This weeks menu

Since I haven't been posting meal plans, since Snow White isn't home and life isn't so hectic I thought that this week I would post pictures of our daily food like my blog/PYP "friend" Trish so here we go;

Sunday; Fruit salad after having a really big/late lunch

Monday; new recipe, Garlic Chicken Spaghetti and MIL made Greek Salad (which was SOO good, except for the fact that my kitchen still smells like feet!) This was so good I think it is going to stay in menu rotation! I just have to make a copy of the recipe. Here is a link to the recipe, also I didn't use sun dried tomato because Grumpy doesn't like them instead I chopped up a Roma tomato and threw it in at the very end.

And now for some animal photos, I am starting to feel like I only post photos of Coal which is true, but that's because he is a little more active and always doing something funny.

Here he is sleeping on the phone book after this mornings walk

Here he is enjoying a warm fire on a stormy Saturday afternoon

When we take him on walks he brings home water bottles that he finds on the street, he is trying to save the planet! (he even takes them from us here at home when we are finished)

And here is Gus getting ready to watch KungFu Panda at the park.

Grocery Sickness update

Grumpy is finally feeling better, today we (and by we I mean we she did all the work while me and lil' sil sat on the couch) went over and helped MIL fix her swamp cooler and get it ready for the hot summer months ahead, now we are relaxing. Yesterday we went to West Fest, the towns festival, we ate Navajo Tacos and watched the fireworks, it was pretty fun. But our shopping trip was the funnest! here is the list, and before I get yelled at or people freak out about shelf clearer's, we went to 3 different Albertsons, I am just putting them all together because its easier to see the totals that way... so calm down and take a deep breath!

Albertsons;
2 cans mushrooms 1.78
2 loaves bread 3.98
5 12 packs Sunkist orange soda 13.00
28 boxes of Frosted flakes 55.72 (yes I said 28!)
2 boxes raisin bran 3.98
cashews 3.99
can chili 1.18
boneless skinless chicken 8.40
bananas 2.02
bell pepper 1.58
garlic 1.00
lettuce 2.58
yellow onions .94
cilantro .79
snow peas 2.99

total before coupons 103.93
after coupons and EPIC EVENT total; 49.93 woo hoo
balance for the month; 150.74

Smiths
8 manwich 8.00
12 chef boyardee pastas 11.04
18 Kraft bbq sauces 17.82
green grapes 2.35
watermelon 3.09
2 breyers ice cream 4.58

total before coupons 46.88
total after coupons and DAYTONA 500 DEAL 20.88
balance for the month 129.86 or roughly 43.00 a week, well not really since this week (6/29-7/5) is already taken care of so technically it will be 64.50 a week which will be really good, especially if I can get in on some more good sales like we did this week!

Swine Flu?

No we don't have it but yesterday Grumpy got tested for it! She got an instant sore throat which with her means, strep so after work she went to the urgent care where her strep test came back negative, so they tested her for Swine flu, which also came back negative, she wasn't very happy about having to get a q-tip lodged down her throat only to have another up her nose. She just has the regular old sick stay in bed and drink orange juice flu, which still sucks but at least we don't have to quarantine her!

Grocery budget 6/15-7/15

We did alot of grocery shopping over the weekend here's the damage;
Stating balance 346.33

Smiths
3 barilla pastas 3.00
2 powerade 1.38
1 salad dressing 1.69
3 salsa 3.00
6 Spaghetti sauce 6.00
4 cans beans 3.12
1 can Munudo 3.99
grape jelly 1.28
strawberry jelly 1.88
24 pack dasani water 2.99
3 vanilla yogurt 1.00
cottage cheese 1.00
sour cream 1.00
4 2 liters soda 3.16
seedless watermelon 4.33
peaches 2.30
blackberries 2.50
bananas 1.47
pumpkin chocolate chip cookies 1.00
6 frozen pizzas 6.00
6 frozen burritos 4.14
Dole bag salad 1.89
potato 1.79
turkey lunch meat 3.49
sara lee bread 2.49
total 65.89

Walmart
vegetable oil 2.64
2 pam 3.16
2 Mrs dash 4.76 (- 1.00 coupon) 3.76
2 rice a roni 1.96
Cornish hens 5.97
lactaid milk 3.38
texas toast 5.24 (- 1.50 coupons) 3.74
tortillas 2.56
avocado 1.36
roma tomato .72
salmon 4.48
tilapia 3.98
cod 4.77
white corn .76
bell pepper 1.36
24 ramen 4.32
steamfresh chicken dinner for 2 5.58 (-2.00 coupon)
total 52.50

Albertsons
For the life of me I can not find this receipt so the total for that trip was 22.51 so we have 205.43 left, we are trying to eat a little healthier, since Grumpys mom is having some high scores on her blood work, and we make her lunch and dinner often I am going to try to throw in more fresh fruits and veggies we are already out of fruit, since i have been making fruit salads, hopefully I can find some good sales soon!



205.43

My "chore" list has been working out really well, the only problem is the mopping part I have decided that I hate mopping more then ironing! I think if I get a mop it wont be so bad since right now I am using a cloth and a bucket. Yesterday I even did the back lawn before Grumpy got home from work. And I also decided that I have earned my "real housewives" card by picking up dog poop, mowing, edging, and pulling weeds with full makeup and straight hair! I was doing it and thinking to myself, "holy crap, who does this.... oh yeah real housewives of Salt Lake of course!" well now that I think about it, "real Housewives" would have hired someone to do and then just watched from the lounger but whatever! I only missed one small section leading into the vegetable garden Grumpy said it looks like a carpet, I say its a Welcome mat leading into the garden (of dirt and no more weeds).

