Monday Menu.

No picture this week because I'm just tired of trying to find good lighting for pictures and stuff. It's a bit frustrating and I have been having enough stuff making me annoyed and frustrated. I have been having a difficult couple of weeks. So, I'm just going to make this post completely simple.

Sunday was scheduled to be pizza night, but the weather was too humid and warm. I just picked up some pre-cooked pulled pork and made Cuban sandwiches for lunch. I am probably going to be using the leftover pulled pork in Beloved's lunches this week.

Monday morning is going to be French toast with fruit. Lunch is going to be sandwiches for the guys and a salad for myself. My goals is to get back into the habit of eating salads for lunch. Dinner is going to be hot dogs with potato salad and fresh veggies. I'm tempted to cook them in the crockpot with some chili sauce. I'm not decided on the matter.

Tuesday is going to be a cereal day for breakfast. Beloved is going to be having sandwiches for his lunch (he requested turkey). I am going to be having some leftovers (if there is any) and a salad. If there are no leftovers from Monday's dinner, it will just be a salad. I may possibly do the spiced eggs on a bed of kale. It depends on how motivated I feel to be cooking tomorrow afternoon. Dinner is going to be hamburgers with tater-tots and a tossed salad.

Wednesday is going to be the leftovers from the french toast or I'm going to do something with eggs and toast. Beloved is going to be having another sandwich for lunch. It may be ham or it may be turkey, it depends on what he is in the mood for. I'm out of the sandwich style cut dill pickles but I don't think he'll mind much.  I am more of a fan of pickles than he is. I will be having a salad. I am going to try to make that thai chopped salad that I have on my cooking page on pinterest. I keep meaning to make it, I think this week is going to be the time I finally make it. Dinner is going to be chicken curry with rice, naan, and saag paneer.

Thursday is going to be waffles for breakfast. I have some fruit filled ones that I'm looking forward to. Apart of me says I should have whipped cream, but I think I'll be just fine with out it. My lunch is going to be a salad, or curry leftovers. Beloved is definitely getting curry leftovers. I'm going to do my best to make sure he has an extra portion of saag paneer. Dinner tonight is going to be crockpot tacos with fresh salsa an guacamole.

Friday's breakfast is going to be pop tarts. Lunch is going to be a taco salad for myself and sandwiches for Beloved. I'd try giving him something like taco salad but I know that's not exactly his thing. I may throw some corn chips and guacamole into his lunch though. Dinner is going to be pasta salad with teriyaki meatballs. I found a recipe for how to do it in the crockpot. Though calling it a recipe may be a bit much. It's premade meatballs and teriyaki sauce cooked on low for 6-8 hours. I'm also going to have fresh veggies out to round out the meal.

Saturday is going to be another morning of scrambled eggs. The kids apparently seem to love them. Cuddle Bear was six different kinds of proud of himself for helping me cook them for breakfast yesterday. I think he's going to be real happy to help out next Saturday too. Lunch is going to be something take out when I am out doing grocery shopping. I have a feeling that there are not going to be any leftovers from dinner Friday night. Whenever I make meatball anything, it goes really fast because the guys love 'em. Dinner is going to be macaroni and cheese. I'm going to give the kids apple slices to go with it. Beloved is going to be out doing social things that evening, so I won't be worrying about dinner for him. And the kids don't get to pick out dinner things that often, so this is kinda a special little 'mom and me' kind of thing.

One thing I have to add, menu planning has cut about $50 out of my grocery bill when I first started out doing it. As I have refined it over the last several months, it has lead to the bill going down to about $100 less than what it was towards the beginning of the year. Making Beloved's lunches for work has cut down a whole lot on food waste, which made me pretty happy. It has also helped cut down on how much money gets dropped into buying lunches and food from restaurants.

My goal is to get my total food budget down to $200 for the month, on average. This requires making some changes to how I am handling somethings. I have discovered, however, that packing lunch for Beloved is not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I am cautiously optimistic that I can apply that type of preparedness to summer meals when the boys are home from school. I also want to do some food preservation this year. While the initial investment may be requiring some planning, I think if I do it right, I can cut down on some of our winter food budget and maybe even limit how much off-season produce I buy. And, when it is winter, off-season produce is kinda expensive even at stores like Aldi's.

Word vomit, no big deal.

