Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

It has been one heck of a week.  We started out on Sunday.  Since February the lower compartment of the fridge had not acted right.  In February (one month after the one year warranty ran out) it suddenly went too warm and I lost some food.  We thought the coils had froze due to me inadvertently blocking a vent, so my husband defrosted the coils and it seemed to fix it, but we turned it down to the “freezer” setting to keep it at 34 to 38 degrees.  

I am blessed that I really did not trust the fridge compartment after that so tried to keep the items to a minimum in it because Sunday rolled around and I opened the fridge to check it (did that every day after February) to find the fridge at 20 degrees and everything frozen solid.

So I spent the day, when I really wanted to rest and try to get over this cold, processing frozen potatoes and onions.  I turned the onions into frozen diced onions for the freezer.  Got the russets peeled and cut up (sorry knives) while frozen and managed to turn them into mashed potatoes for the freezer.  

The Yukon gold potatoes I diced up, threw them on some baking sheets, coated them in oil and seasoning salt and baked them till crispy to turn into diced hash brown potatoes.  I had some mixed mini potatoes I had bought to make roasted potatoes in the oven.  

Instead I threw some in with the pork roast I had put aside for dinner in the crock pot and the rest I put in with the russet potatoes to boil until tender.  I removed them before mashing the potatoes and put them aside to cool and freeze in big chunks.  These I’m going to try hitting with some oil and putting in the air fryer to crisp up with dinner one night.  Hopefully it works.

Monday rolls around with us thinking we just needed a temp sensor for the bottom compartment of the fridge and we’d hopefully be ok.  Nope.  The fridge went completely belly up and everything just quit.  Thank goodness my mother in law had some spare coolers and bought us some ice to go in them.  Because of her I did not lose all of the food in that fridge.  Luckily the freezer was small in that thing so I was able to get most of everything refrozen before we lost it.

We managed to get the 2400.00 paperweight out onto the deck and we wheeled the old fridge back in to see if my husband could repair it (after I deep cleaned 18 months of gunk out and off of it).  He took off a panel he had researched on the fridge, messed with a flap and put it all back together and it is working fine.  We are keeping an eye on it, though.

Our goal, for now, is to fix the new fridge and sell it for what we can get for it.  I’m kind of done with new fridges at this point.  I cried a lot of tears on Monday with that fridge as 2400.00 is a lot of money to just burn on a lemon like that, especially for us.

The cherry on top of the crap sundae was my husband’s car potentially blew something major, major, on the way home from work on Monday, too and we are trying to figure out if it is worth fixing or not.

It was not a good week.

The frugal stuff I accomplished in a nutshell…

1.  Processed frozen onions and got put back into freezer to stop loss.

2.  Processed 5 lbs russet potatoes into mashed potatoes to avoid loss.

3.  Processed 5 lbs Yukon good potatoes into diced hash browns to avoid loss.

4.  Processed bag of mini potatoes into future roast potatoes and potatoes to cook with a roast to avoid loss.

5.  By checking fridge and freezer was able to keep loss to a minimum.  Total things lost was some salad dressing, my bag of chard that was left from last year’s garden (that was depressing to lose) and some frozen bananas that had defrosted and slimed all over the freezer shelf.  Could have been much worse.

6.  Was able to fix and utilize old fridge without having to throw more money away trying another alternative.

7.  Was able to save the rest of the food by transferring it to another freezer or to some coolers with ice (thanks again, Stacey!).

8.  Husband went online with Whirlpool and at least got some repair manuals for the new fridge out of them.

9.  Am using up perishable food from the fridge that died as quickly as possible because I know what happened will definitely shorten its lifespan.

10. Renewed daughter’s library books over the phone to save us a trip to town in the middle of everything.

11.  A friend of ours had given us a countertop ice maker he didn't need anymore.  My husband insisted on keeping it, even though I didn't see the point at the time to keep it, and it floated around our den for a few years.  When I redid the den, I put it on top of the bar, thinking we might use it downstairs someday if we ever got to a point where we could entertain people again around here.  Well, it sure came in handy when the fridge died as it makes ice a LOT faster than an ice cube tray and when you have an autistic kid that will only drink his preferred beverage with ice...it means a lot to have that handy.  

