On the three to four meals a week plan

A good way to save money is to make meals that last for more than one day. It also saves ENERGY!  This week's meal schedule:

Monday
Lunch:  Egg salad sandwiches, pickles and carrotts (eggs leftover from the Easter Bunny)
Dinner:  African peanut chicken stew.  Deeeeelicious! (Canned ravioli for the kids--Annie's organic--a splurge)

Tuessday
Lunch: Egg salad Sandwiches, pickles and carrotts
Dinner: Lefotver African peanut chicken stew (Homemade macaroni and fishsticks for the kids)

Wednesday
Lunch: Leftover homemade macaroni and fish sticks
Dinner: Tacos

Thursday
Lunch: Leftover tacos
Dinner: Lefotver tacos

Friday
Lunch: Salads with grilled chicken (lefover grilled chicken from the peanut stew)
Dinner: I'm going out with my girlfriends/Coen has a sleepover--Tad and Lucy are on their own! :)

Saturday
Lunch: Stuff around the house (prolly a picnic if it stops raining of PB & J with carrot sticks)
Dinner: Date night! We'll have to find a way to do it cheap!

Sunday
Lunch: Similar to Saturday
Dinner: Pizza (leftover from LAST Sunday's big pizza, thawed from frozen)

I shopped last week for this meal plan and even got enough food for some extra meals which will give us a lighter shopping load next week!  We're starting to feel the single income burn but we're so close to the end!

Relaxing night

Well, I was a bit troubled last night.  I was stressed about money, stressed about the new roof we need and the water stain that's slowly spreading on our living room wall.  Stressed about Tad's school and my time with the kids and on and on and on....
But last night I curled up in bed at 9:00 with The Phantom Tollbooth and was asleep well before ten.  Today I feel much less stressed.  Oh, the problems are still there...I spent an hour on hold with the State of Wisconsin today to deal with one...but I feel more relaxed.  Because after all, in the end, we are lucky.  Tad reminded me today.  We are us and we are lucky, no matter what temporary household, financial, or school-related problems may be around for now...

This evening Tad and I quietly coexisted together while he worked on homework, we both listened to the Brewers on the radio and I ate frozen peanut butter cups and sewed.  See above for tonight's project. 

So, there you go dear readers. Enjoy your night.  I'm lucky to be me and you're lucky to be you.  And we're all lucky that peanut butter cups and freezers exist.

Vacation

By the way! We had a wonderful vacation! It was absolutely gorgeous outside in Arizona every single day. We hiked in the mountains, we swam our little hearts out, we enjoyed time with Tad's family. We had some home cooked meals in various outdoor settings. We went to a wild west show after which Coen declared it to be "the Best Night of his Life".  We got sunburned.  We put aloe on. We got cactus needles stuck in us. We got them out.  We sang lullabies and had relaxed bedtimes and even more relaxed wakings up in the mornings.  The trip was courtesy of Tad's parents and I could not have felt more appreciative.  And its even pretty springy upon coming home!

If you need help, dial zero

000000000000000000000000000

So we're in the home stretch.  Tad has exactly four weeks left until he is done at the Montessori Institute.  This is a good thing and a bad thing. It is a good thing, obviously, because in four weeks Tad will be done with studying, writing, rewriting, chart painting, lesson practicing and so on...  It is also a good thing because in about fifteen weeks, we will no longer be a single income family.  That is especially good because our Badgercare premium went up and our Foodshare went down to exactly the same amount. Which is weird.  But I'm not complaining because I APPRECIATE it and don't know what we'd do without it.  But our car just needed about $700 worth of work and the water bill came in the mail and Whaa Whaa Whaa.  So I'm happy about the home stretch.

But the other thing the home stretch means is that Tad now has to do homework about 75 percent of his life.  (it seems)  He has made a schedule for the studying that needs to be done and the Montessori albums that need to be turned in and the practice teaching he needs to do before GRADUATION day on May 21st (which also happens to be our 7 year anniversary).  What this amounts to, in my world, is two nights a week and one full Saturday alone with the kids.  It'll be rather challenging and it will make me really respect single parenthood big time. 

Then at the end of the evening, in which I had ten minutes to write this blog before Tad needs the computer for homework, I got a message on my phone from the Billing Office at the Doctor...  If I need help, it said, dial zero.  It didn't tell me what the issue was. I think I might not call them back until September.

Beeeep. 

Spring Break!

Ah, I remember the days of packing my trunk full of school books and button up shirts and stone wash jeans and sunglasses for a trip to California and ended up traveling with this annoying, but really cute guy who was heading there too to meet some floozy in a bikini....  Oh WAIT! The plot for the movie Sure Thing and I'm not going anywhere with John Cusack tomorrow!

My suitcase is packed with a take-along toilet seat, diapers, sunscreen, fruit leather, vitamins, coloring books and clothing for my rearranged family version of spring break tomorrow!!!!

We are heading out to Arizona to stay with Tad's parents, sister and her husband in a big old house (with a swimming pool) in Tuscon Arizona for a whole week.  This is made possible by the generosity of Tad's parents--Ted and Mary Mainella--who are flying us out there and putting us up.  I can't get over how lucky I am.

I can't WAIT to be HOT!!!  (As I type directly in front of a space heater with my slippers on, wrapped in a blanket)

Happy spring!

Always at Alterra

My parents go to Alterra at least once a day! Sometimes twice.  On Tuesdays, they take Lucy for the day which is wonderful on many levels.  1. She gets to bond with her grandparents and 2. Free daycare!  This morning, I met them with her there before work.

