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 a new week and a new month! Let’s all do our best to live intentionally today and throughout the month of May.
Take a look at this scene on this week’s music. Is that not the most glorious place to have a cup of tea or coffee? Sigh…I could really settle in and enjoy an hour or two in that setting.
Sweet May Spring Jazz in Coffee Shop Ambience
We are continuing our attempts toward a 90% plant-based diet. Fortunately spring and summer are great seasons for fresh produce.
MENU:
Monday…
- stir fry veggies
- rice
- pineapple
Tuesday…
- chili pot pies (vegetarian)
- coleslaw
Wednesday…
- David and I will be in OKC
Thursday…
- variety of roasted veggies
- salad
Friday…
- loaded baked potatoes
- salad
Saturday…
- We will be at an outdoor gathering with friends for dinner.
Sunday…
- soup
- quesadillas
IN MY HOME:
REVIEW OF LAST WEEK
David was away Monday through Thursday (noon-ish) for a short business trip to West Texas. While he was away, I did a few small decluttering tasks.
I love to organize with bankers boxes and try to keep some on hand at all times. One of the things I organized in our storage closet was smaller games and cards. I was able to fit them all in one bankers box. We had downsized our board game collection a few years ago. A friend started a small bar/music venue and they had a game night once a week. I gave them a LOT of our old games we hadn’t played in a long time. We still likely have more than we need. I told David we need to choose one to play each week and then decide if we enjoyed it enough to keep.
Chris and I had sushi on Wednesday night. David is not a fan (although the sushi restaurant does have chicken teriyaki which he likes) so we usually indulge whenever he is out of town. Chris picked it up after work so he wouldn’t need to make a second trip to town. I had an online class to watch (floral design) at 5:30 p.m. so I ended up eating sushi while watching the class.
On Friday David and I got our second Covid boosters. We didn’t plan anything for the weekend in case we didn’t feel well but we were fine. I always take a Benadryl 15 minutes before my injection since I have so many allergies. I probably don’t need to do that anymore since I’ve had no adverse reactions. I did doze off in my chair that afternoon but I’m pretty sure it was due to the Benadryl rather than the vaccine.
We did very little Saturday. David had put in very long hours when he was in Texas and I had stayed up WAY too late while he was away so we both just decided to take it easy. I worked on several blog posts Sunday, as well as our menu and some other prep work for the week.
THIS WEEK
David has eye appointment in Oklahoma City early Thursday morning. We will be spending night before in a nearby hotel. The weather looks to be nice so we’ll go up early enough to have dinner on a patio somewhere. In fact, we have friends up there we’ve been wanting to meet up with. If they aren’t busy maybe they will meet us for dinner. We have eaten with them a couple of times at a restaurant on the lake with outdoor seating. It’s such a gorgeous view of sailboats on the lake.
After David’s appointment we will try to see if we can visit an elderly friend who is in an assisted living facility up there. She’s so lonely since her husband died and we really do miss her.
We will be celebrating our granddaughter Charlotte’s 2nd birthday with a little family party Saturday. My main goal this week is to get the patio clean and ready for the party. I need to buy some potted plants for the season anyway so I’ll get them in time for the party. I bought her a really cute pink Minnie Mouse dress for the party. I’ll share some photos next week. 🙂
Saturday will likely be a busy day for us. We’ll have Charlotte’s party early afternoon and then we are supposed go to friends’ house for a get together. That is, if their backyard patio renovations are complete by then.
WORK
I’ve been joining a co-working Zoom call occasionally in recent weeks. It has been on Monday/Wednesday/Friday but starting this month the official days are Tuesday and Thursday. However, if anyone in the group is available to host it might be Monday through Friday. Someone started it today so that’s what I’m doing while writing this. It’s nice to feel as though I have company while I work. We work for 45 minutes then chat for 15, alternating this pattern from 9 a.m. to noon or whenever people are still around.
READING
I finished the Alexandra Stoddard book, Daring to Be Yourself this weekend.
I’m also almost done with Sensitive, April’s LWD Book Club selection.
In case you missed it, the May selection for the LWD Book Club was posted yesterday:
LWD Book Club ~ Financially Chic
SELF CARE
I never did get around to doing a manicure and pedicure last week as intended so those are on the list again.
HEALTH & FITNESS
I truly must get back into a regular exercise routine! My goal this week is to at least get on the treadmill for 10 minutes a day. I’ll then try to add a few more minutes each week until I’m up to 45 minutes to an hour a day.
FUN ACTIVITIES
Dinner in the city on Wednesday night, Charlotte’s birthday party and hopefully the get together with friends Saturday night.
HABIT OF THE MONTH (May)
So much of what I want to do means I need to get my day started earlier. And yet, I so often sleep poorly. We just stay up way too late. We will both be sleepy late afternoon or evening then at 10 p.m. when we should be going to bed, we get a second wind. Maybe we should try to be in bed by 9:30 before that happens. In any case, I’d like to be up by 7:30 a.m. each morning. That allows me time to get dressed, do my hair and makeup, start a load of laundry, put away clean dishes and do my morning routine of meditation and reading in time for the co-working Zoom call at 9 a.m.
