Monday Meanderings: July 14-20

Life has been so crazy for our family these last few months. I had a wonderful visit with my parents for their anniversary but as soon as I came back I was up to my eyebrows in Vacation Bible School stuff (it was my first time as director and the first one for our church so the stress levels were basically off the charts). Last week I tried to catch up on the house since I had basically ignored it for 2 weeks and had been away for 3 weeks before that. I ended up catching up on sleep and being slowed down by heat several days. I (and even more, my hubby) am SO READY FOR VACATION. Well, let me rephrase that. I am so ready for a REST. Vacation-ready is something I have to do this week. It will require some planning and lots of little bites to arrive at travel day with everything I need, the house in some reasonable good shape to return home to (and just in case the landlord needs to get in for some reason) and with all 4 children and my husband with their heads intact. (Can you tell that packing can be a bit stressful around here?)

Must Do's this week focus on getting house and family ready for our trip to Germany for a missions conference followed by some family vacation time. There are two appointments to fit in as well -- Haircut Wed and Dentist on Thursday.
Today's focus will be laundry so that I will have everything clean to choose from while packing.

I had to head to the big grocery/super store this morning to order the kids' school books for the fall. I also wanted to pick up the snacks for the trip and whatever food items I would need to turn the contents of our fridge and freezer into meals for the week. Hubby wants to see if we can empty the fridge before we go and then maybe turn it off while we are away. We'll see. Like a good girl I checked the supplies we have to use up and tried to make a menu of lunch and dinner items that will use them up. Here's what I came up with. After returning 3 clothing items that my hubby bought for the kids on clearance that didn't fit, using 2 other credit slips/carrefour cash-back coupons, my entire order (including juice boxes, nuts and raisins for the trip, pate and individual jelly containers for making sandwiches on the road on day 1 and 2, potatoes, eggs, frozen chicken patties for lunch, bread, plastic plates and napkins, and a few other things I cannot remember) only required me to pull out a 20 euro bill. Yippee!


Clean out the fridge/freezer menu
Meal 1: Baked fish, steamed frozen broccoli
Meal 2: chicken sandwiches, chips
Meal 3: hamburgers and buns, salad
Meal 4: landlubber's paella
Meal 5: fried chorizo sausages and eggs, toast
Meal 5: crockpot beef stew
Meal 6: fried rice with bacon and scrambled eggs added
Meal 7: pizza or pepperoni rolls
Breakfast -- eat up the 6 bagels that I bought at Lidl a few weeks ago when they had products from the USA.

Add a couple of lunches of leftovers or sandwiches and we should be set through Friday evening. That should completely clear out the freezer of all but 2 boxes of puff pastry (any ideas for using those up?) and some extra pepperoni. I may give that away to some friends. Oh, the other thing in the fridge is my bounty from the spring strawberry freezer jam fest. I will have to see if they can be transferred to a friend's freezer or just give them away. Problem is I wasn't thrilled with how it turned out (used a different brand of pectin that called for less sugar. I like my jam much sweeter and thicker. I will go back to SureJell in the future.)

Monday Meanderings: Today's one bite strategy -- SNARF

SNARF! That word comes from an old comic strip.... I think it was in a Garfield strip but I could be wrong. All I know is that once my good friend Anisha and I discovered the word we quickly took it for our own. Our families used to have Thanksgiving together and we would sit ourselves down at their little table, fairly groaning from the enormous spread and then smile at each other and say in unison "SNARF!" (We also used to use this often as we sat down to polish off a box of Entenmann's chocolate donuts between the two of us.) The idea was basically "Dig in! Eat your fill (and more)!" This has got to be my strategy for the next 4 days as I am in the final stretch to get ready for my trip Friday morning. I must attack with snarf-like gusto the bites before me.

Weekly goals/deadlines:
1. Finish compiling credit card statements and file my claim here.
2. Pack clothes, etc for Friday´s trip to the states.
3. Finish the "surprise" for Sunday's 50th anniversary party for my parents. (The reason for my upcoming trip)
4. Finish the schedule and meet with the friends who have volunteered to help pick up the elementary kids at the end of the school day and feed /watch them until my husband can pick them up after he gets off work at 2pm.

I just realized that today is Memorial Day in the states. I quickly decided to go with picnic food for lunch today so I will need to run over to the store for hamburger and buns. We will have a little bit of patriotism and americana at lunch today and I will play the song that I used to play each Memorial Day in chapel with the symphonic band when I was in college. I found a MIDI version online and I just LOVE this song. It has great memories for me and it lets my kids learn the tunes to all the theme songs of the US Armed Forces. The link is here. Just scroll down until you see the photo of the bald eagle and then go back up a bit until you see the medly section. The song is titled Armed Forces Salute. There are a ton of other patriotic songs at this site too if you happen to be looking for something else. I like having these kind of resources to share with my kids so they understand a bit of their american culture and heritage even though they are not living there right now.

This week's rough menu ideas --at least for the days until I leave. After that my husband will make all the things that he and the kids like but that I don´t like -- asparagus, fish, tuna casserole, etc etc etc. I will try to leave a couple of things in the freezer but I am confident that they will do fine without me. After all, the casserole and crockpot king will be here to feed the royal family. And they will all appreciate me all the more once I return. Ü


Monday -- burgers, chips, pasta salad, cream of zucchini soup
Tuesday -- 40 clove crock pot chicken, broccoli, potatoes
Wednesday -- oven beef stew
Thursday -- Tacos, or burritos, or taco salad (or one last chance at Mom´s homemade pizza if my packing is done ... ha ha ha)

Check out Tiany´s blog and Laura´s blog to see what others are planning for the week. Also check back here in the next few days as I have a post asking for your input to help me with a project I am planning during the time I am in the States.