Glad my husband made me not get rid of it or store it in our storage shed, as trying to find it would have been a nightmare.

12.  Since my husband got his car, the old Equinox has been sitting in our backyard for years.  I refused to let my husband sell it, which now he sees the logic in it now that his car is having major problems.  My daughter and I both loved that car, it was 100% paid for, and I wanted to keep it as it was still a darned good car and could be a good car for our daughter someday (my husband's new car got WAYYYYYY better fuel mileage than the Equinox, which was the entire reason we purchased it).  My husband got a new battery for it this week and fired her up and she's running just fine.  Desperately needs an oil change and a massive detail cleaning on the inside from sitting, but overall...running great.  Glad to see her back in action again, honestly.

And there you go folks.  Our week in a nutshell.   Onto other things.

Enjoy.

What's for Dinner: This Week's Menu

First off, I wanted to post an update about our guardianship hearing for Alvah.  It was yesterday morning and it went great.  We are now, officially (well waiting on the rubber stamp from the higher court, but that is not a big deal from what the judge was telling us), Alvah's guardians.  So, yay!  We are now, again, the guardians of our (nearly) adult son in the state's eyes.  I am SO relieved it is done.  The lawyer representing the state and the rest of the court staff were very nice and tried to put Armina and I at ease (Armina is going to be a co-guardian too, in case of emergencies and all that), which was good because Armina was looking like they were going to throw her in prison for stumbling over her words.

When it came to last week I had one "punt" day where I actually had my husband pick up dinner for me and him because my daughter brought home a bad cold from work and, of course, I caught it because Alvah caught it and he doesn't cover his mouth when he coughs or sneezes.  But, overall, other than groceries and gas giving me a facial tick (oh my GOSH the cost of things right now...yeesh!!!), I did alright on the menu plan front.  I did not make gumbo last week because I made grilled sausages on Thursday (per the optional plan) and then decided we really wanted to try the Creamy Gnocchi and Sausage Soup since the daughter was sick and wanted to try it.  I have to say it was really good, but I did have to add a few things to it.  I added the entire pound of bulk sausage I had browned up because the recipe was a bit bland with just the 1/2 pound and then I also added a bit of chicken bouillon powder to it as well to deepen the flavor of the chicken broth I used.  Overall, though, I thought it was a good recipe.

I did not get a chance, again, to try the salmon piccata, but I did copy the recipe down so I have it for when I'm feeling better and can make it.

Sticking to some type of plan the next two weeks is important.  Between Alvah's recovery from his dental surgery and all of the costs we incurred from that, things running out or breaking and suddenly needing to be replaced (ugh) and eating out yesterday...the amount of money that I borrowed from savings the last two weeks is AWFUL and needs to be replaced before we have no savings left, so we have very little left in my husband's paycheck the next two weeks (it is mortgage week, which is always a tight one anyway, but having to take a bunch of money out of the paycheck to repay savings makes it even rougher).  I'm determined to save what we have left for gas (especially since I plan on getting Armina out driving more), so making everything at home is VERY important the next couple of weeks if I can do it.

So, onto this week's menu!

Our weather went from the 50's to the high 70's yesterday, which was one heck of a jump, and we ended up just trying to stay cool last night.  It is supposed to remain in the 70's and sunny the rest of the week pretty much (not complaining as we haven't seen this much sun in a LONG time), so my plan is to try and get dinner done earlier in the day and just be able to reheat it to save having to use the stove much.  In the case of the Eggs Benedict for tonight, other than poaching the eggs, the rest of the meal is simple, so it shouldn't heat up the house much.

Menu for the Week 6/4/26 - 6/11/26

Thursday:  Eggs Benedict, salad, fruit  

Friday: Slow Cooker Gumbo (I'm going to use this recipe) but add some gumbo file to the dish and make my own roux and cajun seasoning for it and omitting the okra since I don't have any..using what I have). 

