Monday, April 22, 2013

Can't Bring Me Down

This weekend was a failure in so many ways that it's become comical. Despite my failures, I still stayed positive & cheery (which surprisingly carried over into my Monday...what has the world turned into?!!)  I don't know how I do it, but I'm gonna go ahead and applaud myself on how persistent I am on being optimistic and not letting things bring me down ...

just a sec as I pat myself on the back.....

Ok, better now! :)

I guess the weekend started out ok. Ross & I partook in our usual Friday night and went out for dinner. Delish.

Saturday I was looking forward to checking out our outlet stores here and do some shopping. You see, I'm going to the beach in just 4 (5?) weeks and have been trying to refresh my summer wardrobe since it's basically non-existent. All this girl needs is 1 or 2 tank tops and a pair of new shorts. Oh, and a bathing suit would be nice since it is the beach after all. Easy peasy, right?! Wrong. The outlets were an uber failure (as was the mall last weekend). All I came out with was a pair of Aviator sunglasses that I still can't decide if I like but am wearing nonetheless. I probably look like a fool. Foolish me and my silly aviator sunglasses. Moving On...

Saturday night I was looking forward to staying in with the hubs and renting the movie 'Lincoln.' I've been wanting to see it for awhile. Well. Yeah..... Utterly dissapointed. Words cannot describe what I watched, since literally, I didn't comprehend a word they said. Don't worry though if you were planning on seeing it yourself, I'm sure you'll fully enjoy it! I've concluded that apparently the more Oscars that a movie wins means the less likely I am to interpret a single sentence they say! Call me dumb.... Literature was never my strong suit. I think there was an astonishing plot twist or two, but, again... who knows. Didn't understand a single thing they all said the. entire. movie.  And Ross fell asleep at the end. Fail.

Sunday I was excited to check out yet another -- wait for it --- church! (story of our lives people, story. of. our. lives)  Does this make church #10? 11? Geesh. This is getting old. Anywho, we must forge ahead! *says optimistic me* So we go to church in a town 20 minutes away that I heard good things about. It starts off with contemporary music, yay! And then...then?!!!! An HOUR and FORTY minutes later, service comes to an end. Oh what's that about the sermon?!! Who knows. After 30 minutes I completely tuned out. You thought I hated Literature? Well I hate Lectures even more. Anything over 30 minutes and you've lost me. Unless there is food involved. Which there was not. So after our almost TWO hour church service, Ross & I went out to lunch completely dazed and confused by what just happened. And how we can cross off 'Southern Baptist' from our religious scope. Sorry to judge a religion on one church. I think he preached about that at some point. Again, I'm not sure. Fail.

And here we are on Monday. I think I'm cheery because the weekend is finally over and nothing else could possibly go wrong.

Maybe I'll have a really great week at work?!  Optimistic me says 'Yes, I will!'

*Kristin*

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Meal Planning for Two

I like to take on a lot of things myself when it comes to household chores. I guess this trait comes from my mom :) I hate to delegate, and often find that I'd rather just 'do it myself' than ask for help or spend money on help since I'm also very cheap frugal. I do everything from cooking to cleaning, laundry, paying bills and budgeting. One thing I'm inconsistently NOT good at is meal planning. You'd think it be simple, right? But week after week, I end up planning the same meal over and over again (since I'm one for repetition!) or plan unhealthy meals time and time again. Ross grows bored eating the same thing too much, and I grow frustrated if we aren't eating as healthy as we should be. So I finally recognized this as one of my weaknesses :)

For awhile, I joined the Fresh 20. It's a really great website I would still recommend... if you're a family. They choose 20 ingredients for 5 meals/week. I love that idea behind it! But after using their service for more than a year, more often than not, I found myself not looking forward to the week's menu. Nothing was quite doing it for me. And on top of it, since they plan the menu for a family of 4, often times I was finding myself trying to cut all the recipes in half, which wasn't easy, or I'd only cook 2 or 3 of their meals for the entire week (which if I didn't like it the first time, meant I certainly wasn't looking forward to the leftovers). I still recommend the site, but it just didn't work for us after awhile. Though I may go back to it one day when we are a family of 4 :) Until then, it was time to move on...

So back I went to my own meal planning. And quickly it went back to junk food, not enough veggies since my idea of veggies is the frozen kind (yuck!), or new recipes I found online that would take *for-ev-er* to cook or had a 20-ingredient list for ONE meal! That's a joke, right?! 20-ingredients for one meal? What does that household's grocery budget look like?!! Yikes. I grew frustrated every sunday when I sat down to write out our grocery list. Then I'd take it out on Ross and tell him to do it! *throw hands in the air* I give up!! (I was always so dramatic :)

So I set out again and googled meal-planning websites. I came across "Couple Supper."  Four meals/week for just 2 people and only $5/month. *Hallelujah!* It's just what we needed! Their recipes are easy but tasty, help us to eat the right portions (which I'm awful at gauging myself!) and are plenty well-rounded and healthy. I actually look forward to what they have on the menu each week which is hard to do for this picky-eater (though I've gotten much better :) It's only been a few weeks since we signed up but I like them so far! And Ross is happy to have some variation in our dinners as well as trying new things. Though it seems 1 or 2 dinners/week are vegetarian, which I didn't realize until Ross promptly exclaimed "where is the meat?!!" lol The meals were still just as tasty, and in my eyes, cut down on our grocery bill :)  It's been a win-win so far! And as far as the other 3-nights/week, I like having the flexibility to eat out once or twice on the weekends and/or plan our own meals for those nights :) After all, one of my unhealthy meals is ok when we've eaten good the rest of the week, right?!

So even though I sound like a salesperson, I'm not (I wish! haha) I would really recommend the site. To me, it's worth the $5/month when I know we're eating healthier (and the side dishes don't consist of frozen veggies either!) and I don't have to do the meal planning myself. Just one thing off of my to-do list every sunday :) The rest of my Sunday is filled with chasing Dakota down in order to trim her nails anyway. Priorities, people!! I refuse to pay $11 at Petco for nail trimming. O well...just another one of my frugal ways, haha. Now time for lunch (is there a meal-planning service for that too?!!)....