I have waited years to be able to post this! Actually, this was only a possibility starting in August of last year when I accepted the position with the Davie County school system. I had a couple of goals that I really wanted to accomplish while out and I am very excited to say that I was able to meet them all!<\/p>\n
First I planned to make several trips to several different grocery stores in order to take advantage of sales and really stock up. I shopped at Shuler’s Meat Store,\u00a0 Food Lion 4 times, Costco, Harris Teeter twice, Aldi at least three times, Walmart\u00a0 and at 3 different Dollar Generals.\u00a0 I talked at length about my grocery spending in this post<\/a>. I was able to grab some winter clearance deals at Dollar General including gloves and fleece blankets for $1.50 each. Braxton got several new outfits.<\/p>\n Next on my to do list was cooking ahead. We are entering a busy season with baseball, art, church and end of school activities.\u00a0 I can finally say that our freezer is full with easy to prepare and things we enjoy meals. I decided that instead of spending an entire day or two cooking, I would attempt to cook one extra meal each day.\u00a0 On Monday, I purchased boneless chicken thighs and place them in two crockpots to cook while we did the bulk of our shopping. Dinner on Monday was a chicken from Costco with potato salad and cauliflower.\u00a0 I did take the remaining chicken, saut\u00e9ed some onions and carrots to use as a quick soup starter in the next couple of weeks.\u00a0 Tuesday- I grounded up 3 roast from the freezer and made a 10# batch of taco meat (7 meals). I also shredded the chicken thighs and assembled 2 broccoli and chicken\u00a0 casseroles for the freezer. We tried a new recipe for cube steak and loved it. Wednesday- I used the shredded chicken to assemble 2 chicken pies and 2 chicken pot pies for the freezer. Thursday- I grounded up 4 additional roast from the freezer to make sloppy joes out of 5 pounds (5 meals) and another 4 bags of browned hamburger meat to use as meal starters. Friday- We had grilled chicken for dinner, using up most of the salad ingredients in the refrigerator. I also assembled with some help 2 baked ziti.\u00a0 We have a total of 23 prepped meals in the freezer!\u00a0 On Saturday, Matt and I came up with a menu plan for the month of April. I will be adding to the freezer stash with hamburgers this week but otherwise cooking should really be assembling and heating for most of the month.<\/p>\n The final item on my to do list for Spring Break was cleaning out and organizing my closet.\u00a0 I am wearing “real clothes” aka not scrubs to work everyday.\u00a0 I needed to finish sorting through my clothes and getting rid of anything stained or out dated. I even managed to sort my pajama, underwear and socks.\u00a0 I am very pleased with how neat and organized my closet is currently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have waited years to be able to post this! Actually, this was only a possibility starting in August of last year when I accepted the position with the Davie County school system. I had a couple of goals that … Continue reading