Monday, July 14, 2014

Menu Plan: Week of July 14

I'm on another eBay kick, this time planning for our trip to New Orleans next month and my makeup contouring interest.  For our trip I bought a fabulous metallic + purple animal print case with a wrist strap for my iPhone (so I can take pictures without fear of dropping my phone) and Maxell kid headphones for Sonny D (so he can listen on the plane).  I'm also working on finding a case for my iPad so I can haul it on the plane without worrying about smushing it in my bag.

For my current focus on cosmetics/makeup, I bought an Ecotools makeup brush set that comes with a little case and a konjac face cleansing puff (rumored to give amazing results, only cost me $.89 total!).  I was bidding on a second set of makeup brushes because it had additional brushes that I wanted, but someone outbid me and I got frustrated because people always tend to outbid me at the last minute.  How rude!  I ended up finding a 'buy it now' deal for less than the one I was originally bidding on, so I went for it. So ha, the joke's on you, eBay sniper, you're going to end up spending more money than me in your zeal to win the auction. 

Our plans arrived from the landscaping company.   It looks like such a tiny amount of greenery for the amount of money we spent!  Jeff has been totally busting his butt to get the plants in the ground, keeping them properly watered, and setting up the brick edging.  It'll look really great when the plants have truly established themselves. 
New plants set into place in the yard.
I also finally made our hotel reservations for New Orleans, we're going to be staying on Magazine St, a primo shopping avenue on the upriver edge of the French Quarter.  I was originally looking at staying in a vacation rental (condo, house, or apartment) since I love having a full kitchen and living like the locals, but our time there is short so I didn't want to be fussing with and I was really swayed by the hotel's free breakfast plus a fridge/microwave in the room for leftovers and snacks.  I'm continuing to read the couple of travel books for the city, planning out what I want to do while we're there, and making a Google map with all of the places pinned.

I'm still interested to hear everybody's recommendations for New Orleans!  Tell me what you've got to say, I want to hear it!

Saw the Wienermobile on the way to work!
I have to say that it's not really that remarkable to see the Wienermobile here in Madison since Oscar Mayer is two miles from our house. But it still tickles me to see it occasionally! 

If you missed my late Friday afternoon post about dealing with yellow underarm stains, definitely go check it out. I didn't take photos but I did an additional experiment with a green shirt I had been avoiding because of the crusty-looking pit stains.  I scrubbed the solution on Thursday morning and finally washed it four days later on Monday morning and it came out great!  There wasn't any color fading and the pit stains are gone.  Super awesome! 

I also went with my mother-in-law to a cool place called Upshift.   I would consider it a clothing swap shop for college girls -- you give them your bag of clothes, pay $20, and you can take home a bag of their clothes.  We went during a special accessories promo on Sunday afternoon, so we only paid $10 each for bringing in accessories.  I found a cute white skirt, a cute print skirt, and three tops and my mother-in-law picked up a denim jacket and a bright pink jacket.  I noticed that they had a 'mend' pile for the stuff customers bring in, so they definitely take care of the items they receive to ensure you aren't picking through loads of crud.  Although some of the merchandise is not the greatest quality, pretty much akin to what you'd find at Goodwill with really cheap brands from Kohl's or Old Navy with not much usable life in them.  But it's certainly an interesting concept and a neat adventure. 

Menu Plan

It's time to focus on clearing out the upstairs freezer since it's difficult to shut the drawer without multiple tries of arranging everything several times.  Removing something disrupts the precise arrangement and you have to use your amazing Tetris skills to get it all back in correctly.  Plus I haven't been keeping up with my freezer inventory as I bring things home from grocery shopping so I'm discovering things I didn't know we had since they weren't on the inventory. 
  • Monday - eggs, turkey breakfast sausage links, and toast.  This might be as individual items, or we might turn them into breakfast sandwiches.  
  • Tuesday - I was originally going to make a fish curry, but I'm going with a tofu curry with rice, remaking this quick curry recipe from last year but will reduce the amount of spice so Sonny D will hopefully eat it.  I will add the sweet potatoes that are sprouting in our bread basket, green beans from the farmers' market and peas.  The peas are just because they're in the freezer.  I"m heading to Latin hip-hop cardio (Zumba) after dinner.
  •  Wednesday - grilled boneless, skinless chicken breasts with homemade pesto with basil from our garden.  Husband Jeff really wants to grill and would prefer bone-in chicken, but this is what we've got in the freezer so I'm going to have him grill these instead.  We'll probably put barbeque sauce on them, he's a fan of local, award-winning Smoky Jon's bbq sauce while I prefer the less-sweet Stubb's bbq sauce (wish it were a little more peppery, but love that it doesn't have high-fructose corn syrup and isn't sweet in general).  Unfortunately I'll be making a big batch of pesto and freezing it, which is going against my goal of using up from our freezer. 
  • Thursday - Husband Jeff's parents are picking up Sonny D from preschool because I'm going to Zumba right after work and Jeff will be away at a baseball game.  No real dinner to make, I'll probably eat whatever leftovers we've got in the fridge. 
  •  Friday - oven-fried fish with polenta, copying this tilapia recipe from Cooking Light but using swai since that's what's in our freezer.  
  • Saturday - During the day Husband Jeff is talking about doing a canoe race, but hasn't signed up yet.  In the afternoon I'm going shopping with the interior designer to pick up decorative items for our home.  Hopefully she has a list of what we're looking for, I'm clueless!  Jeff wanted to grill a lot, so I'm pulling him into duty tonight by having him cook up the beef brats we've got in the freezer.  We'll probably have them with a bag of frozen veggies from the freezer or fresh veggies from our garden.
  • Sunday -  On tap is our standard farmers' market visit in the morning and then in the mid-day there's a pop-up craft market called MadCity Bazaar that I want to check out.  For dinner we're going out with friends to Tempest for the start of the summer restaurant week.

Wanna Chat?

I turned off the 'leave a comment' feature, so if you want to share what you're thinking about this or anything else, drop me an email at jhk1013 (at) gmail.com. It's so much more cozy than a comment, plus we can have a real conversation!