The Nelson Narrative

I keep flipping between calling it a menu plan or a meal plan.  I think I've finally settled on menu plan. Monday - One of these soups in the slow cooker, not sure which one yet. Tuesday - Hello Fresh Salmon in a Creamy Dijon Chive Sauce Wednesday - Hello Fresh Crusted Chicken with Mike's Hot Honey Thursday - BLTs Friday - Take-out Saturday - Tacos or stir-fry Sunday (super bowl) - probably pizza, or some sort of chili

Since I started this blog over 12 years ago, last year was my worst yet, posting only 15 times all year.  So this year I set a goal to post that many times in January alone.  But then I looked back and discovered that my record number of posts in any given month was 15, so I upped my January goal to 16.  This is post #15 so I think I'll make it.  Cool. So for this post I guess I will give a little update on my Intermittent Fasting (IF).  First of all, it's weird to call it "IF", because in my world "IF" stands for infertility.  So seeing/using that abbreviation brings up negative emotions/bad memories, but it's way easier than typing "Intermittent Fasting".  Anyway, like I already mentioned, I lost 3.8 pounds the first week.  Then it was my birthday, and I ate cake. And some other stuff, and this week I was up 0.8.  Sigh.  I've been really good about sticking to the no eating between 6 or 7 PM and 10 or 11 AM, but I just need to get back...

So this was embarrassing, but last month I decided to participate in WUW for the first time in several months, if not over a year, and after posting realized that the hosts, Sheaffer and Shay , we're on a blogging break and didn't even do it.  Oh well!  So here I am again, this time for real. 1. What we're eating this week Two Hello Fresh meals, Spinach and ricotta stuffed shells, some yummy Vietnamese food truck take- out and I don't know what else. 2. What I'm reminiscing about Travel.  We're going to Hawaii this summer (we were supposed to go last summer but, COVID...) but I'm dying to go on another cruise or somewhere I've never been. 3. What I'm loving Nothing in particular, except maybe that my husband is doing the dishes/cleaning up the kitchen as I type this. 4. What We've Been Up To Nothing much, just the normal remote learning (still!) 5. What I'm Dreading Another however many weeks/months of trying to work from home while the girl...

Today (Sunday) is my birthday!  Normally Paul and I would have had a date night (probably yesterday) and gone out to a nice dinner and maybe a movie or something but obviously that can't happen this year.  So we got take-out from Jak's Grill, a nice steak house in Issaquah.  I got the skewers.  It's skewers with filet and NY strip with Moroccan spices and a yummy gorgonzola sauce. I set the table fancy (except not the china) just for the heck of it, since I never use most of that stuff. Other than that, I just spent the day doing laundry and doing some purging/organizing. Yesterday we went to Paul's parents for dinner and to help them put all their Christmas stuff back up on the garage shelves.  We took Kona for a nice long walk on the neighborhood trail and played a game before dinner.  It was a nice, low-key birthday weekend. My favorite Costco cake.  They don't make the huge sheet cakes anymore (not that we need one that big, obviously) so we had th...

I'm impressed with myself for sticking with the menu planning for three whole weeks now! Monday - left-over Tex-mex Chicken and Rice soup from last Thursday, which was really good, by the way.  Paul was on swing shift so wasn't here to have any and ended up not eating it for lunch the next day and I don't think Kayley had any so we still have enough left for another meal.  And if the girls don't want that or there isn't quite enough, then we'll supplement with something from Trader Joe's like beef and broccoli or orange chicken. Tuesday - Hello Fresh Fully Loaded Pork Taquitos.  We've had these before, a couple of different variations.  So yummy! Wednesday - Hello Fresh Onion Crunch Chicken.  This is one that is all ready to go in the oven so super easy!  Yay! Thursday - Spinach and Ricotta stuffed shells.  I was going to make this last Friday but ended up getting MOD pizza instead. Friday - probably take-out Saturday and Sunday - no idea.  Might ...

