Monday, September 26, 2011

Super Weekend & Hopeful for the Week

Well sorry I didn't get my post in last week I was just very busy last Monday since I had a luncheon with the girls from work and I went to Sam's Club and ended up weighing and packaging 32 lbs of meat.
This past weekend we took advantage of the Smithsonian free museum day and all four of us went for $6 and went into a mobile star lab and then went on a coal miners tour. The kids enjoyed themselves and it was very educational. I also did a lot of crafts with the girls this weekend since our crafting projects were starting to build up because we could never find the time. It was a stressful week last week because I was sick and ended up coming home sick last Friday but the weekend made up for it and I'm hopeful for this week.
This week should be pretty standard other than I have to go into work today (Monday) which means I'm in a little bit of a rush right now because I still have to do my grocery shopping before I can go to work. I have a pretty small grocery list and I plan to stick to it because 1. there are really no sales to speak of and 2. I'm in a rush. Reason I have to work today is because there is no school Friday so I had to do the schedule shuffle to be able to cover the kids being home.
I did do some searching this morning for freebies and samples and posted what I found in my quick search on A Budget You Can Live With.

9/26 Menu
  • Tacos
  • Chicken Bake
  • Breakfast for Dinner
  • Spaghetti with Parmesan Chicken
  • Steaks & Burgers
  • Pizza
  • Hamburger Helper

Friday, September 16, 2011

Weeeeeeee! & Adventures in Cleaning

Interesting title right? Well I'm on a bit of an emotional roller coaster as things stand right now. I've been getting very little sleep and I have so much work to do that none of it is getting done! Doesn't sound like it's making sense? Well basically I'm so stressed out I don't know where to start so I chase my tail and then get mad at myself when I see no progress made. I'm sure I'm not the first nor the last person to experience this so just have to push through.

Next Few Days Schedule:
Today

  • I have to go searching for a toy horse to put on a cake for my daughter's 11th birthday party. I have been all over and calling every place in town and no one has a horse cake so I've got to try and put together one myself. I will also probably see if Walmart can have a cake done by Saturday afternoon because she really wanted a marble cake and I canceled my order when they told me they did not have the horse packet in.
  • Brielle needs new shoes she's been wearing sandals with socks and before I just thought she was being stubborn about not wearing her shoes but with it turning cold and her still doing it that means there is a shoe run to be made because she really must have out grown her shoes in just the last couple months... growing like a weed.
  • Need to find where Brielle lost her tooth so the tooth faerie can do her job.
  • Katherine and I need haircuts.
  • Need to find out if the kids are going to the Grandparent's house tonight.
  • Cleaning house: kitchen floor, vacuum house, make beds, clean playroom, clean all flat surfaces in living room & kitchen, clean bathroom, scrub tub, fold laundry
  • I need to take Katherine out to pick up her sister's present.
  • Go to the bank.
Saturday
(Peter will be working)
  • (if kids are at Grandparent's house) Get kids.
  • Pick up Brielle's best friend Leslie.
  • Take all the kids to the Scarecrow Festival (probably eat lunch there to make life simple)
  • Pick up cake.
  • Go home and get the house decorated for the party.
  • By 5 o'clock people should be arriving by 7 o'clock everyone should be here so should have the pizza here by that time and will have a house full of girls watching movies and doing girl stuff while eating pizza, cake and cookies! Sugar high time!
Sunday
  • Wait for all of Brielle's friends to go home then hopefully have time to clean up the house and rest.
  • Search for coupons & match deals.
  • Make the next week Menu
  • Cheesy Chicken Pasta for Dinner - has to be prepped and in crock pot by 10am.
Monday
  • Groceries
  • Sam's Club
  • Divide, weigh, package and freeze about 30 lbs of meat.
  • 11:30 Red Lobster to meet the girls from work.
  • 3pm Dental Cleaning
  • Pick up Katherine
  • Make dinner
  • Normal nightly chores.
Adventures in Cleaning
As promised my little over view with my recent experiments with cleaning. As some may know I got my steam cleaner from 1SaleADay.com and it was advertised as a hard surface steam cleaner though I had hoped it'd work on fabric. Well it does work on fabric but not very well so you won't see me steam cleaning a lot of things around the home like that and it didn't do so grand on the grease on the plastic fake tile behind my kitchen counters but! it cleaned the microwave like a charm I had never been so happy I am now so willing to keep it clean because it's just steam and wipe. Also, I ended up using WD-40 on the grease I was talking about but I steamed it afterwards to help me wipe it back off to get rid of that horrible smell. The steam cleaner also did well on removing the built up dust, dirt and grease from my stove; the plastic and the metal areas and let me get in between all those little areas that I used to spray kitchen cleaner into and then use a toothpick. Over all I'd say a little hand steam cleaner is a must have in a house hold to help get away from heavy chemical cleaners and make some jobs easy as can be.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

I got a fist full of hair

I'm literally pulling my hair out this week finding clumps of it in the shower and just all over my hand after I put shampoo in... I'm THAT stressed!
So we found out earlier this week that my in-laws were coming in town but we didn't know Wednesday or Thursday. Well Tuesday night they say it'll be Thursday, and then they call back and it will be Wednesday and then maybe Thursday... okay finally Wednesday. We finally know which when we get the phone call Wednesday morning. Which was a hassle to try and organize things with Brielle's friend who was coming to dinner with us for Brielle's traditional Birthday dinner. We went out to Chinese.

