Sunday night I sat down with my library book that has meals in it that you can make and freeze. I chose 4 different meals to make, with a total of 12 meals. I made my grocery list (just for these meals and nothing else) and planned out my cooking strategy for the next 2 days. Monday morning I took the boys to Wal-mart and Publix to get what I needed. After I got home, I went ahead and started cooking. I made about 40 cups of red sauce (spaghetti sauce) first for I would use that in several of the recipes. You mix it up but you don't cook it immediately. It gets cooked in whatever meal you add it to. These are the meals that I made over the course of the two days:
3 Chicken broccoli's
3 Chicken Parmesans
4 Cheese manicotti
4 Classic meat/cheese lasagnas
By Tuesday night I never wanted to cook again. These meals were a little more involved then what I typically make. I make really easy dinners most of the time! :) Yet as exhausted as I was, I went ahead and started on another project. Here's the scoop on how this project came to be.
I wanted to buy a new glider rocking chair as the one I have is about 10 years old and is very squeaky and rickety. I had a lot of things I wanted in this rocking chair and had found one at babies r us that fit the bill. It was discontinued so I was going to buy the floor model. It was missing a small piece though (a locking mechanism) so the man went ahead and ordered that part while I was in the store and had it shipped to my house. I was to come in the next morning to actually purchase the chair. That evening I decided not to buy that one, but to buy a darker colored one they had on display. When I went in the next morning to let them know I wanted to buy the other one, I checked it out and one of it's supporting legs was badly broken. So, I couldn't get that one! I was so frustrated! I told them, Oh well, when I get the locking mechanism I'll bring it in.
Well, a few weeks later the UPS man delivers me a glider rocker! I was confused as I had not bought one! As it turned out, Shermag accidentally sent me the back, the arms and the base for a dark colored (the one I wanted) glider rocking chair! After talking to Babies R Us and Shermag I was told I could keep it! The only problem was it didn't have cushions and I couldn't buy them separately. So I would have to make them. I was really anxious about this, as I would have to buy foam and cut it out correctly and then make covers for the foam and attach them to the chair. (It also didn't come with the matching ottoman so we just went and bought that)
So the Saturday before Spring Break I went ahead to JoAnn's and bought the foam I needed and picked fabric. I hate doing that because I'm not good at visualizing the end product so I'm always scared I'll make the wrong choice. But I just did it and went home. I ended up having bought too much so Steve took it back for me on Monday, returned it and rebought the right amount.
Tuesday night when I was done with all that cooking, I decided to go ahead and start with the project. It turned out cutting out the foam was really easy with my electric bread knife! I had already recovered my old glider rocker cushions several years back so I kind of knew what I was doing after that. The most frustrating part was making the cover buttons and attaching them. I had to go back to JoAnn's and buy this pack of upholstery needles that were 6-10 inches long! But they did the trick and I got it done! Here is the finished product:
As it turns out, the ottoman is a slightly darker color. The fabric color morphed on me and I didn't realize it until I was already done! Oh well, JoAnn's did give me another yard of fabric so I could recover it correctly. I think I'll deal with the wrong color for a while until the ottoman is in need of recovering and then I'll recover it with the matching fabric. It isn't so off that I can't deal with it for a while! I'm so glad to have this done! And I love it! It is very comfortable, nice and roomy, and I know I will get a lot of use out if rocking our new baby as well as our adopted children. Thank you God!!! It was the rocking chair I totally didn't expect to get! :)
The next few days that I had left, I made 3 loaves of Ezekiel Bread and blueberry muffins. I put those in the freezer where I already had a frozen loaf of banana bread and pumpkin bread. I'm trying to stock up on these baked goods because they thaw out and are just like freshly baked. I think I'm getting addicted to making things ahead of time. It just makes life sooooo much easier!
I also deep cleaned Isaac's room and closet, sorted through all the boy clothes from size 7/8 to 14/16 and got them in correct bins in the basement, then took out Isaac's winter clothes and replaced them with summer clothes in his closet. The gerbil cage and the aquarium needed to be cleaned out so I did that too. It was so nice to get all this stuff done!
Oh, I almost forgot... I did start potty training Andrew. He woke up the first morning of Spring break and said he wanted to wear underwear so how could we tell him no? He was ready! So he has been wearing underwear every day and having a few pee-pee accidents here and there but not terrible. But he won't poo-poo on the toilet! Poor little guy! He seems really apprehensive about it. Today he really wanted to and kept running to the potty shouting, "poo-poo! poo-poo!" but then he would just sit there and not do anything. It'll happen... I hope it happens in the next few weeks before the baby is born! Anyway-we are really proud of our big boy-who is growing up!
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