MONDAY

Porkchops

pork chops and baked potato fans

TUESDAY

G’s birthday!  His choice.  He is currently undecided but I did hear mention of BBQ.  I’m not even sure if we are having family over this night or another night.  I don’t have it together very well so far this week–SIGH.

WEDNESDAY

Chicken strips and french fries

THURSDAY

Ribs in the slowcooker

FRIDAY

Pizza

This  will be G’s birthday party with friends.  5  tween boys plus his younger brother for a sleepover.  On the last day of school, on the first night of a full moon.   He wants pizza.  Ordering pizza is easy.   I’m not sure about the rest of the night being easy.

*************

I have the idea that the boys will be more involved with planning the weekly menu over the summer so our menus may get interesting.  At least, I hope they will.  I’m linking up with Menu Plan Monday over I’m An Organizing Junkie.  Go check it out for ideas and menus that are a lot more exciting than mine!

• Packing School Lunches Every Day

It’s the end of the year and my creativity is gone.  I’m sick of having that Sunday night worry–do I have lunch stuff?  I’m sick of hiding drinks when friends come over so that I can assure I have something for the boys’ lunches without making YET another grocery store trip.  Little Debbie and I have become fast friends these last weeks of school–no more homemade goodness in the lunch boxes as the school year ends.  It is all about convenience and getting through the final busy days.  Peanut butter sandwich, a drink, chips, maybe a fruit or veggie (hopefully), and a brownie.  Done.

•  Bath-time and Bedtime Battles 

“I just took a shower yesterday morning!”  “Yes, I know but you had soccer practice in 85 degree weather last night and got all sweaty–you HAVE to take a shower.”  SIGH.  My older son is better about it but for my younger son, taking a shower is still considered a crime against humanity at times.  My boys will still have to go bed and bathe, of course but it won’t be as crucial if we miss a bath or shower and I’ve already started letting bedtime slide.

• Homework Hindrances

I’m not sure which was worse:  Making sure the homework happened or the times my help was needed and I didn’t understand it–a humbling thing that happened more than once with my 6th grader.  Thankfully, I was still (mostly) capable of 2nd grade work.   It will also be nice not having homework worries on nights we have activities.  No more fights over doing it and no more tears because we waited until too close to bedtime to start.

• Automated Reminder Calls

Our district uses telephone calls to share important information such as snow days.  I also get calls for upcoming events, reminders that grade cards were sent home, and anything else either of the boys’ schools deems important enough to warrant an “all call” .  I do find these calls mostly helpful but  3 calls from 2 schools in one week tends to get a bit tedious.

• Making Sure I am Home Every Weekday Afternoon

Of course, I probably will be home almost every afternoon but it won’t be because I have to be here to wait for a school bus.  I am excited that I’ll be able to make my grocery store or Target run whenever I like although I will have to bring a kid or two along with me.

What school year routine are you most excited to send into a summer hiatus?

Here are a few photos of my kitchen during the past week:

Thankfully, the kitchen has somewhat recovered from this mess.

It would be an understatement to say this project did not turn out to be Pinterest worthy. By the way, no Captain Crunch was harmed or even involved with the project.

This was the kitchen table on field trip morning!

I’ll allow your imaginations to work wonders with what the rest of the house looks like during this busy time.  Here are my strategies for coping when I find myself aboard the busy bus wanting to shout:  Jane! Get me off this crazy thing!  (It’s a reference to The Jetsons cartoons for any of you out there who might be a couple of years younger than me    If you can do these 3 simple things, then hopefully you’ll arrive at your busy bus destination on time without taking a detour into Crazytown (I’ve taken that detour a time or two and it’s really not that pleasant a stop):

1. Remember to do some laundry!  What you were looking for something more philosophical?  It doesn’t have to be nicely folded and put away but if your family is on the busy train with you, trust me when I say they’ll be much nicer passengers if they have clean socks and underwear available to change into each day.  Planning a simple menu also helps as it turns out my family still wants to eat dinner even during the busy times.

2. Give some grace not only to others who are probably traveling a different route on their very own busy buses but especially to  yourself.  Ask for help if you need it–such a simple thing but it does make a huge difference.

3. Know the bus will stop eventually and have something fun planned for the end of the busy time but also remember take a few minutes to each day to relax.

I could probably write more but I have to go tackle a few more items on the “have-to” list now.  Please tell me how do you cope when you find yourself a passenger on the busy bus?

Yes, I am still wearing pajamas even though I  have on my tennis shoes without socks.  You know just in case I had to run out and talk to the school bus driver instead of wave to her like I do every day.

