My menus last week worked out real great. The new meals proved very tasty and that is great. Most of the ingredients come from our usual food storage stockpile so that is better!

My husband all but inhaled Friday’s meal. As he snarfed, he grunted all manner of yummy sounds. That sort of attitude is one I wish I could see more often. I struggle with finding meals that he enjoys. He has an overabundance of taste buds or some sad tale so most foods disagree with him flavour wise. Such a shame.

So what’s on for this week? Let’s take a look!

Monday: Creamy Pepperoni Ziti (A new attempt from Taste of Home – I have HIGH hopes for this one!)

Tuesday: Stuffed Shells with homemade bread

Wednesday: Probably 99 cent happy meals again or some such

Thursday: Salisbury Steak and Mashed potatoes

Friday: I’m a free woman! I’m thinking Monda Salad from Giant, Girls Night Out, Calgon Take Me Away. Anyway game for a GNO? The teen has Homecoming and the menfolk are going camping to act all scouty and manly. *grunt* *grunt* Campfire probably means hot dogs or hobo packs or something.

Saturday: Stroganoff Meatballs

Sunday: Pork Loin

Tasty main dishes for this week! Yummy! I think I might hear my tummy growling now…

Today I clipped mass amounts of coupons to prepare for shopping this week. My router ate itself for no explicable reason so now I find myself in the market for a new one. A quick ring to my mother and the Sunday paper came with a visit from Mom. Lucky for me, I found a fantastic deal at Best Buy that covers several needs.

Tomorrow morning I arise at some awful time of the morning and begin. Teen gets dropped at school, then I pick up the dry cleaning. From there to CVS thanks to the the ad for there I’m finding some desperately needed items at a great deal! I will then head to a new hardware store’s grand opening for a free screwdriver set. Ours are getting fairly trashed. Also a little multimeter so we can ensure no electrical problems with all this new house work we see before us. I hope by then Best Buy is open so I can pick up what I need and head home.

Tomorrow I start regular life again, I hope. So much for my thinking I could get a break from the insanity, right? Nope! My plans to just relax with the boys for a week gone… I get the fun of juggling an unplanned purchase into our budget and running around like a crazy person when I’d rather be sacked out in jammies with my boys and a pile of books! It’s all good, this is what our life is always like! Never a dull moment!

Wednesday is our payday so I am scouring the coupons looking for more deals. This week I noticed a lot of coupons for things I normally buy. I have not seen that in forever. I must admit, I used to religiously use coupons and then one day I just stopped. It seemed I never saw any that were truly useable for us and it was not worth the time and effort. Not so now! Maybe with the economic crisis, people are trying to entice shoppers? Or maybe it’s just the new area? (It has been THAT long since I really looked.) Well, whatever the reason, I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I clipped and clipped and am looking at the ads (yay mom!) for good meal ideas and whatnot. What a shame, some things I just bought on Saturday I now see I have coupons for. Good thing they don’t expire soon!

I am trying to build my storage up again. Times are tough and they will only get tougher. I want to “be prepared” as my scouts say. We dipped way into our resources so our larder is embarrassingly barren. Thankfully I have tabs on some great ways to bulk up quickly over the next few months if I can stay focused.

–Lady O