9 weeks

That's it! Just 9 weeks till we'll be packing up the last few things and moving to our new home. Unbelieveable! I'm glad it isn't htis weekend because once again it's snowing a lot! Sure doesn't feel like Spring is going ot be here any time soon. 9 weeks is feeling like a really long time away....

But, I'm making more progress. :) I spent some time in the basement last week and packed up some more stuff. I sorted a bunch and tossed a lot too. I still haven't gotten the kids stuff posted for selling so I'm leaning towards just donating it now. I don't think I really want the hassle of trying to sell it. We'll have to wait and see how the weekend goes....

I'm starting to feel like I've got too much going on. I'm tired and can't find the balance I need. Going to have to figure out what I can give up or shorten so I have the time I need to do the things I should be doing. It doesn't help with all these days off from school my daughter has been having due to illness and weather. Seems like she never has a full week of school.

Oi! Onto the weekend....

M&M Review of January

Where did January go??? I remember now, I got sick along with everyone else. Put me two weeks behind on everything. :S Here's a little review of the month gone by.

Meal Planning:
Well, so far my method is working. I didn't miss one day in January, not even when I was sick. Things, of course, changed when that happened as to what we would all feel like eating, but it worked out just fine. I definitely found it helpful to have the list of ideas on the calendar and knowing what I had the day before. Sometimes I have even been able to plan early (like chicken wings for Super Bowl Sunday).

Moving:
Things are finally settling down and coming together. We had a lot of "paperwork issues" over the last few weeks but the house is officially ours (as of April 17th anyways). It was definitely more stressful than I thought it would be. I really just tried to ignore it all so I wouldn't stress out. As for packing, not much got done. I did really well at the beginning, but then meetings and sickness got in the way of my productivity. Back at it again now though. I got some more stuff organized today and tossed and sorted a bunch more items. Feels good!

So, if January needs a mark, I think I would say B+. I did well at organizing and especially well at meal stuff but the packing didn't go quite as planned.

11 weeks

Yep, that's it. 11 weeks until we get the keys to our new house. I am SOOOOOOOO excited!!!! We went over to see it again on the weekend and I still like it. ;) I guess I should since we've bought it. It finally is all official. (What a stressful ordeal!)

Anyways, I haven't gotten much done lately in the sorting, decluttering and packing. My whole family was hit by the flu last week and a couple of us are still recovering including myself. I'm hoping to get back in gear and get some sorting done again as early as tomorrow. I have to run out to the grocery store tomorrow but should have enough time to do a little bit at least.

11 weeks... wow! I think it's going to just fly by!

Recipe: Taco Soup

This recipe is delish! It's kind of like a chili but with different flavour and not as thick.

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef, browned
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup water
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1/2 to 1 pkg taco seasoning

Directions:
Simmer all ingredients together for 20 minutes.
Add as much of the taco seasoning as you prefer. The more in the spicier it will be.
Could also go in the crock pot on Low for 4 hours.

Sick Day

Today is the first of (hopefully not too many) sick days here. My daughter hasn't been feeling well for a couple days and feeling worse. My son wasn't feeling good when he got up neither. So after a phone call to hubby to cancel is chauffeuring duties and the school to let them know my daughter wouldn't be coming in, we braved the day. The kids are enjoying their time in pajamas and Mommy has been doing her best to cater to them.

I thought they were doing better after some homemade chicken soup for lunch and planned to go ahead with my planned supper. Hubby was home early and things looked good for being on time with the meal. Unfortunately everything went to hell after that. Hubby got called to an emergency at work. Kids were feeling worse again so just wanted soup, cheese and crackers. Wasn't going to cook for just me so I decided to wait for hubby. He said not to bother. And so, supper ended up in the fridge till tomorrow and hubby and I enjoyed more leftovers for supper (we had them the day before).

What do you do when things fall apart? How do you feel? I often get frustrated and feel upset. You know, we put a lot of effort into making meals for our families to eat. But today I was feeling okay. I rolled with it all pretty well. And hopefully tomorrow the little peeps will be feeling well enough for a real meal. Although it looks like Mommy and Daddy are getting the cold.... :(

It may not be a meal plan but it's still a plan of meals

So you all know I struggle with meal plans. I just can't seem to make it work. Most people will sit down and plan out all their meals (or at least their suppers) for the next week. I haven't been able to do that yet but I am making progress. My sticky list on the calendar gives me ideas when I'm not sure what we should have. And I've been faithfully marking down what meal I make for supper each day. So we're 17 days in to 2013 and I am feeling better about the whole thing. :)

As for how I shop for groceries, well I have a regular stock of certain items that we use for a lot of meals (like bags of potatoes, canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, eggs, milk, etc.). When it comes to meat, I usually have a fairly good variety in the freezer and pick up whatever is on sale that week. Once thing I'm good about doing is when I'm highlighting what I need to pick up on my grocery list, I mark the things I need to get in pink and the things that can wait for a sale in yellow. When I open up the last of something, I added to my running list and then add those items when I sit down to prepare for shopping. I always go through the flyers and see what's on sale. WalMart is great about price matching if you bring the current flyers and that saves me some money too.

One thing I have come to realize (and I hope you realize too) is that no matter what I do - a process, a plan, a cleaning method, etc. - I need to do what works for me. There are lots of different and great ways to do things, but just because it works well for one person, doesn't mean it's the best way for you to do something. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, but if what you're doing isn't working, it's time to try something new. I follow a lot of great blogs with awesome ideas but I can't do all the things they suggest. I've got to weed through it and figure out what may work for me. Sometimes I try out their ideas and it's great, or needs tweaking to fit my lifestyle. Other times, it's just no good and I'll keep with my old methods till I find something else to try.

What's the best tip you've found lately? Please share. (And no it doesn't have to be related to meal planning.)

Minor progress

There are lots of times when our days (and maybe weeks) disappear and your To Do List is the same as when you wrote it down. Things come up and get in the way of doing the things we planned to do. My past week had been one of those.

I was hoping to definitely make some progress with decluttering and organizing. Monday was a good day for that and I got a quite a bit done. But since that day, it just seems like nothing has worked out. But you know what? That's okay!

I have been continuing to put like items together. This week I receive a few Christmas tins back so I made sure to take them downstairs and pack them rather than wait to do it later. And I found a couple Christmas movies I missed in the original packing so they went down and in the bins too.

I have been tossing and decluttering little things as I see them. I was hunting through the linen closet for a few things the other day and found a few things to toss so in the garbage they went. I decluttered the top of my dresser today too. There were some books on it I thought I would read but haven't so put them in a box of books I started. And there was a basket of stuff sitting on the dresser as well, so I did a quick run through it and tossed about half the stuff.

So it's all good. :) We don't move for about 3 months so I have time to do all the sorting, organizing and tossing I want while I pack. And on the days where I don't have time for major progress, I can still make minor progress. I'll be saving myself time later when I can even do 3 to 5 minutes of stuff now.