Lightening Online

Well, May didn’t go quite as planned.

How unusual!!!!  LOL.

Or maybe the plan was a little ambitious?

Or maybe I’m just really BAD at NOT buying food?

The goal?

Spend $50 or less a week over the 4 shopping weeks in May for a total of $200 for the month (bearing in mind we’re using up as much of our on hand food as we can).

The reality?

*clears throat nervously*

Total spend of $351.65 or an average of $87.90.

In my mind that is a pretty ordinary effort. 

Don’t ask me what happened.

Everyone wanted to EAT (how rude!!!!).

Every week I kept thinking that next week the list would be shorter.

But it wasn’t.

Oh well.

Balance left in kitty to go toward my BHAG = $248.35

A little short on my goal of $400 but better than nothing.

The plan for June?

There is no plan.

Who knows what is going to happen?

I’ll continue to try and use up as much of what we have.

At some point during the month we’ll run out of meat and that’s going to increase the weekly spending quite considerably.

So, I’ll take it week by week and we’ll see what happens.

My niece is.

No doubt I’ll blink and we’ll be celebrating her 1st birthday.

Anyway, here are some pics as promised.

I finally remembered I had stashed the camera in the glove box of the car.

One of the advantages of having kids first is that they then get the benefit of younger cousins.  Mind you, I think Lleyton would rather have a cousin his own age but you can’t have everything.

I love watching my kids hold a baby.

She certainly makes my kids seem very grown up.

There’s someone else I love to watch holding a baby too:

There was a time when he wouldn’t hold a baby until they were about a year old.  He’s much more confident and relaxed around them now.  He probably doesn’t look it in the photo because she was starting to fuss and he’s actually moving her to settle her.

Clucky?

Me?

*sigh*

I can’t seem to convince Farmboy that we should have another.  It probably doesn’t help that I had a dream recently that we had twins -  a male and a female.

Personally, I think now would be a great time to have twins.  Look at all the helpers I’d have!

Him?  Not so much.

Guess I’ll have to be satisfied with the kind you can hand back.

Can you believe that????

I’m starting to think I’m going to have to modify my dreams to have a perfect house before we leave!

I am so glad I made a plan.  It’s really helping me not to freak out.

While the house may not end up being “picture perfect” before we go, I KNOW that we have a lot less clutter than we had before.

At least 2 garbage bags (or equivalent) have been leaving this house every week to either the dump or the charity bin (or friends/family).

It HAS to be having an effect.

LAST WEEK

The focus was bedrooms.  I sorted out one of the shelves in our wardrobe.  Didn’t get as far as I would have liked to in our room but it’ll be okay.

Also did some decluttering in the boys room.  Lleyton has a LOT of stuff that hasn’t been touched in years so at some point I’d like to go through his drawers and get rid of some stuff (he doesn’t cope well with letting go but he won’t notice if I go through things - unlikely to even remember what he had).  If it doesn’t happen before we go though, it’s not a huge issue.

I did get rid of a few of Trailer Boys “baby” toys and things not really played with.  And we’ve bought an under the bed container for the growing collection of lego.

THIS WEEK

Focus areas are the kitchen and living areas.

My main priority will be to sort and declutter the kids books and toys which live in a built in cupboard in the dining/family room.

If I get time, I’ll start working on the pantry, including making a list of anything that needs to be used up before we go (mainly baking supplies).

5 Weeks to Go?

Sheesh!!!

It’s getting close, isn’t it? 

Excuse me while I go jump on the bed in excitement.  LOL.

Where are the baby photo’s I promised?  They’re coming.  I’ve been having some internet connection issues of late so my apologies for the lack of posting.

The weekend was insanely busy.

Sport on Saturday was feral.  The wind blew most of the day and the dust was awful.  Not to mention the farmers were all grumpy about their paddocks blowing away (and who could blame them really).

Thankfully we had some rain on Sunday - although it wasn’t as wide spread as I would have liked.

We’re going on with sowing our sand and hoping for the best.

We did have a lovely day on Sunday catching up with family.  I’m pretty exhausted now though.

I managed to get the kids some winter pj’s (it was getting rather desperate) and did some grocery shopping that is going to really upset my planned spending for the month of May but never mind.

I’m getting a little nervous because our meat supplies are dwindling.  I know that’s the plan but I’m so used to having a freezer (or 2) with plenty of meat to choose from.

Shopping week to week is going to be a new skill to learn while we’re travelling.  I think I’ll run out of meat before we go though so I guess I’ll get a little practise in then.

THIS WEEK’S MENU PLAN

Tuesday - Quiche

Wednesday - Lamb Shanks in slow cooker

Thursday - out

Friday - Southern Fried Chicken

Saturday - something easy

Sunday - Pasta Bake

Monday - Round Steak in slow cooker

Tuesday - Roast Chicken

One thing I’m hoping to be able to do while we’re away is increase the amount of fish in our diet.  I’ve heard the fishing is good in Qld so fingers crossed Farmboy and the kids get good at catching us a feed. 

