Rainy Days and Menu Mondays

 

This looks pretty much like the weather here today.  All day long it's been gray and misty with fog with periodic bouts of rain.  It seems like a good old fashioned winter rain, except that it's not the least bit cold outdoors.  It is very conducive to making me long to stay a hermit in my Blue House.  Tomorrow however, is supposed to be only partly cloudy, the only day we might see sunshine until later in the week, sigh.  Love rainy days though I do, a week of them tends to make me as gray as it is outdoors.

I feel so much better today. So much better that after doing most all of the housework, I slipped outdoors between rain showers and went to work in the shed, moving boxes about so that Katie can move her furniture and boxes in.  I'd meant to do this in increments, 15 or 20 minutes a day, go through boxes and make up piles for trash and donations...Well laid plans and all that stuff.  Instead, I got a cold and spent ten days doing nothing but recuperating.  However, I was only in the shed for an hour today and everything got moved.  Note that word, "everything"...I didn't discard or pull for donations.  I just set my teeth and went to work moving things, stacking and arranging the best I could.  I guess I'll put "clear clutter from shed" on the February goal list.

I brought a few things in the house.  There was a lamp, minus a shade, that I especially love the shape of and which has real sentimental value to me.  It is the very first piece John and I bought when we set up housekeeping.  It's been in the shed because I didn't know what to do with it, as the color was all wrong for the house now.  But I realized today that it's nothing in the world spray paint can't fix right up!  Indecision now only upon what paint to use. 

I've decided to start a February goal a wee bit early.  I take many meals alone and as those of us who eat alone know all too well, meals seldom get eaten at a table.  No, indeed, meals tend to be portable and move from kitchen counter, to favorite comfy chair, to desk, or worst of all, are eaten while hanging over the kitchen sink.  I started this morning, taking my meals at the dining table.  I might on occasion take them outdoors on the cafe table, or use the breakfast table, but from now on, I mean to stop for meals at the table and eat as though I am civilized.

So I sat down this morning with breakfast and a magazine and brought the coffee pot to the table with me.  I wished for a carafe or something other than the ugly coffee pot but we use what we have...until we clean our shed that is!  I found two coffee pots in the shed, both china, one a tiny little electric pot with the inner heat element still intact inside (wish I could get a cord that fit and discover if it works yet), and the other a lovely china coffee pot from England that I picked up a couple years ago at Peaches to Beaches yard sale.  My coffee shall come to table tomorrow morning in a lovely china pot, thank you very much.  Ha!  I may get too big for my own britches, as Granny used to say, and start putting on airs, I'll be so elegant.

I also brought in that quilt top of Big Mama's I've talked endlessly about of late.  I examined the piece and can see where removing some of the squares along two edges (1 row on one side and two rows along one end) I could possibly end up with a lap quilt.  I will need to do a bit of work and buy some fabric to finish it off, so that will bear thinking about.  I turned it over this morning to see if the pieces could be easily removed and realized that top was hand stitched!  Perfectly straight, tiny little stitches.  Further examination showed where Big Mama had obviously used scraps from clothes that had been made (waste not want not, right?) and had pieces together sections of fabric to make up a full square.

Tonight is Harvest night in our home where John brings in the Harvest of his work week and we will sit down and pay our tithes and bills.  My short grocery list is made out, nearly everything on it items that are on sale that will fill holes in the pantry and not meant for use this month.

 

I suppose I could share how I've done this past pay period.  Two weeks and I've spent a little more than I budgeted one week then balanced it the next week by having almost the overage amount leftover.  I did use a single boneless chicken breast I had set aside for next month's foodstuffs, but everything else has been a good use of pantry and freezer stock prior to this month's purchases.

Now on to the menus for the week:

Bbq Chicken Breast, Cauliflower au gratin,, Poundcake with Canned Peaches

Amish Soup with Corn Muffins, Baked Apples

Cheeseburger Macaroni, Mixed Green Salad, Berry Cobbler

Sausage-Lima Bean Bake, Coleslaw, Apple Hand Pies

Baked Potatoes with Chili and Cheese topping, Orange-Olive-Onion Salad,Brown Sugar Bars

Italian Pepper Steak over Rice,  Spinach Salad, Garlic Bread, Tiramisu

Leftovers Smorgasbord