Another Tuesday Tackle

I really feel a bit like a hamster running around on one of those little wheels ... lots of energy spent but not much progress made. Obviously for those who read last week´s TT post, I never got around to writing up a menu plan and posting it. I also missed the Monday post this week, and once again the menu is only half done. I do, however have meat and other ingredients in the house so I should be able to come up with good healthy meals. I really started to get used to having everything written down. Even my husband was taking notice. The other week when I was too busy to make a menu, I came home from some meetings and my husband had dinner almost finished. I asked him what he was cooking and he told me. I must have looked funny (since I knew we didn´t have the ingredients in the house for that) and he pointed to the menu sheet on the fridge (which was from the week before) and said "Well, it was on the menu for today." He had walked to the store and picked up the ingredients for it and had it ready to go. What a guy! If for no other reason than that, I need to get back to writing out a menu. Who knows when the mystery cook will come and take over dinner duty for me?

I have tackled a bunch of paper work in the last two days ... 2 months of expense reports are done. I am almost caught up to date. I vow I will not let myself get so far behind again. I still need a better system for keeping receipts etc so the process can go faster once I sit down to fill out the form. Any ideas to keep this SHE from getting sidetracked and distracted in the record-keeping process?

Last week my husband and I spent Wed. morning in the Toys R Us store doing a pretty good job at finishing our Christmas shopping for the kids. Between the things that we bought here and some things we bought online in the states and had our nephew-in-law ship over, and the stocking stuffers I have been picking up a few at a time, we are in very good shape. We had some friends flying to the states so we hustled to get presents bought and packages to mail out to family back home. The kids are about half done with their shopping for each other so a couple more trips one on one and they should be done too. I walked my hubby over to the jewelry store in our neighborhood tonight to point out a pair of earrings I like (hint hint hint) but I have been really bad at giving gift ideas this year so who knows what the family will come up with on their own. Of course, my oldest son already has his "assigned" gift but it is always a surprise what the details are. He has written and illustrated a book for me as my Christmas gift for the last four years. He takes one of my favorite treats and writes me a story about it. The books are hilarious and I enjoy them immensely while I snack on my treat. Past themes have been Walker´s Shortbread cookies, After Eight mints, Toblerone chocolate bars, and Reese´s peanut butter cups. A month or so ago he started asking me for other "favorite treats" of mine and I know I gave him some but I can´t remember what they were beyond malted milk balls (Whoppers). I can´t wait to see what he comes up with.
The kids had a long weekend with Thursday and Friday of last week off from school. We dug out the Christmas decorations and set up the tree. The tree is done, the boys (that would be son #2 and the big boy --my hubby) set up their Lionel trains around the base (that was a 4 hour job by itself!), and little by little the rest is going up. Tomorrow´s goal is to finish the decorating and get all the boxes put away so we can enjoy the living room again.

Thursday our church had a big pot luck dinner to celebrate our 16th anniversary. I made 4 kilos of jewish hotdogs (I´ll post the recipe here soon), hubby made 2 chocolate cakes, and I purchased supplies and made punch for aprox 90 people.

The biggest tackle in the last week has been my son´s health. Son #2 has had a painful ear infection all last week. He missed the whole week of school (fortunately only 3 days long) and we´ve been doing antibiotics, pain medicine and drops all week. He is still having pain so we tackled yet another trip to the ENT tonight and this Friday he goes for a TAC (a CAT scan in English). That will be an adventure I guess.

Whew! As I look at this post I am tired.... I think maybe I accomplished a bit more than I thought. Not a lot to take pictures of so enjoy one of the tree topper going on and one of the cookies I made at a friend's house this morning. She invited several Spanish ladies over to teach them how to make sugar cookies. We all had fun decorating them and the family enjoyed the fruits of my labor for dessert today.

Check back tomorrow to see if I can at least get my wordless Wednesday post up --- hopefully more tourist shots from our week with visitors.