meal plan pt.1

good morning! what a surprise to look outside the window as I woke up and see SNOW ! This time last year we were still cleaning up from winter storm Benedict. (I only know the name b/c it was on the news the other day lol) Seriously though, we were slammed with snow last winter. My husband was gone all of the time to plow. It looks beautiful and is exactly what I was hoping to see this past Christmas morning. Not that it wasn't great to be able to stick my toddler son outside in the 55 degree weather when it started getting a little crazy indoors that day haha. 

Looks like the chicken area is deserted as our ladies do not enjoy the cold snow under their feet. They will most likely stay inside today which is fine by us because after a long 3 months of molting and no egg production, they can spend some time indoors and get to laying. The ladies usually do very well for us in the winter. I took this photo (very quickly b/c it is freezing out and windy) and the sun looked so pretty in the farm field behind our house. I just went back to look and it is all gray with the snow blowing everywhere. Today wont be a day to bring the kiddos outside, no way. 

So, back to the topic of the morning. Yesterday afternoon while the kids napped, I grabbed a few of my favorite cook books and sat down with a pen and paper and picked out our meals for next week. If you read my post about my goals for this year, one was to use my cook books more often and stop pulling recipes off line. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I have all these great books just sitting on shelves and in cabinets being under utilized. I buy cook books and then never use them! Well that is ending. These cook books here are wonderful and have a wide variety of foods in them. We are meat eaters in this home. My husband is a "steak and potatoes" kind of guy. I tried to do Meatless Mondays for a month just for something different, and he couldn't do it lol....even one night a week! Typically I do 2 chicken meals, a red meat meal, a pasta, and maybe a fish...then Fridays I usually leave open for leftovers or take out or whatever. I make my own homemade Italian red sauce every 2 weeks and freeze some. We will usually eat it once a week on something. With Fall and Winter seasons we will do more soups. What I need to get better at is using my crock pot. I have the great Food Network crock pot I got for my wedding shower 5 years ago and I barely use it. I dont know why...laziness perhaps? Except all you do is throw food in and turn it on...so I must be REAL lazy lol. Anyways, these are the books I used for next week:

1. Simply In Season
2. Paleo
3. New England Open House Cookbook
4. Rachael Ray Week In A Day
5. The Pioneer Woman Food From My Frontier

All these books offer such a wide variety of options. It can get a little overwhelming because there is so much, but I just decided to take one recipe from each book if I could, but no more than two. Once I found 1-2 recipes I shut the book and picked up another. Simply In Season is just what you would think it is. Recipes based on ingredients that you find in each season. So if you chose a soup under the Winter category you can bet the ingredients you are using are mostly fresh since they are being grown and picked during the colder months. The Paleo cook book is something I just got last month because I had a few bucks left over on a gift card and it fit the amount. I will be honest and say that I believe the diet itself is a fad. A lot of recipes in here seemed to be normal every day recipes with maybe one or two tweaks to it. One breakfast item for example was an omelet consisting of just eggs and vegetables...I am not sure what makes it Paleo, perhaps just that everything in it is fresh? Either way there were some really good looking recipes in there and I did write one down for us. The New England cook book is awesome. It is beautifully put together and all the recipes are from places up and down the east coast which of course warms my heart because it's where I live. The pictures are great and there are little stories behind each place and recipe. It's like a storybook cook book. It has a lot of great seafood recipes (for my husband lol) and also some with other meats and things. I took one from here also. Rachael Ray is great because her recipes are usually pretty simple and always delicious. This cook book is awesome because if you follow her plan, she gives you one to two main ingredients and you can make 5 meals out of them. Talk about planning and saving money! Lastly the Pioneer Women is just someone I love. I love her show and her recipes. And I would totally steal her home if I could too. She makes a lot of comfort foods and using every day ingredients. She makes healthy foods also but is not afraid to use butter or flour or other ingredients that certain diets say no to. If a recipe calls for a stick of butter, she will use a stick of butter. BOOM Ree! 

And so here is my list for the following week...obviously it depends on what is happening here at home but these recipes were pretty simple and a lot of the ingredients needed to make them, I already have here which will save me money at the store. Once I have all that I need and get to cookin, I'll try to remember to share a couple. It all looks so good seriously I can't wait to eat next week lol. 

