Wow.

Has it really been almost 3 months since I last posted here????  SO MUCH has happened!  I guess soon after that last post, my husband was hired by a national company as a salesman.  He loves it.  Well, he at least likes it a lot. He's great at it, people love him and want to buy from him.  So he got to quit that blasted courier job.  We are still doing a couple of paper routes, but only until the end of the year, and then hopefully we can be a more normal family.
And......we moved!  Into a much nicer home.  It's actually older than the house we moved out of, but has had much more TLC put into it.  Although it's 100 yrs old, we have drywall!  Yay for smooth walls.  There is a sweet little dip in the dining room floor, but other than that and a little uneven-ness above the kitchen cabinets, I absolutely LOVE it.  We are now located on the quaint little main street of our quaint little village.  It's where I've wanted to live for awhile.
All things work together for good........

Nothing to see here, folks

My life at the moment:
Deliver newspapers 5a.m.-7a.m.
Work at day job 8:30-5:30
Home with son from 6 on
Husband @ courier job every evening from 6-1:30 M-F
Husband gets up at 3 a.m to deliver papers to first route, brings me mine
Weekends try to make up for lack of housework during week.
daily loads of laundry and dishes
Run to VA for daughter's baby shower and grandson's birthday
Anticipate run to VA for birth of baby
Shop at lunch hour
Lather Rinse Repeat

charleston style - Its like that - Run DMC

charleston style

Down With The Sickness

I've got some kind of sinus virus.  Went to the doctor today and she ruled out strep (at least with the instant test, I have to call in the morning for the results of the longer test) but my throat is ON FIRE!  Which is making my ears burn, too.  Fun stuff, this.  I've not felt like doing anything much.  Which means that even though I sent my husband to the store for enough onions and garlic to make a pot of beans and black bean burgers, I don't think I'm really going to make them.  Tomorrow is recycling day, so I have to schlep all the recycle-ables to the curb, and frankly, I think that's enough work for me tonight.  Plus, I threatened promised a hair cut to Gabe, so I still have that to look forward to.  No menu plan here, folks.  We had pancakes for dinner.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.  We have a meeting for Fall Travel Soccer right after I get home from work. Bible class on Wednesday night, School portfolio viewing on Thursday night, and husband and I will probably do his courier route together on Friday night, since that new job has taken the date out of date night.  You wish you were me.

Not A Total Failure.......

Last week's MPM started out wonderfully, with dinner ready when I got home, and us sitting at the table (!) to eat in about 20 minutes.  I have just a few things to work out:

• I love to cook, but my husband doesn't eat a lot of meat, (and I don't eat ANY) so I always have left-over meat.   Our 7 yr. old is a "taster."  There isn't a problem with leftovers, specifically, but I need to be more diligent about using them.  Reincarnating them would be optimal.
• The afore-mentioned husband is starting a new courier job today, which means that he will not be home for dinner.  This leaves me and the kid, aka the vegetarian and the taster.  I don't think I'm creative enough for this particular challenge.  I see a salad, veggie burgers and chicken tenders in our future.  Did I mention that my son is very, very picky? 
• Last week's menu plan got side-tracked on day 4.  I don't remember exactly why, but I couldn't get it back on track.  I think my husband eventually ate the leftover ribs for lunch.  I used the remaining cole slaw mix to make more cole slaw for yesterday's barbecue, so we never did have fried cabbage.  On Saturday I had a migraine and slept most of the afternoon away, and husband went out and purchased a cheese hoagie, which he saved half of for me for when I woke up.  That was about 3:30, so it became too late to eat anything for dinner after that, and my son was at Grandma's, so we basically skipped dinner.  On Sunday, the kid went swimming with a friend after church, so my husband and I went to buy some new sneakers and grabbed a quick bite at Pizza Hut Bistro.

So I'm taking this week off from menu planning, and I'm gonna see how things work out for Gabe and I.  I will try to plan some dinners that might possibly appeal to both of us.  (Cheese quesadillas?, Grilled cheese?  See a pattern?)
In other news, if I can talk the husband into it, we are getting a d-o-g!  I may have to be a very, very, good wife for this one!

Woo-Hoo, Houston, we have a menu!

Monday-Country Style BBQ spare-ribs (slow-cooker) and cole slaw

Tuesday-Baked Chicken, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach

Wednesday-(Bible class after work) Greek salad

Thursday-Black Bean burgers, sweet potato fries

Friday-Pizza (BOGO at Shoprite) Date night

Saturday-Clean the Fridge leftovers

Sunday-Italian Sausage sandwiches, Fried Cabbage

I usually buy a head of cabbage for cole slaw, but I was at Sam's earlier this week, and a bag of cole slaw mix was cheaper than a head of cabbage at the supermarket, so I bought it.  Since it would make enough cole slaw for an army, I decided to also use it for my fried cabbage.  This will be a first, so I'll let you know how it comes out.  Basically, my fried cabbage is just thinly sliced cabbage and thinly sliced onion fried in a frying pan with olive oil and butter until browned and somewhat carmelized.