Grocery Shopping: It's Exhausting

One of my least favorite things I have to do is grocery shopping.  Mostly because it is just so tiring.  It shouldn't be that big of a deal for me, but I guess having two children, being 30 weeks pregnant, navigating the aisles with an extra large cart that has a kids' car on the end (haha), and trying to stick to my list and budget is a lot to take on.  Does anyone else feel this way or am I just being whiny? :)

I know I could go shopping in the evening when Billy gets home from work, but by then I've got to make dinner, get everyone fed and cleaned up, and then I would have to go into town (at this point it would be 6:30 or 7:00) and I'm just done by then.  Usually in pajamas and ready to sit on the couch.  I love having the evening at home to hang out with Billy and the girls and get a little relaxation time after a full day.  There are still times when I do feel like getting out for a bit when Billy gets home and he's always more than willing to stay home with the kids, but in this season of life I seem to have the most energy for that task in the morning, so I just take the kids and we get it done.

Today was a little tricky...Ellie is going through the whiny stage and also wanting to change her mind every few minutes.  She was certain she wanted to walk today (instead of riding in the car part of the cart with Piper) so I let her walk.  After about 3 aisles she was ready to sit in the cart, so I told her, "Okay, but if I put you in you can't get out until we're done shopping.  Do you still want to ride?"  And she said yes, so I put her in.  Well, within about 90 seconds she was over it and wanted out again, but I said no.  Then she gets whiny, and when I ignore the whining she gets even more angry and starts yelling.  Typically, reasoning with her works pretty well and she usually does great when we're in a store, but she just had an off day today (don't we all?). I am really working hard on my reactions to my kids' inappropriate behavior and so today, after reasoning and discussion didn't work, I just ignored her.  That was SO hard for me.  I was boiling inside and wanted to just explode on her.  But obviously that's not teaching her or Piper anything productive, so I stayed calm (miraculously).  The whole time she was carrying on all I could do was take deep breaths and keep saying over and over, "Lord, you are with me and you have the power to make me not react negatively, please give me self control and help me to just get this grocery shopping done!"  She did calm down after a while but never stopped asking to get out (which definitely frays my nerves).  Thankfully, Piper was having a good time and stayed chill all throughout our shopping so it could've been so much worse.  I wish I could always be so calm and not blow up on the girls, but I'm trying!

Speaking of working on my reactions, this book is why I'm doing that:

In our book club we're currently reading Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions by Lysa TerKeurst.  It's all about identifying our emotions and reactions and then learning how to control them in a more biblical way.  Pretty good stuff, I'm about halfway through it and I can really see some good progress in my life, at least with the kids.  I am definitely an exploder when it comes to my children, but I tend to stuff down my emotions with everyone else.  I am dealing with the exploder side of my personality right now (I think that might actually be easier than tending to the stuffing habit).  One thing at a time!

Anyway, we got our regular meal stuff and another 15 pound turkey at Kroger, then went to Costco for 5.5 pounds of ground beef.  We are still doing well on our budget (I spent about $78 this week) so we are still on track.  I'm still factoring in that freezer meal/Thanksgiving week at the end of the month where we won't need to buy as much, so we should be fine for staying at or below our grocery budget for this month.

Our spending in other categories is also improving significantly.  We have an eating out budget now, and we were under budget for the month of October and so far doing fine this month.  Eating out is still very tempting, but we're feeling it mostly on the weekends now instead of during the week which is good.  And we have the budget in place, so we CAN let ourselves splurge on eating out every now and then.  We ate at Chick-fil-A on Friday night for dinner and Ellie was so excited.  We told her we were going to eat there that night and her eyes got so big and she said, "Ohhhhhhh, we're going to eat at Chick-fil-A!!!"  We want it to be something special rather than expected, and it seems like our kids have already made that transition.  And other than paying bills, all of our other spending has been made through gift cards (so we don't factor those purchases into the budget).

Our menu for this week:

Breakfast:

Freezer Breakfast Burritos (for Billy)

Oatmeal, toast, fruit, eggs, muffins (for girls)

Lunch:

Sandwiches, leftovers, fried rice with eggs

Dinner:

• Santa Fe Soup, cornbread
• Twice Baked Potatoes, veggies, bread
• Burrito Casserole with rice
• Whole chicken (in the fryer), veggies, bread
• Crockpot White Chicken Spaghetti, veggies, bread
• Crockpot Creamy Tomato Soup with grilled cheese
• BBQ Meatballs, mashed potatoes, rolls

Extras:

Homemade chicken broth

Cinnamon doughnut muffins

I'm not sure yet if I'll make any freezer meals this week.  The burrito casserole is a new recipe we're trying and the author didn't specify if it goes in an 8x8 or 9x13 dish, so we might just see how much it makes and then go from there.  We might have some extra chicken that I could freeze for chicken tacos or something like that, so I'm just going to play it by ear.  

Now....I think I will go read or do something relaxing for a bit!  I hope to have a quiet, calm evening tonight and just enjoy being home. :)

Is it seriously November?