Another week of Little bites .... time to make some serious headway on devouring these elephants

It's Monday. A new week. A fresh slate and a chance to make some major progress on my looming deadlines ..... a slip in some family fun (or at least try to avoid creating any of those memories that scar my children for life).
The weekend was great --- a fun(and profitable) time at the annual yard sale fundraiser for the MK school, two impromptu gatherings with friends that were so encouraging and uplifting to our tired spirits, and a blessed time at church yesterday. As time permits this week I will try to post more on the weekend fun .... we'll see. I did promise to give my son time to post on his blog (for the extended family and friends) about his deal of the day from Saturday. Not to steal his thunder but I'll just share one quote after he got his treasure home and found out it was as good as he thought. "Wow, Mom! I never thought I would have one of these! This is one of those toys only RICH KIDS have!"

Today's To Do list:
1. Plan menu for the week and post.
2. Do 2 loads of laundry
3. Complete at least 1 or 2 months of expense reports for the mission -- due tomorrow night but I will have no time to do them tomorrow.
4. Do something with the box of strawberries in the fridge. The plan is to make a batch or two of freezer jam --- it is that time of year to restock the freezer. Hard to believe but strawberry season is almost over here.
5. Make lunch and dinner for today and put together a lasagna for tomorrow's midday meal.
6. Do something with the zucchini and the peaches from last week's market trip that are rapidly reaching the point of no return.
7. Clear the front hallway and put away the few items that did not sell at the weekend yard sale that we brought back home with us.
8. Have living room straightened and dining room table cleared so as to be able to sit with my hubby for our weekly tv "date" (we love to watch Sue Thomas: F. B. Eye through the little box that we were given as a Christmas gift that allows us several additional TV channels and also allows us to switch the language on several shows back to their original English tracks).
9. Be prepared mentally and physically to have the first of our newly scheduled weekly money talks (hubby and I) after the TV date. Last week we sat down to look at the bank accounts and realized that the first entire week of the month had snuck by in a flash and I had missed the due date for making our monthly credit card payment. I hate that! We had the money in the bank account and because I didn't sit down at the computer for 10 minutes to make the payment before the 5th, we have another stupid late payment. We calmly decided (after a short, not-so-calm period of discussion) that one way to keep tabs on our money and avoid this is the future was to just meet weekly and take a look at the money situation and discuss what we needed to do that week and how it would happen. I chose Monday night. I think tonight's meeting should go well, especially if I have a couple of expense reports done and filed. Ü

Elephant Bites for this week:

School--
1.Elementary play is tomorrow night. I will be working in the morning with the pta moms to transport the sets to the theater and then will feed the kids and get them to the theater in time for my son the King to be there for rehearsal and for the rest of the family subjects to watch when the curtain goes up at 7pm.
2. Sign permission slips and send in money for two field trips.

Church VBS --1. TRANSLATE BIBLE LESSONS!!!!!
2. Plan and print out list of items to be collected and jobs that need to be done in the next month to distribute and discuss at Saturday's meeting.
3. Shop online for craft materials and "rewards"

Prepare for my upcoming trip --
1. Make schedule of which friends are picking up/watching the kids after school on which days
2. Start packing list of clothes
3. Work on the shopping list for when I am in the states. Note to self: add a pair of white flats to the list since I just noticed that the ones I am wearing have a hole in the toe.
4. Work on top secret computer related project. Ü (Can't go into details here since you never know who might be reading .... details will have to wait until June)

Monday Meanderings: May 5-11

The weekend was not as productive as I had hoped, although I did get a few things done (some from my goal list and others not). Princess is persistent, just like her Mama, and will a few more nudges I will be able to declare the long drawn out process of redecorating her room "finished". The goal list for today has to be fairly short to allow for a lot of time today on public transportation thanks to our car being in the garage (where it will be for at least the next two weeks) and the fact that #2 son is still dealing with health issues so we are going to head downtown (a good 1 hour each way) by bus, train, and subway to see the bilingual doctor that we really like. I don't mind the clinic that is just a mile from our house for most things but we went to this other doctor a couple of weeks ago and some new things are happening so I'd like to go back for a follow-up with the same doctor who already has a good idea of what my son is having for symptoms and what medicines he is on.

Here is the plan for today as well as some weekly goals:
Weekly Goals-
1. Finish costume for elementary play.
2. Write a Menu plan for the week and stick to it.
3. Finish translating the Primary Class lessons for VBS.
4. Mail insurance paperwork.
5. Read the Bible in English (this plan) and Spanish (the daily readings for SS lesson)daily.

Today's Plan:
1. Paint sets for elementary play. 9:15- 10:15
2. Start lunch and have it ready to finish when we get off the bus.
3. Finish washing dishes that didn't fit in the dishwasher last night.
4. Finish putting yesterdays 2 loads of clean laundry away and do one more load.
5. Take #2 son to the doctors (appt at 6pm. We'll be gone from the house from 4:30 to ?)
6. Post the weekly menu and write out grocery list.