Brielle was suppose to have cooking club so I was suppose to pick her up at school at 4:30 but it turns out she didn't get registered soon enough so she couldn't go this month so she gave me a phone call while she was on the bus... okay so change of plans as I was leaving work I went home and got Brielle started on her homework then went ahead and left her there she's 11 now so I felt more comfortable and I knew it would be only about an hour. I'm trying not to mother hen quite as much. So I get Katherine from school then we drive across town to Walmart because I like their cakes better than Kroger and stand around and stand around until we catch a lady she can't find the bakery person so this produce lady took my order. I get a phone call at 9 o'clock that night saying that they do not have the horse kit that Brielle wanted and the lady was pretty rude with me saying 'Well I was on my lunch' in a very snotty tone. I wasn't mad she wasn't there I was annoyed that they didn't have the kit and told me that no one had ordered one or had plans to order it. Okay so I told her to cancel the order I'll go somewhere else. So that is what I have to do today before work is find Brielle a horse cake.

Pete's over stressed about work because they have thrown him and his team under the bus. My work is just being annoying. Oy Vey!

In any case so the Grandparents want the kids Friday night so I guess the plan is going to be Friday night driving about 40 min. out to the Grandparents' house then Saturday getting the kids back to load them up and go get Brielle's friend to go out to the Botanical Garden for the Scarecrow Festival and then that evening having the sleep over for Brielle. Peter is probably going to be working Saturday too. Sometime Sunday Brielle's friends will go home and then we can try to put the house back into place. Monday I have to go meet the ladies for lunch it's my turn to pay for one of the birthday girls over at Red Lobster at 11:30 and then at 3pm I have a dental cleaning and then I need to try and pick Katherine up before 5:30 so I hope everything goes smoothly. If it wasn't for the fact I already have started to defrost the chicken I would make crock pot chicken Monday instead of this week.

That's where this week is at... I needed to get it off my chest and just praying for the strength to get through it all and still find the time to take care of the house and not lose patience with anyone.

Monday, September 12, 2011

I Survived Monday! & My Plan for the Week!

Ugh Monday the word alone makes me shiver in disgust and I don't even have to work this particular Monday. The day started off like normal I zoned out drinking coffee after I got the kids up to get ready for school. I had spent probably a good 5 to 6 hours in total this past weekend on my shopping list and trying to get coupons together. I still went over my goal today because the Parmesan Chicken my family likes was on sale. I did my shopping though, got the bathroom clean and had lunch with Peter today before taking a nap because I didn't feel too good. The weather has been up and down in temperature and it has really been messing with my system.
After Brielle got home this afternoon we went and got Katherine and then came home and worked on homework and got that done before I started on dinner. Girls showered and did all their night time stuff, Pete messed around with the HDMI cables I had purchased him from 1SaleADay a few weeks ago and I did my dishes.
3 bags Birds Eye Steamed Veg. (1 corn & 2 broccoli)
1 box Frozen Garlic Texas Toast
Toll House Cookies
2 bottles Kraft BBQ Sauce
1 bag Beneful Dog Food
Chips Ahoy
2 16 ct. Kraft Singles
2 Suave Bodywash
Suave Professionals Shampoo
Suave Professionals Conditioner
Suave Deodorant
Minute Maid Orange Juice
3 boxes Parmesan Chicken
2ltr A&W Root beer
2ltr 7-Up
2 2ltrs Sunkist
3 boxes Hamburger Helper (Kroger Brand)
1 box Kroger brand spiral noodles
Gal. of 2% Milk
Loaf of Bread
5lbs of hamburger
Tennessee Pride 8 ct. Sausage Paddies
Doritos
Just For You Crest Kids Mouthwash
Kroger prepackaged roast beef lunch meat
2 Kroger brown gravy packet
1 Kroger meatloaf seasoning packet
6-pack 16 oz Coca-Cola
Kroger presliced mild Cheddar
Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Total after coupons and in store savings: $75.02

This Weeks Dinner Menu:
Breakfast for Dinner (Today)
Cheesy Chicken
Wednesday - Going out for Brielle's Birthday
Stroganoff Hamburger Helper
Spagetti w/Parmasane Chicken
Saturday - Pizza for birthday party
Meatloaf, mashpotatoes & gravy, corn

It's going to be a busy week with Brielle's birthday on Wednesday, my in-laws coming into town Wednesday or Thursday, the Scarcrow Festival on Saturday and Brielle's sleep over Saturday night. I'm going to try and hold onto my sanity over the course of this week and perhaps by Sunday I'll have time enough to prop up my feet with a glass of wine and pat myself on the back for surviving the week.

Friday, September 2, 2011

TGIF!

So I've had another hectic week with my only relief being that I've done well to hide in my office at work and get some paperwork and organizing done.

The hospital is gearing up and finally started the PC replacement so Peter has been at work most nights until 6:30 and even one night he was there until 9pm. During this week I've been trying to keep up with the house while having to get the kids and play the role of a single parent getting dinner done while helping with homework and the sad thing is this trend is going to continue for another month.

I was pretty productful this last weekend taking care of the sewing pile. This week I've also been good and have the laundry down to only two loads I need to fold and put away which is impressive because the laundry had ate my couch. I also succeeded on getting all my dishes caught up. I am hoping that tonight I can get onto the floors.

I had planned to get my free rental from Redbox yesterday but with how under the weather I have felt I got into work late and there just wouldn't have been anytime to watch it anyways with the family.

Tomorrow night the plan is to go see the fireworks the County is setting off at the park and we need to plan Brielle's 11th Birthday party that is coming up in a couple weeks. I'm hoping for an easy going weekend though Peter starts on-call tonight for the rest of the week so I'm not sure if it is really going to happen.