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.
This post may contain affiliate links and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Read more here.
THIS WEEK WITH DEE
Hello, my friends! Not only is it the beginning of a new week but a new month, as well. I hope we all have a wonderful July. 🙂
MENU:
David has a short business trip this week and I’m going with him.
Monday…
Tuesday…
- out of town
Wednesday…
- out of town
Thursday…
- out of town
Friday…
- Lemon Parm Chicken Gnocchi
- Caesar salad
Saturday…
- grilled hot dogs
- potato salad
- baked beans
- corn on the cob
Sunday…
- Cobb salads
IN MY HOME:
REVIEW OF LAST WEEK
Monday…
David left to visit one of the company locations in West Texas. I took him to pick up his rental car at about 10 a.m. I had scheduled my grocery pick-up for 11 a.m. (earliest time available) so I decided to stay in town. I ran by the post office to mail something that needed international postage then to Home Depot to get some tomato plants. I also bought three flowering plants for the sunny end of our front flower bed. I then picked up my grocery order. Mom called needing something right away so I picked that up for her and took it to her.
I went home, put away my groceries, wrote a blog post and made some food for Mom. I had to go back to town to get the things she wanted from Braum’s and took them, her groceries and the food I made to her.
Since David was out of town, Chris and I had fish. I made salmon, baked potatoes and asparagus.
I also washed the sheets, remade the bed, watered plants, did the dishes, read, journaled, scheduled some social media and did my daily Duolingo lesson.
Tuesday…
Joy asked if I could watch Charlotte for a few hours while the local power company would be there to do some weatherizing upgrades. Of course I said yes. 🙂 I knew I wouldn’t get anything done while she was here so I made the bed, did dishes, threw in a load of laundry, used the blower on the front porch and walkway, cleaned the front storm door (should have done that after she was here – ha!), vacuumed the traffic areas and basically put the house in order for the day.
While Charlotte was here we baked brownies, played “office”, had a tea party, played dolls and pulled out every toy in the toy cupboard. We had a blast! So much so that she started to cry when her mommy came to get her. She wasn’t ready to leave. This was the first time she had been here when “Grampa” wasn’t here so I wasn’t sure how she would do. She absolutely adores him! So I have to say it made me very happy that she had such a good time with just me. She’s a funny, smart little cookie and some of the things she says crack me up. It was a great afternoon.
I was a bit tired so I had Chris pick up dinner at a local bbq place. I never think to get food there for some reason but it was really good. I called it in, Chris drove through to pick it up and they got the order right. All for about the same price as fast food burgers. We’ll be doing that more often.
This was “Leon Day” (half way to Christmas) so after dinner, Chris and I watched “Remember the Night” which is set during Christmas. I had seen it once quite awhile ago but had forgotten what a good movie it is. I drank hot chocolate while watching it in my air conditioned house – ha!
Wednesday…
Chris had forgotten his leftovers which he intended to take to work for lunch. I saw it in the fridge and offered to meet him halfway with it.
I hadn’t thought David would be home until later that evening but he left early. I picked him up at the rental car place at 2 p.m. He needed something from Home Depot so I drove there and he ran in quickly. I had mentioned that I’d bought one small bag of potting soil when I bought the tomato plants Monday and without me asking, he picked up a big bag while he was in there which was thoughtful.
David hadn’t had lunch yet so I drove through Taco Mayo so he could get a burrito to hold him until dinner. Then we went home. I had a 3 p.m. Zoom call which I was just in time for.
We were planning to have sushi which was Chris’ Mother’s Day gift to me but they were inexplicably closed. I made black bean and corn enchiladas, though, and they were really good. I usually make them with flour tortillas but I’m experimenting with avoiding wheat so I did corn tortillas this time. Since corn tortillas tend to bread when rolled, I ran them through hot oil for a few seconds to soften them up before filling them. A little extra work but they were really good.
The three of us ate our enchiladas and yellow rice while watching at episode of M.A.S.H. Such a good show! When David and I went to bed we watched the final episode of “Dennis the Menace”. I have to say I’d grown rather attached to Dennis over the past several months as we watched the entire series.
Thursday…
It had been a rather busy few days and I was tired this day. I decided to only do what really needed to be done. I did the usual household tasks (make bed, do dishes, keep things tidy) and daily admin tasks for my blog. Otherwise I sat in my chair in the library. I read a little and watched a few YouTube videos.
For dinner I made Mediterranean Turkey and Veggie Skillet. It is full of lots of veggies so I didn’t make a salad as I had intended. I did make a fruit salad with the last few strawberries, halved grapes, a sliced banana, fresh blueberries and some canned peaches. The three of us ate dinner in the family room and watched an episode of Frasier. Until we bought the new t.v. we always ate at the kitchen table. I must say, however, I’ve been enjoying occasionally watching something funny while we eat.
