Today, I decorated the cake for my sister’s birthday. We were supposed to have it last Sunday, but there were sick children, so we postponed until today. As you can see from the pictures, I cut out a heart shape from waxed paper. Then, I set the cut out heart on top of the iced cake and sprinkled the cake heavily with edible glitter. After removing the heart shape, I placed the outer piece of waxed paper on, and sprinkled the heart cut-out with red glitter. It was simple and looked nice. We had lasagna my aunt made, beans, salad and this cake. I took some roasted hazelnuts, as well. We gave her some tea that her children helped Rob buy when they stayed here a couple of weeks ago. It was just a simple, family birthday party, one of the every-day kinds of moments that actually mean a lot to me when I come to the end of a day.
We ended up being given a meal from a friend on Monday. We actually ate 1/2 on Monday, and then ate the soup on Tuesday and Wednesday both. So, I never did make up some of the meals I planned last week. I love having the plan, though. On the days when food doesn’t unexpectedly drop into my lap, it is good to have a plan:)
Sunday night: We have some leftover pizza to eat.
Monday: Chili (already made up from Saturday, just needs to be popped in the Crock Pot-busy day)
Tuesday: Turkey burger meatballs. I tried a sweet and sour pork recipe and there is an awful lot of extra sauce. So, we will pick out the remaining pork pieces and eat them, and I will pour the remaining sauce over meatballs Tuesday.
Wednesday: Soup in Crock Pot. Probably turkey rice or vegetable beef.
Thursday: Everyone going in different directions. Leftovers–grab as you can!
Friday: Lunch: I have another sister and aunt coming to help with the big project. I need to make extra soup on Wednesday to feed people for lunch.
Dinner: Baked potato bar. Rob and I are going to take the girls and spend the evening at some friends’ house. We are taking dinner, and spending time with their 6 children, ranging from ages 5 to 12 or 13. They will be home around 9:30. We will take a few games to play with the kids. It should be a blast.
Saturday: Leftover soup or baked potatoes. Truthfully, Ja’Ana is heavily involved with a rummage sale for her upcoming mission trip, both Thursday evening and all day Saturday. It is an hour from our house, one way. My niece is involved in a special Olympic-type basketball tournament, which she would like me to attend–2 hours from home. I have no idea how Saturday is going to pan out. I may be packing lunches. I may be buying hot dogs or some such junkie food. First, I need to decide how much of that I’m going to do, what Rob is going to take care of, and see how much energy I have after being so busy Friday.
Both on Friday and on Saturday, the new crock-pot I got for Christmas failed to cook the food by lunch time. This is much different from my previous one, which cooked things really fast. Of course, it was shorting out and probably wasn’t safe, but I’m having trouble adjusting. On Friday, I had to make an entirely different lunch for the helpers and we had the crock pot for dinner. On Saturday, I had to remove the chili and boil it in a pan, and it was still a little underdone, and I felt bad. So, I need to keep experimenting, and allowing more time for cooking. It actually caused me to feel pressured to have to scramble for food on days that were overwhelming to start with, and only made more stressful when I didn’t have food to feed these helpers. So, I will cook the soup all day on Wednesday, and just re-heat it on Friday, and hopefully, I’ll get this new appliance figured out.
I should be so organized! Making a menu and sticking to it is probably one of my weakest points as a homemaker, yet it could be such a great asset when money is tight!
Here’s the response to your comment on my blog:
Dear Becky,
May God bring blessings, peace, and prosperity to your home. May he provide for all of your needs including a good job for your husband and creativity for you. I ask it in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Laura
Thanks for “talking back” at Harvest Lane Cottage. Do you know that your comments come through to my email as a “no reply blogger”? If you’d like to get direct responses to your comments more often, you might like to know how to change that. I wrote about it in this blog post.
http://harvestlanecottage.blogspot.com/2015/01/are-you-no-reply-blogger.html
If you’re like me, you don’t have time to go back and check on other blogs to see if you’ve gotten a response to your comment. I sometimes can take time to track down commenters, but I’m usually short on time.
Blessings to you!
ஐღLauraღஐ
Harvest Lane Cottage
…doing what I can with what I’ve got where I am
on a short shoestring budget!
~~~~~
Thanks. I’ll try to read that later on when I get a block of time. I’m interested in what that means, actually. I’m still new at the whole blog writing world, I haven’t had my blog for very long and was a complete novice when I started it.