Rifling through her closet, looking for clothes, I found a nice shirt that used to be Coen's.  I figured it would be huge on her, but it was a perfect fit. I can't believe my big seven year old boy used to be that small!  So here's Lucy, matching my coffee cup, doing some free Alterra Advertising! 

Hey Alterra! Feel free to use my daughter as your poster child!
Happy Tuesday!

Best $3 I ever spent

My son, Coen is in his very first play--The Battle of the Universe with the Highland Community School Players.  Barry Weber, the school's enrichment coordinator and a -- brilliantly creative and wonderful person -- in this happy parent's opinion, wrote, cast and directed the play. 

If you are interested in a $3 (suggested donation) night out tomorrow, my Milwaukee-Based readers, come and see BATTLE OF THE UNIVERSE at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Milwaukee at 28th and Wisconsin at 7:00, Friday April 8th!!!!

Here is Coen...otherwise known as N64, with his very proud mom and dad. And a picture of the whole, talented, and adorable cast and crew!

She don't use jelly

Last night I was cleaning the house while Tad worked on one of his Montessori albums.  I noticed I had a voice mail.  It was from a woman who said she got my number from Tad's cousin and wanted to know if we could test out some jelly. She sounded very panicked about it.  She said that she could really use a call back tonight. She really needs people to test this jelly!  I felt a little strange about such jelly panic and called Tad's cousin to confirm that she was a legitimate jelly-testing person, and not some maniac out to poison my family. She was indeed legit so I called her back and also passed on a few of my neighbors' numbers to her as well.  She asked me some questions about my jelly intake and jelly purchasing habits and we were off!

So in a few days, we'll be delivered a huge jar of high fructose corn syrup free jelly (grape or strawberry-I hope its strawberry, I hope I hope!) and all we have to do is try it for three weeks and do an online survey about it.  Then we get ten bucks.  A free jar of jelly and ten bucks!  What a deal.

Anyway, the amount of giggling I did calling Tad's cousin, Jenny to discuss and also all my neighbors to get their permission to give their numbers to test the jelly was worth it. 

Big Bad Blueberry Battle

Many a Sunday, I make up a big batch of pancakes and then put several aside to freeze and serve quickly and easily on the weekends.  Before our income change, we used to buy boxes of frozen waffles.  Expensive, yet efficient.  Then I realized that pancakes are tastier, better for my kids (as I make them with whole wheat flour and flax seed) and just as quick and easy! Hooray for me and my money saving, food making self!

But then everything changed.

The last batch of pancakes I made, Coen spit out his first bite, upset and claiming they tasted like blueberries.  Now, like many children, my own do not like any fruit or anything else obviously healthy involved in their baked, fried, or otherwise prepared breakfast edibles.  I, on the other hand, LOVE a good blueberry pancake.  Usually when I'm making a batch, I make mine during the last round on the griddle, throwing big and juicy frozen blueberries on top of mine, keeping them far away from the others.  So when Coen was upset about his pancake tasting like blueberries, I thought maybe some blueberry juice or piece of the fruit somehow made its way to his pancake. Fine.  So I made them again, keeping the blueberries seperate.   Again he gagged on his pancake, claiming BLUEBERRY!!!
Errrg!!!!!  That was four whole pancakes wasted.  Then I thought it was in the freezing process, as I usually use tin foil. I explained this to him and planned on freezing this new batch, individually, in freezer bags. 

So this morning, I brought Coen into the kitchen and had him watch me mix all the ingredients together--NO BLUEBERRIES--anywhere in sight.  Satisfied, he went back into the living room to watch Sesame Street with his sister and I finished making the pancakes.  Later on, after I had served the children their first round, while I was happily flipping and sipping some coffee, he came into the kitchen, an unhappy look on his face. 
"Blueberries, Mommy, I tasted blueberries."

I wanted to scream.  There honestly were no blueberries involved.  I don't know what it is he's tasting, but I said aloud, "Well, maybe you just don't like pancakes anymore."  He agreed.  What the CUSS!
I wanted to argue with him, I wanted to scream at him.  I had just made fifteen blueberry free pancakes to freeze and serve on weekday mornings.  He's not going to eat them.  Lucy doesn't ever eat pancakes and Tad finds them upsetting to his digestive system.  All I could do was blindly pace around the kitchen, trying not to go on a blueberry rampage, thinking about the wasted time, energy and money that I'd just spent. 

So, I decided to heck with it, and I put some blueberries on one of the bigger pancakes and ate it for breakfast.   My husband is suggesting I go for a walk.  I am going to go do that and maybe bring a huge stack of pancakes over to my neighbor who just had a baby. 

The last batch..and my own pancake...bursting with blueberries

April Fools!

I don't mind a good joke... as long as no one or their property gets hurt (physically or emotionally).  I had a friend in high school who would go and unscrew 1 light bulb from the Christmas lights on wealthy people's decorations.  My mom always loved that one.  My friend Billy (who's birthday is very fittingly today) ALWAYS gets me to believe the things he says. He had me going (on different occasions) that his father was a train conductor, that he had a monkey for a bellhop at his hotel in Mexico, and that he too, like my family was ALSO going to be seeing Cirque du Soliel in San Francisco the same weekend!  Yeah, I'm gullible.  And I don't have much of a penchant for tricks myself.
So today is April Fool's Day.  My son wanted to know why we weren't celebrating. He loves a reason to celebrate.  We walked around by the lake shore and had lunch with my parents, my sister and niece and nephew.  Tonight we're taking our parents out for a fish fry.
Then we're moving to Honolulu.  Ha! Just kidding. April Fools! See...I'm just not very good at it.
Happy Friday.