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
Anyone else miss hanging out in a coffee shop? Pre-pandemic I would occasionally take my laptop to a local coffee shop and do a bit of writing. It was nice to have a change of scenery once in awhile. I look forward to doing that again but in the meantime, let’s have a coffee and chat in a New York cafe.
MENU
Monday…
- cheesy meatball and pasta bake
- steamed broccoli
- salad
Tuesday…
The pulled pork I made last week was SO good! We had some of the leftovers in tacos the next day and then I froze the rest. I’m going to see if I can make some tasty enchiladas out of it.
- pulled pork enchiladas
- salad
Wednesday…
Thursday…
- Slow Cooker Italian Red Pepper Chicken
- rice or pasta
- salad
Friday…
- garlic butter steak bites
- baked potatoes
- carrots
- salad
Saturday…
- takeout
Sunday…
- Garlic Fried Noodles
- veggies
IN MY HOME:
REVIEW OF LAST WEEK
A quick review…
The master bedroom, bathroom and closet were on last week’s agenda. I moved all the Easter decorations to one of the new, cloth-covered storage boxes I bought for the walk-in closet shelf. I have five of these and it looks so nice to have the storage boxes all match.
I sorted the big magazine basket in the bathroom. I left just a handful of magazines in it and moved the rest elsewhere. I will likely get rid of a bunch of them as soon as I find someone who wants them. The basket is really way too large so I’ll be on the lookout for a smaller replacement.
The biggest job I did was to work on the linen closet. It’s a huge, cavernous, floor to ceiling closet with just a couple of shelves. It’s poorly designed and really hard to keep things organized.
I now have all my tablecloths in bankers boxes instead of piles that were hard to access. It took THREE boxes which leads me to believe I may have too many tablecloths. I’ll go through them again and see if I can get rid of some. But at least they are all neatly folded and easy to find. I turned the boxes on one end and stacked the tablecloths in them so they are basically “filed” and I can see the folded edges of each one.
I also put all of our extra supplies such as shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, soap, toothpaste, etc. in another bankers box. Now it is easy for me to see what I have on hand when I’m ordering from Amazon “subscribe and save“. I like to always have at least one extra on hand for things we use regularly. However, I did discover that we have four of the deodorant I use and seven of my husband’s. And let’s not even discuss the fact he has 25 packages of razor blades. I should be able to handle our inventory better now.
THIS WEEK
Home tasks this week…
We are in Zone 5 this week – The family room
- Get rid of ottoman – We gave away the matching chair a couple of years ago but I held onto the ottoman. It’s handy for extra seating by our large, square coffee table when we have people over to play games. However, we haven’t had parties during the pandemic and I’m tired of it taking up space. We’ve since bought a couple of additional chairs that we can pull into service if needed.
- Dust bookshelves thoroughly. We have a large, built-in bookcase and while I dust the edges often, I usually only take off everything and dust thoroughly a couple of times a year. It’s due.
- Clean sliding door, inside and out
- Vacuum, including edges and under furniture.
WORK
I need to devote one whole working day this week to our nonprofit. I need to update the website, create some events and schedule a few social media posts.
READING
I finished “The Peaceful Life” by Fiona Ferris and will be replacing it with one of my Alexandra Stoddard books. I haven’t decided which one yet. I’m still reading all the others that I mentioned last week.
SELF CARE
I’m going to do my best to get all my work done by Thursday evening so I can take Friday “off”. I’d love to watch a movie (any recommendations?) and spend a couple of hours curled up with a book.
HEALTH AND FITNESS
David said that a few of his employees at one of his locations have been doing intermittent fasting and have lost quite a bit of weight. Now mind you, if *I* had brought up the notion he wouldn’t have paid much attention but I know how to take advantage of an opportunity. We are going to experiment with this for the next few weeks. We both need to lose weight and would love to take off a few pounds before our trip to New Orleans next month.
FUN ACTIVITIES
I did finally have a movie night with Chris this past Thursday. We watched Minari which was filmed here in Oklahoma. Excellent movie – I highly recommend it.
David and I met up with friends Sunday afternoon for a late, outdoor brunch. We were practically the only people there which was surprising since the weather was perfect – overcast and low 70s. We always have such a good time with these friends.
This week…
Some of Chris’ friends are putting on a virtual DJ show Friday night. This will be the third (or fourth?) they’ve done during the pandemic. The app where it streams allows viewers to chat with one another and honestly, that’s the part I like best. I miss all our “kids” and it’s fun to at least visit with them this way.
I’d like to have a coffee date with David on the patio at Starbucks one day this week or maybe this weekend. There’s a lot of rain in the forecast so we’ll just have to see how that goes.
HABIT OF THE WEEK
As the weather gets warmer I’d like to make pitcher of iced tea each day. We’ve all been drinking lots of coffee and hot tea all winter but it’s time for a cooler option.
Here is how my grandma taught me to make iced tea:
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I’d love to hear what you have planned for the week. Leave me a comment below and have a beautiful week!