Well, I feel good that at 12:45 I could already cross off a few items. And I have a half hour before I need to start walking to the bus stop to pick up the kids at school so I should be able to finish posting the menu and jotting a note for #1 son to preheat the oven when he gets home so that it is ready to throw the chicken parmesan in when I get off the bus with the others. I don't know yet exactly how the week will go so I am putting 2 meals for each day but they may end up getting switched around depending on whether we want the bigger meal midday or in the evening.


Weekly Menu
Monday:
1. Chicken parmesan, leftover pasta with spaghetti sauce
2. egg salad sandwiches, chips, pickles
Tuesday:
1. Fried rice, fruit salad
2. leftover chicken and gravy over toast or biscuits
Wednesday:
1. White bean soup, salad, baguettes
2. BLT's, cucumber slices
Thursday:
1. pork loin chops with BBQ sauce, fried potatoes, mixed vegetables
2. omelettes
Friday:
1. Pizza or homemade pepperoni rolls. (Does anyone have a good recipe for pepperoni rolls??????? that does not call for frozen bread dough since that doesn't exist here -- at least that I have found)
2. ?
Saturday:
1. Hotdogs at the baseball game
2. Macaroni salad with ham slices
Sunday:
Lasagna

Don't forget to head over to Tiany's blog for more Monday Meanderings and to Laura's for more Menu Plan Monday posts.

Breaking down the elephant

This next month is chock full of deadlines for me ... elephant-sized tasks that have me a bit paralized when I think about how to get them done without falling back on my normal "stay up all night the night before it is due" pattern. So I am going to try to put my blog title into practice and break up those tasks into bite sized mini-tasks. I will try to set 3 or 4 small goals for each day that should be easily accomplished with some concentrated effort each morning.
Today's goal was to find the body shop for our car and check out getting the car fixed where my husband put a hole in the side of the wheel well when he ran over something last Saturday at 1 am coming home from a youth activity. The mechanic thinks there is more than just body work wrong and urged us not to drive the car too much. So tomorrow I need to contact the insurance company, do a few errands that will be hard to do once we enter the next few weeks of "carlessness" and buy some bus passes to use to get the kids to and from school for the time that the car is in the shop. The mall is on the errand list because I promised the kids I would take them for Ben and Jerry's free ice-cream day. The other little goal today was to get a menu plan made for the week so I can not be distracted by the nagging What's for Dinner question every day. If I find that I can get online without being tempted to waste time I may try to post my bitesized goals each day so I can check them off and be "accountable" to you readers. However, please understand if I find that the temptation to flee from my responsibilities and escape into blogging land causes me to have to go cold turkey for a while.


Menu Plan for the week
Monday:
Breakfast-- oil bread (toast with olive oil and fresh chopped tomato spread --very Spanish)
Lunch: Quiche, cucumber salad, applesauce
Dinner: leftovers (lentils from last week)

Tuesday:
Breakfast--Oatmeal
Lunch-- Hamburgers at McDonald's followed by free ice cream at Ben & Jerry's
Dinner-- cream of zucchini soup

Wednesday:
Breakfast--Cereal and toast
Lunch-- Foil pack taco chicken, broccoli
Dinner-- sandwhiches and chips

Thursday: No School --National Holiday
Breakfast-- Waffles
Lunch-- cheesy chicken crescent dinner
Dinner-- ?

Friday: No School -- Regional Holiday
Breakfast-- French Toast
Lunch-- Fried Rice, fruit salad
Dinner-- Homemade Pizza

Saturday:
Breakfast-- ?
Lunch-- Macaroni salad, Ham slices
Dinner-- Dad's choice (I have a VBS planning meeting)

Sunday: Spanish Mother's Day but we won't be going out, especially if we are without a car
Breakfast-- ? No plan but I imagine there will be breakfast in bed for me
Lunch-- Crock pot roast (if I can find one at a good sale tomorrow), mashed potatoes, carrots, apple crisp with icecream (This is all something that I will start but then my hubby will step in and finish up when we get home from church. He can work his magic on the mashed potatoes and all I will need to do is make the gravy and mix up the topping for the apple crisp.)
Dinner-- leftovers or general grazing Ü

Monday Meanderings on the fly

Monday 8:30am and I am looking at the day ahead of me.
1. Son #3 needs to go to urgent care for his sore throat that now includes fever of 101.6. Done. Went to 2 pharmacies looking for the antibiotic the Dr. prescribed for his tonsillitis. Neither had it in stock so I went back to the one closest to our house and ordered it -- it will be in tonight at 5:30. We´ve already had quite the discussion on germs and below you can view his "art therapy". Ü

We do plan an all out attack on the germs, praying that this will not spread to anyone else this week and mess up the vacation days at the shore for anyone.
2. Expense reports need to be filed in order to be reimbursed this week.
3. Sister-in-law arrives tomorrow, Lord willing and the Columbus, Ohio airport cooperating. My, oh my, and this apartment is sooooooooo not ready.
4. Elementary newspaper (headed up by one other mother and I) is almost ready to be "put to bed" (is that what they call it when it is ready to print?) but needs a bit more layout work on our part. -- Scheduled for this evening at her house.
5. Menu is semi-planned for the week, trying to include several typical Spanish meals for the SIL to try. I will try to get it added to this post later today. -- Not done yet but the soup for dinner is in the crockpot as I type.


