Monday Menu Planning

Posted on March 10, 2025 by Sheila

We are continuing to race forward in the Spring season. I was able to do a major restock of our staple pantry items this weekend. I am now confident that we have enough to last without a major grocery trip for at least 5 weeks. I am going to continue make a list of items we are out of and also purchase fresh fruit and veggies as I go. I have gotten back to making bread and am trying to make all the bread products we are using but we will definitely see how that goes. I am also very hopeful that I can reduce the overall spending we are doing on groceries this month.

Breakfast- Saturday- bacon and eggs Sunday-muffins Monday- treat of overnight oats that were purchased. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday– find it (breakfast burritos, bagel thins (previously purchased on sale) oatmeal, omelets, cereal and milk, , sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs.

Lunch- Saturday- Left-overs Sunday-Time Square Pizza Monday- eat out as this is a workday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday- left-overs. Friday- eat out.

Dinner- Saturday- Lily cooked! Animal Kingdom inspired pulled pork, cole slaw and mac and cheese with Tres leche cake. I added homemade biscuits. Sunday- Rotisserie Chicken from Costco with stuffing and cranberry sauce. Monday- Hamburger and French fries, this will be my first attempt at making homemade buns. Tuesday- Game food or left-overs, Wednesday-Grilled chicken and green beans. Thursday- Chicken – Attempt number 3 at chicken pot pie from freezer (we have ended up eating left-overs on the previous two attempts).

Pantry Challenge

1. Use at least one “meal/meat portion of the meal” from the stand-up freezer each week. (This is where most of the meals are)  Both the hamburger patties and grilled chicken.
2. Use at least 3 jars a week from the canning pantry. I used 1 jar of broth from the fridge for stuffing and we opened a jar of cranberry sauce. First week in a long time that we have not met this one.
3. Use one item a week from the connivence freezer in my room.  Frozen chicken pot pie is hopefully coming from the freezer as well as chicken tacos
4. Each Monday after menu planning provide a list of how I followed the guidelines for the week.  Done!

Sunday Garden Update

Posted on March 9, 2025 by Sheila

We are approximately 5 weeks out from our expected last frost date!

Matt and I spent all day yesterday working to get a watering system in place for the garden beds beside the house. Our ultimate goal is to have all the beds on a watering system except for the vertical planters. This will be a huge time saver and hopefully also encourage more production. We are having some initial cost to get everything set up but because we use rainwater for watering it also saves and works itself out in about 2 years in cost. It will likely take another full Saturday to finish the installation of the watering system and I will provide a cost breakdown when it actually works.

Zach helped me plant a new pear tree. This gives us a total of 2 pear trees, 4 apple trees, 1 peach tree and 2 pecan trees. We have finished the line I had originally envisioned and hope to have produce this summer.

We have tomato and pepper plants inside! I have also planted 8 total loofa plants that I hope will start growing and be ready to plant outside the first of May. The tomato plants have the best germination rate which is above 95%. I do have some peppers growing but still no wax man peppers or Anaheim peppers. I do not see any sprouts outside which is disappointing, but we are expecting 70* this week which might speed up the process a bit.

Wordless Wednesday- Baseball Edition

Posted on March 5, 2025 by Sheila

Monday Menu Planning

Posted on March 3, 2025 by Sheila

This week we have officially begun our Spring Schedule. I am also going to continue to try and reduce our grocery budget and continue/modify the pantry challenge. The hard part is that we have to eat at home for most ballgames to make this work.

Breakfast- Saturday- Pancakes, and sausage (left-overs will be used all week) . Sunday-Homemade biscuits and gravy. Monday- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday– find it (breakfast burritos, oatmeal, omelets cereal and milk, , sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs. I also made some English muffins to use this week.

Lunch- Saturday- Left-overs Sunday-Mcalister’s deli in Charlotte. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday- left-overs. Friday- eat out.

Dinner- Saturday- hot dogs, smores and biscuits, Sunday-Ham and potato soup (new recipe) Monday- Steak and 7-layer salad (using up veggies in the refrigerator) Tuesday- Taco Pasta, Wednesday- Chicken Lasagna Thursday- Chicken pie from Freezer, Friday- Depending on what the refrigerator looks like we may do left-overs or insta pot hamburger helper.

Pantry Challenge

1. Use at least one “meal/meat portion of the meal” from the stand-up freezer each week. (This is where most of the meals are) Both the Taco pasta and Chicken Lasagna are from this freezer.
2. Use at least 3 jars a week from the canning pantry. I used 2 jars of chicken broth from the fridge instead this week. We also opened a jar of strawberry syrup from the cabinet. If we make the hamburger helper, it will be using a jar of canned hamburger.
3. Use one item a week from the connivence freezer in my room. Frozen chicken pot pie and hot dogs were from this freezer.
4. Each Monday after menu planning provide a list of how I followed the guidelines for the week. Done!

Sunday Garden Update

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Sheila

I like a schedule and routine. So I am going to start attempting to post a garden update on Sunday for the gardening year. I have really enjoyed looking back and figuring out when we did certain things and being able to document and decide if I am right on track or ahead of schedule. For example, I have been doing some reading and realized that the years I have had the best harvest, I started my tomatoes this early! Last weekend, we ended up doing some major renovations to the gardens. First, we needed to replace the front board on the tomato bed.

After much thought and discussions, we decided to add cattle panel trellises to out beds in the back. This really doubled our growing space!

