Nearly Vacation!

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted, life sped up all of a sudden and I'm lagging behind. It's the heat, I'm blaming it all on the heat.

This week AJ has been at his Grandparents house and so during the day it's been quiet around here, you'd think I'd get a lot done - but my inner procrastinator refused to let me do much besides read during the day and stay out of the heat. My 18th Anniversary is coming up on Saturday and so Brian and I took the opportunity to have an entire week celebration rather than trying to squish it all into one night. Dinner out one night, movie out another, a trip to Bookmans one evening and staying in another. It was nice to catch up with each other and figure out where we are headed next. (Figuratively not literally, we DO NOT have orders and have no intentions of seeking any!)

We are going separate ways soon as AJ and myself are leaving soon for a vacation in CA. Brian has too many work commitments right now to be able to take that amount of time off so he's staying home and working while we bask in the coastal 60 degree weather. (I know, don't hate me.)

It always amazes me the amount of stuff that needs to be done before one can leave for anything longer than a weekend. Leaving Brian behind also makes it so that I feel responsible to make sure he is taken care of while I'm gone. To him that means food.  So I've spent a part of this week making meals to stock up the freezer so I know he will have no chance to starve while I'm gone. I usually do everything in a protein group to make it easier on myself and this time I chose ground beef. Everything started from that and so he knows that when he goes out to eat or whatever, order chicken. Sometimes I choose chicken as my protein, especially if I know he's been wanting Taco Bell - making sure he gets a variety.

This time I cooked up 2 lbs of ground beef and 1 lb of pork sausage and from that made a batch of chili, a batch of taco meat for tacos and burritos, and a couple of trays of baked spaghetti. I make them into smaller portions to freeze so that he's only eating it for one or two days instead of one big batch that would last a week. I use foil pans so there isn't much to clean up and write the instructions right on top of the foil so he knows exactly how to heat it up.

When I do chicken I usually make chicken fajitas, a white chicken chili, chicken Doritos casserole and something like chicken and rice. These types of meals are great to make if you know you are going to be busy soon or to put away for a friend who's sick or having a baby.

Off to foggy and cool northern CA to hang with my brother, parents and grandma and hopefully eat my weight in crab and seafood. :0)