Today, I have completed a 4-month project!! Well, almost.
Sometime before Thanksgiving, the bf and his brother set out to build us a new bed. I found the plans on Ana White (actually they were from Birds and Soap, I found them on Pinterest and the link took me to her guest post on Ana White), and modified it to fit our king mattress. Since his brother lives about 2 hours away, we came home with a truckload of cut wood and a teeny tiny garage to work in. Gradually we picked up the hinges, brackets, and tools we needed to get that bad boy put together, and I started staining.
Interesting sidenote on the stain: For Christmas 2011, we received a beautiful storage chest from the bf's brother. We called him up and talked to him about the stain he used, since we wanted the bed to match it. Turns out, he had several nearly-empty cans of stain in his garage, and since he had built 5 of these chests, he just decided to mix them all together so he'd have enough stain for all of them. I'm ok with this, it turned out beautiful. But he pretty much said good luck matching it. Well, my trip to Home Depot seemed futile, but I was still dead set on stain instead of paint. I settled on Minwax special walnut, since none of the other tones seemed remotely close. We wound up with several pieces of scrap after cutting the necessary pieces, so I stained a small piece of 1x2 and waited. 30 minutes or so later, when I decided that if it wasn't dry I was sick of waiting anyway, I plopped that scrap down on top of the chest, and BAM. Perfect. So thank you Minwax!
The single solitary reason for building a bed was because the cheap rails we had were beyond repair. 4 C-clamps and a vice-grip just couldn't hold it together anymore. I also wanted more storage in the bedroom, particularly because we have lots of "stuff" that really does not have a home, but somehow I feel like it should go in the bedroom somewhere. I'm sure there will be a future post about organizing when I get there... Anyway, neither of us wanted to just put the box springs on the floor, so the storage platform came first.
Well, we've had the platform built for at least 3 months, and a giant mess in the tiny garage. I have project ADD and went in the garage to work on something else, and decided I simply could not work out there. So after 3 hours and 2 trash bags later, I had workspace! The bf was ecstatic that I had cleaned, but not so stoked about me working on everything-but-the-bed. Well, the last piece to be stained is the headboard frame, and it's a little large for me to be working on it myself. The last time I tried to sand it, I decided I didn't want a bunch of sawdust in the garage for some reason, so I managed to get it out into the front yard. Getting it back was a different story, and somehow I broke off one of the 4x4 legs. So I reattached it and decided that I shouldn't mess with it anymore. Today, now that there is free space in the garage, I decided that leaning it over onto my pallets would be easy enough to get it sanded, and well, it's done!
I guess I can't really say I finished the project yet. But I did get a massive roadblock out of my way! The bf is off for Good Friday tomorrow, so maybe we can get the headboard put together and finally attach it all! I'll let you know!
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Welcome to Meal Planning
Welcome to my life. This 24/7/365 world that never stops spinning. A balancing act, but I feel like I'm juggling too. None of this is surprising, I'm sure everyone feels this way. But my purpose for this blog is to tell people how I get through it. How I keep the plates spinning.
My struggle today is with meal planning. Yep, I'm a first-timer. Until today, I was making 3+ trips to the grocery store every week, and flying by the seat of my pants once I got there. Strolling down the aisles, wondering what the bf wanted for dinner. Well, my schedule and my wallet say NO MORE!
I shouldn't say I'm a virgin meal planner. I'm usually the person my friends turn to on a long weekend camping trip, to feed 20 people and keep it cost effective. I just got back from a road trip to Florida, where $130 fed 6 people quite well for 4 days. So I've done this before, just not for myself.
Challenge #1: I am a vegan, the bf loves meat and cheese. I definitely don't mind making two separate dinners. I'm used to it. Soooo thankful to have a 4 burner stove with the little warmer spot in the center! Really the biggest difficulty here is scaling down recipes to feed one person! Not an impossible task, though. I currently have about 1 lb. of brisket cooking in my baby crock pot. Ya know, the little dip-sized one? I had to make that purchase after receiving a 9-quart one in a Chinese gift exchange this past Christmas. A 9-quart crock pot does an excellent job of scorching the holy crap out of one chicken breast. My next trip to the grocery store yielded the baby crock for only $10! As long as the crock pot recipe can be halved so that it will fit, and you only need to cook it on low, you're golden.
Challenge #2: I'm looking for recipes that can be scaled down for one, and will still be yummy the next day in the microwave. Ever since the bf's job moved farther than 5 minutes down the road, he's been out to lunch on a daily basis. Now, after 6 months of him being able to come home on lunch break, to a fresh cooked meal, this has hit our wallets pretty hard. $200/month just on lunches. Yikes! So I'm desperately searching for yummy things I can cook for him, that won't be slaughtered by the microwave.
So thanks to Pinterest, I've found some recipes to add to my repertoire, and I have my upcoming week nailed down.
