This Week With Dee – where I share our menu, my planned home tasks for the week, what I’m reading, self care plans and more. I hope it will give you some ideas for planning your own week or at least a glimpse of one homemaker’s life.
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THIS WEEK WITH DEE
It’s been three weeks since my last “This Week” post. David and I went on an eleven day business trip and just returned this past Saturday night. He had locations to visit in South Texas and California. We also took the opportunity to visit some family in California while we were there. It was quite a lot of driving but we actually enjoyed it. We saw a lot of different terrain on the trip…everything from the most barren desert to a sandy beach. One day we spent 2 or 3 hours soaking up sun and sea on a deserted beach and then a few days later were in snow and ice.
We signed up for Audible just before the trip and listened to John Grisham’s latest – The Boys From Biloxi. Audiobooks always make a road trip go by faster.
We also listened to one of the first playlists I ever made on Spotify:
We are convinced that we had the best music during our teen years. But I enjoy these oldies, too:
MENU:
Monday…
- pork roast in crockpot
- potatoes
- peas
- salad
- cooked apples
Tuesday…
- Mexican casserole
- salad
Wednesday…
- spaghetti
- green beans
- salad
- garlic toast
Thursday…
Friday…
- Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken
- mashed potatoes
- broccoli
- salad
Saturday…
- leftovers
Sunday…
- bacon
- eggs
- French toast
- orange juice
IN MY HOME:
REVIEW OF LAST WEEK
Last week was spent on the road. We stayed in Midland, Texas for three nights. I spent those two full days in the hotel while David was visiting his company’s shop in Stanton. I actually got some much-needed rest those two days. We then spent a night in Tucson following a very long day of travel that involved car trouble and having to backtrack to exchange rental cars.
From Tucson we drove to Dana Point, California. We visited my aunt for a couple of hours and then enjoyed two nights in a nice hotel across the road from Doheny Beach. We had a full day to ourselves and the weather was lovely.
We then drove to the High Desert to visit David’s brother and sister-in-law. This was where we grew up so we took a few hours to drive around and see our old neighborhoods, schools, etc. There was a big dust storm that day so the visibility was terrible. That evening we drove to Bakersfield on a route that took us through Tehachapi. It was snowing lightly as we went through the pass and we later found out they closed the route sometime after we had gone through. The following day, David visited their Bakersfield location and we visited my cousin and his wife late that afternoon.
The next day we drove back through the High Desert and visited my aunt and uncle before heading toward home. We spent the night in Flagstaff where there was still quite a bit of snow and ice from the storm a couple of days prior. From lying on a sunny beach on Monday to snow and single digit temperatures on Thursday…we had quite the variety of weather!
Friday was a long drive from Flagstaff to Amarillo. That’s likely why we both slept until almost 10:30 the next morning. Well, that and the fact that traveling through three time zones messes up one’s sleep patterns. We were back home by 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and both of us were happy to have a home cooked meal!
On Sunday I did two loads of laundry from our trip and unpacked my bags (David still hasn’t finished unpacking his yet.). I went out to see my mom that evening. And now it’s Monday and time to get back into our usual routines.
THIS WEEK
I’m keeping my expectations low this week. I’m pretty tired from the trip. I do, however, need to get a grocery delivery tomorrow. We also need to think about taking down the Christmas tree and the rest of the decorations. I had almost forgotten about it until we got home Saturday. I think I’ll have David bring in the box for the lighted garland and stockings that we hang on the stair railings tonight. That will only take us a few minutes to take down. And then hopefully we will feel up to dealing with the tree tomorrow.
WORK
I have blog posts to finish and social media posts to schedule.
READING
I thought I would read more on our trip but on the few occasions when I had time alone in a hotel room, I chose to rest or watch The Golden Girls. As mentioned above, we did finish an audiobook while driving. I started this month’s LWD Book Club selection, The Custom of the Country while we were away and read about 50 pages. I’m enjoying it so far.
SELF CARE
It’s all about rest and recovery this week. I have an autoimmune disease that causes fatigue and this is more pronounced when my usual routine is disrupted. I’m aiming for early bedtimes, gentle exercise and as little stress as possible this week.
HEALTH & FITNESS
David and I are thoroughly sick of fast food after this trip! I’ve got a lot of salad ingredients on my grocery order and we plan to make big salads for our lunches. I’ve got to get back into my exercise routine, too.
FUN ACTIVITIES
David just signed up for Ancestry.com so we will likely be sucked into that vortex for awhile. I also want to make time to read, color and watch a couple of movies this week.
HABIT OF THE WEEK
I don’t have just one single habit to work on this week but rather, plan to focus on re-instituting my prior habits of water intake, exercise, and meditation.
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What’s on your plan for the week ahead? Home tasks? Menu? Fun? What are you reading?
Note: You can see some photos from our trip on Instagram and I’ll share a few more in the next LWD Newsletter. If you haven’t signed up for the newsletter yet, you can sign up at the bottom of this email.
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After all that travel, anyone would need a quiet week. Enjoy! You did remind me I need to sit down and plan menus for the week!
I just finished picking up a huge grocery order (I have Instacart deliver to my daughter in town since we are outside the delivery area). I hadn’t done a big shop since before Christmas. By the time I loaded the bags into my car, made 9 trips to bring them into my house, arranged them all on the counter for a photo/video (will likely share in a newsletter) and put everything away I was pooped! I’m now taking a break.
Did you get your menu planned?
Sounds like an eventful week. Yes, rest is definitely a requirement for you this week by the sound of it.
I’m trying to get back in the habit of menu-planning, so I actually have a menu for this week, and here it is…
Monday: pizza and potato wedges.
Tuesday: flatbread with cheese and chutney, plus grapes.
Wednesday: sweet and sour tofu with stir fried vegetables and jasmine rice.
Thursday: pancakes with blueberries and syrup.
Friday: pasta with sauce.
Saturday: chilli cheese fries.
Sunday: tofu scramble and beans on toast.
I’m making the flatbread from scratch on a Zoom cooking call, hence just having them with stuff I can just grab to go with them afterwards, since the call is pretty close to dinner time, so I wouldn’t have time to rest between making them and needing to have dinner.
I have a Zoom call I need to be at every day this week, hubby had a blood clinic appointment on Monday. Thursday my Mam is talking about wanting to take me and Logan for the petstore trip she keeps promising Logan (since she needs to take her puppy to fit him for a harness) plus I have some groceries coming in the afternoon. And I need to get some laundry done. Other than that I just need to not let my emails pile back up again, read what I need to before Sunday’s book club, and rest in between those things.
I’m currently reading “Million Dollar Demon” (the 15th book in Kim Harrison’s Rachel Morgan series) and “The Borrowers Afield” (the second book in Mary Norton’s Borrowers series) the latter of which I did read a long time ago, but I’m re-reading it ready for reading the books in the series I never read before and saw I’d never marked it as read on Goodreads so did so this time around. I’m also rereading the Harry Potter books, because I’ve never read them in braille before, so it’s a good excuse to do so (but I’m not making them a priority, so my reread of those is going incredibly slowly). And I’m just about to start reading “The Castle Of Otranto” by Horace Walpole (which is the book for the 18th and 19th century book club I’m in; that’s the book I need to try and read before Sunday).
Sounds like a busy week! Your menu sounds delicious.
I just found your site but I’m so grateful for the weekly schedule!!
Welcome to Life With Dee. Happy to have you here!