We are midway through the week and I've been intending to blog for the past three days and well...yeah it just didn't happen.  We've had a good normal week so far, which also means that the girls' nap time = my nap time.  I am grateful that I finally feel like I have a little more energy than I did a few weeks ago, but I still battle with the pregnancy exhaustion (and knowing that it won't end when Grace comes just makes it that much more....exciting haha).  Last night I was putting a casserole dish away in a lower cabinet and literally got out of breath just crouching on the floor.  Nothing makes you feel fatter than when you get out of breath doing nothing.

Anyway, I wanted to post our weekly menu and quickly update on our budget.  I spent $75.73 on groceries this week (so technically 73 cents over budget haha) but also felt very accomplished with what I purchased.  We got all of our weekly meal stuff, plus enough to make two extra casseroles for the freezer, and a turkey.  We are hosting two Thanksgivings at our house this year (which I'm so excited about!) and are responsible for the turkeys so I needed to make sure I purchased at least one this week.  Kroger's deal is 79 cents per pound for a turkey as long as you spend $35 on other groceries, so I figured I could just work it into my regular shopping trip.  I plan to do the same thing next week and maybe the week after depending on how many people we end up planning for.

Another exciting thing this week is that we FINALLY turned our deep freezer on...yay!  When I got home from the grocery store and tried to put the turkey in our freezer it just wasn't happening, so Billy turned the deep freezer on and thank goodness it works!  It came with the house we're renting so we weren't sure if it was in working condition or not.  Definitely exciting because now I can make a freezer cooking plan to prepare for when Grace is born and I have TONS of space to store all of the food.  I've already started working on that list...now to find a day in December that I can actually get all of that done!

Here's our menu for this week:

Breakfast:

Freezer Breakfast Burritos (for Billy)

Oatmeal, toast, fruit, eggs, muffins (for girls)

Lunch:

Sandwiches, quesadillas, leftovers, fried rice with eggs, fruit, crackers, etc.

Dinner:

• Soup from the freezer, green beans, and fried potatoes
• Homemade pizza for Billy and the girls (I had book club so I made potatoes for that)
• Crockpot BBQ Chicken, steamed corn, and English muffin bread
• Tater Tot Casserole (one for dinner and one for the freezer) with green beans
• Chicken Enchilada Casserole (one for dinner and one for the freezer) with rice
• Creamy chicken and pasta with veggies
• Santa Fe Soup (this is a use-what-you-got type of recipe that's basically a spicy chili) with homemade cornbread
• Twice Baked Potatoes, steamed broccoli, and bread

I know there are 8 meals listed for dinner this week but I had enough to plan through Sunday instead of Saturday and figured that might work better anyway (since I rarely want to do grocery shopping on Sunday and usually just wait until Monday morning).

I am also trying to make some extra meals every week to store in the freezer for those times when I just don't feel like cooking or when we need to use our grocery budget to stock up on bulk items (which get expensive fast but also last forever or are cheaper in the long run).  So far, I have two casseroles in the freezer and plan on putting two more in this week.  Probably by the end of this month I will have enough for a whole week of eating freezer meals, so we will reallocate the majority of our grocery budget that week to put toward the baby-preparation-freezer-cooking marathon.  My goal is to save up $150 to make freezer meals so we'll see how that goes.  I'm hoping to make 30 meals this time around...which is a daunting number for me!  Before Piper was born, I made 14 dinner meals as well as some random extras like banana bread and muffins.  Even with only 14 meals it was such a huge help.  The first two months of Piper's life I hardly did any cooking because of our freezer meals and our loving friends/family who brought food.  

My goal is to make life as easy as possible on myself after Grace is born.  I had a lot of expectations with Piper's birth that just didn't happen (such as my all-natural and perfect VBAC...ha!) and I don't want to do that to myself this time.  I know I'm having a C-section this time, which means that I have to plan for my recovery as well as taking care of my family.  We have two flights of stairs in our house that I know I will have to go up and down multiple times per day, and that's just the way it is.  Our bedroom is on the top floor, the girls and our living area/kitchen are on the main floor, and the dog and girls' play area/TV are in the basement.  Because I will definitely have to do stairs right after surgery, I have to take it easy on everything else.  Cooking won't be realistic (hence the freezer meals).  I won't be cleaning the house or doing laundry for at least a couple of weeks, so that's where my dear husband steps in.  He is already AMAZING at keeping up with the dishes (we don't have a dishwasher) but I plan on buying a giant load of disposable plates (and putting all of our freezer meals in disposable pans or freezer bags) so that at least we won't have as many dishes as usual to wash.  Laundry is my thing (it's the one chore I really don't mind doing at all haha) but I can't lift baskets of clothes up and down the stairs so he'll have to take that one over for a while.  And on top of all of my surgical restrictions, I will have three precious little girls to care for.  My priority is to make sure that everyone is fed and loved and that I heal properly from surgery.  Everything else can wait.  

So that's where my mind is these days.  We have a busy but exciting month ahead of us as we plan for two Thanksgivings, getting Christmas gifts in order, deer season, and the UVA-Tech football game at the end of the month to celebrate Billy's 26th birthday.  We will even have a few days sans children that weekend which is pretty exciting!  We love our girls, but we also know that we just need time away from them every now and then to be Billy and Kristen instead of Daddy and Mommy.  Plus, it will probably be the last time we get a chance to get away before Grace is born....and then we will be a family of 5!  Ahhh! :)