I’d be secretly hoping you had allergies (or a cold) not because I want you to be sick but because I don’t want you to be able to smell the fact that I’ve been rather neglectful of the kitty boxes this week.  Springtime scented kitty litter, by the way, stinks even before the kitties “play” in it.  I’d probably go ahead and sheepishly admit my neglect to you while apologizing about the smell in the house and lighting a candle.

I’d direct you to one of the two seats in the house that offered you the best chance to rise after sitting without having a cat hair fashion statement on your behind.

This guy sheds. A LOT.

I’d sneak off to quickly shut a couple of bedroom doors and try to do a quick wipe down and pick up of the main bathroom in case you needed to wander that way.  I’d hope you wouldn’t notice the overflowing laundry in the hallway.

Yes, that is an Easter Egg in front of the laundry basket. I have no idea why it is there.

Would you like some coffee?  It’s pretty much Folgers or forget it around here.  There are a couple of hot tea options though.  If you said, you’d simply like a glass of water, I’d pray the glass I grabbed out of the cabinet didn’t have the weird film on it.  We think it is residue from my Emergen-C drinks but are not entirely sure.   There’s really not anything exciting to offer in the food department.  Some Trader Joe’s Oreo like cookies, perhaps?   Hopefully, the tween didn’t return the empty box to the pantry and it still contains cookies.

Please overlook the breakfast mess while I make your coffee.

This tea is um, interesting.

Whew! There was a clean glass in the cabinet.

How have you been?  Me?  I’ve been busy getting ready to hand over my PTA president duties.   I have surprised myself by having mixed feelings about letting go but over all my feelings are of the WOOHOO! variety.  We’ve tried to be outside a lot with the wonderfully, warm weather that started on Sunday but sadly, is supposed to end today.  Snow flurries in May?  Surely, they are kidding!   The boys and I bought (too many) plants for the garden on Sunday.  We all went fishing on Tuesday night after I came back from one of my final PTA meetings.  We caught nothing but I did spy a brown bat in one of the trees and snapped a decent picture of it.

Not sure what this brown bat was doing out during daylight hours but it was fun to get a close-up view.

Yesterday, I went to Bath and Body Works and purchased 25 foam soaps as end of the year PTA gifts.  The cashier said someone bought 65 soaps the day before.  I certainly hope that was also for some sort of organization and not a stockpile!  Personally, I won’t use their soap because it is all Anti-Bacterial.  I wish they would make some “normal” soap.  We also planted all our plants in the garden.

This is the before picture. I forgot to take one after we planted.

Today is going to be all about laundry and PTA paperwork as I’m still tying up loose ends and finish out my year.

Unless, you’d like to stay for lunch and give me an excuse to put it all off for another day?  I’d love that!

Wait this isn’t a notebook, it’s a folder!

Here is what the inside looked like:

Not very organized.

Honestly, there aren’t a huge number of responsibilities with the position but I needed something a bit more put together.  I also know myself well enough to know the approximate number of times I’d likely lose folder or the contents would spill out during the course of my term.  I won’t tell you the number but just know it’s a larger number than you are thinking right now.  I saw no choice but to visit the office supply store and pick up a few items.

A pretty blue notebook and some divider tabs!

The first thing I did was to think of what information I would need to successfully serve in my position and start listing categories.  My categories for this position were:  Opening Thoughts (the corresponding secretary provides the opening thought at each meeting), Meeting Agendas and Minutes (always a good idea to have these for reference), Calendar, Budgets, Letters Received (the corresponding secretary keeps track of incoming letters so I thought it would be nice to have a records of it), Contacts (sometimes an old fashioned paper sheet of contact names comes in very handy!), and Miscellaneous.  I made little piles of all the papers in the folder putting them in their proper “categories”.

I did my sorting while nobody else was home. This project would have scattered all over had the boys been bouncing around.

Next, I wrote all the categories on the tabs and pulled out my second-favorite office supply (label maker is #1):  my three-hole punch!  Everything went into the new notebook in the proper category.

My notebook was starting to come together. The tape was to tape notecards to plain paper so they would fit in the note book and not fall out.

I prefer these write on tabs to the little white sheets that I can barely see let alone get to fit in the slots on the dividers.

Finally all the papers were properly sorted and in a nice notebook that I could easily locate and add in my own work.  It just needed one more minor detail, a cover page!  Here is my completed notebook:

Much better.

I know it probably won’t stay quite as nice and neat during the course of next year (oh, the cleanup I must do on my President’s notebooks!) but it does give me a clean, fresh start as well as something that will hopefully be helpful to the next in line for the job.  I also want to point out that I don’t fault my predecesor over what she gave me as it was what she received.  I just saw some room for improvements and so I made them.  I’m curious; would you have been able to work out of a folder?

MONDAY

Bacon-wrapped chicken, baked potatoes, and salad.

TUESDAY

Meatball subs and tator tots (I’m sick of spaghetti!)

