No, I haven't died....

So many things have occurred in the past couple months and working on the blog got pushed further and further down on my to-do-list unfortunately.  It wasn't helping that I was working 50 to 60 hours a week either.  I was terminated from my job last week and I'm coming to grips with being praised for weeks and then terminated.  As much as I loved certain aspects of it, there were things that were seriously stressing me that I could not control.  I'd considered leaving after the director that hired me put her notice in but decided to wait it through and see what happened.  My fear that a new director would get rid of everybody proved to true.  I knew she was planning on firing at least one other person but naively thought I was safe.  I am hoping that I can find a position quickly.  

In the meantime I get to catch up on things that have been neglected for quite a while and the blog is one area I hope to be able to work on. I've been able to start catching up on reading my huge stack of To Read Books that I have been accumulating from PaperbackBookSwap.com, just finished a mystery novel today in fact.  Another area is crafting.  I am working on a baby afghan that I'll post more on later.  

With no income coming in at the moment and with no certainty to when the next paycheck will come I have to be super careful with money.  Menus are planned and groceries will be carefully bought.  I'm hoping to stay around $50 per week, which does not include pet food.  This past week I spent more like $70 due to needing to restock on several items like flour, sugar, vinegars, etc. that we use regularly.  I also bought some extra meat that I found marked down at Walmarts.  I found several recipes I used last week in Dining on a Dime Cookbook (www.livingonadime.com).  

 I've never made homemade buffalo wings before and it was so easy I have to wonder why I waited so long to try.  Matt did buy a new deep fryer recently and this worked really well.  The Kmart's here is closing and he picked it up pretty cheaply.  Our poor yard sale fryer just would have never have been able to maintain the temperature to cook the wings safely.  I had some bleu cheese that had been in the frig for a while so I decided to try making some homemade bleu cheese dressing.  Need to modify it a bit but it was pretty tasty.  Matt's really liking the homemade pizzas and I have another package of wings that were marked down so I'll use those next week and use up the bleu cheese dressing and possibly use it for a salad for lunch.  I'm pretty sure I came in at probably about $8 for the pizza and wings and I could never have bought a large pizza for that amount especially with that many wings.

Menus for last week:

·       Tacos / refried beans

·       Homemade pizza - pepperoni and green pepper / homemade buffalo wings / homemade bleu cheese dressing

·       Brats / fries

·       Macaroni & cheese / sausage patties

·       Pasta Fagioli / cheesy biscuits

·       Cube steaks / mashed potatoes / broccoli / rosemary rolls

·       Shrimp & asparagus linguini

Lunches:

·       Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches / Fritos

·       Leftover pasta fagioli & cheesy biscuits

·       Grilled cheese sandwiches / Fritos

·       Subway (Matt's treat)

·       Leftover pizza