Adulting

Hello friends,

I hope you had a wonderful and restful weekend. We had freezing rain and snow squalls here so it was a quiet weekend. 

I spent some time cleaning and doing the mountain of laundry that I have not touched in 9 days. It has added up and it is so daunting. Not much I can do except do it one load at a time. 

I am still going strong with tracking my expenses and the no spend challenge. I did have to buy some cleaner for my upholstered headboard because there are sweat stains on it. Then I spent an hour or so researching how to clean the stains off the headboard, so a cleaner and an upholstery brush were essential. Part of that is keeping busy, like adding reminders in my phone, creating a spring cleaning list, and just random things I can do to not spend money.

It was such a quiet weekend that I added 184 books to my want to read on GoodReads. It took like 2 hours but now I have a digital copy and got some great book recommendations. I am excited to tackle this list; who knows, I may exceed my goal of 12 books this year. I had 3 books on the go, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam, and after getting 179 pages in, decided to quit. I read I Know How She Does It by Laura Vanderkam, and it is honestly the same principle- outsource everything and do not watch tv. Unfortunately, most of us cannot hire a personal chef, a nanny for childrearing, and then a maid. Maybe it is different in America, especially when you earn over $100,000- but let's be real here. Sure, it would be nice to have those things, but I get a certain satisfaction of doing it all myself. It's almost a pride. Like yeah, I can raise my child, work, cook, and maintain my household. Sure, it does not leave a lot of spare time, but I rather give myself a pat on the back than outsource everything. Besides, Mark is fantastic. He helps tidy up the house, and cook. We all need a little help. I am sure if I was a single mom, I would need some help, and that could be to a maid to help keep the house clean. But that is not my situation and I want to save money this year, not add more expenses. 

I also completed my menu plan this weekend. Mark and I decided on some themes for the week to make it a little easier to decide what we are having for dinner. We have ethnic food night, fish night, slow cooker night, sheet pan night, pasta night, stir fry night, and a seasonal soup/stew night. I got my recipes from mostly How Sweet Eats or Jo Cooks. Since take-out is on my spending freeze, I want a variety of things to eat. I do not do well with repeats every week like meatloaf on Mondays- in fact, I do not even like meatloaf (lol). I have a garlic butter shrimp with orzo, oven jambalaya, creamy tortellini soup (which was delicious from making it a couple days ago), cajun salmon with salt lime butter. I will post the whole menu plan in the comments. What are your favourite go-to dinners? Anybody you follow that I should check out or a cookbook that you love?

I got my third booster on Thursday night, which left me with a killer migraine Friday; which is in part why it took me 3 days to write a post, also because I was busy cleaning and doing the things previously mentioned. I did some reading this weekend. I am definitely going to enjoy Permanent Record, I can already tell by being 3 chapters in that I will not have an issue with being complete by the beginning of February. I wish I read it last year (lol). I have also made the pledge that if I am not "feeling" a book, to quit it entirely and start something that will grab and hold my attention. This is part of why I did not finish my goal of a book a month, I would pick up something and then stubbornly try to finish it, although I was not enjoying it. This made me not want to read, and I enjoy reading. Sure, 12 is not an outrageous goal, it is completely attainable, especially when there is online learning, work, running the household, blogging, and a no-spend challenge involved.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week and I will write again soon.

Lots of love,

Mandee