I was going to do one big post (or maybe two) about all of the various home improvements we've recently done but that has proven too overwhelming and time-consuming, so I'm going to break it into separate posts for each individual thing.  Today that will be floors. We used to have carpet in our living/dining room and vinyl in the kitchen, pantry and powder room.  It was 12 years old, not great quality to begin with and so stained and gross.  It was high time to get new flooring. Before: dog pee stain looking down the hall from the kitchen Dining room.  So gross. Vinyl flooring in the kitchen We decided to go with vinyl plank, due to it being more pet friendly and waterproof.  It was challenging to find the right color, because the kitchen cabinets are orange-y brown, and the fireplace tile is blues and grays. We ended up trying probably a dozen or more sample.  These are just a few we tried. But we finally decided on Kona (style) Coconut (color).  I fo...

So I am about a week into Intermittent Fasting and it's going well.  I'm down 3.8 pounds.  So far it's pretty easy (granted, it's only been a week).  The hardest thing is having to put up with black coffee from wake-up until 10 or 11 AM, but turns out I really don't mind it that much.  I'm kind of getting used to it, but I still look forward to that first cup with cream once my eating window opens up. One thing that was hard this week is that I worked all night 3 consecutive nights (storm duty).  Normally it is not hard at all to not eat until 10 or 11 am (as long as I'm drinking coffee) but when I was awake and working all night I got a little hungry sometimes, especially since I had stopped eating by 7:00 (when I know I'm going to sleep later the next day I go from 7-11 instead of 6-10).  One night at 2 or 3 in the morning I broke down and ate a handful of Goldfish crackers. So yesterday, for instance, I got up at 7:00, got ready for work (which most d...

This is week two of my new plan to come up with a meal plan for the week and to have a crockpot meal every Monday, which in addition to having Hello Fresh twice a week really simplifies my planning and, of course, significantly shortens my cooking time that day.  But this Monday is a holiday, so I was going to save it for a work day but then I decided to just have TWO crockpot meals this week.  Easy.  Plus, having one tomorrow will be really convenient because I have a lot of miscellaneous projects/chores to do so it will be nice not to have to stop to make dinner. Monday - Cilantro Lime Chicken Tacos Tuesday - Hello Fresh Beef Bulgogi Meatballs Wednesday - Hello Fresh Figgy Balsamic Pork Thursday - Tex-mex Chicken and Rice Soup Friday - Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells (and I'll add sausage.  Also this is a bulk recipe so you can freeze some for later use.  I need to do more of that.) Saturday - going to the in-laws for my birthday dinner Sunday - my birthday...

I work for the power company, so whenever there is a wind storm with significant power outages, I have to work, often through the night.  In this case, the storm happened Tuesday evening/early Wednesday morning, we woke up to no power on Wednesday morning and I got assigned 2nd shift (6:00 PM to 6:00 AM) starting that night.  I didn't work my normal shift on Wednesday, because like I said, we had no power and since we had no power, when it was time to report for storm duty I had to go to one of our bases instead of being able to work from home.  Paul worked his normal shift Wednesday then had to report at 3:00 AM Thursday so we had to have the girls stay with a neighbor.  When Paul got up at 1:30something to go to work he called to let me know the power had just come back on, so at least I would be able to work from home any subsequent shifts.  By the time I got home Thursday morning and got to bed, it was a little after 7:00 AM.  I slept off and on until a...

Here I go again, jumping on one of the latest(ish) fad diet's bandwagon.  I'm not normally one to do that, but all my normal stuff is proving even harder to stick with since working from home.  Everything is just right there, easy access. Last year at this time I decided to give Keto a try.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, it was going really well for the first two months, but with the girls' birthday celebrations at the end of February I kind of fell of the wagon and then shortly after that I started working exclusively from home and I just could never get back on track. So having had no luck with other strategies all last year, I was gearing up to start Keto again on the 25th, right after my birthday.  But then I was texting with a friend last night and she was telling me that she and another friend are doing intermittent fasting and it was going well.  I tried it briefly back in 2019, but for reasons I can't remember had decided to wait and try again ano...

