It Was A Week

This was not a normal week, though I am not sure what a normal week is anymore. TheHub is still working most days, but he works from home. (What is retirement?)

It is nice to have him around all the time (I think) but he has moved his workspace from either of the 2 dedicated offices we have in the house to the dining room table. It is seriously cutting into my normally loud music obsession, which is not cool, though I know it is definitely a first world problem.

Meals I thought we might have:

Crack chicken, rice, coleslaw

Steak, baked potato, tossed salad

Big salad dinner

Veggie dinner

Spaghetti w/ meat sauce, tossed salad

Pizza bowl, tossed salad

Out to eat or take out

Monday: The morning was spent doing a few light chores than it was time to go to my happy place. My Beloved Sister went with me and we made individual pizzas with the Independence Place participants. I cannot even begin to convey how much joy I get from being with them.

On the way home we always drive past the day old bread store. Thanks to Belinda's blog post a few days ago I knew to stop and check out the selection of Keto bread. I am not a huge fan of it, but for a sandwich or burger I will always use the much lower carb bread. Instead of paying 5+ bucks for 8 burger buns I got them for $2.00. That was a huge savings, and thank you!

Once home, I putzed around (translation: read)  until it was time to get dinner ready 

Monday dinner: I was late getting the meal started and this is why I keep browned ground chuck and marinara sauce in the freezer, and a Duke's mayonnaise jar filled with dehydrated mushrooms in the pantry.*

Spaghetti, tossed salad, dinner rolls

Tuesday: My Beloved Sister had to drive to Carrollton GA to physically identify herself at the nearest Bank of America brick and mortar bank. What a crock of whatever, for a credit card she has had since the 90's. Someone, somewhere had erroneously put a hold on her account and despite all common sense (like suggesting she go to her local bank, having her identity notarized and forwarded to BOA)  the road trip was necessary.

Since she has no sense of direction, I went along for the ride. I have been to Carrollton only once before and assumed the bank would be downtown. I was incorrect as we were routed outside of town through the West Georgia University campus to get to the bank, for her to walk in with 2 forms of ID and the teller to verify she was who she is. 

Any bets on how long it takes for her to cancel the card with them?

We got back home a bit after mid-day in time for me to run to ThePig and cherry pick their ground chuck sale. I only redeem ThePig's free item if there is something on sale I would normally buy that meets the $10 dollar minimum for redemption. I bought 10 pounds of the chuck and processed it in freezer bags for future use. And that is why my freezer is always filled to the brim.

Tuesday dinner: TheHub had been out to lunch and ate a big meal, and I had a few peaches left from a corporate gift we received. No cooking was done!

Big tossed salad, peach shortcake

Wednesday: I was secretly glad I did not have to go anywhere. I stayed at home and did dang well what I wanted to do, which turned out to be not much. There were tons of things that needed to be done (room of horrors for one) but I ignored them, sat on the screened porch with fans going to keep me somewhat cool while I read.

Wednesday dinner: We have been in an eating rut and it was time to try something new. Recently I bought several 1 pound packs of ground pork with no idea how I would be using them. Thank you Food Network.

Did I follow the recipe, not really** but it was a good place to begin.

Spicy pork bowl on bean thread noodles

Thursday: My Beloved Sister was having a seriously bad day. It is bad enough to be in the middle of the grief process but adding all the ever changing legal and business hoops one has to jump through can make things feel unbearable. 

She had been so strong and stoic, but she had a little "come apart" day. She did not want me to go to her house, so instead, I stayed on the phone with her for a long time talking her and reassuring her she that she was not a failure and could do nothing but do whatever various entities demanded. It is all just paperwork, but it had gotten to the point where it felt endless, overwhelming, and left her feeling hopeless.

Hamburger patty, saffron rice, cucumber tomato onion salad

Friday: I had a low key morning, talked with Sluggy and ate TheHub's leftover lunch from a lunch meeting he had with bankers. I don't have any idea why Perry's serves such huge lunches, but we both ate from it and I had enough left over for at least one of us to have lunch another day.

TheHub and I ran a few errands then decided rather than come home and cook we would just pick up dinner.

Jack's 2 piece chicken dinner with green beans and coleslaw

Saturday: Chores!!! Not my most cherished thing to do. I don't know if I have mentioned it before but I abhor housework. Unfortunately it has to be done regularly and since I have neither upstairs nor downstairs maids living in the house, it pretty much falls to me. Ugh! 

I had put off several things that just could not be put off another day, but I did get most of the tasks I wanted to do done. I did not get the dryer moved out from the wall so I could vacuum the vent hose, but I need help with that and will put that off for a long time. 

There is still a ton to do and I need to get it done before Friday when my cousin is coming to spend the night before a family reunion.

Saturday dinner: I had some leftover shredded cheeses  and sauce from Monday at IP and knew I would have them when I planned this week's menu. A few added vegetables  and dinner was ready.

Pizza bowl

Sunday: We woke in time to make it to our church's early communion service, regular early church, and Sunday school.

On our way home we stopped at The Electric for a quick lunch, then came home to do a few chores, like rearrange the freezer. I don't mind doing it in the summertime, but will confess that I keep a pair of ski gloves on a hook attached to the freezer side so I can move things about without my hands getting too cold. 

I also have learned to wear toed shoes when I do it. My freezer is an upright and on occasion while moving things something will fall out.  A falling one pound bag of frozen ground chuck can do some damage to uncovered tootsies. Ask me how I know? 

I moved from the laundry room freezer to the refrigerator in the kitchen. I needed to clean it out before our garbage collection on Tuesday, but I also needed to make room in the meat drawer for things I took from the freezer to slowly thaw for the coming week's meals. While I was moving and reorganizing I found 4 pounds of bacon that needed to be cooked.

I always cook it on a parchment covered jelly roll pan, the store it in a rectangular container I keep in the freezer. That amount of bacon will probably last us through September and part of October.

Sunday dinner: TheHub  could not keep from smelling the bacon while it was cooking and thought it would be good for dinner. Fine with me! 

BLT sandwiches

Planned maybe sorta for the next week:

Crack chicken***, green beans, rice

Conecuh sausage, kraut, skillet potatoes

Air fryer pork chops, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts

Veggie meal

(We are going out Friday night, have a family reunion Saturday, and Sunday will be a surprise meal****)

Books read in August

Fly Away

The Noticer

Odd Thomas

The Noticer Returns

Rum, A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails*****

Have a great week staying on plan, going off plan, or with no plan at all.

May all your weeds be wildflowers.

Anne

*Reminder to self to dehydrate onions the next time I catch them on sale

** I wanted a one dish meal so I upped the vegetables and added chopped sweet peppers,  carton of mushrooms , a chopped onion, and did not make the sesame paste or add the brown sugar. I had no chili garlic sauce and used Thai chili sauce instead. It was really good!

***I finally remembered to take the chicken out of the freezer in time to thaw to make this week.

****Fancy way of saying I have no clue and don't want to think any more

***** I learned more about rum and pirates than I ever wanted or needed to know, but the book was actually pretty entertaining