I found my 'hook' for an autobiographical story. I should feel well about this. I honestly don't. I feel pretty horrible to be honest. I have been told by friends and acquaintances that I should write down my memoirs. I was always thinking that I was too young to write them. Over the last several years, I have been shifting in that stance.

I find myself questioning if it would be therapeutic to write it. I haven't decided. In the meantime, I keep trying to stay on top of my journal writing (therapeutic and not) but it has been hard. Just as I found my 'hook' to start an autobiographical story, I find myself feeling like all of my writing is just vanity and that I am terrible at it. I honestly feel like I am not doing well right now on so many fronts. But I can not tell which is legitimately a problem and what is just my illness telling me is wrong. Because depression. phobias, and stuff like post-traumatic stress induced negative thinking all lie to me.

Gods help me, I hope I find a therapist who takes my insurance. I'm afraid that I can't.

In the meantime, I am doing my best not to be freaked out about everything happening in the world. And I am struggling with things like how many people in my social circle are talking about a guy who assaulted me (the guy got arrested on soliciting sex from a minor, and I suspect that human trafficking is going to come into play here). It's quieted down a little bit since the beginning of the month, but it is still very much a topic and it still bothers me, significantly.

Ah well, I will do what I can with what I have. Hopefully, I will adjust to the medication change quickly and get my life back in order.

Monday Menu

This week is not going to be as busy with my running errands about town. As such, I can put a little more time in on cooking.

Tonight was chicken nuggets, carrot sticks, and cheese puffs for dinner. The boys earned it. They worked hard today on housework (with out being prompted) and did really well at the Special Olympics on Saturday. (They won medals. Cuddle Bear won silver for the 50 yard dash and silver for the soft ball toss. Snuggle Bug won gold for the 50 yard dash and bronze for the soft ball toss. And they behaved wonderfully. It was a great day. And Beloved got to get some good laughs out of how the kids were fooling around and meet some of the awesome teachers I've been telling him about.)

Tomorrow, we're doing donuts for breakfast. My lunch is going to be the pizza leftovers from Saturday evening. I have some more of the super spicy chili in the freezer for Beloved to bring to work as lunch. I think I saw some cornbread in there I could send in with him too. Dinner is going to be hamburgers, tatertots, and carrot salad. I am thinking about making some macaroni and cheese too.

Tuesday's breakfast is going to be waffles, because we gotta eat these things up before they get freezer burn. I'm going to be having lunch while I'm on my way back from a doctor's appointment. Beloved's lunch is probably going to be related to leftovers from Monday's dinner. Dinner is going to be hot dogs with baked beans. I'm also going to make a simple salad to go with it all.

Wednesday's breakfast is going to be cereal. The boys have been talking about how they want to have Cheerios for breakfast for a little while now. I suspect they will decide to be offended by the prospect next. My lunch is definitely going to be leftovers. (I have a love for slow cooked baked beans that was instilled in me by my grandmother cooking them for every summer get together.) I'm going to be sending Beloved to work with some leftover chicken-sweet potato-chickpea curry that I made myself for dinner on Saturday. I think it will be a welcome change. Dinner is going to be pulled pork (in the crock pot) and I am going to be making a salad to go with it. I'm considering if I am going to make garlic mashed potatoes or not.

Thursday is going to be the day we finish off the donuts (if there are any left) or finish off the waffles. Lunch is going to be all about the pulled pork. I think I have everything I need for Beloved to have a cuban sandwich in his lunch. For my part, it is going to be pulled pork pizza on a wrap (or pulled pork on macaroni and cheese. It depends on how much macaroni and cheese will be left). Dinner that night is going to be ground beef stroganoff. There's several pretty good recipes on Pinterest but I am going to be using the one that is in my Campbell's cookbook.

Friday is going to be a very busy day. The kids are going to be getting a big breakfast of eggs, toast (or waffle), and milk. They've got some big activities going on at school, so I'm going to be sending them off for the day with enough of a breakfast that they don't get hungry really early. Cuddle Bear also has a field trip. I will be packing him a lunch that can stand up to being a bit warm. That means peanut butter-hazelnut spread sandwiches, chips, carrot sticks, and either a juice box or a can of soda. I'm not decided on how much I want to spoil him yet. Beloved is going to have the last of his chili for lunch Friday. Dinner Friday is planned to be pork chops with mashed potatoes and a tossed salad.

I haven't planned much for Saturday. But I'll get it figured out by the end of the week.