Saturday:  Pizza (I'm going to use up the crusts I made and stuck in the freezer earlier), breadsticks (for Alvah) 

Sunday:  Slow Cooker Pork Roast with potatoes and carrots 

Monday:  Balsamic Chicken (I am going to use this recipe), but use chicken instead of pork...this is a great recipe by the way...made it years ago and have kept it in my recipe file ever since :).   Focaccia, canned peaches, on the side. 

Tuesday:  Teriyaki pork (use leftover pork roast, make teriyaki sauce and just reheat the pork in the sauce...I think it will work) rice, miso soup. 

Wednesday:  Burgers, chips or potato salad (depending on how the son is doing)

And there you go, folks.  My tentative menu plan for the week.  The way I'm feeling, I'm going to try and keep it simple and just try and rest and recover from this cold so it doesn't get worse (sure as HECK don't want to afford medical bills right now).

Enjoy! 

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Monday was actually a really productive day for my husband.  He had the day off with it being Memorial Day and Alvah had a good day that day mood-wise, so he spent most of his day out in the garage working on getting it cleaned up (and thus getting projects worked on that had been mounting up on him to get that stuff out of the garage).  So, I have a few of his projects to add to this Frugal Friday :).

Oh and some people e-mailed me and asked me to share pictures of our fixed roof (didn't share last time...oops), so here you go (the new shingles will fade out pretty quickly with how much direct sun our roof gets, so don't let that throw you).

So, let's get to what we did this week!

1.  I received a few freebies the last shopping trip (not the one we picked up today) and have been drinking the coffee creamer that we received.  Slowly.  I'm not really sure what it is with coffee creamers.  They always taste watered down when I add them to my coffee and I'm not a big fan.  It's like they want you to add a ton of creamer to get the effect you are after.  I've gotten to the point over the years where a few teaspoons of sugar in my coffee with some milk or cream tastes WAY better to me than a flavored creamer does.  But, the creamer is free, so I'm trying to go through it, even if it it's not my favorite.

The energy drink we decided to grab on a whim.  I get free energy drink offers quite a bit, but tend to ignore them, but since we were picking up groceries anyway, I decided to get this one.  

Spoiler:  It was DISGUSTING!  My daughter and I both tried a sip of it and just could not do it.  It ended up down the drain.  I can't even say that the drink tasted "healthy" and that is what was throwing the flavor off.  The artificial sugar gave it an awful aftertaste and the drink contained neither strawberry, nor watermelon flavor, that I could detect.  I keep running it over in my mind on what it actually tasted like, but I just can't come up with anything.  Considering the amount of time I've been on this spinning globe...that's saying something.  It did taste 100% bad, though, so there is that (sorry if you like it...I did not, obviously).

2.  I was able to bake bread this week, which was nice and while I was at it, I baked a few pans of rolls so the son would have something that was easy to chew, but as nourishing as I could get it.  We are down to one bag of 6 rolls from the freezer that are defrosting on the counter right now, so I'd say we did alright with that.

3.  I have been wanting a Belgian waffle maker forever and my daughter requested I order myself one for a late Mother's Day gift (I spent Mother's Day in a complete anxious mess since the son was going in for surgery the next day) and she'd pay me back.  I'm really happy as I've been wanting one forever, but honestly was too cheap to invest in another waffle maker *laugh*.  I found one on Amazon with ceramic plates instead of non-stick ones (I know, there is controversy about this out there, but this was my personal choice in the matter) and ordered it.  I got this one (affiliate link!).  I hope it works well as I'm overly excited about it *laugh*.  I used a giftcard I'd been saving to help take 10.00 off of the waffle maker to make it cheaper (couldn't help myself).

4.  In my husband's adventures, while cleaning the garage he found an outside light he's been meaning ot hang for years on the side of the house and he finally decided it was the day to do it.  It came out looking really nice and will be so nice this winter as that side of the house gets REALLY dark during the winter and is kind of worrisome not being able to see things like moose that might be lurking around.

5.  We had one kitchen chair, one of our old ones we inherited from my husband's grandfather, that was coming apart at the legs a bit and we had another chair we'd bought used that the back broke off and was loose pretty much everywhere, so he took some straps, lots of wood glue and a bunch of patience and fixed the chairs up.  The one we bought used, I'm kind of wondering how long it will live as it was pretty thrashed when we bought it, but I was glad to get the kitchen chair fixed up since it has sentimental value attached to it.