In total we spent a total of $96 for the upgrades. I also purchased a 1000 worms to place in the front beds to hopefully prompt and encourage soil. The current plan is to add chicken manure at the end of the session in order to allow it time to age.

We currently have over a dozen pepper plants that have sprouted along with radishes outside and 7 broccoli plants inside.

I think we are off to a good gardening season!

Saving on Saturday

Posted on March 1, 2025 by Sheila

The weather today has been absolutely beautiful! So we spent a good amount of time outside prepping for the garden. I had purchased these metal signs you see below at Dollar Tree at 25 to 50 cent each. We have label most of the beds where we plan to plant. This was also a good way for me to plan out my space.

I did plant out some sugar snap peas yesterday and some spinach. Matt and Zach were able to trim all three of rose bush. They also were able to prune out trees. This is the first time we have attempted to prune the trees. We planted these trees in November 2016, with the pecan trees planted in April 2017. So most of the trees are beyond the time we need to prune. I am hopefully that this will also increase our production as well.

We are about 6 weeks away from our last frost. So it was definitely time to get the tomato plants started.

We started peppers and broccoli about 2 weeks ago.

I am trying to get back to making our bread products. Today I started loaf bread, biscuits and English muffins. The biscuits turned out beautifully!

I did spend some time, making sure we used up leftovers and vegetables so I did a fair amount of food prep.

February In Review

Posted on February 28, 2025 by Sheila

February has been interesting to say the least, we had several weather days which meant either working from home or my favorite delay starts. Things have certainly started to get much busier this last week and I am anticipating the pace to continue to pick up and continue through the end of the school year.

Emergency Fund- Goal is $1000- We currently have $300 in this fund which is $200 less than December. I also have a $3800 tax bill to cover so this may not progress at all for the next couple of months.

Groceries- Goal $820 per month. My goal for February is $400 or less. Well, that did not happen either. $662.25 total for the month. I have decided to modify the pantry challenge for the next couple of months. I am unsure if I will save money, but I need to focus on using the items in the pantry.

Gas- Goal is $500. February’s total is $265.10. I am very glad to see the price of gas return to a more normal level!

Blogging- For 2025- the goal will be 10 post per month. Woo HOO This is post number 14 for the month! One more than last month! I am making an intentional effort to keep up with this goal.

Debit- Goal is 200000 for the end of the year! See tax bill from above.

Health/Exercise- Progress this month is that I had a doctor’s appointment and will be changing meds which will hopefully bring this to easier place. Goal is 175 and exercise regularly.

Reading through the Bible this year- Our church and myself are following “The Bible Recap” program and I have currently managed to stay on track for 59 days!

Wordless Wednesday- New Bar

Posted on February 26, 2025 by Sheila

Monday Menu Post

Posted on February 24, 2025 by Sheila

Last week did not go as planned, we ended up cooking and eating different items because of the snow. Things are starting to pick up around here. We start baseball this week. Looking at the schedule that is 2-3 evenings a week where dinner will be late think 7pm or we will be eating on the run. I am hopefully that we can at least keep things a little bit more successful with only one night of eating out. This week we have both games at home which is a 5 minute or less drive so I am going to try my luck and plan to eat at home on both days. I also have lots of thoughts about my pantry challenge, see below for details.

Breakfast- Saturday- Leftover baked oatmeal or breakfast casserole. Sunday- Banana muffins Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Friday– find it (breakfast burritos, oatmeal, omelets cereal and milk, French toast sticks, sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs.

Lunch- Saturday-Garlic cheeseburger bites (not a repeat new recipe) Sunday- Gregg’s Monday, – leftovers Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday- left-overs. Friday- eat out.

Dinner- Saturday-Pick a soup- tomato basil, chicken stew, chicken and rice and potato soup. Sunday- Left-overs Monday-Beef Fried Rice Tuesday- Chicken -? This is the baseball game (instapot hamburger helper) Thursday-baked potatoes Friday- Spaghetti

Pantry Challenge
Looking at our grocery expenses for the past two month indicate that we have failed but I am starting to see a difference in our pantry, and I have come to realize that we have a lot of extra food. I want to be a good steward of this, so my plan is to continue to use this list of goals at least until the end of May just to keep things moving in the right direction.
1.Purchasing items that we are completely out of that are staples such as diary as well as buns or other items that will help use items we already have. Total $662.25  On Saturday, I stocked up on soft drinks for the next couple of month. I also had to replenish our “dairy alternatives”.
2. Use at least one “meal/meat portion of the meal” from the stand-up freezer each week. (This is where most of the meals are)  We opened containers of potato soup and chicken stew that will be used for lunches as well as at least one meal.
3. Use at least 3 jars a week from the canning pantry. Using spaghetti sauce this week along with salsa and chicken broth.
4. Use one item a week from the connivence freezer in my room. I found two unopened pack of turkey and Zach requested on for this week of lunches.
5. Each Monday after menu planning provide a list of how I followed the guidelines for the week.  Done!

Saving on Saturday

Posted on February 22, 2025 by Sheila

Matt and Zach have been able to finish the deck! Total spent $0. I will post those pictures on Wednesday.

Today I split myself several times and actually got a lot accomplished. First, I worked on our taxes. I have always completed my own taxes in recent years with the help of a tax program. This year was not good we ended up owing 3800 to the Federal government and after some deep digging, I did not find much I could do to change this.

Next up I decided it was a good day to start working toward our garden, so I needed to clean out the greenhouse. I am very happy with the results

Before