WEDNESDAY

Porkchops

Pork Chops, corn, and salad

THURSDAY (soccer practice night)

Turkey sausages/hamburgers on the grill and onion rings (The Vidalia onions are already in Hy-Vee!).

FRIDAY

Hopefully, we’ll have homemade pizza on Friday but this is the backup plan.

Homemade pizza or frozen but probably not take-out.  Hopefully, homemade pizza!

IDEAS FOR THE WEEKEND

I’m adding this category since this is where I’ve been falling a little (okay, A LOT) short with my menus.  Grilled chicken legs, tacos (did you think we’d go an entire week without them?), homemade chicken strips, shrimp (from a box), orange chicken (package).  Plus I will look at what is on sale starting Wednesday and plan a meal or two from that if something strikes me.  Do you plan your weekend menus or do you just keep some ideas on hand like I did here?

I’m linking this menu up over at both Menu Plan Monday and Menu Monday.  Go check out both places if you need some planning inspiration!

I tried it last Monday and had limited success.  Of course, I think making my list of 5 things at 9:45a.m may have been a factor in my accomplishments that day.   My list from that day was actually not very hard or exciting.  It looked like this:

1. Clean kitchen/bathrooms
2. E-mail PTA board important dates for school of information
3. Review PTA corresponding secretary “notebook” and see what I need to turn it into a real notebook (My predecessor handed me a folder at the last meeting and it was not organized)
4. Check MOPTA website for officer installation ideas
5. Strip all the beds

Interestingly, I managed to accomplish all the tasks that involved the computer and those cleaning tasks…not so much.  I did start on the kitchen and bathrooms but then the time ran out.

Still, I remained intrigued with this idea so today I decided to give it another shot.  However, I decided 5 tasks before 11:00a.m. was too limiting for me.  I think it would work great for someone who was an early riser and could start their day without worrying about getting kids out the door for school or was already in a planning routine.  I decided to give my self a bit more time and add two extra tasks to the list since I was stretching the time a bit.  I went with a 7 items before 1p.m. list instead.  AND, I almost completed the whole list!  I’m finishing up item 7 right now   Here’s the list from today:

1. Change cat litter
2. Clean out fridge
3. Clean cat hair off sofa/chair and clean out underneath them as well
4. Vacuum/mop living room and kitchen floors
5. Clean bathroom in our bedroom
6. Make chocolate chip cookie dough balls and freeze
7. Write and publish blog post

Hopefully, you can look and see just like I can that this is simply prioritizing.  However, I do think the time limit puts a fun twist on the idea and I can see where it could easily be expanded to set another group of tasks for the afternoon, such as a short list of 3 items to accomplish by 4p.m.   What do you think of this system?  Have you ever read The 7 Minute Solution?   Also, please tell me I’m not the only one out there who dislikes making lists.

This is my 3rd attempt at my post today.  First, I was going to create a blogging schedule.  Then, I was going to create a monthly blogging theme because that sounded a lot more fun than a schedule.  However, neither of those options seemed right for this blog at this point.  I tend to get obsessed with schedules and uptight when things don’t go “as scheduled.”  That happens quite a lot.  I do better with loose schedules.  This led me to my second idea.  I would create a monthly theme for the blog.  I loved that idea!  I loved it that is until I started thinking how limiting a monthly theme would be in reality.  A whole month of writing about nothing but say “paper”   I have enough papers that I could spend a year getting them organized but writing about it for a month.  UGH.  I think it would end up being a bit boring.

So, I have decided what I need to do is simply jump back into the blogging ship where I jumped out.  Life gets busy sometimes and sometimes I may have to let the blogging boat idle a bit.  However, I’m not abandoning ship (at least, not yet).   Hopefully, I’ll find the answers along the way…

I love all spring flowers. My sister brought me these last Easter.

Our Easter Brunch start time is usually around 9:30 or 10:00a.m.  That means I have to be organized and have a plan in place for everything to (mostly) be ready when our guests arrive.  Since I’ve been doing this for almost 11 years (!), I’m not quite as panicked about the fact that Easter is less than 2 weeks away as I probably should be. 

 Here’s a basic look at my plan for Easter brunch: 

A picture of the Easter Brunch table from last year. Please excuse the blurry photo!

Easter brunch takes the entire table and spills over onto the kitchen counters.

Beginning of year:  Look at the calendar, note date of Easter.  It does vary and I do prefer when it is April as opposed to falling in March like it does this year.

3-4 weeks prior to Easter:  In the past, I would look through cookbooks and magazines for ideas and start gathering my recipes sometimes testing them out on my family.   Now, I simply have a Pinterest board titled Easter Brunch Ideas that I add ideas to as they catch my eye.  Obviously, not everything on there will appear on our Easter brunch table.  I am also planning to use it as place to keep some of my tried and true recipes.

