I had gone fasting to the appointment, because they do additional blood checks when I go in. After I came home, I ate a banana and then, the rest of the leftovers from Saturday night's dinner.
In the afternoon, I relaxed, replied to blog comments, and read a few blogs. I am behind with my reading and commenting, but I will try to catch up in the next couple of days.
I also called my neighbor T to check on her; she said she was feeling a little better. I asked if she needed anything from the stores, but she said she was OK as her daughter had shopped for her, yesterday.
The pharmacy texted me in the early evening to say that my prescription was ready for pick up. So, I went and picked it up and decided to do a little bit of shopping while I was there:
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| 1/16 Groceries |
The cereal is one of daughter's favorites and she had asked me if we had any when she was home over the holidays (no, I didn't have any). It was on sale for $1.99 each. The crackers are one of my favorites and it was on sale for $1.88.
The total came to $5.86. But, I had a $5 coupon, so, I paid only $.86:
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| 1/16 Receipt |
On the way home from the pharmacy, I stopped to put gas to the car. My tank was less than half-full (but more than a quarter); I filled it up and it cost $29.09. These days, I usually spend about $30 a week for gas, but I budget $50 per week, just to be on the safe side.
After I came home and had a cup of coffee, I started to write out a meal plan, which was one of the things on my To Do list for today, but didn't finish it. I find meal planning to be a bit stressful!
I have the hardest time meal planning! I might be able to write up a meal plan for a couple of days, but then, I run out of ideas for the rest of the week! Or, I can write up something, but whether I'll actually make what I wrote out is another matter, entirely! And yet, I see some people making weekly menu plans and actually making those meals and I feel I should try, too.
But, more than dinners, what I need to plan are my lunches to take to the office. Ideally, leftovers from dinner can be the next day's lunches, but it doesn't always work out that way for me.
Last week, I took leftover pasta with shrimp curry one day, soup and a roast beef cold cuts sandwich one day, and just roast beef cold cuts sandwiches the other 3 days and was tired of sandwiches by Friday! I also took two types of fruits, every day, orange juice on some days, and crackers a couple of days, in addition to lunch. On Friday, when I didn't feel like having my sandwich (I ate 3/4 of it, though), I treated myself to a small bag of potato chips!
This week, Monday was a holiday - I had leftovers from Saturday's dinner for my lunch. Today, I ate a banana and the rest of the leftovers from Saturday's dinner for lunch.
I made spaghetti with meat sauce for tonight's dinner and there will be leftovers for tomorrow's lunch:
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| Tuesday's Dinner |
The ground beef had been browned and frozen; I added some sausage meat that I had precooked and frozen, as well, and half a diced onion, some diced celery, and a grated carrot to the ground beef and half a can of pasta sauce (the rest of the can of pasta sauce was poured into a baggie and frozen). Then, I cut up some zucchini and yellow patty pan squash and sauted that in a bit of butter for a side. Grapes for dessert.
I packed some of the leftover spaghetti and sauce and the rest of the squash to take to the office tomorrow for my lunch:
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| Wednesday's Lunch |
There's more pasta and meat sauce left; I might have it for Thursday's lunch as well, but I don't think I'll want it for tomorrow's dinner. So, I need to think of something to cook for tomorrow's dinner - maybe rice and a fish curry? With green beans, perhaps? Or broccoli? Then, I could take leftovers from that for Friday's lunch. I have 1 banana left for tomorrow, tangerines and apples and mangoes for fruit, cheese crackers for snacks. Friday night's dinner might be leftover spaghetti or a scrambled egg on toast! OK, so that's the meal planning done for the week!
In the evening, my friend R called and we chatted for a bit. Later, daughter and I video chatted.
Today, I am grateful for:
- A good visit with the doctor
- My inhaler was refilled
- The pharmacy filled it without any mishaps
- More bargains!
- A productive day
Tuesday's To Do List:
- Doctor's appointment - DONE
- Bring the trash cans in - DONE
- Put gas to the car - DONE
- Put away the laundry - DONE
- Put away the dried dishes - DONE
- Do more dishes
- Clear the kitchen counters
- Cook/meal plan for the week's lunches and dinners - STARTED
How was your Tuesday? Do you meal plan on a weekly basis? Do you prepare a different dish each day or do you eat leftovers the next day? Have you frozen cooked squash (zucchini and patty pan)?
One of the main reasons for meal planning is to make things easier in the evenings and avoid eating out. You consistently eat good meals and avoid eating out frequently, so maybe you don't need a plan just for the sake of a plan. Especially if you get anxious when thinking about it. I say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
ReplyDeleteThanks, Live and Learn. Dinners are not a problem for me - I know what I have on hand with which to cook to make a meal. It is the "What shall I pack to take for lunch" question that throws me off, all the time! But, you are right, I don't eat out all that often - usually, only when daughter comes home to visit and I want to treat her. :)
DeleteI guess I went this long without a proper meal plan and managed; I should be able to manage for the foreseeable future, too.
Excellent price on the cereal. Your daughter will be pleased.