I know today´s post is more of just a "to do" list rather than a true Monday Meandering but I have missed my Monday posts and this is better than nothing in my humble opinion. Check out Tiany´s for others plans and goals for the week.

Now, it is off to work on checking something else off this list and then I will reward myself by coming back and updating this post throughout the day. Hopefully by the time the SIL is in the air (4pm EST) I will have a lot more writing in italics than I do now.

Monday Meanderings: Feb. 4-10

Ok, I admit it, January was almost as bad as December as far as planning my work and working my plan. We are now into February and I even get an extra day in the month so we're shaking off last month and forging ahead.

Here's the plan for this week:

BIBLE STUDY/DEVOTIONAL-- I am still trying to meditate on the verse for the day from my new journal. This week, starting today 2:4 we are in Romans,1 Timothy, Proverbs,Colossians,Ephesians, 1 Peter, and Ephesians again. I am also reading through Bible Gateway's 4 month Biographical Bible Reading Plan. If I keep up with the daily readings it will count me down to a very important date (or very close to it) that I am looking forward to this spring. Can't divulge any more details quite yet ..... but it is BIG. Ü

TRAIN THEM UP-- The kids are being inundated with assignments in school about “peace” and “the environment”. I want to do some studying on my own and with them about true peace and what a Christian’s point of view on the topic should be.

MUST DO:

FINANCIAL-- I had a little money mishap this month .... used the wrong credit card for a few larger purchases (I thought I was using my credit union credit card which would give me till next month to pay but by mistake pulled out my Spanish card which is more like a delayed debit card, so the money was automatically debited out of my account this week.) Uh oh! Gotta get busy getting reimbursed for some work expenses and must must must turn in ALL our medical receipts for reimbursement ASAP.

SCHOOL-- Nothing pressing that I know of. I may try to attend the AMPA (equivalent of the PTA) meeting at the junior high school but I have to find out if it is this Wednesday or next.

HOME-- I am planning to continue doing Rachel’s little things over at Home Sanctuary. Last month was very fun and I only missed a few days. I also must must must conquer the Mount Everest of laundry. Two loads started today so far. The true challenge is getting it all the way through folding and being PUT AWAY.

EXERCISE-- I know, I know. I must do something. Does walking up and down 3 flights of stairs count since our building’s elevator is on the fritz? I’ve done it twice this morning and will be doing at least 2 more round trips today unless the elevator tech comes. I did do a TON of walking 2 weekends ago when we had company and went sightseeing. (I posted pictures on Wordless Wednesday but got no comments and I expect no-one ended up seeing the post. Take a second and check it out …. Some good pictures of Madrid and Aranjuez, Spain as well as a cool video)

FUN—Tomorrow I plan to go to a craft time at a friend’s house. She is hoping to use it as an outreach and to make some contacts in her neighborhood for the church she and her husband hope to plant there soon. I MUST get a couple of pictures printed out to bring with me since it is a “scrapbooking” type craft.

Menu—I think I will just continue the simplified version online instead of posting our breakfasts and snacks unless the comments ask me to go back to the old way. I still have the b-fast and snacks on the menu on my fridge though …. It just doesn’t seem very “inspired” to me. Depending on the day, the bigger meal will be midday (when the kids get home from school at 2pm) or in the evening (around 7-8 pm)


MONDAY- 1. Slow cooker split pea sausage soup (excellent w/ kielbasa)
2. sandwiches
TUESDAY- 1. grilled cheese sandwiches, raw veggies
2. Oven beef stew, fresh steamed green beans
WEDNESDAY- 1. breaded chicken filets, steamed broccoli and cauliflower
2. Leftovers
THURSDAY- 1. BLT sandwiches, chips, cucumber spears
2. Turkey soup (that bag of turkey bones in the freezer needs to be used up) with dumplings
FRIDAY- 1. Leftovers
2. homemade pizza
SATURDAY-- Lasagna

SUNDAY—Spaghetti and meatballs

Don't forget to head over to Tiany's blog for more Monday Meanderings and to Laura's for more Menu Plan Monday posts.

Monday Meanderings: Jan 14-20

I am a little late posting this but decided to go ahead and get back in the pattern of planning my week and living more intentionally. I am going to simplify some things (the menu will just have the main meals this week) and spend more time accomplishing the goals.

Bible Study/Devotional Plan: Still floundering a bit on which plan to use for daily reading but I desire to start doing something that I have not done before (at least with any regularity or plan) and that is MEDITATING on the WORD. My husband gave me a journal for Christmas called Happy Verse Day. Each page has a verse for the day that has that day's date as the reference. For example, January 1 (1/1) was Genesis 1:1, June 27(my anniversary 6/27) is Luke 6:27, etc. I wasn't sure what I would do with this gift -- my perfectionism makes me hesitant to write in journals -- so I thought that I would just read each day's verse and work on meditating on it throughout the day. This is easier if I go ahead and memorize it so yesterday I reviewed John 1:14 which was a wonderful thought for the day. This week's verses are: John 1:14, Colossians 1:15, Romans 1:16,James 1:17, Isaiah 1:18, James 1:19, and Romans 1:20. Anyone want to join me in my daily meditation?

