Get A Good Habit Going - How Did I Do?

Back at the beginning of November FishMama invited us to join her Get A Good Habit Going challenge. I took her up on the challenge! My "good habit goals" were:

• Go to bed earlier.
• Complete my To-Do List each day.
• Be more consistent with my weekly menu-planning.

Eh, was I successful? Not totally. But I think I did improve in each area. This week I need to remember that these are goals I'm going to have to work on for a while so they become second-nature habits.

In the going to bed earlier department, I did ok. I didn't make it to bed by 10:30 every night by any means, but if 10:30 rolled around and I wasn't in bed, my attempt at the new habit did make me stop and say "Hey, I need to quit ____ and get going to bed!" A good, long night's sleep always makes the next day go better!

Completing my To-Do List.... hmm, I tried. I don't think there were very many days that I really did ev-er-y thing on my lists, but most days I did get the major things done, and I have been keeping up with some things that I tend to push to the back burner and let go - like washing the kitchen floor and cleaning the bathroom! Today has been an especially good day, and I think I very well might get everything done! (If I don't spend too much time on here...)

Menu-Planning. Haha, as I type this, I have NOT planned this week's menu at all! Supper tonight was figured out about 4:30 this afternoon. BUT it is on my list for today, and I really hope to have it figured out by the end of the day. One step I did try taking was planning a week ahead so I could shop for next week this week. I liked it when I did that, and I might do it more often.

I really enjoyed this challenge, and I hope to continue challenging myself through December, and even into next year with new goals and habits that I want to achieve or get into.

(Oh, and my bed-time goal for tonight? 10:00 sharp. I'm bumping it up 30 minutes.)

Thanksgiving Day Feasts

Yes, plural. FeastS. It was such a wonderful day yesterday. The first time in a long time that Daniel and I actually had time to sit down and eat breakfast together without having to rush so we could leave in a hurry for somewhere.

I had a couple ideas for our Thanksgiving Breakfast, but Wednesday afternoon settled on my last one. I wanted to surprise Daniel, so I didn't tell him what it was, only that I was really excited about making breakfast! Since I knew we were going to sleep in, and that such a feast could take a while to prepare, I mixed up several of the dry ingredients Wednesday night, put them in bowls on the counter with a sticky-note on the lid of what they needed to finish. It cut probably 15 minutes from my time on Thursday.

Our special Thanksgiving Breakfast:
Country Fried Steak
Biscuits & Sausage Gravy
Eggs
Baked Apples
Skillet-Baked Cornbread
Daniel really likes Cracker Barrel's "Grandpa's Country Fried Breakfast", and when I remembered I had some very thin round steaks in the freezer, I KNEW that's what I had to make (minus the grits - I don't like grits and just don't buy or make them). We loved it! We sat down to eat around 9:30, and breakfast stuck to our ribs (and probably arteries) for several hours. In fact, we didn't have lunch at all. Just nibbled on the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies that I made Wednesday, and the leftover cornbread. I *HEART* cornbread - I don't know why I don't make it more often.

Thanksgiving Afternoon we were both busy with each of our projects for the day - which I will be posting about later.

I wanted supper to be a special meal, too, so we had steaks that I'd gotten on markdown. I consulted Daniel on how he wanted them fixed, and he voted to marinade them in some A-1 Chicago Steakhouse Marinade (that I got for super cheap this summer) and then broil them in the oven. We thought about using the George Foreman, but they were not even thickness and he thought the oven would work better.

Our Thanksgiving Supper:
Steak
Mashed Potatoes
Baked Corn
The steaks were HUGE. We really enjoyed them, though, and we both cleaned our plates! Later in the evening we did have the traditional Pumpkin Pie, with Cool Whip. Daniel laughed at the huge dollops of Cool Whip I put on our slices of pie, but he agreed - it was Thanksgiving Day and we should eat however much Cool Whip we wanted!

We had such a great day yesterday. Daniel probably got tired of hearing me say it, but it was SO nice to have a whole day at home with just him. Even though we were both working on our projects, just the opportunities to see each other and talk throughout the day and just spend time together was fabulous. But all good things come to and end... he is back to work today, and tomorrow is yet another Saturday of being away from home and socializing (a family reunion).

One of the highlights yesterday was that before we got out of bed in the morning, Baby George was being quite active, and Daniel was able to feel several strong kicks (or elbow jabs, or whatever). I loved seeing the look on his face :) Most of the time I can't feel the movements on the outside, so Daniel doesn't get to feel our baby moving around near as much as I do, but yesterday morning was certainly an exception!

I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving spending the day with the 2 people most important to me: My husband and our baby :) We are so blessed. I often stopped throughout the day to just think of things I was thankful for. The Lord is so good to us!

