Meal Planning Monday - review and what's on for this week

So happy it is time to share again with Meal Plan Monday!

Last week I shared with you how I plan for a month at a time. That post can be found here.

Let's see how last week went!

I grocery shopped for 2 weeks of ingredients (after I shopped my cupboards) - but only 1 week of fruits and veggies (not enough space to store them). My total spent was $126. I shopped for everything except meat at Walmart. I haven't yet worked up to couponing. I'm getting there.

• Korean Beef and Rice - this was a HIT!!

• Crispy Chicken thighs with Pesto Pasta - this was a HIT!!

 

•  Spicy Chicken Baked Tacos - this was a HIT!! and the next few days a HUGE HIT as leftover nachos!

• Chiptole Steak Salad - this was PRETTY GOOD!! Ease up on the chipotle peppers if you don't LOVE spice! Also go with low fat mayo.

• Crock Pot Jambalaya - this was a MISS!! Everything got really soggy. Too much thyme as well.

All of these can be found here. 

This week I am changing up a few things because Honey is traveling so my week looks like:

• Monday - leftovers, Honey is traveling

• Tuesday - Lazy Day Casserole

• Wednesday - leftovers, Honey is traveling
• Thursday - Buffalo Turkey balls (still deciding on a side)

• Friday - Burgers
•  Saturday - brisket on our Big Green Egg

• Sunday - Mexican Lasagne

Again, all of the recipes can be found on my October Meal Plan board.

Hope you have a delicious week!

Weekend Recap and a few recipes I tried

This weekend was perfect after our super busy traveling weekend last week!

Friday night, Sofia had a friend sleepover. I love sleepovers! She feels special and I'm off the hook for entertaining! I could be slipping in the mom department! LOL

Sofia and her guest enjoyed pizza while Honey and I dined on this Chipotle Steak Salad and it was yummy! It's the Pioneer Woman's recipe. I mean, does Ree every steer you wrong? The answer is "no."

One note, I would sub the regular mayo for light or fat free (if it exists) and if you are not a HUGE chipotle fan, cut the amount in the dressing my about half. It is spicy! Oh and we happened to have a London Broil cut of steak, so we used that instead. Worked just fine!

Saturday the girls were up bright and early (no thanks to Sofia who woke her friend up at 6:30 - we had a talk about that) and I made them our tried and true sticky bun recipe.

After breakfast started, I got busy putting together lunch/dinner. I used this crockpot jambalaya recipe and well...it left something to be desired. I believe I need a consult from Laura to put me on the right track to a good jambalaya.

Problem: I don't like the taste of thyme and the rice got to soggy. In fact, everything got too soggy.

I took Sofia and her friend home to play at their house for a while and then I hit the gym for a good cardio workout. I enjoyed Netflix (with the gym's wifi) on my phone and pounded through 60 minutes! PS - if you are gonna watch "Say Yes to the Dress" while working out, be prepared for tears while working out. lol

**Stay tuned for whole other drama-filled post on working out, weight loss/gain and my current frustration level! Oh and a plan to right my self!

I also spent some time rocking this hat. And I might also have a matching one for Sofia.

Later that evening we went to the movies for the limited release of Captain Phillips. It was good, not great.

And we got home to find this in our bed:

Sunday was a lazy day. Sofia went to church with a friend and we stayed around the house and just hung out. Watched football.

*don't judge the mix/match furniture. It's a rental. lol

Oh and I also worked on a project using these ugly Dollar Tree pumpkins. More to come.

I think that's about it! Hope y'all had a great weekend!

5 on Friday - First time to play along

Hello Friday! This week I'm playing along with the 5 on Friday Gang!

1. I am totally in love with my monogrammed chevron scarf I got here. In fact, I wore it all the time last weekend - Vegas, Zion and Page! See:

2. What will I do without Breaking Bad in my life? So sad it's over but I loved the way it ended!

3. I'm super happy I've gotten my October Meal Planning taken care of! You can read about that here.

4. I'm SO excited it is fall but also know that lots of big things are happening. Honey's birthday (that I have to get busy planning on), Sofia's birthday and both of Honey's boys birthdays are in the fall. Of course then you add in Halloween, Thanksgiving, a possible relocation and who knows what else might pop up! So time to buckle down and get busy with some plans! Thank goodness for Pinterest!

5. Last week we got in trouble from our HOA for having a garden flag in the front yard with an Alabama flag on it. Apparently no free-standing flag poles allowed. Seriously?

That's it for me! Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Birthday Trip - Part 1

We were so busy this weekend that I need a few days off to recover!