MUST DO:

Financial: Fill out insurance forms for the ton of doctor's appointments we had in December and mail them in.
School: Attend newspaper with the kids and help get the next issue planned.
Home: I am joining a great group of women over at Home Sanctuary doing just one little thing each day to make our homes into a peaceful sanctuary for our family. If I do only one thing each day above and beyond the daily upkeep, I am doing Rachel's little missions.
Exercise: Don't ask.
FUN: Prepare for my husband to celebrate his birthday and "catch up" with his "old lady". I love it from Jan 18 to July 29 because we are the same age, and then for the second half of the year I become a year older. Wednesday I will check out a store that I am told sells clothes from Lands End at discount prices to see if I can find him a present or two. Birthday dinner will be postponed from Friday to Saturday to fit in with his crazy work schedule this week.

Train them up: Just trying to get back into the school schedule and focus on being ON TIME for school in the morning. Oh, and not bickering and complaining in the car to and from school. So far so good this week.


Menu Plan Monday (just listing two choices each day- one will be midday meal and the other at night, the schedule will determine if we eat heavier midday or later)


Monday:
1. Baked bean casserole
2. Left over lasagna from Sunday

Tuesday:
1. Egg salad sandwiches
2. left over turkey soup from Friday with fresh biscuits

Wednesday:
1. Baked potatoes with toppings. Steamed broccoli and/or cauliflower
2. Finish the baked bean casserole

Thursday:
1. Baked burrito dinner
2. personalized omelettes with texas toast

Friday:
1. Homemade pizza
2. movie night --- popcorn and snacks with a new dvd from the Christmas gifts

Saturday:
1. lunch-- sandwiches
2. dinner -- hubby's birthday meal a day late. He wants either baked ham or potroast depending on what is a better price. mashed potatoes and vegetable(s)

Sunday:
no definite plan yet. Probably spaghetti and meatballs or broasted chicken from the chicken place in our neighborhood.

Monday Meanderings: November19-25

Last week was quite profitable, at least in regards to the Must Do list. Health forms still need to be mailed but the expense reports did get mailed in and reimbursed. Did the exercising once but changed my route and plan a bit and I think the new plan will work better. Family fun was changed to letting one son have a friend for a sleepover Friday. I also set my oldest son up with his own blog. That is something he has been wanting for a while.

Thanks to Tiany's idea to post our goals and plans for the week.

Bible Study/Devotional plan: I´m still enjoying this study on Thanksgiving and there is so much there I am just going to work my way through it until Thanksgiving Day .. and if I'm not finished I will stay with it through the end of November.

Must Do:

1. Financial-- Mail health insurance claim forms.
2. School -- Find out Tuesday if I am doing the Thanksgiving presentation. Help the "PTA" Moms roast chestnuts for the elementary open house Friday.
3. Exercise -- Go walking at least 2 times.
4. FUN- Thanksgiving Dinner, hopefully with some good friends over to share it with us.

Zone: I need to do crisis cleaning this week to get the house ready for Thanksgiving guests and then houseguests that come in on Saturday. Will set the timer for 15 minutes and go from room to room doing general pickup and clearing out hotspots.

Train Them Up: We're going to continue to work on memorizing Psalm 100. We read it together each night before dinner. The goal is to do it all from memory on Thanksgiving day.


Menu Planning:

Monday
Breakfast- cereal
School Snack- apple slices and/or pepper slices and cheese
Mid-day meal- spaghetti
Evening meal- leftover broccoli soup or lentils from last week

Tuesday
Breakfast- bran muffins
School Snack- bran muffin/ bocadillo
Mid-day meal- Arroz con 3 delicias (from frozen section)with chicken and scrambled eggs added in
Evening meal- Something quick and easy from a can plus whatever I can clear out of the fridge to make room for Thanksgiving food items

Wednesday
Breakfast- Maria cookies with hot chocolate
School Snack- apple/ muffin or croissant
Mid-day meal- French bread pizza
Evening meal- omelettes

Thursday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- croissant sandwich for Princess, fruit for boys (apple or clementina)
Mid-day meal- The full Thanksgiving spread
Evening meal- pick at leftovers

Friday
Breakfast- oatmeal
School Snack- kids' choice
Mid-day meal- Turkey leftovers
Evening meal- probably more leftovers unless the kids catch me in a good mood to make pizza again.

Saturday
Lunch/dinner: macaroni and cheese with ham slices, broccoli

Sunday We have houseguests arriving Saturday night. Don´t know if they will want to stay in town after church to do any sightseeing. (The Prado art museum is free on Sundays). If so, we´ll probably hit McDonald´s or Burger King for lunch and then see the sights before heading home.

Don´t forget to head on over to Laura´s for more menu plans.

Monday Meanderings: Nov. 12-18

We managed to stick to the menu plan pretty well last week and went for a whole week without a visit to the clinic. That streak ended this morning with a trip to urgent care with my 10 year old who has a double ear infection. This week's plan is still heavy on things I already have in my pantry. We may even be able to skip or pare down the purchases at the weekly fruit and veggie market and then shop heavier the day before Thanksgiving. We'll see.
My son and I were sick and stayed home from church yesterday morning. He put me to shame as I was up helping the rest of the family get ready and then was thinking about going back to bed. He knew he should stay home because he felt bad and also to keep from infecting the rest of the church but he wanted to make sure we had some kind of Bible study and preaching time. So, I found a Bible study online on Thanksgiving and we took a half hour or so and just looked up all the verses that were on one little section of the outline. Then we found a sermon on cd from our sending church and listened to one of Dr. Doran's messages from July. It was a little over my son's head but concluded with a very practical and easy to understand application so all in all it was a very profitable time together.