6.  I mended a few pairs of jeans for my husband.  I was hoping to get a bunch of mending done Monday night, but the son has taken to hating me working on the sewing machine, so it's definitely slowing me down.  I have an OVERFLOWING pile of mending to do, so I'm hoping he'll let me get some more done tonight...we'll see how it goes.

7.  My daughter was having issues with her phone becoming possessed and just playing weird, random podcasts or music she wasn't even listening to.  I looked up solutions online on how to fix the problems and fixed it last night.  The joys of technology are about 2/3 problems to the 1/3 advantages *laugh*.

8.  I found that our local Franz outlet had hotdog buns on sale for Memorial Day when I stopped in to see if I could pick up some chips to go with our burgers we were having that night (we ended up having popcorn with the burgers instead as they didn't have any, but it worked out) and they were 1.50 cheaper than buying them from the grocery store.  So, I picked up enough to get us through the next shopping trip without me having to pick them up at the store (hot dog and hamburger buns are some of my son's preferred foods, so we buy him a few per week for more calories).  I put them in the freezer and voila!  About 6.00 saved off of our grocery trip this week.

9.  We've been taking advantage of the nice weather to get out and about, mainly practicing driving (we are SO far behind on getting my daughter her driver's license as Alvah has made it really, REALLY, hard the last few years to get driving in for her, but I'm determined to do it this summer).  Sure, gas isn't cheap, but I still feel good about getting her out driving myself instead of having to shell out money for driving lessons (which, honestly, the more time went on, I've been seriously thinking was the only way I was going to get the poor kid her license).  

10.  My husband fixed the loveseat.  Again.  Alvah loves the loveseat and is really hard on it and this time one of the legs snapped off.  My husband redid how the legs were mounted and was able to reattach the legs so they will be harder to break (hopefully).  He used scrap wood to make it all happen.  I have found a completely memory foam loveseat on Amazon that will replace this loveseat when it dies, but the longer we can keep the old one going, the further down the road I have to pay for a new one, so always a good thing.

And there you go folks.  Some of the ways we saved money this week.  Did you do anything to save money this week?  Feel free to share in the comments :).

Enjoy!

What's for Dinner: This Week's Menu

When it comes to dinner...Alvah's recovery has been up and down.  We're having meltdowns about once every other day (which is an improvement over the every day huge meltdowns we were having pre-surgery), some of them long and not fun, so my motivation to come up with a menu has been stuck in "I have no freaking clue...I'll feed them something" category.  I put in our grocery order early for next week, tomorrow in fact, because Alvah has been blowing through a pound of pasta a day and my stockpile in the pantry is quickly running out.  Bright side to that is that he's eaten next to none of his usual junk food fare, so at least he's eating real food at the moment.  Grocery prices went up, again, which I knew was coming with gas prices the way they are (our prices quickly reflect changes in shipping being where we are), but dude...grocery shopping hurts, especially when you have to take advantage of frozen foods and things more than in the past because you have a huge draw on your time that needs attention pretty constantly.

Some of the meals I made this week were grilling some chicken thighs marinated in Italian dressing and serving it with rice and salad and then the next day I grilled a few more chicken thighs and we had Chicken Caesar salad for dinner one night.  And then last night I had to punt and we had frozen pizza for dinner.  Thus, my stage of life at the moment.

I have yet to be able to try the salmon piccata recipe (hopefully this weekend) and I still need to make creamy sausage and gnocchi soup (a recipe I found that I've been trying to fit in this week) as I have a bunch of gnocchi I got cheap on Amazon a while back in my freezer that I want to use up.  So, I'm going to put those on the menu plan and we'll see how we do this week.

I am scheduling a day to get take out next week as we have the guardianship hearing and my husband will be working closer to home as he has supervisor training, so we are hoping to be able to go out for a celebratory meal (praying everything goes well) to mark the end of all of this work the last few months.  Taking a bit of money out of savings to do it, but we feel like it is a big enough deal to warrant it.

