A Look Into Our Notebooks | Week 18 in 2021

Happy Wednesday! I usually publish this post on Mondays, but this week’s blog schedule is going to be off-kilter. Something happened to our internet on Saturday afternoon and our provider was able to send someone out to fix it on Tuesday morning. Well – we had a quite detox period, let me tell you! We only stream our television viewing and don’t even have a DVD player anymore – so the kids have watched nothing since Saturday, which went much better than expected. And now it’s fixed and I’m already missing the quiet!

Last week was just strange. I completely lost my reading mojo the second half of the week which shifted the dynamics totally. And when we lost our internet over the weekend, I had to kick up my mothering mode a bit and we did even more reading aloud than usual – lots of picture books and some of our current chapter book, The Hobbit – and we did more physical playing in general. I crawled into bed each night, thankful for a rest.

My morning journaling streak is still alive – I reached the 400 day mark on Monday! That’s 400 days of waking up early, settling down with a hot drink and a pen, and filling a page with whatever is cluttering my brain. This morning marked 137 straight days of meditation, so that practice is also going strong. Stacking those two habits together has been a surefire way to keep those streaks. 

I’m trying to be more consistent about including the quotidian tasks that I complete each day: tidying, caring for the chickens, packing up lunchboxes and backpacks (for Colton), laundry, and bath times. I don’t fuss with it too much on the weekends though!

Meals last week
I’m going to start including the meals we ate for a couple of reasons: 1) to keep me accountable to meal planning; and 2) I find it endlessly helpful when real people share their own meal plans. You’ll notice a big theme in my planning: “easy”!!

• Monday: Sesame Noodles – this is one of the easiest meals ever and everyone here loves it (even Colton!). Even better, I can usually making it without any planning because we almost always have all of the ingredients on hand. 
• Tuesday: Tacos – simple ground turkey with all of the toppings we happened to have in the fridge: cheese, sour cream, and pickled jalapeños (my personal favorite).
• Wednesday: Cilantro Lime Chicken – a super fast crockpot meal that is perfect with rice. It’s a massive hit here.
• Thursday: Leftovers – we had a little bit of everything left from Monday-Wednesday, as well as some of our weekend meals to choose from (grilled chicken & potatoes and creamy Italian pork chops with egg noodles). It was easy to whip up lunches and dinners from what was in the fridge!
• Friday: Pizza – Matthew is the pizza chef around here and I don’t know what recipe he uses for his dough. But he usually mixes it the day before and makes bulk pizza sauce from a big can of crushed tomatoes that he freezes and defrosts as needed. It’s always a success!
• Saturday: Baked Ziti – another super simple meal that we all love. It’s creamy and cheesy and delicious! I used the ziti as the recipe instructed, but Matthew commented that he might like it better with penne regate, so noted for next time (and for you, if you’re interested in trying it).
• Sunday: Chili – this is my favorite chili recipe and is so easy. It’s about a half an hour of putting things together in the morning and then you get to smell it warming up all day in the crockpot. We paired it with green chili and cheese cornbread and it was perfect. This might be our last chili meal until Fall, so we are definitely going to enjoy the leftovers in Frito pie form! (Frito pies = bowl of corn chips covered in chili, topped with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream, and optional pickled jalapeños.)

I hope you find a meal here that inspires you to cook something new in the next few weeks. I usually share what I’ve been reading on Wednesdays, but it will be easy to get you all caught up next week. I’m planning to be back on Friday with a few joyful things to get back on schedule! Until then – take good care!