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 the first day of Spring here in the Northern Hemisphere and that makes me SO happy! Everything begins to look more hopeful to me when the world turns green.
Let’s celebrate with some vintage Spring music:
MENU:
Monday…
Each year on the first day of Spring, we celebrate the life of our dear friend, Debi, by making her well-loved jambalaya.
Tuesday…
Wednesday…
- lasagna
- green beans
- salad
- garlic toast
Thursday…
- Mediterranean Style Pork Chops ~ A Slow Cooker Recipe
- roasted red potatoes
- veggies
- salad
Friday…
- stir fry or takeout
Saturday…
- leftovers
Sunday…
- homemade soup
- grilled cheese sandwiches
- fresh fruit
IN MY HOME:
REVIEW OF LAST WEEK
David had an appointment in the city last Tuesday so were gone several hours. Then he left early the next morning to drive to Houston for a few days. He returned early Saturday afternoon. I had high hopes to get some extra things done while he was away. Did it happen? Not really. I did pick up some groceries on Wednesday, cleared out some past-their-prime leftovers from the fridge, and kept up with all the usual household tasks. I suppose that’s good enough.
THIS WEEK
I’m writing this during a co-working Zoom group call. This is my first time with this group and they do it Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 to 10:30 a.m. I’m hoping to make this a regular thing. I’ve done a co-working thing in the past and it really does seem to help me stay focused and get a lot done.
We will be going to New Orleans the end of the month so I’m trying to get a lot of blog related work done in advance to cover our time away.
I’ve pretty much let go of the idea of spring cleaning…at least not until we return from our trip. I just want to have the house in good shape when we leave. I’ll save the deep cleaning until later.
WORK
As mentioned, I plan to put in several hours of focused time working on blog posts and scheduling social media posts.
We also need to schedule a Zoom meeting with the board of our nonprofit – perhaps Thursday evening?
READING
I’ve been keeping up-to-date with my planned readings until this past weekend. I’ll catch up in the next day or two.
This month’s poetry: Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
My morning books:
1. The Road to La Papillon: Daily Meditations on True Contentment by Shannon Ables
2. The Living Bible – The Book of Common Prayer daily lectionary readings
3. Daring to Be Yourself by Alexandra Stoddard
SELF CARE
I’ve been spending way too much time online. YouTube is such a time suck and I’ve been playing a very addictive game on my phone. I’m seriously re-evaluating how I use my time. I know I’d feel better about my life if I were using time in better ways.
I don’t mean just working more. That’s not really my main goal. But I want to pursue activities that nourish my soul. With Spring here and warmer weather on the way, I want to be purposeful about getting outdoors. I want to spend my afternoon tea time on the porch and stargaze at least a few nights a week.
HEALTH & FITNESS
Last week I said I would get on the treadmill each day for just 5 minutes. Did I do that? Nope. No excuse…I just didn’t do it. I’ll try again!
FUN ACTIVITIES
My plan was to watch “Gone With the Wind” while David was away last week. However, I couldn’t find my DVD. I spent over 20 minutes looking for it. We keep all of our DVDs in the bottom of our entertainment center and they are all quite organized. I took everything out…twice!…and it simply isn’t there. I don’t recall lending it to anyone and can’t imagine where it went.
I ended up watching “Cheaper By the Dozen” instead and ordered a new copy of “Gone With the Wind“. It arrived this weekend and I watched the first half last night. Hopefully I’ll watch the rest tonight.
It’s supposed to be in the upper 70s on Wednesday. If David can take a break, maybe we’ll go out to lunch on the patio of our favorite Mexican restaurant.
HABIT OF THE MONTH (March)
This month’s habit is to drink more water. Someone in the co-working group I’m in just said that she has a sign over her desk reminding her to drink water. That’s a good idea that I think I’ll implement. I may put up post-it notes in a few places.
If you have any tips that have helped you drink more water, please share!
~~~~~
What’s on your plan for the week ahead? Home tasks? Menu? Fun? What are you reading?
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You may also enjoy…
Create a Beautiful Life With a Stargazing Ritual
Create a Beautiful Life: Afternoon Teatime
Keeping up with everything from day to day is something to celebrate in itself. And that’s strange about your DVD. At least you managed to get a new copy, but still…
I’m trying to get better about drinking more water too, so please share any tips you get. Right now the best I have is to always make sure you have some on hand (I have drinking bottles I put it in, and I keep one to hand all the time). I also got a couple of infuser bottles so I can make my own homemade flavoured water to increase the appeal of water. It’s too soon to tell you if any of it helps.
I ended up returning to my de-cluttering a little sooner than planned, thanks to the landlords (well, the agency we rent through) wanting to do an inspection. I kind of felt like having people come for an inspection when we had piles of half sorted through stuff everywhere wasn’t something I wanted to have happen, so we got things more organized, and de-cluttered some more in the process. There’s still more to do, but at least we made progress, and the inspection went well yesterday (Monday). Anyway, to make that happen along with the other things I had planned for the week, we ended up doing some eating out, because I quite frankly didn’t have enough energy reserves to deal with even slowcooker (crockpot) meals on top of that. But I’m hoping to avoid that this week, and have thrown a lot of simple meals on my menu to hopefully help, including some slowcooker meals.
Here’s my menu for the week. Obviously my meals will be veganized versions of things that would usually contain non-vegan ingredients (I mean vegan cheese when I say “cheese” for example).
Monday: cheesy potatoes and onion gravy with peas and sweetcorn.
Tuesday: spaghetti with sauce and cheese, plus salad or veggies.
Wednesday: tomato soup, plus grilled cheese sandwiches.
Thursday: leftovers.
Friday: garlic tofu with fries and peas.
Saturday: chilli with potato wedges and greens (since I didn’t end up making it last week).
Sunday: leftovers.
As for everything else…
I’m caught up with the reading I planned to do (I’m even a little ahead on my Goodreads challenge). There are things I’d like to have gotten to by now, but the stuff I actually needed to read has been, along with a couple of books I just wanted to read. I’m still slowly making my way through some braille books when I have the energy, but mostly listening to books so I can work on other things at the same time… Things like craft projects (including a scarf I needed to finish by Sunday, which was Mother’s Day here in the UK, so I could give it to my Mam).
My week started with the inspection on Monday. Today (Tuesday) I have the cooking call, plus a Spring-themed crafting call I want to go to. Tomorrow I facilitate for ACB Presents, plus need to get some laundry done. Thursday is the loom knitting Zoom call I like to go to, plus the laundry will spill in to Thursday since my Mam’s washing machine is broken so I’m doing some for her too. Friday I read the schedule for ACB Presents. Not sure yet what I’m doing Saturday (hopefully resting and relaxing). And Sunday is the last Sunday of the month, which means time for the crafty book club I facilitate.
Sounds like you have a busy week. Sometimes an incentive (like an inspection!) is just what we need to inspire action on a project like decluttering.
As for water drinking, I’m still not doing as well as I’d like so no advice. I do have an insulated cup with straw in my Amazon cart. I have several insulated cups but none with a straw. I think I might drink more that way. We’ll see…
Yes… An inspection definitely gives you a good incentive to find the motivation to get back to de-cluttering projects, that’s for sure!
If drinking with a straw helps, go with it. Whatever works, right?