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
You may have noticed there was no “This Week” post the past two Mondays. We took a vacation to New Orleans to celebrate our 40th anniversary and it was WONDERFUL! The weather was unseasonably cool and we enjoyed a lot of time on patios and balconies.
We spent a couple of evenings with dear New Orleans friends the first weekend and local friends joined us for the second week. After nearly a year and a half of virtually no travel or socializing, it was a much-needed trip.
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Today’s music is light and fun. The title says it all and I really do think it would be cheerful music to play while cooking.
MENU
I’m trying to get back into cooking mode but I must say, after all the amazing meals we enjoyed in New Orleans, I’m not feeling it just yet. Our favorite meals this trip were:
The Rib Room
Muriel’s
Commander’s Palace
Antoine’s
But back to real life…
Monday…
- pasta salad with leftover chicken
- fresh fruit salad
Tuesday…
- Mediterranean chicken patties
- roasted veggies
- salad
Wednesday…
- Busy Day Swiss Steak
- rice
- veggies
- salad
Thursday…
- pork chops
- baked potatoes
- peas
- salad
Friday…
- take out or eat at food trucks (we have an event to attend)
Saturday…
- burgers
- fries
- salad
Sunday…
- Caesar salad with chicken
IN MY HOME:
REVIEW OF LAST WEEK
I spent this past week trying to recover from vacation. Vacations are wonderful but unpacking, laundry and all the catching up isn’t so much fun.
One thing I am proud of is that I boxed up all the items I’ve been decluttering the past few months and they are in my car, ready to drop off at a donation site this week.
I also took everything off the shelves of the china hutch, washed and polished each item, dusted the shelves and replaced the shiny glassware and other pieces. All I have left is to polish the large silver tray. It’s one of those tasks that no one else is likely to notice but it makes me happy to see my pretty things all clean and sparkly.
I should brag on David a bit here, too. He spent most of Saturday cleaning out his closet. He took everything out (oh, my!), sorted, discarded and organized. He also moved the closet rod down a bit. It was so close to the shelf above that it was a pain to get hangers on it. He ended up with two large trash bags of clothes to donate and I have no idea how much he threw away. Good job, Honey!
THIS WEEK
The house is in relatively good shape so home tasks this week will mostly be the daily home-keeping. I do need to mop the kitchen and laundry room.
I do, however, have a LOT to do for the big music and arts festival our nonprofit hosts in August. I have a two-page list of tasks for that.
And next week is the 5th annual LWD French Week. I want to write five posts for that so I foresee a lot of time at my desk this week.
READING
I thought I might get a fair amount of reading done on vacation but I didn’t. David and I started an audiobook on our drive home. I’d like for us to finish it but I’m not sure when to work that in. Maybe we could go to bed earlier at night and listen in bed.
Otherwise I’m still reading the same selections as before. I really MUST devote some time to finishing them!
SELF CARE
I think it’s time for me to begin addressing my sleep issues. There are way too many sleepless nights and I am perpetually tired. I’ve read lots of advice but if you have personally fixed your sleep issues I’d love to hear any suggestions you have.
HEALTH AND FITNESS
Thirteen days of vacation, restaurant meals and day drinking means it’s now time to refocus on diet and exercise. I’m getting back to intermittent fasting, more water intake and daily treadmill time this week.
FUN ACTIVITIES
The three of us are going to watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High tonight. It’s been ages since we’ve seen it and it’s always good for a laugh.
Friday evening is our community’s annual event, Cruisin’ Main. Ordinarily we would get out David’s first car, a beautifully restored 1966 Mustang, and join the cruise. However, I don’t know if we’ll be able to this year. Our nonprofit is hosting music afterwards and I’m not sure if the timing will work. We’ll see…
HABIT OF THE WEEK
This is actually going to be my habit for the month. I’m hosting a decluttering challenge in my Make Over Your Life With Dee Facebook group. The goal is to declutter 100 items in the month of July. Starting today that’s only 4 items a day with a couple of days off. That seems totally do-able, right? If you would like to join the group, here is the link:
So tell me…what is on your agenda for the week? What home tasks are you focusing on? Do you have a menu? Any fun plans?
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Hi, Dee! Welcome back! I spent quite a bit on food last month since I had a visitor and we ate out quite a bit. So I intend to eat from the freezer and pantry as much as possible this month. Menu planning will be challenging, but fun! Today’s dinner is parmesan fish, cabbage slaw, and leftover vegs. Tuesday: crockpot drumsticks and Harvard beets; Wednesday: chickpea patties and broccoli with cheese sauce; Thursday: sweet and sour cabbage soup; Friday: scrambled eggs and sardines on toast; Saturday: Spanish rice; Sunday: pancakes and bacon. My agenda for the week is to revise my offerings on FB Marketplace, Poshmark, and e-bay that aren’t doing so well, write a couple letters, start on some Christmas planning (Saturday is Hallmark ornament day!!), as well as looking for some curtains for my living room. And the usual household cleaning! Today was marketing and menu planning and general tidying. Another week unfolds!