Thanks to Tiany's idea to post our goals and plans for the week.

Bible Study/Devotional plan: Taking a break from my regular reading plan. Found this study on Thanksgiving and there is so much there I am just going to work my way through it until Thanksgiving Day .. and if I'm not finished I will stay with it through the end of November.

Must Do: I'm so glad to say that last week's must do's got done (except for the exercise one). Shooting for success again this week.
1. Financial-- Mail health insurance claim forms for today's Dr. visit, send in expense report by tonight's deadline
2. School -- Teacher conference today, still working on trying to get into the school to present Thanksgiving sometime this month.
3. Exercise -- Go walking at least 2 times (5km route)
4. FUN- help the kids finish their mini movies and burn them to DVD's to share with their friends. Begin working on a photo cd or family movie to share with family back home at Christmas.

Zone: Do Flylady´s challenges for the MAIN BATHROOM and the OFFICE this week .

Train Them Up: We're going to continue to work on memorizing Psalm 100. We read it together each night before dinner. This week we need to start covering up sections to see how much we can say without looking. The goal is to do it all from memory on Thanksgiving day.


Menu Planning:

Monday
Breakfast- cereal & toast
School Snack- crackers and cheese
Mid-day meal- cream of zucchini soup, pizza topped chicken patties, coleslaw
Evening meal- leftovers

Tuesday
Breakfast- bran muffins
School Snack- bran muffin or pumpkin cookies/ bocadillo
Mid-day meal- tuna sandwhiches
Evening meal- baked pork chops, fresh green beans, rice

Wednesday
Breakfast- oatmeal
School Snack- apple/ croissant with Nocilla
Mid-day meal- homemade lentils with chorizo over rice
Evening meal- something light or use up last week's market veggies to make fridge space

Thursday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- croissant sandwich for Princess, fruit for boys (apple or clementina)
Mid-day meal- landlubbers paella or chicken/rice stir fry (still haven't decided between the two)
Evening meal- chicken noodle soup and crackers

Friday
Breakfast- Maria cookies with hot chocolate
School Snack- kids' choice
Mid-day meal- egg salad sandwiches, raw veggies (cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, pepper strips)
Evening meal- homemade pizza or pepperoni stromboli

Saturday
Lunch/dinner: leftovers

Sunday spaghetti and meatsauce
Don´t forget to head on over to Laura´s for more menu plans.

Monday Meanderings: November 5-11

Last week I had every intention of blogging and posting my menu plan for the week and everything. I planned out the menu and posted it on the fridge but needed to get some things done around the house on Monday and told myself that I wasn't allowed to get on the computer until things were done. (I have a real tendency to get sidetracked and stay on for hours before realizing it.) By the time I was "allowed" to get on the computer, it was too late. Then Tuesday I started getting sick and the rest of the week was spent dealing with sickness in the family. 4 visits to the clinic, 3 people on antibiotic (myself included), 1 on cough medicine, way way way too many euros spent at the clinic and the pharmacy (my antibiotic alone was 40 euros!)and let's just say that I never got around to blogging. Fortunately I went shopping for meat Tuesday morning and stocked the freezer up a little. Unfortunately all those medical bills put a serious dent in the monthly budget so I will be doing some serious frugal ingredients-from-the-pantry type meals in the menu this week (and most likely for as long as I can get away with it).

Thanks to Tiany's idea to post our goals and plans for the week.

Bible Study/Devotional plan: Sticking with the same reading plan. Now on week 45.
Must Do:
1. Financial-- Fill out, copy and mail health insurance claim forms
2. School -- Meet with English teacher to see if she will let me come into the classrooms and present American Thanksgiving to the students.
3. Exercise -- Go walking at least 2 times (5km route)
4. FUN- Get out autumn decorations and decorate the living room with fall beauty. (Yes, I am still working on this one! I rearranged the furniture and tomorrow's tackle is to finish the job of straightening up and decorating for fall).

Zone: Do Flylady´s challenges for the KITCHEN this week and finish up with the living room.

Train Them Up: I think we need to ALL work on the concept of being thankful. When my two oldest were in kindergarten/First grade they memorized Psalm 100. I just found the page I typed up to help one of them learn it. It is now posted on the dining room door. I think we will work on this as a family memorization project and shoot to be able to quote it together on Thanksgiving day.


Menu Planning:

Monday
Breakfast- cereal
School Snack- leftover pizza from last night (proof positive that the gang is still not 100% healthy as we NEVER have leftovers when I make homemade pizza.)
Mid-day meal- egg salad sandwiches
Evening meal- Crockpot split pea soup with Kielbasa New recipe which turned out to be delicious!

Tuesday
Breakfast- oatmeal
School Snack- Great pumpkin cookies/ bocadillo with salami and cheese
Mid-day meal- grilled cheese sandwiches
Evening meal- beef stew and biscuits

Wednesday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- apple/ peanut butter crackers
Mid-day meal- chicken and gravy over rice
Evening meal- omelettes

Thursday
Breakfast- bran muffins
School Snack- croissant sandwich for Princess, fruit for boys
Mid-day meal- baked burritos
Evening meal- broccoli casserole (with ham cubes?)

