What we ate - meal planning week one

These posts are probably not interesting, but I find them interesting when other people post them, so there you go. I’m trying to meal plan weekly again, yay! September should be okay, but October is not going to work out because I'm never home.

Week of 9/6 meal plan

Sunday chicken burgers and green beans

Monday salad (the kids don't eat dinner at home on Mondays, they fill up on junk at grandma's.)

Tuesday shrimp and potatoes gratin

Wednesday savory waffles and eggs

Thursday balsamic pasta

Friday chicken gyros w zucchini noodles

Saturday expected day at Disney

Sunday:

 

Kids plate chicken burgers, green beans, orange. They ate everything and also had applesauce pouches.

Our plates - I added leftover black beans w onions and red wine vinegar to C's plate. (Also I may or may not have drank a full bottle of $3 Chuck and C had 2 Goose Island beers over the course of the day)

Monday:

salads - I forgot to take a picture, but it had leftover taco meat, regular salad stuff, chick peas, goat cheese and oil and vinegar. Pretty regular. Kids didn't eat, as expected.

Tuesday: 

shrimp and potatoes au gratin. The potatoes were an attempt to find a kind of potato that Henry will eat. Still failing but for just throwing something together, these were pretty tasty (I know, it doesn’t look like much. A food photographer I am not)

Wednesday:

savory waffles with avocado and fried egg (and bacon)

Thursday:

balsamic pasta – I did not photograph, it looked terrible but was delicious.

Friday:

I could not be bothered, so we had Vietnamese (it was terrible) $17.00

Saturday

Via Napoli at Epcot. Blown budget, here we come - $90

That artichoke pizza and Prosecco was worth every dime to me, especially after spending 2.5 hours at a funeral.

It continues

I haven’t had much to say this last week. Sure, things have happened, but looking back I can’t even really tell you. I cooked some dinners. I got really down and made my husband get (really bad) Vietnamese food. I spent a lot of non-work time in pajamas and spent a lot of time zoning out or reading. Time … passes when you have the sads, that’s for sure.

But. I’m trying to get up and on with it. We had an only mildly exciting weekend – That Vietnamese food was truly terrible, but it was my fault because I was discouraged that our favorite Thai place still hadn’t expanded their menu. I should have just gotten a crap-ton of dumplings and called it a delicious day. Saturday was the open house/funeral which I kept it together for most of the time, and then afterward we hoofed it to Epcot for some fun and relaxation. Rode a couple rides, had dinner at Via Napioli  (seriously, I’m not a huge pizza person but we had white pizza with artichokes and truffle oil and good Lord, that was amazing). We also rode Maelstrom, which is closing to be redone as a Frozen ride, one last time and Henry got drenched. It’s not a water ride, but “you may get wet”. We’ve never gotten wet before.

Sunday was a lazy lazy day – I let C sleep in and took the boys to Target for breakfast foods as we were low on that. We all got Starbucks and I found out that Henry’s dislike of milk might be a tolerance issue. We found out the hard way. It was otherwise games and football all day, which was pleasant. Pajamas all day again.

We got stalked by a baby squirrel – that was interesting. We had to go inside and close the curtains so it would leave us alone and stop scratching at the sliding door like a dog. It was some kind of crazy, really.

And that’s it. Life goes on, for better or worse. My coming weeks are crazy busy, and maybe that’s a good thing. 

Wild and crazy

Fun, Infuriating, Sweet.

I’m pretty sure I had a post planned for this morning, some inane jabber about my rather decent weekend. But now.

An old friend took his life last night. I know the circumstances of the death but not the state of mind; not what he was feeling, thinking – what he felt drove him to that point. He was really truly like my brother.

He was my brother.

I didn’t have a particularly stable home life growing up, but I had a close friend blocks away, and her family was my family. Her siblings – my siblings. Her parents I still call mom and dad. There are so many memories churning, bubbling there to the surface.

My mother told me a long time that suicide was selfish. I think I had been trying to do something terrible with a lady bic; we were fighting. We fought a lot. I couldn’t make much of a scratch, and the next day things were not as bleak. I still feel that way – down in my soul. Selfish. It doesn’t mean I don’t immediately forgive him for not thinking of all the people he left behind. I don’t know his thoughts. I know that when you are feeling that black, you are selfish. You can’t help but be selfish – you only have room in your head for how you feel.

I hadn’t seen him in a number of years. I still spend a lot of time with his family – I attend his niece’s and nephews’ birthday parties, his sisters’ baby showers, get tagged in pictures by his mom. I don’t see any of them as much as I’d like – real life always gets in the way. But he was my brother, as sure as my own.