We had a slightly different netball training tonight.

For a start, only 5 members of our team were there.

And the A Grade didn’t “officially” have training tonight.

Although 4 of them turned up for fitness.

The C Grade coach was overseeing our training as our own coach couldn’t be there either.

Since we didn’t have a full team, she gave us the option of going home early.

We declined (go us!  LOL).

So the A Graders that were there did some training with us.

4 of them to 5 of us is pretty good training odds.

They sure put us through the paces.  And  couple of the drills I didn’t think I was EVER going to get.  It’s surprising though.  When you have 4 that know what they’re doing, you get the idea eventually.

Tell you what though.  I.  AM.  EXHAUSTED.

It’s the good kind of exhausted though. 

I do like being challenged.

I know I’m never going to be a star netballer.  But I’ll take any opportunity I can get to learn from those that are! 

This is what my desk looked like on Saturday:

While we do actually own this many laptops, I will admit that one of these in the image above isn’t actually ours.  It belongs to our church and I was preparing the power point presentation for the service on Sunday.

I had one lap-top with the power point I was working on, one connected to the internet and another I was working on a Word document and was connected to the printer (wireless to the printer would probably be a handy next step).

Anyway, I thought it looked rather funny and had to take a photograph. 

Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Menu Plan Monday does it?

Nevertheless, it’s what is going to be happening around here for a bit.

As the freezer, fridge and cupboard get emptier, menu planning is becoming more and more crucial.

And I need to do it the day before I shop so I know exactly what needs buying.

My grocery spending isn’t going as well as I’d hoped.  Seems the family still wants to eat.  How rude!!!!  LOL.  I’ll still finish the month with a lovely surplus to add to my BHAG total but it won’t be as much as the $400 I was aiming for.

So, what’s on the menu plan this week?

I’m so glad you asked.  I figure if I have to menu plan (which I HATE with a passion) then I may as well share it. 

This Week’s Menu Plan

Tuesday - Homemade Pumpkin Soup with cheese muffins (and leftover cheesecake for dessert)

Wednesday - Roast Lamb (my last one to be used up) & Vegies

Thursday - footy (yeah, sounds tasty doesn’t it?)

Friday - Lasagne

Saturday - Oven Fish and Fries with easy veg (after being out at sport most of the day)

Sunday - out

Monday - Sausages

Tuesday - Quiche

Last night over dinner, we were discussing how many weeks we have left until we go.  Two of the kids guessed 6 weeks and 1 guessed 7.  While I thought it was just over 6 weeks, I went to the calendar to count and check.

I counted 3 times and could still only find 5 and a half weeks until we left.   Which totally mucks up my perfect 9 and a half week plan I devised.

After muttering “this doesn’t make sense, I’ve lost a week”, Farmboy decided to check out the calendar himself.

He found my lost week.  Bless him. 

I was counting by Sundays and the 31st was at the top of the month (as calendars sometimes do) so I was not counting that week.

PHEW!!!!

Panic stations off.

My “perfect” plan is still intact.  LOL.

And so, I am now up to the start of the second rotation.  I’m really pleased with how the house is starting to look after each “zone” has had 1 pass through.  Particularly given the fact that I’ve been driving the tractor and dealing with sick kids in the past couple of weeks.  Of course, a lot of it is the culmination of last terms decluttering efforts finally showing.

Last Week

The only thing I didn’t get done in the laundry was to sort and declutter the linen cupboard.  It does need doing but if I don’t get it done before we go away, it’s not really going to matter.  So, if I get to it in another week, I do.  If not, that’s okay.

Now all I need to do with the laundry is maintain it.  Sounds easy but isn’t when it’s such a busy room in the house.  Still, I’ll give it my best shot.  As it falls into the 3rd week of my zone rotation, I’ll be able to give it a “once-over” in the week before we leave if need be.

This Week’s “Zone” : Bedrooms

Last time I was in the bedroom zone, I focused on under and behind the boys beds.

This week I want to focus on under our bed and decluttering our wardrobe.  I won’t get too carried away but even a little will make things a little tidier.

Singstar Princess decided she wanted to change her room around on the weekend.  I cringed because she made a HUGE mess in the process.  And she’s wont to get halfway through a project like this and run out of puff.

This is what her room looked like just after she’d started:

It was actually tidy BEFORE she started but she decided to drag everything into the middle, out from under the bed and clear off her tallboy and bedside cupboard.  To her credit, she cleaned and sorted and tidied and arranged until eventually the room looked like this:

It’s not as streamlined as I had it but it’s her room so I’m happy for her to set it up how she likes it.

The main thing is that under her bed has now been sorted and cleaned so that’s another job I can tick off the list.

The other job I’d like to get to is decluttering some of the boys toys in their wardrobes.  But we’ll see how the week pans out and whether or not I get that far.

Anyway, best I get off the computer and get started.