Friday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- tortilla rollups
Mid-day meal- tuna sandwiches
Evening meal- homemade pizza (usually not that frugal but we stocked up on pepperoni and mozzarella at the wholesale club so we have the ingredients on hand)

Saturday
Lunch/dinner: leftovers
Sunday spaghetti and meatballs
Don´t forget to head on over to Laura´s for more menu plans.

Monday Meanderings: October 22-28

This past week was another of those where the schedule kept getting thrown aside. This time it was because of a lot of emotional turmoil and some work related deadlines. Please read yesterday's post for an idea. It would have been too long to include here with the meanderings.

Thanks to Tiany's idea to post our goals and plans for the week I can start fresh again this week. I'm cutting back again to the bare minimum of goals and hoping I finally have some successes to chalk up. Success from last week was that I filed an expense report, got exercise in twice, got the house presentable enough for Friday's guests and read my library book at a time when it did not sabotage other more important things .. like making sure the family had clean clothes.
Bible Study/Devotional plan: Sticking with the same reading plan. Now on week 43.
Must Do:
1. Financial-- gather recipts for next expense reports and delegate a place for them to stay, Fill out, copy and mail health insurance claim forms
2. School -- turn in money and sign field trip permission slip for November field trips
3. Exercise -- Go walking at least 2 times (5km route)
4. FUN- Get out autumn decorations and decorate the living room with fall beauty.

Zone: Do Flylady´s challenges for the MASTER BEDROOM this week and consistently spend time decluttering the boxes of stuff being stored in the extra bathroom.

Train Them Up: My oldest gets home from school while I am out picking up his siblings from elementary school. Last week on Thursday and Friday he had checked the menu on the fridge and had set the table appropriately and started setting out the food for lunch so we could eat right away. It was so nice to see him take that initiative. Now, I need to make sure to stick to the menu or leave him a note if things are going to change. I may try and work with him on some kitchen skills if there are some last minute things that he can do to help with these meals.

Menu Planning:

Monday
Breakfast- oatmeal
School Snack- crackers and cheese wedge
Mid-day meal- cream of broccoli soup
Evening meal- macaroni and cheese (2 of our well guarded stash of Kraft blue boxes), Lincolnshire sausages (from the British import store)

Tuesday
Breakfast- banana muffins
School Snack- muffin/ bocadillo with salami and cheese
Mid-day meal- Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad
Evening meal- omelettes

Wednesday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- clementina/ banana muffin
Mid-day meal- BBQ pork in the crockpot, cream of zucchini soup
Evening meal- tuna sandwiches

Thursday
Breakfast- eggs
School Snack- croissant sandwich for Princess, fruit for boys
Mid-day meal- turkey soup (never got to it last week, just put the turkey in the freezer for another day)
Evening meal- quesadillas

Friday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- cherry tomatoes and red pepper strips
Mid-day meal- egg salad sandwiches
Evening meal- homemade pizza

Saturday
Lunch/dinner: ?
Sunday something in the crockpot.. unsure yet what. Any ideas?
Don´t forget to head on over to Laura´s for more menu plans.

Monday Meanderings: October 15-21

Once again I've managed to go through another week without getting into any real schedule and routine for the week. I hate living from "fire" to "fire". I mean, I don't mind the variety of the days but what I hate is after I've put out the fire, and the emergency situation is taken care of, I am still facing mounds of laundry, a messy house and everything else that needed to be done but got ignored.

Thanks to Tiany's idea to post our goals and plans for the week I can start fresh this week. Here are my goals which I hope are reachable this time.

Bible Study/Devotional plan: Sticking with the same reading plan. Now on week 42. Still haven't done the catch up reading but I'm not going to beat myself up.
Must Do:
1. Financial-- File expense reports for at least two months, Fill out, copy and mail health insurance claim forms
2. School -- turn in forms to teachers to show deposit into the kids' co-op accounts,
Return library books and limit myself to only one new book, which cannot be started until Must Do #1 is completed
5. FUN- Buy peperoni for homemade pizza to share with friends this Friday night. Get out autumn decorations and decorate the living room with fall beauty.

Zone: Do Flylady´s challenges for the BATHROOM this week and consistently spend time decluttering the boxes of stuff being stored in the extra bathroom.

Train Them Up: Focus on several quick pick-ups throughout the day. This is the same as last week because we need some "extra help" on this.


Menu Planning:

Monday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- croissant and cheese wedge
Mid-day meal- Soft tacos and quesadillas
Evening meal- sandwiches with cold cuts and cheese

Tuesday
Breakfast- coffee cake
School Snack- peanut butter crackers
Mid-day meal- lasagna, tossed salad, fresh spanish bread
Evening meal- turkey soup

Wednesday
Breakfast- oatmeal
School Snack- banana, salami and cheese sandwich
Mid-day meal- swiss steak with gravy, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, corn
Evening meal- omelettes

Thursday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- croissant sandwich for Princess, fruit for boys
Mid-day meal- black beans and rice with chorizo
Evening meal- grilled cheese sandwiches

Friday
Breakfast- scrambled eggs
School Snack- tortilla rollups
Mid-day meal- leftovers
Evening meal- homemade pizza

Saturday
Breakfast: French toast
Lunch/dinner: hotdogs, macaroni and cheese
Sunday spaghetti and meat sauce, fresh bread
Don´t forget to head on over to Laura´s for more menu plans.

Monday Meanderings: October 8-14

I had great plans last week but only a few actually materialized. With three trips to the doctor and school meetings, etc. I think I blogged less this week than I have in a long time. We´ll try again this week and see how we do. Go visit Tiany to see what other´s are planning this week.