You may also enjoy…
I love reading about your week’s plans and menus – they always give me a nudge. Here are two movie suggestions that I watched this week, and you may have already seen both of them. “Yesterday” (I’m sure you’ve seen this, but I missed it at the theatre and just got the DVD from the library.) SO WONDERFUL hearing all those Beatles songs again! I watched it twice! Also, “Pride,” which I watched on Amazon Prime. I’ve seen this before and it’s worth a repeat viewing. Both movies had me in tears, so there’s that. My plans for this week are to get some plants for the house (accomplished this morning!) and to get a couch for the living room. How difficult can this be? Also have a doctor appt tomorrow but will start the day by getting up at 4:00 am to watch the lunar eclipse! Praying it won’t be overcast, as it usually is when these things occur. Meals are haphazard but usually involve a lot of vegetables, and I have a bunch right now so will probably roast a pan for dinner. I also made a pot of lentil soup on Sunday so I’ve been having a bowl of that every day. I loved your grandma’s iced tea recipe! It reminded me of my mom’s, also made in a pot on the stove. We don’t put milk in our tea – hot or iced – and growing up in PA we didn’t have “sweet tea,” but she always put in 3 big serving spoons of sugar and 6 SACCHARIN tablets!! Then she’d slice half a lemon and add to the pitcher, with cold water and ice cubes. It was always the best tea – and we drank it pitchers of it during the summer. I’ve been making iced tea for a few weeks now, but I just make a pot of tea (half decaf Liptons and half decaf Earl Grey), add honey, let it cool to room temperature and then pour into a glass milk bottle and refrigerate. I usually go through a whole quart in one day. Thanks for the link to the organic Earl Grey — I’ll give it a try!
Did you see the eclipse? It’s been constantly rainy/cloudy here for days so I didn’t even try.
David and I saw “Yesterday” in the theater and loved it. That would be fun to watch again. I haven’t seen “Pride”.
Hope your week goes well! Btw, I received a nice, fat letter from you and plan to read it this afternoon during “teatime”. Thank you so much!
Oh, good – I’m glad the letter got there safely. I was so disappointed, once again, with the eclipse. The moon was bright and gorgeous last night around 10:30, so I was hopeful. Set my alarm for 4 AM and went outside and finally found it – as a “smudge” in the sky, under cloud cover. AS USUAL when there’s an eclipse or special moon event. I stayed out there for half an hour, hoping it would come out from behind the clouds, but NO. So I made some tea and dragged my chair to the face the east so I could watch the sunrise. Didn’t want to waste being up at that ungodly hour. It was nice to see, and to hear all the birds chirping. Then I went back to bed and didn’t wake up again until 9! Do see “Pride.” It’s wonderful.
Sounds like a great idea for organizing the stuff in that closet so you can actually get at it.
My menu for this week looks like this:
Monday: baked potato with beans and vegan cheese.
Tuesday: poutine – vegan style (AKA fries with vegan cheese and gravy).
Wednesday: tofu scramble with baked potato, green beans, and baby corn.
Thursday: garlic mushrooms, baked potato, baby corn, and salad.
I haven’t figured out Friday through Sunday yet.
This week I’m trying to get two poetry collections published (one down, one to go at this point) while also participating in a blog tour for the poetry anthology I contributed to that was released last month. In between that I’m trying to organize the most recent batch of crafting stuff my Dad dropped off that was my Nan’s, plus a couple of bags and boxes of Nan’s old stuff he also gave me to look through. There were several bags of clothing too, but I’ve already been through those and gone with my Mam to take them and some bags of clothing she had as well to a nearby cash for clothes place (you don’t get much for it, but the clothing gets given to people who could potentially use it, and the little bit of cash we get for it is enough to buy bread and milk that week, so… *shrugs*)
Sounds like a busy week! Hope you got your poetry collections published. My son is a poet and I’m trying to encourage him to publish some of his work. He was published in his university journal each year in college but hasn’t pursued it since.
Yes, I did. The eBook versions anyhow. If you ever persuade your son to get his published, let me know and I’ll check them out. 🙂
I will…thanks!
Hey Dee! I just wanted to leave you an IF book recommendation… well, two actually, but one author, Gin Stephens. Delay, Don’t Deny and Fast, Feast, Repeat. She also has a wonderful podcast called Intermittent Fasting Stories. I have been Intermittent Fasting with a daily eating window for almost 900 days (900 on June 3rd!). Yep, 2.5 years!!! The results have been nothing short of a miracle for me! Weight loss (65 lbs), but more importantly GREATLY improving many health markers. (Blood pressure, A1C, fasting glucose, etc, etc, etc!) I highly recommend the clean fast (black coffee, water, plain black or green tea or plain sparkling water only during fasting hours). It’s really fantastic! Gin will tell you all about the whys and how if you read her books. 🙂 Since reading her books I have met her in person! She’s the real deal! 🙂
Thank you so much! I have a monthly subscription to Scribd and both books are available there so that’s great. I’ve saved them both. And you have no idea how encouraging it is to hear you lost that much – congratulations! That’s about what I’d like to lose. Thanks again!
Oh great! That’s wonderful!!! I forgot to say Gin also has a new online social media… forum? I guess you might call it. DDDSocialnetwork.com it’s $4.99/mo, but between there and the Delay Don’t Deny fb group, you have a wealth of info and a place to ask questions. Gin is no longer on fb, but is on DDDSN every day! And if you have access to my email, don’t hesitate to ask me anything!
Thanks!