This post is currently finding our household a little sick. I have been sick for a few days with congestion and sore throat. I keep thinking that I am doing better and I get worse at night. I am thinking that it might not just be allergies. My son has the stomach bug that is going around his school which resulted in three loads of laundry after bedtime. Here is to hoping that we are all feeling better soon because we are putting a big dent in the tissues!!
I had a great year last year with shopping and saving money even though I went back to work with two part time jobs. I was maybe not getting every deal that I would get before but I was still getting lots of food and staying under budget. This January was not the case because I went way over budget. There is a balance for me between shopping and having time to make things at home. I have to set aside my time to make rolls for my husbands lunches, do a little preparation for the meals for the week and bake desserts and breakfast treats. I don't think that I made enough time to do that in January so I am going to try to do that more often in the coming months. I am trying to figure out how to post and be accountable for the items that I make during the week so stay tuned for the new post format coming soon.
I have fallen into a rut with making the same recipes over and over. I have added very few new recipes to my cooking in the last year. The great thing is that we have a lot of recipes that we really love and that I discovered and shared with you along the way. I have enjoyed my new Cranberry Orange Salad Dressing and Orange Lemon Shortbread Cookies. The new pasta maker is going to used this year to try out some new pasta recipes. I am going to try to make some new recipes coming up and expand our menu and special treats.
Super excited that I have finished my Valentines to give out to my preschool kids and my son has almost finished his Valentine's for his friends at school. I started really early this year and I am excited to say that I found cards and bookmarks online to print for free and we created them and laminated them all for free. There is some candy in both that we had from things that my parents gave to us so the whole Valentine process was free!!! You know that I love to put in a little effort and have a great end result without spending a lot of money. I found a tag that says Valentine's Day Is All Fun and Games. I put tic-tac-toe, maze page, coloring page, x's and o's and a bookmark which are all connected with curling ribbon. It was super easy and super cute.
Of course I am going to try to continue reading. I aim to read over 100 books every year and this year is no different. I have books overflowing from my book cases and I hope to make some progress on those books as well as a bunch of free books from the library and through my three different blogging for books sites. I love getting lots of books for free and enjoy the escape from real life but reading sometimes makes it hard to put other things ahead of a good book!!
I hope that you have enjoyed the last 2,000 posts and look forward to the next 2,000!! I look forward to sharing lots more with you.
Congratulations on 2,000 posts!
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to get into a rut, especially if the routine works for you. As you said you have 2 part-time jobs now on top of still having to do everything that you do at home so you need to prioritize your time and find systems that work for you. I think that if it means that you always cook the same things, so be it, as long as your family enjoys them!
I try not to bake so much because I have no willpower (as evidenced by the fact that I ate like 98% of the cake that I made earlier this week!) so it's better if I stay away from the oven. Thankfully I can get a free snack for my son from RaceTrac on week days since I have so many receipts with which to take the survey for the freebie and I drive him to school now. It makes me feel a little better about spending the gas to drive him instead of trying to find out what the heck is going on with that school bus!
Can't wait to see your new post format, though. I'm sorry you and your son are sick :( Feel better soon!
You are so right that the rut is certainly easy and with a picky eater in my son we have gotten in the habit of making things that he likes to eat for at least part of the meal so that I am not making two totally different meals. We did well keeping on top of the dishes at the beginning of the new year and then it fell apart with the sickness starting. My husband felt sorry for me and washed a ton of dishes the other day and I have been able to keep up with the dishes for the last few days again but I never feel motivated to cook or bake when the kitchen is already a mess!! I have no willpower but I really wanted some cookies last night.. the only thing that was keeping me from not making them was my aching feet and my headache from my horrible cough or I totally would have been at least three cookies in last night:) Yum!! I would have eaten some of the cake with you :) If I want to keep these part time jobs, I guess a rut is where we are going to be. I would like a day off though but there doesn't seem to be a way to get paid for it!!
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