Ok, well I'm still goofing off on my last day of vacation, but I'm ready to start thinking about life after vacation
I actually got a call from my supervisor earlier today because one of my "kids" (she's actually 18 already) had a "very bad week" and she wanted to talk to me about it because the kid is coming in tomorrow so we can discuss what to do with her
She was funny thought because she kept saying it's ok, nothing else went wrong
Gee thanks.
Anyway, DH and I sat down and made a menu list to cover the next two weeks. We will cook some days and have leftovers some days. We also are trying to incorporate some sides, etc into our work lunches so that they are not So boring. This week we have chicken salad made from grilled chicken which is always yummy.
So here are our menu items (dinners only):
Red beans and rice (2 meals)
leftover chicken curry w/ brown rice and lentils
beef & veggie stirfry
pork roast w/ potatoes and carrots (2)
bratwurst and potatoes and some other side (for the 4th)
Veggie and pasta dish (vegetarian) (2)
roasted red pepper and mushroop soup (2 dinners? or lunch sides?)
cube steak w/ black eyed peas and some other side
That gives us about 12 dinners which will hopefully get us to the weekend after the 4th.
We made an agreement that will be a tad difficult, but hopefully we can stick to it. It is basically several challenges rolled into one. We will only eat out for dinner Once every other week. I will only eat out for lunch once a week or less. We will not buy anything that is not a necessity i.e. we can buy groceries and that is about it. We will exercise more and try to eat healthier. We are both aiming to lose 10 pounds by the time we go to Disney. The challenge will last until then which gives us 63 days for it. I think that it is not unreasonable.
We have also been buying as many organic items as we can afford. We switched this week to organic milk. It tastes the same and is supposed to be Way better for you. We got organic celery, carrots, eggs, chicken (only for a pack of drumsticks though, we eat to much chicken breast to convert that yet
) We also bought the peaches that came from the Lane packing plant which is less than 100 miles away
as opposed to the peaches from south carolina. I do not understand why the store gets them from so far away when Lane is SO close
I have been reading a lot about being more environmentally friendly and watching the new Planet Green channel (I was actually watching a lot of it before it converted over). Anyway, I really want to do what we can to lower our impact but in reasonable steps along the way. We have started composting our food scraps kind of... basically I've just been burying them in a pile of yard scraps inside the edge of the woods for now. We will eventually make an actual compost bin, but I was having a hard time getting DH to commit to it. They do not have a good city recycling program around here, but I need to call and see if they pick up anything curbside or not. They used to but I keep getting mixed answers when I ask people. I have been saving my used wine bottles for the last several months (which means I have a HUGE collection now
) because I had met a lady who said that she melts them down and makes things with them. I didn't realize it until recently, but glass takes Forever to break down in the landfill. I thought it was just plastics and cans that took so long.
We don't drink sodas so that is not a problem for us. Although we do need to be able to recycle the bottles and cans from when the guys come over. They can fill a whole large trash can when they are here
Other than that our big issue has been that we have a lot of wild blackberry vines taking over on one side of the house. We are not really keen on spraying them with pesticides, BUT I haven't been able to find any good alternatives that don't include me pulling them all up by hand
So, for now they are just taking over.
I've had a lot of this kind of thing on my mind lately. I want to still work on getting healthy, but just haven't been in that mode as much. I am planning to start back to the gym this week and DH says that he is going to at least start walking with me some.
I have been thinking about starting just a general blog somewhere to lay out all my ramblings, but I'm undecided. I know that if I do that I will not come here as often and post. I don't want to lose touch with this community because I really like it here and feel like I've gotten a lot of good support here over the last few years. But I just feel like most of the time I'm not really staying true to the WISH journal concept anymore.
We'll see.. gonna think about it. If I do blog I won't leave here, I just won't be here as much. I will also post a link once it is up and running.
Well, enough for me today. Have a great week!