Meal Plan Sunday

Monday: Sausage and Lentil stew

Tuesday: Thai Peanut Chicken and Noodles Edited to add: this is really good!!

Wednesday: Bacon and Egg Quesadillas

Thursday: Soup from the freezer that we didn't get to last week

Friday: French bread pizza

My surprisingly interesting day

I'm a little embarassed about having written this earlier post. Once I got over the inconvenience of being called to jury duty and rearranged things so I could go, I actually started to look forward to it a little.

I got up at 4:20 am because I had to hop in the shower, wash my hair, dry it, dress, and be ready for work at 4:50. Usually I work in my pajamas and robe due to the early hour and the fact that I work from home, and shower afterward. But yesterday I had a date downtown and had to leave immediately after my early morning job.

While I was driving there I realized how very seldom I'm out driving around at the start of the business day. I mean not more than three or four times a year. There was a freshness to the traffic, optimism about the day.

Since I had punched the address of the parking garage into my GPS, I had no trouble finding the place. I asked the attendant where the courthouse was and it was just a couple of blocks away.

source

The whole program was arranged to make it as convenient as possible for the jurors. I'm sure they know people generally aren't happy about being called for jury duty, so they worked hard to make it nice. The very large waiting area had lots of chairs, things to read, a bank of computers for us to use, phones, free wi-fi access, jigsaw puzzles to work, comfortable lounging chairs, and a place to eat. The woman who gave the information and announcements was very pleasant, and all the directions were clear and easy to understand.

I was in the first group called. There were about thirty-five of us who went into a courtroom and seventeen were called up to sit in the jurors' area. Not me. However, by the time a few had been excused, they called my name and I went up. The judge introduced all the officals in the room, then the two lawyers each gave a synopsis of the case. It was a personal injury case and was interesting to hear how different the story was, depending on which side told it. After that the judge and lawyers asked group questions and personal questions of the jurors. Based on how those conversations went, I did not expect to be on the jury.

After excusing the whole group, the lawyers chose the jury and as expected, I was not selected for the jury of nine people. I went back to the large waiting room, handed in my juror's badge and was excused to go home. I was there four hours.

Lunch was at Chick-Fil-A with dh. I love going anywhere with dh and I love eating Chick-Fil-A food. Good combination, huh?

Overall, it was a pleasant, interesting morning. It took me more than thirty-one years to be called to jury duty, so if the pattern holds, I'll be over eighty years old the next time and can ask to be excused on the basis of age. If so, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I'm glad I had it.

Meal Plan Sunday

My freezers are FULL. My goal is to get them emptied out a bit and to have an easy-prep week.

Monday: Foil-Pack Chicken Fajita Dinner [I followed the directions except I had only a large green pepper and didn't use the red one. It was good.]

Note: the link doesn't seem to be working today, so here it is again: http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/foil-pack-chicken-fajita-dinner-111262.aspx

Tuesday: Mexican Lasagne (frozen in the freezer from a month or two ago) I have jury duty this day, so it will be good for Grandma to be able to just pop a casserole into the oven.

Wednesday: Basic Quiche Recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest

Thursday: a pre-packed Hormel beef tips package from the freezer that I'll serve over noodles with some frozen veggies and frozen bread. I'll heat everything. :-)

Friday: Pizza

Meal Plan Monday

Whew! A little late this week!

Monday: Cajun Black Beans and Brown Rice This was on the menu a couple of weeks ago but didn't get made. The brown rice wasn't as expensive as I thought it was going to be--not much more than regular brown rice. [Update: I didn't have the tomatoes with green chilis so I shook in a few drops of habanero sauce. The whole thing was absolutely delicious.]

Tuesday: Creamy Chicken with Broccoli & Red Pepper Pasta I got a free sample of Philadelphia Cooking Creme and think this will be delicious. [Update: this was pretty good, but if you use more than the two cups of pasta or too many vegetables, there isn't really enough cooking creme and it's a little dry. Good flavor though.]

Wednesday: Quiche Biscuit Cups We're getting three eggs a day on a pretty reliable basis, so I'm instituting Wednesday as egg dinner day. [Update: The quantities would have been better for 18 muffins vs. the 24 it called for. I didn't have any bacon, so I used just the green onion and cheese as extras. Next time I'll also try using a little more milk. All that said . . . my family LOVED this!]

Thursday: Chicken and Black Bean Tostizzas

Friday: Pizza

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday: Quiche Biscuit Cups I've gotten into the habit of serving "breakfast for dinner" on Wednesdays. Now that I can make the girls their usual pancake breakfast for actual breakfast (work schedule issue), I probably won't be making pancakes for dinner as often as in the past few months.
Thursday: Slow Cooker Pulled Jerk Pork Sandwiches
Friday: Pizza

One of these things is not like the other . . . !

Lookie what I found when I checked the nest a few minutes ago! And because I know what color eggs each chicken will lay, I know this new second egg came from Pumpkin, our Rhode Island Red. She is the exact age Charlotte was last week when she laid her first. Now we are waiting for our other Barred Rock, Toek, to catch up with Charlotte (same age, same breed), and for our Americauna, Spot, to start laying her blue/green eggs.

I figured buying 5 dozen eggs on sale at the store 10 days ago would prompt those little girls to get busy.

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday: Cheese ravioli from Costco with red sauce, veggies from the freezer, and cheese toast
Tuesday: Cuban flank steak over rice (from the freezer)
Wednesday: pancakes or French Toast. I have a lot of bread in the freezer, so it will probably be the latter.
Thursday breakfast: St. Patrick's Day Irish Soda Bread
Thursday: Cajun Black Beans and Brown Rice I've never tried instant brown rice but will get some for this recipe. Sounds fast and easy.
Friday: Pizza

Down to only $150 each

Yes, eggs. Two days ago one of our chickens laid her first egg and today I heard a racket outside and thought she might have laid her second. Sure enough, there was a pretty pink egg right there in the nesting box, unlike the first egg which we found in an empty planter. After the first egg we've been keeping the four birds in the hen house/coop area, hoping they'll get the idea of laying eggs in their nesting box. So far so good!

Omelets on Saturday morning.

You can come to my house for some free money

My mom went out to pick up the newspaper and told me I should go look at the driveway. Here is what I found:

I'm thinking next week it will be a rainbow . . . .

Sure enough, there is a bit o' gold in the pot:

(it's a nickel--5 cents--not a quarter--25 cents!) LOL, don't I have funny kids?

Kicked how many times?

I got a lovely letter in the mail today. Here's a picture of it:

Have you gotten one of these? I did years ago and filled out the questionaire but it was a daycare abuse case (remember all those in the mid-80s??) and I was working in a daycare at the time so I was never actually called up.

Here are the highlights of this one:
*Call the night before to see if we still want you. That's after you've irretrievably cancelled your job for the day.
*Lose a day of work which, while I'm not a highly paid part-time worker, it is still $75+ and an inconvenience to a number of people.
*I'll be paid for my mileage the first day. I assume that will be 10 cents a mile. No other reimbursement.
*If selected, I'll be paid mileage and $12/day for the rest of the time.
*No free parking is available for jurors. Paid lots are in the area.
*Return the questionaire at the bottom of the page and, oh, did you REALLY think we'd put a return stamp on the envelope?