So that’s my proposed habit of the month for May – up by 7:30 a.m.!
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What’s on your plan for the week ahead? Home tasks? Menu? Fun? What are you reading?
Oh, I almost forgot! Eat At Home is offering my readers 30% off the annual plan if you purchase today through Wednesday (May 1-3). If you need help with menu planning this service is great!
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You may also enjoy…
Creating a Simple Menu Plan for Summer
The FlyLady Method: Weekly Home Blessing Hour
I love the music selection for this week. Really pretty, and soft enough that I can listen to it while still hearing JAWS reading the text of your post to me.
Glad you both got your Covid boosters and neither of you had any bad reactions from them. Hope David’s appointment goes well this week.
That’s a great idea with the games. And I’m glad you had someone to give the ones you didn’t want or need to who can make use of them. I’ve been trying to make sure things go to people who can make use of them while doing my own de-cluttering.
Your menu looks great. The chilli pot pie sounds interesting. How was the tofu? Also, how’s the drinking more water thing going?
I got the living room sorted last week in less than 24 hours, since I ended up sorting the living room quicker than planned. Well, we still need to go through our DVDs, because we didn’t have time to do that and had to just put them back on the shelves after we moved things around, because we got a call that the landlord was sending someone out to take a look at some of the repairs we’d been asking to have done so couldn’t have piles of DVDs and ornaments all over the place. I paid for it for a few days afterwards, but we got the room organized like we wanted it now the extra sofa is gone, and – after we moved the shelves to where we wanted them – got the ornaments back on their shelves, and then put the DVDs on the shelves to be sorted properly later. It’s much nicer in there now, and we can at least access the DVDs, even if they’re in no particular order and we need to weed out the ones we acquired that we don’t really want. So now it’s mostly just hubby’s office we need to tackle. Though we need to get someone to come collect a couple of things we put in there out of the way that make it difficult for us to deal with that room first.
This week I have three Zoom calls I need to be on (the cooking call on Tuesday, one I agreed to go on to help answer questions people adjusting to sight loss might have on Wednesday, and needle knitting on Thursday) and another I’d like to be at on Sunday (the 18th and 19th century book club I go to each week). Other than that, we’re celebrating Beltane (May Day) today, tomorrow (Tuesday) is hubby’s birthday, and the only other things I have going on this week is housework related. One thing I’d like to achieve is to get the heavier Winter blankets put away in favour of the lighter ones we sleep with in Summer, since we’re needing those more these days, and right now – when I’ve just washed all the ones from the living room, since we were doing the living room after getting rid of the other sofa – seems like a perfect time to sort the ones from the bedroom too.
As for my menu… I actually haven’t figured out beyond the first two days of the week if I’m honest. Monday’s dinner is cheese on toast and oatmeal cookies (it’s hubby’s choice for our Beltane meal). And Tuesday I’m making spicy buttermilk fried tofu, baked potato, peas and sweetcorn (the buttermilk tofu is the veganized version of the recipe for the cooking call this week). Beyond that… Yeah, I should probably start figuring that out.
Oh, and I’m still reading the Borrowers and Outlander books, plus really need to start making better progress on my Harry Potter re-read if I ever want to finish reading that in braille, but finished everything else I was reading. I’m about to start “Villette” by Charlotte Bronte for the 18th and 19th century book club (we have a number of chapters or percentage of the book we’re to try and read each week to discuss with that book club, so I’ll be working on that one all month) and we’ll be reading “The Chocolate Cat Caper” (Chocoholic Mystery series, #1) by JoAnna Carl for the crafters book club this month (it’s a cosy mystery with chocolate trivia in it, apparently, plus seems to have an animal theme running through it judging by the titles so appealed to us because of that too).
I really want to start the Outlander series again and finish the whole thing. Someday!
Sometimes an incentive (like a visit from a repairman!) can really speed up the process. I know what you mean about paying for it afterwards, though.
As for the tofu – we were not impressed. I kept adding things to give it more flavor but that only helped the outer part. I think it might help to marinate it something so the flavor permeates it all.
I’m doing slightly better on the water intake but still haven’t reached my goal.
Hope you are having a great week!
Reading the Outlander books from the start again would be quite an undertaking. Worth it though. But still…
Yes, there’s nothing quite like an incentive (like a repair man or someone else visiting) to speed things up.
Shame you weren’t impressed with the tofu. Yes, maybe marinating it might help. It’s also possible it wasn’t pressed enough and the water content was preventing it from absorbing the flavour… Marinating it would help if that was the case, in theory. Of course, it’s also possible it’s just not something you enjoy… It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, after all. But at least you were willing to give it a try.
Glad you’re at least doing better with the water, even if you aren’t where you want to be with it.
I might just try to find a good review of the first few outlander books and pick up where I left off. It’s just been so long that I’m not sure how much I remember – ha!
As for the tofu, you may be right about the pressing. I put a stack of my cast iron pans on top for perhaps 20 minutes but that may not have been enough. I may give it a try again. Or maybe I should try it in a restaurant. If I still don’t like it then I won’t bother at home.