ReplyDeleteNo I do not write out a meal plan but always have a mental plan of what I could cook with what is available. Growing up my mum tended to cook the same thing on certain days of the week. Monday thru Friday we had the main meal in the evening but on Saturday and Sunday it was served around 1 or 1:30 pm - maybe because of that I have always eaten the same breakfast and lunch. During my working life it was always a salad, yogurt and fruit. Now retired I will change off during these cold days and have tomato soup, crackers, yogurt and fruit.
Thanks, Sandy! Yes, I was pleased with the price I had to pay for the cereal and crackers! :)
DeleteI guess a mental plan of what I could cook is what I, too, have - I know what I have in the freezer and pantry and what I can make with it. How elaborate or simple depends on how well or tired I feel!
I can't remember that much about meals when I was growing up, but, my mother said she made a meal plan, at least, when she was first married, because her step-children complained if they had the same thing too often! So, she sat down with her cook book and I forget if she said she made a fortnightly or a monthly plan. Lunches were more or less the same - rice with different curries; dinners varied. She didn't do the cooking, though; she had a cook who prepared all the meals. Back then, it was four meals a day - breakfast, lunch, evening tea, and dinner. Oh, the "good old days". :)
Coming up with a meal plan for someone else to cook certainly must have been quite grand. Was this part of the class system? Another time and era. What an interesting life you have had.
DeleteSandy, I don't talk much about my life back in Sri Lanka, because it was a different time and place. But, yes, we were upper middle class, back there, and, especially when my father was living and we were a family of 8, my mother had a staff of live-in household help, which included a cook, a nanny for me (and one for my youngest half-brother, before that), a chauffeur, housemaids, someone who came daily to clean the bathrooms (household staff did not clean bathrooms as that was beneath their dignity), a gardener (who didn't live-in), and someone who came weekly to do the laundry (they take it away, launder, and bring it back; taking counts of the laundry was one of my jobs - there was a book in which mother had written columns with headings like "shirts", "dresses", "saris", "bed sheets", "towels", etc.; the laundryman would sort everything into piles and call out the numbers; mother or I would write down the numbers under the columns; then, when the clean laundry - all washed, starched, ironed, and folded - was brought back, we did a recount to make sure the same number of items were brought back!)., and there were one or two other people who came to do specialized tasks such as pounding the rice into flour.
DeleteThe story goes that once, my mother had my half-sister sweep her room and either my father saw it (or maybe sister told him?); father had asked my mother if she didn't have enough servants; when mother answered yes, she had plenty, he had asked her in that case, why was his daughter sweeping. Mother said after that, she never got my half sister to do any housework!
Later, after my father died, the step siblings moved away, and my mother remarried, we just had one person to cook and clean, as we were only 3 of us. We still had someone who came daily to do the bathrooms and someone to do the laundry (even though my mother had a washing machine; I think I remember her using it once!) :)
How interesting Bless. Enjoyed reading about your ways in Sri Lanka, I love to ready about different cultures and different ways that children learn and live. As a child, I sure would have loved your dad [the no house work motto.lol]. Now, as an adult, I really don't mind house work. Being retired, has really made it easier, All my kids grown, and the grandkids are about grown.lol
DeleteThanks for sharing.
Judy, you are most welcome. Yes, I grew up without having to do any chores! But, apparently, I loved to rearrange my sister's dressing table/vanity, to the extent that she complained about it to my mother and my mother bought me a little dressing table of my own to rearrange to my heart's content! But I don't think I had as many items (nail varnish, bottles of perfume, etc.) on it to rearrange! So, I soon got bored with rearranging my dressing table! :D
DeleteBananas...yum...I love them. Your meals look good and healthy! Good shopping trip! Glad your doctor's appt. went well! Andrea
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andrea. I am trying to incorporate more vegetables into my diet. I love fruit, but not so much vegetables. :)
DeleteCongrats on the good results at the doctor's! And great deals at the store, too!
ReplyDeleteI only plan dinners, as Live & Learn said, because it saves me time and money. I tend to plan my dinners based on what I already have on hand and just buy extra produce if I don't have enough. I used to plan a week ahead but recently I have been planning 2 weeks ahead because I have so much food already stocked up.
Lunches are easy for us: my son always packs his own (sandwich, crackers, fruit, and he brings his own reusable water bottle). I pack Greg leftovers since I cook an extra serving at dinner just for that reason. On top of that I pack him a piece of string cheese and a yogurt, as he's not big on fruit. As for me, you know what I eat :) I pretty much eat the same thing every day right now since it's easier on me and also I'm not sick of it yet. It would be easily packed. Of course if you get tired of eating sandwiches every day, I wouldn't recommend that. I think you tend to freeze a lot of the food that your family and neighbors bring you. Maybe you can freeze it in individual containers so you can just defrost one at a time to bring to work for lunch?
Thanks, Nathalie. I think, part of the reason why the sandwiches didn't work is because I feel so cold at the office that I want a hot lunch. I have some cup noodles soups at my desk for those days when what I bring for lunch doesn't appeal. There are lots of eating places near my office, too, but I don't always want to buy lunches. Well, it just means I have to better plan my dinners so I have leftovers I can take to the office, the next day. :) Tomorrow, I will take spaghetti and meat sauce. Tomorrow night, I will cook a chicken stir fry for dinner and take leftovers for lunch on Friday. Then, I'll spend a little more time over the weekend, trying to meal plan for the next week. :)
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