Practically Fearless Living

Menu plan Monday

Since this is my first Menu Plan Monday post, I don't have any lovely original art. But ... I've got stock art!

I'm a long-time menu-planner, because I like to buy my groceries with the next week's meal in mind. I don't know if it saves money, but it sure saves time running to the store at the last minute for that one missing ingredient or mooching off the neighbors.

So, here goes:

On Monday, we'll have either penne or spaghetti with pesto, peppers, onion and chicken. I've got tons of pesto from the garden (and I should get cracking and make some more). I'll add greens to last night's salad leftovers and we'll ge good to go. One note about the pesto, I don't add cream cheese or cream. Just naked pesto, Parmesan cheese and the pasta. I like it better that way.

On Tuesday, Mr. Crockpot will be doing his wild thing with Slowcooker Hoppin' John from the blog A Year of Crockpotting. I have music practice at church, so if I leave my family members to their own devices, everyone will go to Chick-fil-A. That drives me crazy. This is a new recipe, so we'll see how it is received.

Wednesday is baked chicken and baked squash. Heck, if the oven's on, make good use of the darned thing, right? The baked squash is an old recipe that's supposed to mimic that of Black Eyed Pea restaurant. We'll see.

Thursday night is Italian Sandwiches night. Another crockpot recipe, this one never fails to please.  I always make double. In a shocking lack of originality, we'll have salad again. Luckily, my family eats salad like it's going out of style.  I'll post the recipe for the sandwiches and a photo next Monday (hopefully).

Friday night is football night, so it's every man/woman/teen for themselves. My daughter's on the dance team, so we're off to the high school game. MFND (no, that's not something nasty ... what were you thinking? It's Mustang Fight Never Dies!)

Saturday night is grilling night. My husband, Builder Man, is in charge of the whole darned meal, which I LOVE! Gotta keep that guy around another 25 years!

That's all from the cool and comfy (really, no sarcasm here) Texas Gulf Coast. "Where's my sweater honey? It's below 90 degrees out there!" Organizing Junkie's Menu Plan Monday. Give her a visit and be inspired.

foodnetwork.com photo

The three minute lunch ... one step back to prosperity

We all heard it. The recession ended in June of 2009. Pardon me if I suggest not all of us are living the dream, as they say.

Everyone decides what works best for them when it comes to clawing their way back to prosperity. Bringing my lunch at least three days a week is one way I can save, so I can pay down that nasty credit card bill left from the "months-we-couldn't-make-ends-meet" era. Yeah, I know, I shouldn't have, but I did and that's done. So now, it's rebuilding time.

The key to making this economic change is to make it easy. So here's my plan for the three-minute lunch. That's a lunch I can have in the container, in the bag and done in three minutes, right before I walk out the door.

Stat with a carrying case. A snappy insulated lunch bag can perk up a morning, but a roomy tote can hide the evidence of your frugality, if you prefer. If you don't have access to a fridge at work, buy a reusable cold pack. If you don't have a microwave at work, check Target or WalMart for insulated containers.

And now, the food:

1. Eat leftovers. I'm a good cook, darn it! I like to eat my leftovers ... but only one day a week. A girl gets bored.
2. Make lunch food ahead. Whip up some soup, a tasty chicken salad, or lay in the sandwich fixings over the weekend. Sometimes I even package the stuff in single-serving containers. (Warn your family members off these goodies or you'll be in for a shock some morning.)
3. Stock the pantry with quick-fix items. Ahhh ... and here's the three-minute lunch at it's best.

• Tuna in the pouch, a splash of your condiment of choice and a few crackers and you have lunch.
• Even faster: tuna pouch, bottle of salad dressing, a few lettuce leaves ripped right off the head (placed in a baggie). Ta-da, a healthy, protein-rich salad.
• Keep pita and hummus in the fridge and you can grab the bag of pita, the container of hummus and a piece of fruit. Not a perfectly balanced meal, but not bad, really. (Remember to bring the extras back, you're not going to eat four pieces of pita, are you??)

You'll find your favorites go-to items and you'll see what works best for you. Just remember my rule: If you've got to spend more than three minutes in the morning getting things ready, you're probably going to have trouble sticking to this.  Of course, that's based on my experience ... let me know if you find something that works better.

Practically Fearless Living Photo

Wordless Wednesday: A trip to "The City"

When I was in college in Tulsa, we called Oklahoma City "The City." Last weekend I was in Norman, Oklahoma with the Daughter Unit doing a college visit. While she went to the OU-Air Force game, her ticketless mom went "touristing in "The City."

With the soundtrack from "Eat, Pray, Love" on my iPod, I visited here:

Was amused by the western-clad museum security dudes (they were very nice):

And reflected on how quickly life can spin out of control here (Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, site of the Alfred P. Murrah building bombing):

 

Each chair represents a bombing victim. The little chairs? They represent the children who died. It is a very powerful representation.

I'm linking to the great blog, Newlyweds: Exploring the Joys of Marriage for Wordless Wednesday. Please drop by and pay her a visit. Why? 'Cause she's a fellow Texan and her little boys are absolutely adorable. You can also find this and lots of other Wordless Wednesday posts at (wait for it ... Wordless Wedneday).

Blessings.

Practically Fearless Living photos

Just finish something, will ya?

This, I finish ...

There's a school of thought that goes something like this: If you pay for something, you'll do it/use it/learn it, no matter how distasteful. I'm living proof that dog don't hunt, as we say in Texas.

Gym? Renewed my membership, determined to go at least three times a week and lose my -- yes, it's true -- post-50-year-old spread.

Spanish lessons? Going on three years now, maybe longer. I still haven't mastered the past (preterite) tense. If I were my teacher, I'd flunk me. I'm pretty sure she's going to start asking me to pay her in Xanex soon.

Blog? I'm a writer, for Pete's sake. You'd think I'd do it for free, wouldn't you? I mean, thousands ... maybe hundreds of thousands ... of aspiring writers put entire books out there and never earn a penny. Me? I have to pay someone else to write, thank-you Mr. Typepad, and I still can't be consistant.

Was I the one who gave my boys ADD? (If you don't believe in ADD, please talk amongst yourselves for this paragraph.) I mean, I always blamed  my husband, but at the rate I've paid for things I've never finished, I'm starting to wonder.

The only thing I ever seem to finish is dinner (see gym, above) and books. Someone elses books.

I blame it on the Internet. Thank-you, Al Gore