One step at a time and so far I have stuck to at least two goals that I wanted to for 2016. Hopefully I can keep with it. I have to work around my offspring so...I'm sure you can guess what that's like haha:)

Time to refill my glass! 

xo

Randomness on a Monday

So, it is a BEAUTIFUL Monday here in my little town. The sun is out, there is a wonderfully warm breeze and I do not want to do anything! UGH, does anyone else ever have one of those days? I am seriously lacking in the motivation department. My one year old is keeping himself occupied with toys at the moment. He is due for a nap very soon. I keep looking out the window thinking I should get up and go for a walk, or sit in the sun with a book, weed the garden, SOMETHING. All I feel like doing though is sitting down with my iced coffee, pinning recipes, or doing work inside the house. I guess I have SOME motivation, but its keeping me indoors doing things rather than taking advantage of this weather before it is gone and we are really stuck inside. I have been doing a lot of stuff in my home, still painting and moving things around. Yesterday I went through all of the clothing that no longer fits my son and separated it into sizes. Keeping things I love and can not get rid of, but selling or giving away the rest. There is SOOOO much. Maybe after his nap I can drag myself out of this funk and we can go play outside. It really would be a shame to waste such a nice day. I am sure there are many people stuck inside today that would love to be able to be out doors. I should remember I am fortunate that way. 

Another thing that I wanted to share was a bit personal. I may or may not have mentioned in previous posts that we had to use fertility to become pregnant with my son. Long story short, 10 years of birth control really messed up my system and I became super irregular after stopping. It prompted me to see a doctor who then informed me after a blood test that I was not producing enough FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) which meant my eggs (if any) were not big enough to become fertilized. How frustrating that was. I was only 27 when we started trying. I did not become pregnant until 29, after the 4th IUI attempt with a new shot introduced. ANYWAYS, I had wondered if maybe after going through the pregnancy if my body would straighten itself out. I was very discouraged and figured if we wanted more kids we could only conceive through fertility help. I still do not know if we would have to go that route. I hope not. My husband had to do his share in the doctors office too if you catch my drift. I feel like if we had to do that again he would be hesitant. I just want it to happen naturally.

So, I stopped breastfeeding my son at ten months. He was pretty much weening himself and I wasn't producing as much. Well a friend of mine has a  daughter who is three months behind my son, still breastfeeding her and had her cycle return about a month ago! Of course I was kinda bummed, I had finished breast feeding for two months and NO sign of a cycle for me. I made a doc appointment because I wanted to talk to him about thoughts on conceiving for a second time and what he could suggest. Should we wait, should we try? I also am not sure we want a second right NOW, but if we have to do fertility...you cannot just wing it. Well, to my surprise, guess what showed up the Thursday before my appointment? I know most women hate when it comes (and actually I'm no fan haha) but for me and what we went through, this was awesome!!! my body finally doing what it was supposed to do, and without medication to start it. It lasted a full week and was horrendous! But, I did go almost a year and a half without it. So (this can get a little TMI, in case you can't handle this stuff) I downloaded the OVIA app which is a fertility app that tracks periods, ovulation, fertile times etc. I figured I need to do this in order to see what my body is going to do. I could still be irregular, I do not know for sure if my period will come in 28 days or if it will be late. I do have to say this though, last week I was grocery shopping and all the sudden I am just standing there (TMI) and I can feel something going on down there. I went to the bathroom and checked and it was clearly cervical mucas. According to doctors and everything I have read, a good way to test if you are fertile is to check your CM. If it is stretchy then that is a good sign that you are. So I checked and sure enough...it stretched. I am sorry for all the info here, but for anyone trying to conceive or that has already gone through this, you get it. There is nothing that grosses me out about this kind of stuff anymore haha. 

My calendar as is appears today

I got really excited not because I think I will get pregnant or anything, but because the thought that maybe my body is getting back to where it is supposed to be is WONDERFUL!!! I do not know if it means my hormones will balance out and I will produce FSH like I should be, but one step at a time. So I marked it down on the app and have been keeping track of the times my hubs and I have sex. According to the app, if I have a normal 28 day cycle, my next period should start around the 28th. Praying for a period or a positive pregnancy test. None of the "un known" anymore!!!

Time to go put my little man down to bed. Maybe Ill head outside and tackle that garden...or maybe I'll just continue blowing up my friends pinterest feeds ;) tee hee hee

Enjoy the day!!