a hole, or if it was just gross - it got tossed here. These socks are now GONE from the house! Now all my pretty, matched socks are sitting in my basket in PAX and Hubster's are in a laundry basket. I finally got my little cloth cubby boxes in so I can put away Hubster's socks/Tshirts/pants into PAX as well. Yay! The closet in the bedroom is difficult to access regularly due to the bed being huge in a tiny room (there is only 1.5 ft from the closet to the edge of the bed, I measured). It now holds Dave's hanging clothes (which he doesn't wear often) and seasonal stuff like sweatshirts. It also has storage things like our board games, sewing machine, gun, and other things in safes/boxes.
Last night was when I really felt gross, I did my meal planning and threw away trash. I also went around the house and gathered all the pop cans and put them into a bag which Hubster just took outside before leaving for work. I did put together the shoe shelf for daily-use and guest shoes, so that's something! Mostly I just played Minecraft on our PS3. I dislike being sick, but it is nice to have a justifiable reason to play video games almost all night :) Tonight I feel worse than the last two days. I was supposed to go to the bank and the store but that definitely didn't happen. Luckily the meal plan doesn't require me to go shopping for a few days, so that gives me some time to feel better - but I can't wait until Monday, so that means I get tonight off, but I have to go tomorrow (Saturday morning, for you regular people). My plan tonight is to put things away in the cubbies I just got, then I'm going to play more Minecraft and rest. I'm going to post my meal plan now and hopefully I'll be okay to post a daily check-in really quick before bed. Stay healthy everyone! Ciao. WOW! I feel so accomplished today, haha. I spent every possible minute cleaning and folding laundry. I still have 3 loads left in baskets, those will be completed in another marathon tomorrow. I'm excited to get it ALL done because then Hubster is going to pull out the dryer for me and I can clean out the back. Laundry is taking forever to do because I have to run things in the dryer 1.5 times (I run a 25 min timed cycle, then a regular auto-sense cycle on MAX dry, lame). If your dryer is doing this, you need to take the back plate off your dryer and clean that sucker out. Youtube is a great source of instructional videos that will show you exactly how to do it for your style dryer. Mine is a gas dryer with a top-access lint catch. I'll need to take off the back plate as well as the lint trap. Then I'll be able to clean out all the places lint gets stuck. I'll take that opportunity to clean out the hose too. You should do this twice a year to lessen your chance of a house fire due to lint catching flame. It's a big deal people! There are other less deadly reasons too, but you can look that up yourself. Anyway, here's what I accomplished today:
Tons of laundry, and everything that was cleaned is ALSO put away. I'm now down to one load in the washer ready for when I wake up, one load in the dryer as we speak, and two loads in a basket. It'll be done tomorrow. Packaged up, labeled, and froze 6 meals worth of our homemade BBQ chicken. Cleaned out more shelf space in PAX for our things. Actually got up on a step stool, BY MYSELF, ALONE, to put away beautifully folded blankets, sheets, and pillow cases (If you know me, that's a big deal. I don't do ladders or step stools. Ever. Ever, ever. UGH). Did all the dishes, but I have not put them away. I baked brownies, they are cooling now and I'll let you know how they go. I just took a bite before it cooled, it's alright. I'm hoping once they've cooled fully (after I sleep) they'll be better. I'm now going to bed, I need to be up so I can cook dinner and get bunnies their food and hay. They are almost out of both!! Ciao! Guys. I have SO much laundry. This is ridiculous, I've been running loads of laundry without a break for hours now and I still have 5 or 6 loads IN THE BASKETS! So ridiculous. I also discovered that I probably have too many towels. When my husband and I merged our belongings we didn't get rid of any towels so I have my old sets, his old sets, and the new ones we bought together. Not to mention all the random ones that we've inherited from who-knows-where. Am I the only one who has towels that just appeared in their homes? I know I need to declutter these, but I'm waiting until my closet in the bathroom is done. I need to do that, it's a big project that involves a box and husband sorting through things...which means it might not happen for a while. Tomorrow I should just take everything out that doesn't belong and put it in a box so he can sort at his leisure and I can put the darn towels away! Right now they're in a basket. I literally mean right now, as in I took the picture while sitting here writing this blog post. I needed break, the cats are both konked out next to me and I don't want to wake them up until I need too (aka: the dryer stops) and I have just enough time to write this up.
So my folding board has held up really nicely, I've been using it all night with no problems. I love love love it! I used to prefer hanging clothes, but this is too much fun not to use. I ordered some of those cloth cubes to stack folded clothing in and also for use in the backroom pantry (which is just a bunch of those cube shelving things). I've been putting off buying these because I feel like they're just ridiculously expensive but I can't keep using crappy shoe boxes for everything. I'm trying to make it look like adults live here, and not a bunch of college kids. My husband may not believe it, but I don't like spending a lot of money on that kind of stuff. I mean, I love shopping for them - I just don't like buying them. I got just some basic black ones. When my house is back under control, I want to jazz them up with some pretty ribbons or something. Yay for Pinterest crafting! My daily checklist won't be super long because it all just is laundry and few kitchen things today - but I've made such a visual impact on this small home by getting the laundry under control! It makes me feel so much better when I can see piles disappearing. Phew! The cats are breathing in sync, it's kinda hilarious. Too bad the dryer just stopped and I have to move them! Being a cat must be so hard. Well, the dryer is calling! Ciao! |