The Week In Review

Can I just take a minute to reflect how fast the first half of the year went by?! Maybe because I had so much going on these past 6 months. I put my townhouse on the market, sold it in two days, traveled to Central Florida, put offers on two houses, purchased a house, packed, waited, moved...so much done in so little time. I'm kinda hoping the rest of the year will be calmer. Not counting on it, though.

Last week was a very wet week in Central Florida. We had thunderstorms daily. Last Thursday the storms began at 12:30 pm and continued till after 3:30 pm. I mean non-stop heavy rain for hours. It took me three days to get the grass cut because the ground was soaking wet and the lawn mower would get clogged and shut off. (Spoiler alert: I've been cutting the grass this week since Monday and I'm still not done. It hasn't rained since Sunday but the ground is still saturated. And it looks like it's gonna rain today). I'm considering buying a second battery for the lawn mower. While I love the fact that it shuts off, forcing me to stop and not get over-exerted, I find myself cutting some area of the grass everyday. Each time the lawn mower gets clogged it shuts off; each time I have to restart it the battery loses more charge, so that I'm only able to get about 20-25 minutes of battery life. Whenever the grass was dry I was able to get 40 minutes of mowing, so I was able to finish the entire yard in two days. It's the rainy season in Florida and it'll continue this way till September. I don't want to be out in the intense heat mowing grass every single day.

I applied for a couple more jobs, but haven't heard anything from anywhere. I'm slowing down my job hunt for the time being, though. I'd wanted to meet the Pastor of the church we've been attending, but whenever we came out he was always surrounded. I hate standing behind people; it seems rude, like I'm rushing them because it's my turn. So instead I sent an email to the church's website. Within half an hour he'd called me, and we talked for about 30 minutes. I asked about what the church teaches, what kind of outreach they're doing, and told him what we're looking for in a new church home. He asked about the church we came from and even looked them up and listened to one of their sermons. I mentioned that I'd served in children's ministry in the past, and a couple of hours later the children's pastor emailed and asked if I'd consider helping out with VBS. Yes please! I got excited, because I haven't served in VBS for years. I was very much involved in VBS whenever my son E was little and even afterwards, but whenever we moved to our last church VBS was in the evenings while I was at work and I couldn't participate. This church does VBS in the mornings, meaning if I start a new job I won't be able to serve. So I'm gonna pause my job hunt till after VBS, which is the second week in July. We had our first volunteer meeting and I got to meet some lovely people. It helps me feel like I belong, which makes me so happy.

I started working on the July meal plan but I haven't finished it yet. I have to take VBS into account; they'll be serving lunch at the church so I only have to worry about supper. I'm not sure if I want to batch cook the week before and have everything ready, or just have simple meals that whole week. I need to get on that. 

That was my week. Hope everyone's was as blessed. 

Monthly Menu Plan

I worked on my meal plan for October this week. Most folks are experiencing fall weather; South Florida won't know about this till November, sometimes December. Still, I love classic fall cuisine, so I added a few favorites to this month's menu plan, along with some staples and a new recipe I saw Mandy make on her YouTube channel, Mandy in the Making. Here's what I came up with for this week:

Soups and chili seem to cry out, "It's Fall Y'all!" so of course I added beef chili to my list. Comfort foods also scream fall to me, so I've added meatloaf, chicken & dumplings, mac & cheese, and sausage gravy & biscuits. The new recipe I want to try out is Chicken Bacon Ranch soup. You can watch the video here. I figured, it's got chicken, it's got bacon, and it's made in the crockpot; what's not to like? Another crockpot meal for this month is jambalaya. Mine isn't what I'd call authentic but it's a family favorite. I posted the recipe on my blog several years ago. You can check it out here. 

Off I went, first to Aldi's and then to our neighborhood Walmart. 

I got a bunch of meat from Aldi's. I'm praying the worst of the hurricane season is over so I don't have to worry about having too much food in the freezer. For this month's menu plan I needed a lot of ground beef; thankfully it's back down to $2.99/lb. at Aldi's. I also got ground turkey to make turkey patties, and pork chops to fry up. I needed green beans and mixed vegetables but Aldi only had the green beans.

Most of what I got from Aldi was produce. All my produce except for the bananas were from Aldi. I didn't get bananas from Aldi because the store was packed and I couldn't get to them, which happens often. Aldi's prices, especially on produce, are usually better even than Walmart. I got onions, potatoes, carrots, celery, tomatoes, apples, bell peppers, salad mix, along with lactose free and almond milk.

I didn't get a whole lot from Walmart, just what wasn't available at Aldi. I did get a couple of large salads that were reduced because their sell by date was Sept. 25. That doesn't bother me, since I ate one already and the other will disappear today. What's really funny (and the reason I think they didn't sell) is that these are supposed to be Caesar salads made with romaine lettuce, but instead they were made with iceberg lettuce mix (the one that includes shredded carrot and red cabbage). Someone dropped the ball whenever they made these salads. I didn't care; I like both iceberg and romaine lettuce.

I had a small dry goods haul from Aldi, but y'all, I can't even tell you how excited I got when I saw they had pumpkin spice oatmeal!! I first tried this last year and I could not get enough of it. It is so delicious! I didn't have oatmeal on my shopping list, but whenever I turned around and saw this, I knew I had to grab it. I'll admit it, I'm a pumpkin spice junky. Give me pumpkin spice everything! The net zero bread is for my daughter. She asked me to pick it up for her, since she's doing keto and knew I'd be going to Aldi this week.

I also got a few dry goods from Walmart; again it's what I couldn't find at Aldi, like the chili diced tomatoes. Aldi usually has fire roasted diced tomatoes that are really good, but they didn't have any this week. I buy my son this big box of Pringles that lasts him a couple of weeks at least. And of course his flavored waters, but I also got him some small cans of Pepsi. He has a computer art class Mondays and Wednesdays at 9:30 am, and the soda helps keep him awake. I would have bought Coke but they didn't have any small cans.

Now the big question: how much did I spend? I didn't get any household goods this time around; everything was food. All my meats were from Aldi, and there was quite a bit of it. I spent $90.69 at Aldi, and $41.74 at Walmart. I find it surprising that my Aldi bill was just a little over double my Walmart bill, but I got so much more food at Aldi (including meats which totaled $36.79). While it's true that Walmart is right around the corner and I have to drive out a little farther to get to Aldi, I think in the long run it's definitely worth the trip.  

Less than a week till October!