This Week With Dee ~ Menu, Home Tasks & More (7/31/23)

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

Soft jazz AND the sound of ocean waves? Yes, please!

I did a grocery haul Friday so we are well-stocked again. If you missed that post, click here:

LWD Grocery Haul ~ 7/28/23

MENU:

Monday…

veggie burgers on brioche buns
corn on the cob
French fries
fresh cherries

Tuesday…

Chris wasn’t here Friday for dinner so I postponed this meal. David doesn’t care for salmon so I always fix him a chicken breast instead. He’s going to be away on business Tuesday through Thursday.

salmon
rice
asparagus
salad

Wednesday…

Chris and I will get sushi takeout, something we often do when David is away. Now that he works from home, that hasn’t happened in a long time.

Sushi takeout

Thursday…

David will eat breaded shrimp but again, not a big seafood fan so I just bought one box of the shrimp from Aldi as that will be enough for Chris and myself.

butterfly shrimp
baked potatoes
Brussels sprouts
homemade coleslaw

Friday…

David will be back late Thursday night and I’m sure he’ll be ready for a good, home cooked meal.

BBQ chicken
mashed potatoes
broccoli
leftover coleslaw
rolls

Saturday…

leftovers or takeout

Sunday…

soup
sandwiches

IN MY HOME:
REVIEW OF LAST WEEK

As mentioned above, I got a big grocery order Friday. I hadn’t intended to get quite so much but we are going to be out of town quite a bit in August so this should last the month. I’ll pick up some fresh produce at the farmers market and dairy at Braum’s. Otherwise, I think we are all set. It took me well over half an hour to get the groceries in the house (David helped), sorted and put away. It’s always a big job.

Later Friday afternoon I took a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread to my mom that I had bought from Aldi’s. I knew she liked that so figured she would enjoy a little treat.

I’ve long wanted a red Kitchen Aid mixer. I have a white one from the 1990s which still works perfectly well so I never felt justified buying another one. Besides, they are expensive! Well, it turns out my mom had one in not just plain red, but a gorgeous candy apple red.

I had never noticed it in her kitchen, partly because it is so full of stuff and partly because she had it covered with a towel. She isn’t doing any baking anymore and she offered it to me as an early birthday present. I was thrilled! My daughter already has a special edition blue Kitchen Aid so she didn’t need my old one. So I asked Matt and Joy if they want it. They were really excited about it. I’ve promised my mom a batch of her favorite cookies soon:

Grandma’s Oatmeal Krispies Cookies

My current decluttering goal is “one in, TWO out”. I have a home for my old Kitchen Aid but I need to find something else in the kitchen to get rid of. I’m also going to adhere to that rule with books. If I buy a book, I have to get rid of two. Gulp. Books are hard for me so this should make me think twice about buying books.

One of my goals last week was to straighten/organize my vanity and give it a good polishing. I’m pleased to say I accomplished this.

We have a vintage stove with a large drawer in the bottom. This is where I store my set of cookware. It was lined with thick, padded shelf liner which had definitely seen better days. And can anyone tell me how crumbs get into a stove drawer? I finally got around to cleaning it out. I removed the pans, threw away the liner, wiped out the drawer and relined it. I had bought really cute red and white check liner a long time ago for this purpose. It looks so cheery and makes me smile every time I get out a pan.

Another goal was to set up a menu planning station in my kitchen. I still need to organize the shelves above but I’ve got a start on the project anyway. The red binder you see in the photo has a lot of recipes I’ve printed off over the years. I want to go through them, decide which are keepers and then organize by categories. I will then start adding printed copies of the recipes I’ve shared here on the blog. I also have two recipe files here as you can see:

The brown one was a wedding gift from my aunt and it has a number of her handwritten recipe cards in it, as well as ones I’ve added over the years. The cute red and white box is one I purchased many years ago but it has sat empty all this time. I want to sort all of my recipe cards and the ones from my mom’s recipe box, too. I’ll rewrite the ones that are fading or are somewhat illegible. I think this will be a good winter project.

THIS WEEK

This week can be summed up in one word. HOT! We have predicted temperatures well over 100 most of this week. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

David will gone 3 days – Tuesday through Thursday. He has a business trip to New Jersey. He’s flying so I’m not going with him this time. He’s going to make it a very quick trip.

Tomorrow is the start of my birthday month. This is the first time in years that we aren’t in crunch mode preparing for a big music, art and film festival the end of the month. I plan to indulge myself a bit this month. I am going to read, watch movies, and take it a bit easier than usual.

Our church rummage sale is this coming Saturday so I have just a few more days to gather a final load to donate. I have several things in the back of my car but I’d like to find at least one or two more boxes worth.

Wednesday morning is the farmers market and I’m planning to try to be there. I have just one small tomato left and we’ll slice that up for our burgers tonight. I have a couple of onions left but would like to get several to dice and freeze. And if I am lucky enough to get fresh corn on the cob or green beans, all the better!

WORK

Tomorrow is National Planner Day and I’m using the inspiration to get out my planner again. I generally plan day by day but I really need to do better at getting a sense of my schedule at least a week at a time.

I plan to do less blog related work this month – unless I feel really inspired! I do, however, have the usual Art Appreciation and Vintage Menu posts almost ready to go out tomorrow and Wednesday. And I’ll be sending the monthly LWD Newsletter Wednesday (I used to send it on the first of each month but since I started spreading out the Book Club, Art Appreciation and Vintage Menu posts across three days instead of all on the 1st, I’ve decided it’s best to wait and send it after all three have been posted so I can include the links.

Projects I’d like to start working on:

create master meal list
create master grocery list
do a complete pantry and freezer inventory

READING

I finished “Cheaper by the Dozen” last Monday. I finished “You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself” last week, too.

I like to listen to something non-fiction in the car or while ironing so after I finished “You Are Not So Smart” I started The More of Less by Joshua Becker.

SELF CARE

I bought myself some flowers while I was in town today. I wanted some stargazer lilies because they smell so good!

HEALTH & FITNESS

Continue portion control and daily exercise routine.

FUN ACTIVITIES

With David gone a couple of nights I think I’ll watch one or two old favorite movies. I’m compiling a list of movies I want to watch this month. So far I have the following:

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

Eat, Pray, Love

Any others to recommend?