My Honey swept me away this past weekend to celebrate my birthday (9/16). He arranged a sitter for the weekend and we headed out bright and early on Friday morning for Vegas!


This was the weekend of the monogrammed scarf! Here it is on Friday. I paired it with a denim shirt, white shorts and cowboy booties! Best part (other than the scarf) - the booties were on sale at Ross for $10.99, the shorts were $5 and the denim shirt came from good ole Walmart for $13! 

 

We  started our day in Vegas at lunch time at Sushi Koma. It is an amazing AYCE (all you can eat) sushi restaurant. Very fresh, very tasty sushi and apps! We loaded up and the total price was $50 for both of us!  You can't beat that for sushi (rolls, nigiri, dumplings, edemame, etc.)

After lunch, we checked in at the fabulous Pelazzo. Out room was beautiful! It is an all-suites property and a sister property to the Venetian. It also happens to be the home of Tim and Faith's Vegas act, but they aren't in town yet. Rats.

We spent some time wandering the strip and then quickly returned to our room to get ready for dinner.

 
This is as close as I got to seeing Tim McGraw!

We planned to eat at the buffet at Caesars Palace. Hey - you can't go to Vegas and not visit at least one buffet! lol Especially this one, they are the highest rated in all of Vegas. Well we got there at 6pm and the wait was over an hour!! I wasn't concerned but then my Honey let me in on a little secret...we had plans for after dinner! So we had to come up with Plan B. We headed over to Old Homestead Steakhouse. I can't even begin to tell you how good this steak was. WOW. Melt in your mouth, seasoned perfectly. Honey and I shared the the "steak on the bone for two." I think it was 40oz or something.  YUM! We also shared oysters, lots of yummy bread, "duck fat" fries and creamed spinach. The fries and spinach were nothing to get excited about, but the oysters and bread - fantastic!!

After dinner I had no idea where we were off to. Imagine my surprise when Honey led me to The Colosseum! He got us tickets to see Elton John!  Woo Hoo!!!

After an amazing concert, we stopped off for some ice cream and then headed back to the hotel. No late night partying for us - we had a 5:45am wake-up call the next morning!

Menu-Planning Monday

It's time to plan the menu for October! I'm linking up with The Orgjunkie to share my plans!

Now you might have visited my last month and if so, welcome back! Pinterest is my best friend and tool for menu planning. I save all of the meals I plan to cook on a board for that month and then make a calendar as well. Sometime I get off easy and my Honey travels. On those nights, I don't "cook". We eat easy and quick dinners!

My October board can be found here. I still have a few more items to add but I'm almost there. I've even added lots of sweet treats!

My calendar for the month is below. You can match most all of these up with recipes I have pinned.

As far as shopping goes, I am headed out today to shop for the first 2 weeks. My goal is under $200. We have set a goal of $400 per month. I didn't meet it last month. Boo. I spent more like $500. This month I am saving my receipts so I know exactly what I am spending.

So, how is your meal planning coming along?

Road Trip

Headed to Vegas and Roll Tide Roll!! 

Thursday Thoughts

Hi everyone! So happy to be able to chat with y'all from my office again. Let's face it, once I get home there is too much other stuff to do! I gotta blog from the office or it just doesn't seem to happen.

This week....

Well, I'm not happy with school so far for Sofia. Homework is not really the problem - there doesn't seem to be any of it! There are no books that come home and I'm not sure I love the teaching methods they use for math these days. In social studies, she has only had one grade and the made a 79 on it and I am not happy about that at all. Other than that, she has all A's. I can only  hope they have more assignments soon!!

Sofia has a neighborhood friend which makes me very happy! Those 2 are joined at the hip! They play horses and with the dogs and ride bikes a ton! This I like especially cause well, Sofia needed to lose a few pounds and she has! 4 to be exact. Ok I know that must sound bad. I'm thinking my nearly 10 year old needs to lose weight, but based on her height, she does. She has been eating better, snacking less and is getting more active!

Speaking of getting more active, this girl has hit the gym again for 60 minute (at least) cardio sessions. I'll add the weights back soon. Y'all might remember or know that I lost 50 lbs from 10/2011-6/2012. Well....I've since but on about 20 lbs. It just isn't fair!! Unless I cut out ALL and I mean ALL carbs, I gain instantly, regardless of my exercise routines.  It is really tough to stay motivated with a body that reacts so quickly to food.

So anyway, starting over with right now a balanced 1200 calorie day, 60 minutes of cardio and will soon switch back to no carb. But I need to learn once and for all, that exercise (hard exercise) must be a part of my every day life - FOREVER! 

 

In more fun news, I received my lovely monogrammed, chevron infinity scarf in the mail yesterday. I ordered it from here. 