Menu Plan for Week 5/28 - 6/4

Thursday:  Either Italian Sausage and Gnocchi Soup or grilled sausage sandwiches.  I'm using an Italian chicken sausage instead of bulk sausage for the recipe tonight, so it gives me a bit of leeway if the weather is too hot to eat soup tonight.  We are in that weird season of the sun might heat up the house if it is out, but if it isn't out, it's still kinda cold out.

In other news, we are having a late, and cold, spring, so it took forever for my rhubarb to come up.  Normally I'd be looking forward to freezing some for use later in the winter, but right now, I'm just hoping I can get enough for a strawberry rhubarb pie before it suddenly gets hot and the rhubarb goes tasteless and woody. 

Friday:  Asian food night (egg rolls and shrimp tempura from the freezer) with tropical fruit on the side.  This tends to be one of our "junky and easy" food nights around here and we're going to be busy tomorrow (as we tend to be every Friday), so the daughter requested it.

Saturday:  7 Minute Salmon Piccata, rice, salad.

Sunday:  Chicken street tacos, Mexican rice (use leftover rice from Saturday to make it).

Monday:  Grilled Pork steaks with roast potatoes and salad on the side.

Tuesday:  Chicken gumbo and rice (going to try gumbo in the crock pot so we have time to get some driving practice in for my daughter...wish me luck).

Wednesday:  Eating out day.

And there you go folks.  My tentative menu plan for the week.  

Enjoy!

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

This is kind of a combo post on frugal accomplishments over the last several weeks with Alvah being in recovery and all, so it will be a BIT longer than normal on the frugal accomplishments front.  I somehow managed to get things accomplished despite a kid that has VERY sudden mood shifts right now...gums start bothering him and he goes from happy to "holy cow" very very quickly.  So, it's been a bit rough the last few days especially.

But, without further ado, let's get to the frugal stuff (enjoy the pictures I managed to get of a really cool sky the other night dispersed throughout :).

Frugal Accomplishments for the last few weeks:

1.  We got our garage roof fixed *happy dance inserted here*!  Shopped around and found a roofer that had our color 3-tab shingles in stock (which was a miracle in itself).  By going with the roofer we did, our new shingles match on our roof still and we saved well over 100.00 off what other outfits were quoting us, which was a double bonus for sure.  They even fixed a few rough shingles we had around our upper chimney where my husband had repaired it after the earthquake that were coming loose, before they became a problem later.

2.  I turned off electric baseboard heaters.  Finally.  We still have to turn them on during the nights on and off, but it's way better on the electric bill to not have the bedroom heaters on 24/7 for sure.  Hoping summer gets here soon *sigh*.

3.  I bought a “used like new” case for one of Alvah's I-Pads WAY cheaper than buying it new.   It came in like new condition, which was good (wish Otter Boxes still came with screen protectors built in, though...had to order one of those *grumble*).

4.  Found a book I wanted to read in the internet archive instead of buying a copy.

5.  Repurposed/moved an old bookcase that wasn't needed in its space anymore to use somewhere else.  

6.  Bought groceries early this week to take advantage of sales on items we normally buy and then just bought loss leader meat on Memorial Day sales.  Worked out great and we're now stocked up on ribs and hamburger patties as well...for about the same price as our regular grocery shopping trip would have cost.   Yay for good sales!

7.  Took the patio furniture out of storage in a spiritual state of optimism that we will see nice weather sometime soon.  Treated the furniture with linseed oil we already had to help protect it from all the moisture we are getting (it was getting rough from the last few summers of constant rain we had).  Working well so far.  I'm folding up the furniture when it rains and putting it under the eaves of the roof to protect it from just constant water bombardment, which will also help to protect it from damage, I hope.

8.  Found out our garbage service was getting bought out by a bigger (and more expensive) company, so paid bill early so we are paid through the summer.  Will give me time on the cheaper rates to shop around for new service before steeper pricing kicks in.

9.  I was able to split up the purchase of some equipment I needed to get over several pay periods to alleviate the hit to the checking account and stopped me from having to put it onto a credit card or something.