David and I decided that our next bedtime series would be “Leave it to Beaver” and we watched the first episode this night.
Friday…
My mom had an afternoon pedicure appointment. I was a couple of minutes late leaving my house to pick her up and of course that meant I got behind someone doing 50 mph on the highway when the speed limit is 65. There are no safe places to pass so I followed him several miles as he just toodled along. When I got to my mom’s she realized she didn’t have her sunglasses so went back in the house to look for them (couldn’t find them even though she’d had them 5 minutes before I got there). And then there was a funeral procession. Now, let me just say that one of the things I truly appreciate here is that everyone pulls over and waits while funeral processions go by. I don’t mean just on the same side of the road but even across several lanes of traffic heading the opposite direction. I think it’s such a nice show of respect. However, that added another couple of minutes to our travel time so we were about 3 minutes late for her pedicure appointment. It wasn’t a problem as the woman who does her nails owns the shop, is a friend and is often running late herself. Still, I prefer not to be late for appointments.
While Mom was getting her toenails done I took our recycling to the center. David had broken down all the boxes, sorted the other items and loaded them in my car before I left. I then dropped off a condolence card in the mailbox at the post office, drove through Starbucks for a cold brew coffee (it was nearly 100 degrees and I needed something cold to drink!) and then went to Bath and Body Works. Mom and I both like their “Kitchen Lemon” hand soap and were both out. I quickly grabbed 5 bottles (they were 5 for $27) only later to discover I had bought the gel soap rather than the foaming version which we prefer. But I got to thinking that I could probably thin the gel and put it in a foaming dispenser. I know my mom still had hers because I saw it next to her sink almost empty. I just did a quick search and I’m right. AND it will save money.
I made a chicken and vegetable sheet pan dinner. The veggies I had on hand included small red potatoes, red and green bell peppers, baby carrots, yellow squash, asparagus and onion. I cut up the veggies and put them (except the asparagus) on a foil lined sheet pan along with the chicken breasts. I drizzled with olive oil and seasoned liberally with several herbs and spices. When everything was almost done I added the asparagus and cooked until it was crisp/tender. It was tasty and there was just one pan to wash. Bonus!
Around 9 p.m. we got a Facetime call from Charlotte. She really needed to see Grampa since he hadn’t been here Tuesday. She asked if she could “go to your house” so we promised to get her Saturday afternoon. That appeased her.
Saturday…
David and I worked on our office closets. He had recently freed up space in his “craft room”, the back bedroom at Chris’ house by finally getting a bunch of lighting equipment back to the guy who used to do the lighting for our backyard music festival. We’ve been storing it since the final one we hosted in 2019. I had carefully sorted and boxed up a bunch of Lisa’s stuff when I moved my office into her old bedroom but it mostly filled the closet. David took it to the other house which gave me a whole closet. I then moved a bunch of stuff from David’s office closet. I had the stuff in stacking plastic drawers which I thought I’d just move to my closet. However, it was going to be very hard to access the drawers because the closet has folding doors and a divider right in the middle.
David offered to install shelves and made a quick trip to Home Depot. Charlotte loves to “help” build things with Grampa so we had her bring her tool box and level when we picked her up. The two of them had the shelves installed in no time.
One of the things I ran across was my old briefcase from when I was a hospice nurse. It’s one of those hard sided types and it occurred to me that Charlotte might enjoy it. I filled it with office supplies, crayons, paper, an old check register and an old cell phone. She loved it! She and I played office while David finished installing the shelves.
She was here about 2 1/2 hours. We let her “drive” the truck from the house to the road before putting her in her carseat. She loves to drive Grampa’s truck but needs frequent reminders to watch where she’s going – ha!
After we took her home we ran by Lisa’s house to give her her birthday present. We then picked up sushi for dinner.
After we ate I spent about an hour getting everything sorted and organized on my new shelves then vacuumed my office. By that point I was done in for the day.
Sunday…
I wrote two blog posts, scheduled social media, did our weekly menu and outlined this post. I made the bed, washed two loads of laundry and did dishes. I also helped David sort through some things in his office closet. We threw away some things and found quite a few things to donate. We are making progress! David also planted my tomato plants for me. He did that early in the morning before it got hot.
We did a family Zoom call to celebrate Lisa’s birthday. Charlotte only lasted about 20-30 minutes and then they needed to feed her and get her settled for the night. The rest of us stayed on the call until nearly 8 p.m. when we all decided we needed to do something about dinner. Chris picked up Applebee’s for us. I can’t recall the last time we ordered from there and I don’t remember being very impressed. But it was quite good this time. We watched two episodes of Frasier while we ate.