Lunches to include:
-BBQ brisket sandwiches
-Arroz con Pollo
-Homemade Burritos with rice
-Shepherds Pie
...and one day of dining out. I know it's nice to be able to get out of the office sometimes, and one lunch out per week is only $40-50/month.
Dinners look like:
-Broccoli Beef with rice
-Spaghetti
-Grilled Lemon Pepper Chicken Legs with Broccoli Rice and Cheese
-Kebabs (great for us because he eats all the meat and I get all the veggies!)
-Pork Chops with mashed potatoes (2 pork chops fit beautifully in the baby crock)
-Lasagna Roll Ups
-Chicken Pasta
I sat for a while yesterday, staring at the grocery ads, hoping they would give me some inspiration on what to cook. They helped a little, since chicken legs are $.79/lb today, and broccoli is on super-sale as well. Now that I have my menu for the week, I know exactly what I need, and where to get it cheap! This is all looking much easier now.
The other lucky thing is, I don't mind shopping at 3 different grocery stores to get all the best deals. I mean, I'm no extreme couponer or anything, but they send out weekly sale ads for a reason, right? My goal for the next two months is to basically cut our monthly average grocery bill in half. Obviously I won't count March, because there is less than a week left. But April and May, I want to get us below $200. Over the last 4 months, we have averaged about $350. This is including a lot of beer and wine, and grilling out extra food for friends that don't always show up. But if I budget and shop properly, we can still do all that. So I'm off to peruse the ads, and get my shopping done!
My struggle today is with meal planning. Yep, I'm a first-timer. Until today, I was making 3+ trips to the grocery store every week, and flying by the seat of my pants once I got there. Strolling down the aisles, wondering what the bf wanted for dinner. Well, my schedule and my wallet say NO MORE!
I shouldn't say I'm a virgin meal planner. I'm usually the person my friends turn to on a long weekend camping trip, to feed 20 people and keep it cost effective. I just got back from a road trip to Florida, where $130 fed 6 people quite well for 4 days. So I've done this before, just not for myself.
Challenge #1: I am a vegan, the bf loves meat and cheese. I definitely don't mind making two separate dinners. I'm used to it. Soooo thankful to have a 4 burner stove with the little warmer spot in the center! Really the biggest difficulty here is scaling down recipes to feed one person! Not an impossible task, though. I currently have about 1 lb. of brisket cooking in my baby crock pot. Ya know, the little dip-sized one? I had to make that purchase after receiving a 9-quart one in a Chinese gift exchange this past Christmas. A 9-quart crock pot does an excellent job of scorching the holy crap out of one chicken breast. My next trip to the grocery store yielded the baby crock for only $10! As long as the crock pot recipe can be halved so that it will fit, and you only need to cook it on low, you're golden.
Challenge #2: I'm looking for recipes that can be scaled down for one, and will still be yummy the next day in the microwave. Ever since the bf's job moved farther than 5 minutes down the road, he's been out to lunch on a daily basis. Now, after 6 months of him being able to come home on lunch break, to a fresh cooked meal, this has hit our wallets pretty hard. $200/month just on lunches. Yikes! So I'm desperately searching for yummy things I can cook for him, that won't be slaughtered by the microwave.
So thanks to Pinterest, I've found some recipes to add to my repertoire, and I have my upcoming week nailed down.
Lunches to include:
-BBQ brisket sandwiches
-Arroz con Pollo
-Homemade Burritos with rice
-Shepherds Pie
...and one day of dining out. I know it's nice to be able to get out of the office sometimes, and one lunch out per week is only $40-50/month.
Dinners look like:
-Broccoli Beef with rice
-Spaghetti
-Grilled Lemon Pepper Chicken Legs with Broccoli Rice and Cheese
-Kebabs (great for us because he eats all the meat and I get all the veggies!)
-Pork Chops with mashed potatoes (2 pork chops fit beautifully in the baby crock)
-Lasagna Roll Ups
-Chicken Pasta
I sat for a while yesterday, staring at the grocery ads, hoping they would give me some inspiration on what to cook. They helped a little, since chicken legs are $.79/lb today, and broccoli is on super-sale as well. Now that I have my menu for the week, I know exactly what I need, and where to get it cheap! This is all looking much easier now.
The other lucky thing is, I don't mind shopping at 3 different grocery stores to get all the best deals. I mean, I'm no extreme couponer or anything, but they send out weekly sale ads for a reason, right? My goal for the next two months is to basically cut our monthly average grocery bill in half. Obviously I won't count March, because there is less than a week left. But April and May, I want to get us below $200. Over the last 4 months, we have averaged about $350. This is including a lot of beer and wine, and grilling out extra food for friends that don't always show up. But if I budget and shop properly, we can still do all that. So I'm off to peruse the ads, and get my shopping done!
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