Hold Still and Hope January Doesn’t Notice You

Seriously, no sudden moves, no bold proclamations. January is a trickster. Everything is going pretty good, the weather warmed up a bit, it’s still a little light out at 5 pm, you’re feeling cautiously optimistic and then BAM! someone spikes a high fever. And it pours rain for 12 hours straight.

Am I envious of my 19-year-old son, who is on a Great American Road Trip and currently is in Phoenix? Yeah, a little.

It really wasn’t that bad a return to work and real life this week. But I still feel sort of frozen. Just taking it day by day, struggling to think ahead much. We’re also watching Severance and I think it’s making my dreams even weirder than usual. Not to mention, ya know… living in America in these times. All the dread, anger and whatnot.

At any rate, I’m not sick. On Saturday, F and I went to N’s swim meet. Back at home, I cleaned and sanitized a lot of seed starting paraphernalia and also set up a germination test of my onion seed. I should know in a few days if they are good enough to use. I found some materials around the house that I can use for trays, as some of my current ones are falling apart. I won’t be buying that plastic type of tray again.

I also did a ton of wash as we are a bit behind, and cleaned out the fridge.

On Sunday, the sun came out and Tom, F and I went to the bowling team’s family event. Very fun!

Afterwards Tom and I took Rocco to the dog park. Back at home, I started prepping to make gravy tonight, so we can have spaghetti and meatballs tomorrow. I also prepped for some kind of mishmosh taco salad, cooking our last bit of rice, defrosting corn from the freezer, chopping onions, etc. So in a bit I’ll cook the beef and throw that all together for our dinner.

I bought prepared meatballs and two chicken pot pies at Haddon Culinary — a bit pricey, but that helps me get the gravy done and gives us a meal for Tuesday. Wednesday will probably be breakfast for dinner, Thursday takeout, Friday scrounge.

I think I’m going to try to come up with some kind of grocery shopping schedule that I can stick to (and that Tom can help with). Like going to Acme on a set day for set things each week, and a Costco day once a month. Everything is completely off the cuff right now.

Meals this past week:

Sunday: Chicken Alfredo from Costco (not bad) plus steamed broccoli

Monday: Battered fish patties, roasted baby tricolor potatoes with Gruyere and P-R, and corn

Tuesday: chicken in a garlic sauce and cheesy rice, prepared from Acme, plus baked sweet potato

Wednesday: pizza from Stella Pizza

Thursday: scrounge (tuna)

Friday: Circles Thai (I always get three meals out of this)

Saturday: Baked garlic and herb tilapia filets, Rice a Roni, corn, baby carrots

I bought lunch twice and left at lunch on Friday for a doctor’s appointment.

It was a pretty boring week. I don’t even have any pictures. Here’s a video I took of the unrelenting rain, from the Acme parking lot. F and I went there to get Rocco out of the house; he and I sat in the truck while she ran in and got a few things. Followed by a cool pic from my son’s trip, taken at Zion National Park, I believe.