I then did a little more blog work while David worked on his latest hobby – coin collecting. We finally went to bed around 11:30 and watched an episode of “Leave it to Beaver”. David fell asleep and I read. However, he was fidgeting and I knew his ankle was itching. He had some bites on it from a couple of days prior when he was working on something outdoors. Sure enough, he woke up due to the itching. He went downstairs to see if he could find something to stop the itch. After he liberally applied something he found, he recognized the scent as Eucalyptus, something I’m highly allergic to. I’m not sure why we even had the item unless it was something left behind at our last music festival. In any case, he came upstairs, got his pillow and went back down to his recliner to try to sleep. It was getting close to 2 a.m. by this point. I found out this morning that he ended up taking two Benadryl and was dealing with the after effects. Hey, who needs to sleep? Apparently we don’t.
THIS WEEK
Monday…
Today is my sweet Lisa’s birthday. 🙂
My mom only needs a few things from Braum’s and since we are going to be out of town a few days this week I decided to make do without our usual Monday grocery pickup. After I finish this blog post I’ll cook a few things for Mom then head to town. I need to get gas, drop off donations at the Re-Use Center, go to Braum’s and then take food to Mom.
I am finishing up laundry today, tidying the house, packing and scheduling social media for the week. For dinner I’m making Taco Frito Salad. It was on my menu last week but I didn’t make it.
Tuesday…
David and I are driving to Vidor, Texas. I think it’s about a 6-7 hour drive. Chris will take David to pick up the rental car before he goes to work in the morning which will allow me more time at home to get ready to leave.
Wednesday…
David will be visiting the shop in Vidor while I stay at the hotel. We are staying at a Residence Inn which gives me a little kitchen and a desk to work at.
Thursday…
We will head home.
Friday…
David is taking the day off since yesterday was a holiday and he will have been on the road. I’ll be unpacking, doing laundry and getting things back in order. We’ve also promised Charlotte that she can come over for awhile.
Saturday…
They are having 4th of July fireworks display in Francis, the little town where David worked until he started working at home (Chris still works there). They put on a pretty nice little fireworks display so David and I plan to go watch it. We had thought about taking Charlotte but she is very sensitive to loud noises so fireworks would probably not be a good idea. Maybe next year!
Chris will be out of town. He and a few friends have rented a boat together and are going to the lake.
Sunday…
Hopefully we can just stay put and enjoy a quiet, air conditioned house.
READING
I’m getting close to finishing “How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships” by Leil Lowndes. A friend said this was really good so I’ve been listening to the audiobook.
Currently reading…
Hoping to finish this while out of town this week:
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
Other books ongoing…
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady ~ Edith Holden
An Incomplete Education ~ Judy Jones and William Wilson
On our May trip to New Orleans, David and I listened to two audiobooks on Audible:
The Last Madame: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld by Christine Wiltz (This was fascinating!)
Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by Admiral William H. McRaven
If you don’t already have Audible, you can get a free trial here. We’ve definitely been enjoying it on long drives.
SELF CARE
I really need to figure out how to make more time to read. If we’d go to bed earlier I could read an hour or two after David goes to sleep. But it’s usually so late I fall asleep myself. I need someone to tell us to go to bed!
HEALTH & FITNESS
When I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease in 2019 my rheumatologist ordered a lot of blood tests, including testing for allergies. There are a number of things I’ve long known I was allergic to but finding out that I’m allergic to dogs and wheat was news to me. I decided to try avoiding wheat for awhile to see what happens. I lost 4 pounds in a week without changing anything else! I’m still eating other carbs (rice, potatoes, etc.) so it’s not that. I’ve also been eating ice cream every day so I don’t think it’s a calorie deficit. I’m thinking it might be an inflammation issue. So I’m going to stick with it awhile longer and then try wheat again and see what happens. I’m thinking I might do better with some ancient grains or Einkorn wheat. We’ll see…
FUN ACTIVITIES
Charlotte here Friday and fireworks on Saturday.
HABIT OF THE MONTH (JUNE)
The LWD June Challenge is to to increase your intake of fruits and vegetables. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere it’s almost summer and there are so many delicious options coming into season. Make use of your local farmers market and add lots of fresh fruits and veggies to your daily diet. I’ll be sharing some ideas in the Facebook group throughout the month and if you want to share something about how you incorporate more fresh produce in your daily diet, please feel free to do so in the group or email me.
If you aren’t already in the group, here is the link:
LIFE WITH DEE
I’d love to see pictures of your challenge so feel free to share them in the group or on Instagram and tag me:
~~~~~
What’s on your plan for the week ahead? Home tasks? Menu? Fun? What are you reading?
You may also enjoy…
Slow Living YouTube Channels to Inspire Your Beautiful Life
Leave a Reply