2-3 weeks prior to the date:  Start buying extra items needed for brunch basics (the recipes that I make every year) with each grocery shopping trip.  This saves having to buy everything in one big costly trip.  Sometimes, I forget to do this though.  Also, it is worth noting that it is better to postpone some purchases until closer to Easter.  Eggs ALWAYS go on sale closer to Easter as well as flour, sugar, and most other general baking supplies.

2 weeks prior:  Decide on menu items.  Some items are stand-by’s on my Easter brunch menu.  Those items are:  ham-cheese quiches, caramelized bacon twists, sausage pinwheels, bacon hashbrown bake, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip muffins, and white chocolate/mixed fruit muffins as well as fresh fruit.  We also serve brisket with buns and chips.  Other items that I am deciding on right now are:  another egg dish, 2-3 other types of muffins, cinnamon rolls, other lunch type side and dessert/table decoration snack type items.   This is the point where I am currently at in the planning stages.    

1 week prior:   I’ll make sure I have all the ingredients or mixes (you didn’t think I made all that from scratch did you?  I’m not THAT good!) for our brunch as well as plates, napkins, and drink options.  We usually only do coffee, water, and juice.   I will also prepare the ham-cheese quiches and caramelized bacon twists and place in the freezer.

The day before Easter:  I prepare all the muffins.  I know I could make them and freeze them as well but I think muffins taste better fresh (or at least only one day old).   I also make sure we have pulled all my “pretty” dishes out of hiding.  I like to use all those crystal dishes that came as wedding presents as serving dishes for our Easter brunch buffet tables.    However, we do eat on paper plates with plastic silverware because I’m not that big of a fan of doing dishes.

I will share my Easter brunch menu with recipe links once I have completed it as well as my Easter morning routine in upcoming blog posts.   Do you host any holidays?  How do you plan?    

What I Liked About Aldi:

• Improved and Pretty Produce.  I bought a pineapple for $1.39, a bag of Washington apples for roughly $1.19 a pound (although one does have a worm hole in it–bah!), a cucumber for 59 cents, and I certainly would have bought a 99 cent eggplant had any been left.  I think the bananas were around .33 a pound and not green, so yes I did buy some.
• Both Aldi stores seemed to have better lighting and be cleaner than I remembered
• They added a fresh meat section (I bought the pork chops we had last Tuesday at Aldi and they cooked nicely)
• The prices

What I Did Not Like About Aldi

• The grocery store traffic flow.  I decided to go back and look at something in the first aisle and oh boy, it was no easy task to get there as everyone was going ONE direction.  I really felt like I was going the wrong way down a one-way street.
• Long lines to check out with only one or two cashiers.  I realize this is probably how they keep their costs down but I don’t have to like it.  I also had trouble figuring out where the lines ended.  I am simply used to Hy-Vee where they keep things moving (well, at one of our Hy-Vee stores.  I don’t shop at the other very often for that very same reason:   they always have long lines).  They still do the cart thing at Aldi so I was happy to no longer have kids in the front of the cart.
• The limited selection.  While they did have more items than I remember, I still do not think I would be able to go there and get everything for my weekly menus without needing to visit a second store. 
• The people didn’t seem as friendly.  I don’t mean the employees.  They were fine.  Maybe I just never recovered from the whole feeling of having to go against the flow to go check out the pancake syrup but my fellow Hy-Vee shoppers just seem more accommodating. 

THE BIG QUESTION:  Will I Go Back? 

The answer is probably but it will be for specific items.   Interestingly, the prices and merchandise seemed to vary slightly between the two Aldi stores I visited.   The prices vary between the two Hy-Vee and Price Chopper stores as well but I didn’t expect the prices to vary at the Aldi stores.   I will return for the pineapple even if for whatever reason the store on the west side of me had slightly higher produce prices (I’m talking $1.39 at one and $1.99 at the other so not huge but still slightly higher…).   Things that I purchased at Aldi that were a good deal and would be worth a return trip:  milk, eggs, I forgot to check on the price of butter!, flour, chocolate chips, and vanilla for baking, pineapples, and bananas (not apples).   The pretzels were okay but are the same price at Hy-Vee so I would not go out of my way for them.  I also picked up some 99 cent dinner rolls at the west side Aldi which we all thought were pretty good.  Things that I tried that were not hits:  a can of cashews.  Seriously, how do you mess up cashews?  They were supposed to have sea salt added but I think they forgot the salt part of that.  Hopefully, they’ll be okay in my Cashew Chicken on Friday.   The chocolate covered granola bars weren’t really a favorite by any of us either.

Do you shop at Aldi?   What is your favorite grocery store?  For now, I’m going to stick with my coupons and “smile in every aisle” local Hy-Vee store.