I didn't really include this as a New Year's resolution, but one thing I want to get better at this year is meal planning.  I really struggle with this.  We signed up for Hello Fresh about a year and a half ago and that has helped tremendously, but I still need to work on it.  We only get 2 meals per week (and sometimes we skip a week altogether) so I still need to plan for the other 5 nights.  So one thing I am starting today is having a slow cooker meal every Monday.  Hello Fresh gets delivered every Monday, so we usually have those meals every Monday and Tuesday, but sometimes it doesn't arrive until 7 or 8, so I have to have a back-up.  So starting today, I am going to do a slow cooker meal every Monday, then Hello Fresh on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then whatever on Thursday.  Friday (or Saturday) we typically order take-out in an effort to support a local small business through this pandemic.  Then I still need to plan for Saturday (or Frida...

Monday was, of course, the first work day of 2021.  It was also the first day back to school for the girls and should have been the first day back for Paul (he took the last two weeks off), but 3 out of 4 of us had some cold symptoms last week so we got tested for COVID just in case and haven't got our results back yet, so he couldn't go to work but is able to work from home (he mostly can't do his full job from home but there are a few things he can do if he really has to).  Here I was, looking forward to being able to work in relative peace, with school occupying the girls and Paul going back to work, and now he's not.  But he would have been on swing shift this week anyway so he still would have been here most of the day.  Sigh.  Maybe next week.  I love working from home but I just wish, for once, that I could be home ALONE!  Like I used to be when the girls were in school, Paul was at work, and I worked from home every Friday.  Once everythin...

We've had two snowfalls so far this season.  The first was on the first day of winter, so fitting.  We just barely had a little left on the ground on Christmas so that was cool.  We loved taking Kona for walks in the evening looking at Christmas lights with snow on the ground.  So festive. Then last night after Paul and I had already gone to bed, Kayley woke us up while running downstairs and opening the front door and when Paul asked her what was going on she told us it was snowing.  Paul couldn't believe it because he pays close attention to the weather and there was none forecasted and the snow level was supposed to be around 3000 feet and we are at about 900 something.  It's gone now, though.

I've really been enjoying these nice, leisurely mornings yesterday and today, and I still have one more before going back to work. Yesterday we took down all the Christmas stuff and today we are going to work on re-hanging a bunch of pictures that still haven't been put back up since the painting was done. But now, time for some goals for the year. 1.  Lose weight.  I'm still trying to decide if I want to give KETO another try or just focus on eating mostly healthy.  This time last year I started KETO and it went really well for 2 months.  I lost 17.4 but then the girls' birthday weekend threw me off, followed by working from home and I never recovered. 2.  I mentioned this yesterday, but read most of the Bible (and finish in 2022).  I've always wanted to do that "Read the Bible in a Year" thing, but I know I realistically won't be able to keep up all year, so if I can read maybe 3/4 and then finish in 2022 I'm good with that.  I downloaded an ...

I've said it before, but I always love the beginning of a brand new year.  I love the opportunity to make a fresh start and I'm always super motivated with whatever goals or resolutions I have made.  If only that motivation would last longer. Today I slept in until 9:30, then sat down on the couch with a cup of coffee and started in on one of my goals for 2021, read most of the Bible (and finish in 2022.  I've always wanted to do that "read the Bible in a year" thing, but realistically I won't be able to keep up all year, thus the goal to read most , and finish next year.  I got to enjoy the Christmas tree one last time before taking it and all the other decorations down.  We traditionally always do that on New Year's Day.  

Happy New Year!  We enjoyed a quite New Year's Eve at home with takeout from a local restaurant and a game of Apples to Apples, which wasn't all that fun with only 4 people.  Later, Paul and I played scrabble and drank vodka cranberry cocktails. Maisy refereed. Yummy coconut prawns So weird not being at our friends' house for the first time since 2012.  Hopefully next year!