And in even MORE exciting news, my Honey is taking me away for the weekend for a belated birthday weekend! It's a surprise (but I think I know where we are going :) )

This week in Pinterest, I put several recipes to work. You can check them out on my September or October Meal plan boards here. 

I also worked on this project for Sofia's room.

I'm back

Yes! Internet Explorer at work kept me from being able to post from the office. However, a legitimate IE problem for work stuff required me to get FireFox! Woo Hoo!! Now I can blog at work again!

Random snaps from the phone

Gymnastics fun

My statement necklace from Charming Charlies!

 Sofia LOVES these movies

Movie day to see the One Direction movie

Me in desperate need of a root job!

The closet - before and after!

 Tumbling Class

Happy Birthday to me!

On the 16th I turned 37! Getting a little too close to the big one!!

We went to dinner at North in Arcadia and my Honey gave me an LV purse! Yay me and my Speedy 30!

My Honey sent me not 1, but 2 flower arrangements to work! How lucky am I??

4th Grade

My almost 10 year old, 4th Grade

Hiking in Cave Creek

A couple of weeks ago, we headed out to hike in Cave Creek. It was a wonderful day - overcast and even a few sprinkles!

This was the site of the race I ran a few months back when a cactus ball got stuck in the back of my leg! Ugh.

I LOVE this picture! xoxo

Friday Furry

This is Duke, aka Buster, aka $hithead. Yes, I just typed that. He answers to all three names. Honey came up with the last name. He's our wire-haired fox terrier we adopted a few years ago.

Sometimes he's a pony and sometimes he's a princess.

Sometimes he's a football fan

and lastly he's a friend!

Random this and that

I really wish I could blog at work because that keeps me current, but for some reason it doesn't work. Boo.

So let's see...what have I been up to.

We've recently done a few hikes around our house. On Labor Day,we hiked Daisy Mt. and it was SO hot and miserable.We also ran out of water. It was a nice view from the peak though.

It's the simple things...

So I don't eat carbs. Well if I want to feel my best and lose weight, I don't. 

What does that really mean? It means I eat as close to zero net carbs per day as I can. So a lot of meat, a little cheese, eggs and that's about it. I sometimes have a few select veggies and nuts. But not much. I pick the lowest carb veggies. Fruit, treats and sweets are all out. No pasta. No bread. No rice, etc. 

I know it seems horrible, right? Lol 

It can be hard but I feel so much better, it's worth it. It does get hard to find sweet treat that I can have. So my standard go to is coffee! Usually iced. I use heavy whipping cream, a little sugar-free flavored creamer and a sweet n low. It really hits the spot!! 

What's your go-to sweet when you are dieting?

Meal Plan Monday - the Highs and Lows so far for September

It's Monday and I'm linking back up with The Org Junkie to share my meal planning for the month of September.

If you'e visited before, you remember this post, where I shared our meal plan for the whole month of September.

I must say, my life is SO much easier with a plan! I grocery shop once per week for the next week (typically on Thursday or Friday afternoon) and I am doing pretty good staying on budget. This was our first month to have a "budget" of $400. I'm going to go over it, but this is a work in progress! lol

This is my actual menu calendar:
Now, most of these recipes are all brand new to me! You can find them on my board here!

I thought since we were into the month a little, I would highlight some of our hits (and the misses) so far.

Last week we had:

Monday - BBQ Ribs with this rub. Bib Bob's is from my hometown and they are amazing! I also made the loaded baked potato salad (below) and we had grilled corn on the cob.

Tuesday - I made the blackened salmon w/ mango salsa (below) and green beans. I did not like this. Not sure if it was the salmon or the seasoning. No need to repeat this recipe.

Wednesday - I made this Potato Chip Chicken - it was a HUGE hit! I couldn't make this Field Pea salad because apparently no one in AZ knows what a field pea is so I made the Outback mac and cheese from below. THE MOST AMAZING mac EVER!

Thursday - I threw in the towel and we had leftovers!

Friday - Honey and I dined out with a friend of his at Olive and Ivy. Tasty but no need to visit again.

Saturday - We had chili dogs, this cole slaw and these AMAZING jalepeno poppers! Oh and Saturday morning, a near catastrophe--we didn't have enough stuff for pancakes or sticky buns!  So luckily, I found this recipe for easy cinnamon rolls. They were ok in a pinch!












The good news: almost everything was great! We did not love the Wagon Wheel Pasta salad or the Salmon with Mango Salad. Those two will not make it into the repeat list. I've almost got my October Meal plan complete. You can check it out here.

So, how is your meal planning coming along? In case you haven't noticed, my life would be a wreck without Pinterest!