10.  I fixed the zipper on my son’s jacket.

11.  Fixed a sneaker with shoe goo.

12.  Lightbulb burned out over our table and was worried I’d have to buy a replacement bulb, but was able to look up my order history and realized the last time I had bought bulbs I had gotten a 4 pack of bulbs.  I was able to find where I had stored said bulbs and replace the bulb without having to pay for a new one.

13.  Received some overripe bananas and put into the freezer to make banana items with later.  This was actually a really nice windfall, as I've been not purchasing bananas of late (they are always either way too green and don't ripen or they are gone over in two days time, it seems...I'd rather buy apples or something that has a better chance of being edible for longer right now) and had just used the rest of my frozen bananas to make banana bread last month.

14.  We've been trying to get out and about and enjoy what little sun we get.  Thus, the picture taken above.

And there you go folks.  Some of the ways we've been trying to save money the last bit.  Hope your money saving endeavors are going well, too.

Enjoy!

Thrifty Thursday: Thrift Store and Yard Sale Finds

As I stated in my last post, last week we ended up driving all over the place to help distract Alvah from his tooth recovery.  One of the things we ended up doing while driving all over creation was we started to hit yard sales.  I've noticed a DEFINITE uptick in yard sales this year.  I equate this to the state of the economy and people deciding to not donate their used goods, but instead hold onto them to do a yard sale in the hopes they can make some money, any money, to help alleviate the financial strains we are all dealing with.  Honestly, if Alvah does better this summer (so far, tentatively, I can say he's doing better than he was for sure) and is okay mood-wise, I might very well start hauling stuff out of storage to do a yard sale as well to see if I can make some money to help us.  I know I have baby items still in storage (and those days have definitely passed) and we have old furniture and things that could get hauled out and sold.  We'll see how it goes, though, as with the guardianship hearing coming up and everything...our plate is pretty darned full so far this summer.

I did manage to find a few things at yard sales, which were actually on my list of things I wanted to get, which was cool, so I thought I'd share a few of those here.

First are some DVD's I found that are not shown here as they are in my son's room in his stack of DVD's that he pulls from to watch during the day in his room.  I was able to find "Mater's Tall Tales" and Disney's "Cars" for 1.00 a piece in near new condition for 1.00 a piece.  These are on the list of DVD's my son regularly watches and is very hard on (translation:  Tends to destroy), so this saved me a bunch of money from having to order them online.

Next up, I found a blu-ray player at a yard sale, with remote, for 10.00 (the top Panasonic machine in the picture).  I never really had a desire to get a blu-ray player, but I've found now that I'm going back to physical media more and more (tired of getting things I purchased pulled because of "expired rights" but not getting any type of a refund when it happens...I'm looking at you Amazon), that some things are just plain cheaper on blu-ray or are ONLY available on blu-ray, so I decided to add one to our household.  I just kept putting it off because blu-ray players still aren't cheap (about 100.00 for a cheap one) and I didn't see the margin in the budget to pay for one. The VCR/DVD combo burner under the blu-ray player needs work in the picture above (VCR part just eats tapes now...need my husband to rip it apart and figure out what is going on with that), so that worked out doubly so, because now I have a working DVD player/Blu-Ray player to use while my husband tries to figure out how to fix the other machine.  

Next up was actually an oversight on my part.  The clear plastic Tupperware on top there is what I bought at a yard sale (the bottom cake carrier, by the way, I use as a cake dome and it comes in really handy).  I THOUGHT it was a small cake keeper and would work perfect to store cheesecake, when I make one, in the fridge, instead of trying to make plastic wrap not wreck the surface of the cheesecake.  It's actually a pie keeper, so the bottom plate is tapered, so it might not work for the cheesecake so well, but it will still come in handy for cold custard pies (like pumpkin pie) to keep them safe in the fridge, so I know I will still use it (just not as much as I'd hoped when I found it).  I paid 2.00 for that one.

And that's about it for finds so far this summer.  Not a bad haul by any stretch.  I'm hoping to find a few more things I've been looking for, but this is a decent start to the summer.

Hope your treasure hunting is going well out there :).

