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Doing Happy Homemaker Monday so extensively helps keep me on track as it summarizes the past week and lays out a fairly concise plan for this week.

Be sure to join us for Happy Homemaker Monday and link up
with our host, Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Do you do new year’s resolutions? I quit years ago because I felt they were always too short lived. Instead I try to make lifestyle habit changes that are longer term and I try to adjust regularly.

I was gifted several planners this year so I have the unique opportunity to try them all out and see what really “fits”. One of the planners is a menu planner and habit tracker. I’m just not sure quite yet what is going to work best with my organizational style.

I did spend most of the snow week working on cleaning up my digital files and updating my computer so I could start the new year a little “cleaner”.

I was also gifted The Illustrated Compendium of UGLY English words which I’m finding quite amusing. We all have those words that just make us cringe and this calendar appears to be going to touch on all of them 😀

A Compendium is a collection of concise but detailed information about a particular subject, in this case UGLY English words.

I thought it would be fun to keep track of these each week as a source of amusement. They did cheat a bit and only give us one word for the whole weekend. 😀

• January 1/2 – ACRID (adjective) – Deeply bitter; corrosive; so unpleasant in taste or odor that it causes people to retch instantaneously and shriek the word into the air like a pained battle cry: “ACKKKKK-RID.”
• January 3 – BACKWASH (noun) – A backward current; the moving of waterin a reverse direction; the liquid that flows from a person’s mouth back into the bottle when they remove it from their lips. Or, rather, the spit water that a younger sibling uses to prevent you from stealing swigs of their drink.

I decided to join in with many others and choose a word for the year and make a list of things to accomplish also. If you’re interested that post is here.

The cold and snow lasted through yesterday so I really got my wish for Christmas snow! A new storm, a bit warmer HA HA 40’s instead of 30’s, started pushing in just after lunch. We’re supposed to get close to 5 inches of rain in 5 days with this storm front. Oh, and now it’s windy – REALLY windy!! They said the wind advisory was from 4pm yesterday through 4pm today, but it showed up early with a vengeance. Before it began we did at least get the outside Christmas decorations put into the garage to dry out a bit before being packed away for the year.

I actually wish it was snow since we are already so wet and now have huge puddles of run off water EVERYWHERE and 5 inches more will just turn that all into mud puddles and slick roadways. Plus with the wind it will still feel just as cold 😀 But, at least we’ll be worrying less about frozen pipes.

I’m feeling extremely anxious and concerned. My prayers go out to everyone suffering, in whatever way, from anything, but especially from this pandemic. Seems like no matter how hard we try to stay safe, life happens around us leaving so many susceptible.

We found out just before new years that our vaccinated step son and his wife have COVID and are really quite ill with breakthrough infections. We have several other friends who while also vaccinated have just healed from bad breakthrough infections.

Thank god they were vaccinated if the severity of their breakthrough infections is any indication of how much worse it would have been had they not been. But, they are not out of the woods yet and prayers would be deeply appreciated.

Hot water and peach yogurt

THIS WEEK’S TO DO LIST, PROJECTS & APPOINTMENTS

LAUNDRY & CLEANING Hubby is having some surgery tomorrow and will be home and “out of commission” this week so I’ll be staying close. I’ll use that time to take down the tree, finish sorting the ornaments and put away ALL the Christmas decorations. Truth be told I’m loving having the tree still lit up and glowing during the dreary weather. GROCERIES & ERRANDS I did the grocery shopping and errands last Wednesday before the craziness of the holiday set in. We were isolating and preparing for hubby’s surgery tomorrow so avoided everyone and every situation out of precautiion. PAPERWORK, PHONE CALLS & PROJECTS End of the year paperwork sort and clean up and preparing the files for 2022. RECIPE RESEARCH & MENU PLANNING I’ve planned as many of my January recipes around cleaning out the pantry and freezer as possible. I’m also concentrating reworking any new recipes I make into meals for two so we don’t have any leftovers and adjusting recipes as necessary.

WHAT’S ON THE DVR/TV

NETFLIX CABLE The Rose parade while shorter at least happened this year. We missed the first season of Yellowstone when it began because we were in the middle of the BIG move back here and just never were able to catch up. And then Paramount ran a marathon this past New Years and since we were home isolating waiting for hubby’s surgery, we’ve been binge watching to catch up to last night’s season finale. Several new cooking shows started last night and this week that I want to try. And regular TV programming began again too so now I find myself right back in catch up mode 😀 And Mike Rowe’s Dirty jobs began again – I’ve always loved this show and learning about all these horribly dirty jobs.

I just finished State of Grace from Marie Force and am looking forward to the next installment in September, but in the meantime she’s branching off again into a 3rd series that will expound on the characters even more, but that book doesn’t come out until February.

In the meantime I will be reading Ava Miles Beside Golden Irish Fields of another series for this author with characters that I also love.

I’m anxious to begin the Hidden Child by Louisa Fein and When the Nightingale Sings by Suzanne Kelman. I’m hoping they both write in similar style to Gill Paul who writes stories about today that began during WWI or WWII and leave their footprints along the way tying the present to the past.

We had a wonderful, but quiet Christmas and New Years with just over a foot of of snow which was quite beautiful making it a true Winter Wonderland. A few friends are “blaming” me for all the snow because I kept wishing for a Christmas snow. LOL I did wish for it, but I just didn’t plan on it being quite so much or lasting through the end of the year!

The neighbor boys made a “toppled” snowman and tried their hand at “pool sledding” 😀 Fortunately I was able to take all these pictures without even stepping outside!

While I do most of this twice a year or even some it quarterly, I “start” my year with the following list. Doing this makes it easy to remember when it was done last 😀

• Change the smoke detector batteries
• Change the refrigerator filter
• Change the kitchen water filter
• Wash the cold air return filter
• Clean behind the refrigerator
• Clean behind the stove
• Do a vinegar clean in the coffee pot
• Do a vinegar clean in the washing machine
• Do a baking soda/vinegar clean on sink basins
• Turn the hangers around! I do make an exception for things that are obvious exceptions like special dresses to wear to formal events. weddings or funerals etc…

I’m trying a new menu planner and habit tracker for 2022 that will hopefully streamline my menus. I’m also still including the links to last week’s posted recipes, featured party links for the week and upcoming recipes to be posted soon. I’m really hoping to get caught up on indexing recipes for the blog which is a monumental feat! After last week’s recipes all revolving around either prime rib or turkey I’m ready for a little more adventure.

	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
DINNER	*STUFFED MEATBALL PIES	*ULTIMATE CHICKEN CASSEROLE	*INSTA POT POT ROAST & VEGGIES	C.O.R.N. CLEAN OUT REFRIGERATOR NIGHT	CLAM CHOWDER & CRUSTY SOURDOUGH BREAD	CHICKEN BLT CASSEROLE a remake from the blog to get a better picture	*BACON CHEESE BURGER BALLS & ONION RINGS
DESSERT *new recipe I’m trying this week		*something chocolate

• BEEF BARLEY SOUP
  
• BAKED BEAN DIP
• SHORTBREAD TOFFEE
• PRIME RIB STROGANOFF
• CHARCUTERIE BOARDS

• LOADED FRIED MASHED POTATOES
• MELT IN YOUR MOUTH BANANA BREAD
• RED CHICKEN CHILI
  

• CIDER GLAZED ANCHO CHILI RUBBED BABY BACK RIBS
• INDIVIDUAL MEATBALL PIES
• MAGIC LEMON COBBLER
• ULTIMATE CHICKEN CASSEROLE
• OLD FASHIONED GINGERBREAD
• BAKED MACARONI & CHEESE