He will be missed by so many people - His parents, two sisters, one brother, one daughter, two nieces (and one on the way), four nephews and so many other people like me whose lives he touched.. No matter how black you feel, know that you and your life mean so much to so many people. Permanent solution, temporary problem. All of that. You are loved.

I'm running out of catchy titles.

Friday has come, which means it’s the day for Henry’s very late four-year well visit. I didn’t realize I hadn’t set it until daycare pointed out all my paperwork was expired, so I had to scramble and get an appointment that worked best for me and was asap, so this afternoon fits the bill. He’s getting his before-kindergarten last shots, and I know that will go over just peachy.

I’ve already penciled in milkshakes.

Henry doesn’t really like new people anyhow, so I don’t know how he’ll react to the NP that we are seeing on short notice. He’s never even very happy with our perfectly lovely doctors. I’m positive that he won’t speak to them, and will probably not perform for them like the trained monkey he would normally be if we were just sitting around the house pretending to ignore him while he hopped on one foot in circles around the kitchen.

And finally, last night, I got some real sleep which is amazing. C was watching the football game in bed so I took me a Unisom and passed out for a solid 8 hours and 46 minutes (according to my fitbit). I could have done more, but my alarm clock wouldn’t shut up and we keep it across the room for the very reason that it would be turned off in our sleep otherwise. I have not been sleeping for over a week, just snatches of time here and there, 5-6 hours max at night which I know for those of you with infants is a millennium but I require 8-9 hours of sleep to be a full wonderful person and I wake early. 5-6 hours simply doesn’t cut it, and they need to be uninterrupted. When I am forced to deal with children things in the middle of the night – well, be glad you’re not around; I am not a pleasant person. This is why C does most of the middle-of-the-night nonsense. He is capable of going right back to sleep but I’m up for lots of cranky hours when I get up.

C is working tomorrow, and I can’t stand being in the house tending to children when he’s holed up in the office – it feels icky when I need help and can’t ask or feel like I need to keep the kids quiet (ha!) We have a small house, and the office is right off the living room, and at the front of the hallway to the bathroom and the kids’ room. No real way to keep the kids quiet in that area. So we go out. Last time we did a splash pad and Chuck E Cheese. My plan for the day is to take them to Blizzard Beach, and then maybe another Disney park if I can get good fast passes (edit - I set up MK already as a just in case. Done). Maybe some Cracker Barrel for dinner. Livin’ the dream here. I hate making the drive to Orlando myself, but I think I’m going to have the kids bring tablets and I’ll listen to my audio book (Shotgun Lovesongs) and we’ll be solid. I haven’t decided if we’ll make it a very early morning and try to do something before BB opens (10am) or if we’ll just shoot for opening there. It probably all depends on how much sleep I get tonight.

Apparently here's another post about my kids.

Spencer asked for something other than pb&j for lunch today, and all at once my expectation that my child would eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly for thirteen years went up in smoke. It may not last, but today he went to school with a ham and cheese sandwich so we’ll see how that works out. He didn’t eat his sandwich for the last two days because it touched the grapes in the same Tupperware, so today I put his orange slices in a zip lock so they wouldn’t mingle. Kids. Full of such opinions.

I can’t remember (I suppose I could look, but I can’t be bothered right now) if I’ve commented on Henry’s eating lately. Henry’s whole attitude all together is just fantastic, but more on that later – his eating! The pickiest eater in our family is actually agreeing to our one-bite rule, and not only that – he’s LIKING things! It started really with Smitten Kitchen’s one pot farro.   …. I started typing this and the muscle memory kicked in and I was sure I told this before so I check, and yes – last week. So anyhow, the next day was turkey burgers and asparagus. Greens are always out, but I grilled them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. He wouldn’t touch them on principle but when told he needed to have one, he ate all on his plate. “They’re sweet! I like asparagus!”

A few days later was green beans. He eats them at daycare but has always refused here. Potatoes were the same night, and I cut them thin and sautéed with garlic and salt and pepper. The green beans were pan cooked in ghee. He loved the green beans and ate them all – hated the potatoes (which he’s always told me he doesn’t like potatoes, even at daycare and lately even fries). He did agree that he would try potatoes again if I cooked them differently so next time I'm trying a gratin.

When we were out the other day there was zucchini on his plate and mushrooms too, and he refused and I didn’t push it because we were in a restaurant. I’m trying to decide how I could try cooking both for him to try that he might like. Last night I dropped some peas and chopped chicken in mac & cheese and he at first refused again but by the end of the meal he was exclaiming “I like peas!”