Enjoy!

What's For Dinner: This Week's Menu (and an Alvah Update)

Man, what a week it has been.  I think all of us around here are just bone weary exhausted at this point, but I think we are finally over the worst of it *knock on wood*.

Alvah ended up going into the hospital on Monday of last week to get his teeth worked on.  They ended up giving him a ketamine shot to make him loopy enough to get the IV in him.  On the way back to the OR, probably due to a reaction to the amount of drug they had given him (everyone who has laid professional eyes on its theory), Alvah had a small seizure.  Scared the holy crap out of my husband and I, which made Alvah's recovery all that more nerve wracking for us.  

Final tally on teeth.  His dentist had to take out two of his bottom molars (one on either side), his two top wisdom teeth and he fixed a bunch of cavities as well.  He also sealed everything he could while he was in there, so hopefully that will help protect his teeth in the future.  I feel awful, serious serious guilt, that Alvah was in that bad of shape when it came to his teeth.  I am the one who brushes his teeth everyday, so I just feel 100% responsible for the sheer amount of pain he had to have been in.  The dentist kept telling me I was doing fine, that his tooth health looked good, but I still feel like I should have been doing more all of this time to help stop all of that from happening.  My poor kid.

With the two extractions on the bottom and the top of his mouth, last week was not a lot of fun for anyone around here.  We spent a LOT of time driving Alvah all over the place to distract him from being in pain as much as we could (he won't take Ibuprofen, so we were trying to help the Tylenol work for him) and just went into survival mode all week.  It was definitely a "frugal fail" week with the sheer amount of french fries we bought for Alvah to try and get him to eat (he dropped like 5 lbs over the last three weeks with how he was feeling) and other treats, not to mention the gas to drive him all over the place.  Starting yesterday, though, Alvah finally started to show like he was feeling better and today he's doing even better than yesterday, so I'm hopeful (tentatively so) that maybe getting these teeth removed will help his mood and behaviors.  Sure isn't going to make them worse, so I'm going to be optimistic.

When it came to what we had for dinner, it actually worked out in a way, I guess, that we ended up eating at home, because we 100% did not have the money for all of us to eat out.  My husband worked from home last week to help with Alvah as much as he could, as well, so that helped to keep residual meal costs down.  Meals were uninspired to say the least, but we got through the week alright.  I'm hoping to get back into eating healthier this week and hopefully doing less sandwiches around here.  

Before I work on this week's menu, I wanted to share what I thought of Asian Glazed Salmon.  It was good!  I did punt on the sweet chili sauce as I did have some down in my pantry, but plain didn't feel like going and getting it that night, so I made up my own.  It worked and the fish was tasty.

So, now, onto this week's menu.  The fridge is really empty right now as this is grocery week this week.  I'm seriously thinking of taking some money out of savings to float us through till payday and getting groceries tomorrow (good sales on items we normally buy), but I'm waiting to see what the ad for next week at the store brings before I commit.  

So, let's get to the menu for this week.

Menu Plan for Week of 4/17-4/23

Monday:  Greek Chicken (I use this recipe for Chicken Gyros but instead of putting it in the Instapot, I use my crock pot and just add more liquid to compensate...tonight I'm also making it with chicken legs instead of what the recipe calls for and serving without pita bread as I don't have any) with Cucumber Free Tzatziki Sauce, canned peaches, home made bread (or rice...still torn).

Tuesday:  Creamy Baked Potato Soup (I use ham instead of bacon...just using up some left over ham from Easter this time around from the freezer), bread.

Wednesday:  Sweet and Sour Pork Chops, rice.

Thursday:  Breakfast for Dinner.  I'm thinking French Toast, but might do pancakes instead.  Probably will do sausage and fresh fruit (have some on the grocery list, so I'll make that if the store has it).

Friday:  7-minute salmon piccata (I actually have a jar of capers in my cabinet to use up that I bought for some recipe that I never made, so this will be a good use for some of them), rice pilaf, salad.

Saturday:  Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans.

Sunday:  Shrimp Scampi, salad.

And there you go folks.  Our menu for this week (so far anyway). 

Enjoy.