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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

I finally got most of the Christmas decorations all stowed away this past weekend. It was cold, but dry and somewhat sunny for a couple hours each day so that helped a lot. I’m still waiting on delivery of one last tote for larger items. Taking the batteries out of items took some of the longest along with untangling some light strings.

We were also able to get a couple of walks in helping hubby not feels so house bound.

I’m keeping track of the words from the Compendium of UGLY English words calendar I was gifted for Christmas as a source of amusement. Some of these are roll on the floor laughing hilarious! They do cheat a bit and only give us one word for the weekends. 😀 I’ll pick up where we left off last Monday.

• January 4 – CHUMP (noun) A lump of timber; the blunt end of an object; someone (usually a man) with an IQ lower than a piece of wood’s.
  
• January 5 – DEBT (noun) What’s easy to get, hard to lose, and make a grown man cry? Answer: it’s debt. Massive debilitating debt.
  
• January 6 – GASSY (adjective) Full of gas-not in an automobile sort of way, but in a my-boyfriend-ate-Mexican-ffod-and-has-been-farting-in-bed-all-night sort of way. Some sources theorize that wars could be fought more effectively through the use of butt gas over tear gas, though this has not tested.
  
• January 7 – JAUNDICE (noun) That thing that happens in medical drama where the patient looks in the mirror to find that their face has turned a troubling shade of yellow overnight. It occurs when waste material builds up in the body, and it’s just as gross as it sounds.
  
• January 8/9 – KITSCHY (adjective) In poor taste due to excessive garishness or tackiness. What you might call the section of your grandmother’s living room that’s blanketed in collectible windmill statues.
  

I’m still loving the colder weather with highs in the 40’s and lows in the 30’s allowing me to enjoy my mock turtleneck and flannel shirt combos with comfy Levis and UGGs.

I’m relieved that hubby’s surgery is over and he’s finally feeling more like himself. He has another week until his follow up appointment where we find out the next step with physical therapy. I’m also relieved that my stepson and his wife finally turned the corner this past weekend from their COVID breakthrough infections and are also on the mend finally. It’s been really hard to be so far away and not able to help at least drop off prescriptions or food. They will have to wait 3 months now before getting their boosters. I pray that everyone stays safe and continues to protect themselves from this horrible pandemic.

Hot water and a banana

THIS WEEK’S TO DO LIST, PROJECTS & APPOINTMENTS

LAUNDRY & CLEANING I spent a good deal of last week mainly tending to hubby while he recuperated and didn’t get nearly as much done as planned. I did get the Christmas tree down, the decorations sorted and stored and will now do a deep clean this week. AND Why is it that doing one thing leads to 13 or 14 others? This all started when the fluorescent light fixture died and we installed a new, much brighter one making it all quite obvious. The shelf in the laundry room that WAS level before we did the new floor last year was no longer level after we did the new floor. Of course we leveled the floor so obviously the original flooring was the culprit, but now we needed to redo the shelf. In order to do that we had to disconnect the washer and dryer and move them out of the way. After doing that we realized that we needed to seal the floor and baseboard with silicone to eliminate the “winter” ants – you know the little black ones that come in search of warmth, but don’t get into food. With that done the quick half paint job done last year before the new washer was put in made the rest of the room look shabby now that it is so well lit so I had to paint the whole room. While doing that we realized that the cabinet door above the washer needed adjusting…etc… GROCERIES & ERRANDS I did the grocery shopping last Friday when I was in town and errands are up to date so no plans to go very far. RECIPE RESEARCH & MENU PLANNING I started the BIG sort each evening to eliminate the recipes from the tote that I will NEVER make, at least based on my likes and dislikes today! I’m even making an effort to downsize recipes and use ingredients back to back to cut down on waste. PROJECTS, PAPERWORK, & PHONE CALLS I’m considering a couple of new paintings. The gnome is one my girlfriend sent me a picture of – even though LOL 😀 we said we would do NO more gnomes. She’s our Eagles Auxiliary president and is going to have one more fundraiser before her term is up. It will be a painting class at the post, but she hasn’t yet chosen the painting. I’m hoping for something floral and springy. And I just fell in love with this little giraffe. I MUST paint him. 😀

WHAT’S ON THE DVR/TV

CABLE 1883, YELLOWSTONE, KID’S BAKING CHAMPIONSHIP, ALEX VS. AMERICA, GUY’S GROCERY GAMES, BEAT BOBBY FLAY, NEXT LEVEL CHEF, Judge Steve Harvey is so funny

I did make a reading list for the month and tried to make it a bit diverse. At the rate I’m going so far this will also be the list for February.