I only did the back for 2 reasons

1 it was alot of work and I got really tired

2 Grumpy is kinda shall we say.... anal, and I didnt want to mess up the front my first time out! sorry I outed you babe but you know its true! love you ;)

We are going to be kinda busy this weekend so I will post our adventures on Monday!

Have a good weekend!

Grocery Budget 6/15-7/15

Well lets try this again shall we?

I started this period with 368.00 We went to the Rancho Market today after dinner and a walk with the boys (read... our dogs) here's what we bought;

3.29 # prepared beef fajitas 6.55

2.56 # bananas 1.31

2 pineapples 1.98

6 cucumbers .99

2.43 # oranges .80

1.20 # limes 1.19

8 ice creams 8.91 (a really big treat for us!)

total 21.73

balance 346.33

Today I made it threw my whole list of "chores" by about noon so day 2 went well.

finally a schedule

I came up with a cleaning schedule today I think I got everything and so far (for one day) it has worked out here's the plan

Monday

All laundry (clothes)

ironing

sweep floors

Tuesday

1 load of laundry

bathrooms

sweep floors

dust

mop hall way and laundry room

Wednesday

1 load of laundry

vacuum

office pick up

sweep floors

mop living room 1 and dinning room

Thursday

1 load of laundry

sweep floors

kitchen complete scrub down

lawns (every other week)

mop kitchen and living room 2

Friday

1 load of laundry

iron work shirts

wash sheets and towels

sweep floors

note to self 1 load of laundry is wash dry and put away!

I am sure that threw out the day I will overlap some of these things but it is just minimum guidelines for me to follow because since we are so close to the library I will spend all day reading which I know isn't a bad thing but sometimes the house does suffer!

Guess what?

Guess what we did yesterday? Nothing I mean it we did nothing! we took the dogs out to play ball, we watched 3 movies at home, we lit up our fire place (yes we know it is summer here in Utah but apparently Mother Nature has not gotten the email) the only time we left the house was at 3 pm when we ran to get Grumpy's prescription and some lunch, we stayed up until 12 doing nothing! I had cookies for dinner and Grumpy had a bowl of captain crunch. We haven't had such a day in a very long time and still this morning we are doing... you guessed it nothing... Ahhh so nice!

And on a side note, I am going to start my grocery budget tomorrow, so if you are waiting for that, it will be back...

I should be...

Cleaning up this messy room that I like to call an office, instead I thought I would come and post a bit about whats been going on. This past weekend was gay pride so of course we went! It was raining and really ugly so we didn't stay as long as we would have liked but we went and showed our support. We also took Grumpy's mom out to lunch to the Olive Garden for her birthday, we started painting Snow Whites room since she is still away and we are taking before and after pictures so when we reach the after I will post those we have set a date of July 7 to be totally done with her room, she is trading her bed for Jackie's (SIL) loft bed, so that should take some time to get it moved and I think that's about it.

I am still not working so I am spending my days with Jackie, shes 13. I am finding that we have alot in common which I assume is good, just means I am still a kid at heart, or that she is mature for her age, or maybe I am just immature, however you want to see it! We are having a good time we went to the library yesterday which she loves just as much as I do I think we are going to go to the dollar theaters this summer too which should be fun.

Hot and Tired!

I just got back from walking the beast the 2.10 miles it takes to get to and from the library to drop off a book this is his current position:

I have now decided that whenever I am done with a book I am going to walk him over there,at least once a week. He does really well we made it past 3 sleeping dogs and when there was some barking at him he just carried on about his walk not carrying that there was a 100 pound pit bull screaming at him for peeing on his fence! (at least I am pretty sure that dog was freaking out about!)

As for the book, Smashed by Koren Zailckas I was really liking it in the beginning but somewhere towards the end I was getting really bored, but I figured that since I had already dedicated all that time to it, I might as well finish and I did. Today I am starting Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, Ill let you know how that one goes.

~The things I do for books~

Okay so I am still having a book obsession and since we have moved we now live really close to the library. I wanted to go yesterday but it started to rain so I couldn't so today I thought I would try again it started to rain so I waited... and it got sunny so I went on the walk. I got some good books;

*Garden Spell by Sarah Addison Allen

*Girl Bomb A halfway homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum

*Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

*Pretties by Scott Westerfeld (I still have Uglies from the last time I went)

*Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

*The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

*The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

*Dewey the small town library cat who touched the world by Vicki Myron

*Labrador Retrievers for Dummies

I still have to finish

*Smashed by Koren Zailckas (really close to being done)

*Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

So I checked out and started walking home, and wouldn't you know it, it started to rain! I made it home mostly dry, my books were safe in their library bag all nice and dry. Now I have to decide what I want to read first... well after the last 2!

been a while

So I haven't posted in a while and I am not really sure why, its not like I have been busy or anything, really I haven't been doing anything. Monday I went to Ikea with my SIL it was pretty fun, I ended up only spending 20.00 so that's really good! Yesterday we had this really weird freak thunderstorm it rained and hailed for like over an hour of course while I was getting my things ready to go to the library.

I know I haven't been doing well with my grocery budget, but really this time I will stick to it, next month (well in 2 weeks)! we are finally in some sort of routine in the new house so it should be a little easier.

Snow White has left us for the summer she will be back in 67 days (not that I am counting down or anything) we have talked to her every day since she left either on the phone or via text (yes she has a cell phone, it was our choice please don't bug me about it) so we really don't have time to miss her (even though we do!)

The rest of the week is filled with Dr appointments for Grumpy which does not make her happy, today its the eye doctor, tomorrow the regular Dr for a regular check up, and Friday she goes to the dentist to get her wisdom teeth out, I guess its good that she is getting them all out of the way.