Bible Study/Devotional plan: This week I will just keep it simple and set the goal of actually accomplishing each daily reading on it's scheduled day. I'm using this plan and am on week 41 right now. Didn´t get any catch up reading done last week. Will try again this week.
Must Do: Many must do´s are carried over from last week.
1. Financial-- pay rent, find receipts for filing expense reports, contact doctor in the states regarding medical billing
2. Grocery Shop -- again try to keep the list as small as possible
3. PRAY (We are entering a two week span of time in which several decisions will be made by others that will decide, in part, the location of our future ministry)
4. School -- find papers and book that need to be turned in to the teachers, get 3 photos of Princess for her preschool class, attend 2 teacher conferences.
5. FUN- plan something fun for the family on Friday, which is a national holiday here so that means we ALL have the day off.

Zone: Do Flylady´s challenges for the KITCHEN this week and continue the attack on the bedroom and laundry.

Train Them Up: Focus on several quick pick-ups throughout the day.


Menu Planning:

Monday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- cherry tomatoes and yogurt drink
Mid-day meal- sandwiches with cold cuts and cheese
Evening meal- quiche, asparagus, cheesy macaroni

Tuesday
Breakfast- Oatmeal
School Snack- Bocadillo, croissant with nocilla (chocolate hazelnut spread)
Mid-day meal- cream of zuchini soup
Evening meal- BLT sandwiches

Wednesday
Breakfast- homemade egg "mcmuffins"
School Snack- apple slices, banana bread
Mid-day meal- landlubber´s paella
Evening meal- tuna croissants

Thursday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- croissant sandwich for Princess, apple slices
Mid-day meal- raw veggies and cheese cubes, crackers
Evening meal- pork chops and scalloped potatoes, squash

Friday
Breakfast- waffles
School Snack- NO SCHOOL -- NATIONAL HOLIDAY
Mid-day meal- Chili and cornbread (Another variation of¨"beans, bread and water")
Evening meal- snacks or pizza

Saturday no plan yet-- we´ll move Friday´s meal to Saturday if we decide to go on a picnic or sightseeing for Friday´s holiday.
Sunday Broasted chicken dinner
Don´t forget to head on over to Laura´s for more menu plans.

Monday Meanderings: October 1-7

I have had some relative success at planning my week's menus since I started participating in the Menu Planning Monday meme. (Scroll down to the end of this post for the menu.) About a month ago I ran across Tiany's blog and her idea to post our weekly plans and I am challenged to see if I can move beyond just menus. I have been dragging lately and am thinking that setting some goals and putting them down on "virtual paper" might help me get out of my unproductive funk. This is my first week. Here are the 5 areas Tiany has proposed and my first attempt at setting some weekly goals.

Bible Study/Devotional plan: This week I will just keep it simple and set the goal of actually accomplishing each daily reading on it's scheduled day. I'm using this plan and am on week 40 right now. I also am behind on some of the daily readings so I want to get "caught up" on at least 3 days. I'll leave the catch up reading on the other 4 days till next week.

Must Do: My "to do" list is huge already but if I have to pinpoint just a few MUST do's I guess they are as follows:
1. Financial-- Do banking, pay school co-op fees, pay rent, find receipts for filing expense reports
2. Grocery Shop
3. PRAY (We are entering a two week span of time in which several decisions will be made by others that will decide, in part, the location of our future ministry)

Zone: I try to follow Flylady's zones but this month she has us in the front entrance way and dining room and those two areas will not take me all week. However, last week I was supposed to be in the master bedroom and I didn't get much done there. I will focus my attention there since it is a DISASTER AREA and I can hardly walk without stubbing my toe on something.

Train Them Up: I need to take "small bites" in my first week of goal setting so I think we will just try to focus on bedtime this week.

Menu Planning: Here's where comes in.
Monday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- croissant and cheese
Mid-day meal- sandwiches with cold cuts and cheese
Evening meal- Fried rice

Tuesday
Breakfast- eggs
School Snack- Bocadillo, Julie's Awesome Oatmeal Cookies
Mid-day meal- quesadillas, cucumber spears, chips
Evening meal- Foil pack taco chicken dinner, corn

Wednesday
Breakfast- Oatmeal
School Snack- peanut butter crackers, nectarine slices
Mid-day meal- crockpot beef stew biscuits
Evening meal- omelettes

Thursday
Breakfast- cold cereal
School Snack- croissant sandwich for Princess, fruit from yesterday's market day for the other two
Mid-day meal- chicken and gravy over rice, broccoli
Evening meal- egg salad, raw veggies and ranch dressing dip

Friday
Breakfast- Maria cookies and Nesquick
School Snack- tortilla rollups
Mid-day meal- Baked bean casserole, oatmeal dinner rolls, homemade lemonade (We refer to this meal as "beans, bread and water" It sounds like prison food but is quite delicious and "special" because of the homemade rolls)
Evening meal- french bread pizza, apple crisp a la mode for company game time.

Saturday no plan yet
Sunday dinner out at friends' house after church

No time right now to post anymore. I'll try to get the recipes for the bean casserole and the oatmeal dinner rolls up later this week or on next Monday's meanderings.

Let me know what you think of the new plan for Mondays. And don't forget to head over to Tiany's and Laura's to see what others have on their plates this week.