• Return to Sender by Jennifer Peel If Ariana Stanton has learned anything in life, it’s that men leave. She’s been taught this lesson well from the father she’s never met, who sends her a mysterious letter once a year, to her ex-fiancé, who left her for another woman.
  Dr. Jonah Adkinson has one regret–that he let Ariana remain convinced that love never lasts.
  Now, not only does Ariana have to face the man she’s still in love with, but she must confront the mystery of her father’s letters, forcing her to reevaluate the past and her choices.
  
• The Cottage at Hope Cove by Hannah Ellis Lizzie Beaumont has it all: a great career, a wealthy fiancé, and the wedding of her dreams just months away. But when her fiancé puts work before her again, she sets off for a week in the picturesque town of Hope Cove. She’s hoping for time away from the chaos to find herself.Instead, she finds Max. One week with Max has left her questioning her life choices. Is her fiancé the man of her dreams, or just the man who asked? Now Lizzie must decide what her life will be. Will she go for the safe and predictable route, or take a chance on a man she hardly knows?
• The Cape May Garden by Claudia Vance Margaret Wilder’s life is about to be turned upside down…when her husband of fifteen years abruptly leaves without explanation.Now as their young daughters struggle to understand why their dad has been gone for a month without so much as a phone call, Margaret begins to uncover her husband’s secrets while unraveling her own long-buried feelings about their marriage.As she forms an unlikely friendship with her handsome coworker, Dave, things take a turn when she is offered a great opportunity to build the garden of her dreams on a piece of land by the beach.
  
• The Secrets We Left Behind by Soraya Lane Occupied France, 1940. When the staff at a field hospital draw straws to find out who will join the evacuation from Dunkirk, Nurse Cate is left behind. But when the Nazis arrive to claim prisoners of war, she takes her chance and flees into the night, taking one patient with her.Fifty miles away, the surrendering soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment are shot dead by the advancing Germans. Beneath the pile of bodies two men survive, crawling to the safety of a nearby farmhouse, where sisters Elise and Adelaide risk their lives to take them in. When Cate, too, arrives at their door with her injured soldier, the pressure mounts.The sisters are risking everything to keep their visitors safe. But with the Nazis coming ever closer and relationships in the farmhouse intensifying, they must all question the sacrifices they are willing to make for the lives of others. How far will they go for family, friendship, and love?
• Fanny Bower Puts Herself Out There by Julia Ariss Fanny Bower is not a joiner. She leads a quiet existence – keeping to the sidelines, avoiding high jinks, living in her head and waiting for something momentous to happen… whatever that is. Her new “butterfly wings” are tested as they flutter incessantly between mystifying small talk and mortifying gaffes in a bid to unleash a charm offensive… whatever that means. At the very height of her confusion, she is spurred to action by the plight of a friend. She plunges headlong into a situation fraught with uncertainty and risks everything, including the alienation of the one person she’s managed to captivate in the process.
• Hidden in the Keys, Longboat Key Island by Sage Parker Julia Masterson has high hopes for a new beginning. Her husband, Frank had promised to dedicate the rest of his life making their marriage work. Both newly retired, in their little beach cottage in Longboat Key, Florida, everything started out just as she imagined. Until he didn’t come home that night. Or the next. What began as romantic walks on the beach had quickly become a desperate search to find her missing husband. When local detective Brody Barker steps onto the scene, he’s determined to solve the case quickly and move on. But every lead is a dead-end. The closer Julia gets to finding out the truth, the further away she gets from wanting to know the answers. And just as the faith in her marriage starts to crumble, Brody realizes he is the only thing standing in the way of her and disaster.

Just 3 months ago this sign right next to the road was HIGH & DRY on a stake about 18 inches tall. You can see where it is now. Fortunately, the water floods over the driveway to the left and into a drainage ditch, that while full, is functioning for runoff. I thought it was a poignant picture of how quickly things can change with a month of rain followed by a foot of snow that melted when followed by another 5 inches of rain.

Hangers make a GREAT recipe stand holder.

	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
DINNER	ROAST PORK and using the leftovers for this week’s menu	PORK ENCHILADAS	PORK STREET TACOS & CHIPOTLE RE-FRIED BEANS	C.O.R.N. CLEAN OUT REFRIGERATOR NIGHT	SHREDDED PORK GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES AND TOMATO SOUP	PORK STUFFED PEPPERS	PORK SLIDERS & COLE SLAW
DESSERT		COCOA OATIES

• GRANNY’S HAM & TATER SOUP
  
• BAKED MACARONI & CHEESE
• BACON CHEESEBURGER MEATBALLS
• MAGIC LEMON COBBLER
• STUFFED MEATBALL PIES
• CIDER GLAZED ANCHO CHILI BABY BACK RIBS

• KING CAKE
• RUSSIAN SOUP
• CINNAMON BUN CUPCAKES
  

• BRAISED LAMB SHANKS
• APPLE PANCAKE
• ITALIAN BOLOGNESE STUFFED PEPPERS