I feel like we’re on a roll here and I want to keep expanding his repertoire. I also keep reminding him about things he liked – “you liked asparagus, remember?” so that he doesn’t revert back to hating everything. Tonight I’m making pot pie, and I’m nervous because H never really goes for unprocessed chicken or soup-like consistencies, and lately he tells me he doesn’t like carrots. I might have him help me make it though. Dinner! In a pie! Maybe the novelty will help.

And more about his attitude – Four has been so delightful lately. He has these little quirks that make me laugh so much. If he gets mad (which is still OFTEN, short fuse boy) he makes this stern face (I need to get a picture) and forces my face forehead-to-forehead like he’s going to stare me down, and then gives me eskimo kisses and completely melts his own mood. He doesn’t fight about his homework (the daycare does kindergarten readiness, so he has worksheets there and at home every day to work on matching skills and writing letters and numbers) even though he still gets discouraged because he’s not good at it yet. He loves to hold my hand and tell me about things he did and remembers and specific episodes of shows that he saw that I’ve never seen. THIS is what I love. The last six months struggles were to get to this point. It was worth it.

What is today? Tuesday, Wednesday?

It’s been one of those mornings where focus is not happening. I was supposed to have a meeting but it was rescheduled and I didn’t update my calendar so I’m a little at a loss. I ate my yogurt too early in a rush for said meeting, downed my coffee and now …

I hope you had a good Labor Day weekend. Ours was pretty decent – a day of Disney, swimming at my in-laws’, shopping for new sandals for Henry. It was low key and easy, which is my favorite kind of weekend and left me refreshed for the coming week. It was brutally hot though – for a holiday that is something like the gateway to fall, holy goodness is it hot. I keep waiting for reprieve. Please, reprieve!

I signed up for Fantasy Football with my husband’s league. I’m not excited. I think I thought I would be when I signed up – the last time I played was 2008, and I remember enjoying it. I haven’t paid much attention to football the past couple years; my brain only holds one sport at a time, and baseball’s my game. I’m slightly offended that football starts while baseball is still going on, really. But I signed up, and I’m going to do it. I had lunch with a friend last week when I was having a no good, very bad day and she was EXCITED about the prospect of fantasy football, so she is now coming to the draft with me and we are co-managing the team. This makes me happy – I did zero research and she made a spreadsheet. I would feel guilty about the amount of work she put into this except that a) I’ve now offered co-management so it’s her team too and 2) it seemed to actually make her really happy. Anything I can do for a friend, right?

I’ve been listening to audio books lately; it started that I was taking some long drives, but then I needed to continue them so I was listening pretty much always. It’s hard to take 12 hours to listen to a book! I have one more downloaded but I don’t know if I’m going to get to it – I don’t have any more long drives and I just don’t know if I’ll enjoy it listening at 20 minute intervals on my drive to and from work. Do you listen to audio books?

Books I read: August

reread:
43. Shiver - Maggie Stiefvater
44. Linger - Maggie Stiefvater
45. Forever - Maggie Stiefvater

new:
48. Dark Prince - Christine Feehan Dear God, this was horrendous. Hooorrrendous.
49. Sinner - Maggie Stiefvater I didn't really expect to like this but I loved it. Cheese and wonderful.
50. The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King Quite excellent.
51. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry - Gabrielle Zevin Adorable.
52. The Casual Vacancy - JK Rowling Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh ... I'm still trying to muddle through this, but I think it's a lost cause. I'm bored to tears and I care about NO ONE.
53. The One - Kiera Cass This was by no means great literature, but I enjoyed the series and I enjoyed this last book.
Landline - Rainbow Rowell No number on this because I counted it last month, but now that I've actually read it I have Feelings. I liked it. A lot. I felt like it was an accurate and depressing portrayal of the downs of marriage, when you forget to work on it. I didn't like Neal but I also recognized that it was told from a low place and all the best elements are tinted with darkness.
54. Safe Haven - Nicholas Sparks This would have been a terrible book, but I listened to it on a long drive for work and the narrator made it much more enjoyable. I think I liked it, a bit, although I'm not a Sparks fan so maybe it was just better than I expected?
55. The Silent Wife - A.S.A. Harrison I'm still listening to this on audio - I had to make a long drive on Saturday and a lack of sleep the night before so I started it. The dual narrator is interesting, and I'm quite enjoying it. It's supposed to be in the way of Gone Girl, but I'm finding it much less twisted.

Woah. That's 100 books in 8 months. I know just under half of those are rereads, but still - I read 100 books, and I still have 4 months left to go. So what else should I read?