Great menu! I’m trying to keep grocery spending down this month after vacation. I also need to use up some of my food stock so that works out well. This is my favorite time of year for fresh produce so most of our grocery money will be spent on that. I hope to make it to the farmers market regularly. I am so ready for peaches!
I haven’t forgotten that I owe you a letter, my friend. 🙂
I’m pretty late in here this week, but no less glad to see you back. Glad you had such a great time. Good luck with readjusting to being back home, and awesome job to you both on getting some of your decluttering sorted even while doing that.
If you could share any tips for fixing the sleep thing, I’d really appreciate that. Right now I’m struggling to sleep at night too, no matter how hard I try, and am literally left with the choice of napping when I’m finally exhausted enough that I have a chance at sleep (even if that means sleeping in the day, when I’d really like to be able to be up getting things done) or attempting to only sleep when I should, but then getting no sleep at all.
As for my week…
Monday and Tuesday evenings I had roleplaying. Monday’s game (a Lord of the Rings based one) runs about every three weeks, so this just happened to be the week for it, while Tuesday’s game is every week. Wednesday I was meant to go somewhere with my Mam, but it got cancelled. Thursday I need to decide between the narrators who auditioned for my poetry books in the past week, and make offers to the ones I want to give the jobs to. Friday Dad is taking hubby to fetch one of those discounted food boxes we can get (not sure if I told you about it, but it’s a scheme where food that needs using soon is packed up in boxes randomly, and you pay £1 for a box) and I also have my book club. Saturday Dad is taking hubby for his bi-monthly trip to stock the freezer, and then he’s going to help me sort out the new accessories I got for Artemis’ vivarium. Sunday I’m hoping for a relaxing day to catch up on some reading.
As for my menu…
Monday: smokey jackfruit burgers, mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots, and sweetcorn.
Tuesday: leftovers from Monday.
Wednesday: I was meant to have been eating out with my Mam, but since I was home after all I made tofu scramble with chips (fries) and peas.
Thursday: lentil sausages, onion gravy, mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables.
Friday: leftovers from Thursday.
Saturday: Chinese food with Dad.
Sunday: haven’t decided yet, since it depends what’s in the food box.
It’s not an exciting menu, but they’re things I can throw together relatively quickly from what I have on hand, with minimum amounts of preparation (the burgers and sausages are homemade, but that just requires throwing the ingredients in to a blender, mixing it together, and forming it in to shapes) which is what I need this week.
If I figure out the sleep thing you can be sure I’ll be blogging about it – ha! Last night I read until after 12:30 and fell asleep sometime before 1 a.m. I then awoke at 4 to go to the bathroom and couldn’t go back to sleep. So aggravating!
The discount food boxes sound like a great idea! I hate that so much food is allowed to go to waste.
I know the feeling. That kind of thing keeps happening to me too. *sigh*
Yes, the food boxes are a great idea. Plus, my Dad takes anything we don’t want from it to a friend of his on really low income who really appreciates the help with supplies of food. So, less food waste, a reduction in costs for us, and we get to help someone out too.
Glad you had a great 40th anniversary vacation! We haven’t traveled since March 2020 when we went to Los Angeles to visit out son. We need someone to house sit because of our cats. Last time, my mom was able to do so but now she can’t because she has a dog. So we’re at least looking forward to a possible weekend visit to our favorite spot in Michigan in September for our anniversary. A couple of friends might be able to take turns taking care of the kitties.
Sorry to hear you’re not sleeping well. I actually sleep pretty good. I make sure to wind down for about 45 min before bed with gentle reading. If I look at my phone, huge mistake. Then I can’t fall asleep. Hard but necessary (bad) habit to break! I also sleep wearing Somnifix strips on my mouth. I have allergies and am a mouth breather at night. So I’d snore and wake up a lot with a dry mouth. The Somnifix strips have been a lifesaver. I’ve even slept through the night several times without having to get up to go to the bathroom!
Is your bedroom totally dark? We have wooden blinds plus blackout curtains. When I wake in the middle of the night to pee, I then put on an eye mask when I go back to bed. Even the teeniest bit of light wakes me up.
One other suggestion – take a magnesium supplement and a GABA supplement before bed. Some people also swear by valerian root.
xoxo
I understand the pet/travel thing. It was always challenging with our sweet Shiloh. I miss him dreadfully but it does make travel easier. I hope you get to take a trip soon.
We did buy heavy velvet drapes so our bedroom is very dark. I don’t turn on the light when I go to the bathroom in the night and I do take magnesium. I’ll look into GABA. It seems there was some reason I opted not to try Valerian Root but can’t recall what it was. There are some things people with autoimmune diseases shouldn’t take so maybe that was it? I’ll look again. Most of the time I can fall asleep (usually read myself to sleep) but staying asleep is more of the issue. It’s downright irritating.