Cleaning the Lava Pit (AKA the Oven)

We all know how it goes. You bake a pie, a casserole, a cake that decides it doesn't want to stay in the pan... and they drip and drop "stuff" all over your oven floor. It smokes and stinks and eventually you forget about it. Until the next big holiday rolls around and you want to impress with your mad cookin' skillz... and sparkling clean oven. And you spend hours either running the oven's "self cleaning cycle" - which stinks to high heaven - and then more hours sweeping and wiping out the leftover residue, OR you spend hours on your hands and knees scrubbing your knuckles raw trying to scrape off the lava-rock-like substance that has become one with your oven floor.

"Here I am to save the day! Mickey Mouse is on his way!" or something like that. No, really, I want to offer you a last minute Thanksgiving Day Feast Preparation tip for keeping your oven lava-free until next year. This morning I decided it was a good time to clean our oven.

Exhibit A: My dirty oven.

Note my mistake in not covering the WHOLE floor of the oven!!

There is baked-on "goo" in the 2" open space on either side of the foil.

Also note that the majority of the "lava" is contained on the foil!

Under normal circumstances (meaning, no open cracks in the foil), I simply pull out the dirty foil, wad it up, toss it in the trash, and voila! a clean oven. Since I was in a hurry the last time I put down clean foil (obviously!) I did have to spend some time cleaning up the edges of the floor. When you're in a REAL hurry and don't put foil down at all... you end up with baked-on-for-life scars like you see in my freshly scrubbed clean oven.

Exhibit B: My clean oven.

Note the baked on stuff from a previous time with no foil.

(it looks much worse in the picture)

It's important to use foil.

Please ignore the runny-looking drips on the back wall.

There was no way I could reach them in my pregnant state.

Exhibit C: My newly foiled oven.

Nice, sparkly clean foil! Note that I've made SURE

to get it all the way to the edges of the floor and then some.

Exhibit D: My tools for the project.

Comet, a razor, a bucket of hot water and a dishrag.

That's all there is to it! The Comet is a fume-free, non-abrasive scrubbing powder so I can use it without fear of scratching the glass in the door or the enamel.

The razor blade... well, I'm sure it could do serious scratching damage, but I use it just like I do for my glass stove-top and it works wonders for removing what the dishrag can't scrub off. Seriously. I even attacked some of the old stuff again today and managed to get some more of it off.

(If you're lucky, your oven door is removable. Then you can practically climb inside the thing and scrub it with great ease. I thought ours came off, but it doesn't. All the more reason to keep the foil covering the entire bottom! Haha!)

After I do all the initial scrubbing, I do wipe it down good with clean water, and then heat it up good to get rid of any soap residue that might be left. This can emit somewhat of a faint odor, but really not much. After that, I put down the clean foil and call it a day.

*Disclaimer: There have been a handful of people that have told me that putting foil in the bottom of the oven like this will mess with the baking temperature, the way it bakes, the way the thermometer reads the oven temperature, so on and so forth. I keep using my oven like I always have, things bake like normal, and I can't tell a difference.

Thanksgiving Week Grocery Trip

It was a good trip :) A little splurging for Thursday (we're staying home), several FREE items, a little gift-buying, and some stocking up :)

I now know why I don't go grocery shopping in the evenings. I'm sure it was probably a little worse since it was 2 days before Thanksgiving Day, but every store was a major zoo! Not to mention they were both stores that I've never been in, so I wasn't familiar with the layout at all. However, I did get most of my to-do list done before I left. Daniel got home before me and per my request, made a very yummy taco-soup for our supper (thus the Doritos purchase - following the menu!).

Kroger & WalMart
Fresh Pineapple - $2.24 (splurge for Thanksgiving Day treat)
Utz Chips - $2.50
Doritos - $3.85 (This Kroger didn't have Kroger brand!! Cost me a pretty penny!)
Shortening - $2.82
Marshmallow Cream - $.75
*Creamer - $1.98
All Purpose Flour - $1.66
(2) Dole Pineapple - FREE
*(2) 4ct. Crockpot Liners - $1.39/ea
*Choc. Pudding - $.82
*Powdered Milk - $7.28
(5) Nesquik Choc. Milk - FREE
Betty Crocker Pouch Potatoes - FREE
6 lbs. Butter - $1.67/ea (STOCKUP!!)
CoolWhip - $.88 (Thanksgiving Day treat :) )
Skippy Peanut Butter - $1.98 (forgot to use my coupon :( )
4 Apples - $1.57
18ct. Eggs - $1.47
1.4lbs. 85% lean Ground Round - $3.54
18.57lb. TURKEY - $7.43 ($.40/lb)

Shelf Price - $67.59
OOP - $55.02
Saved - $12.57 / 19%

*I forgot that all or part of these items will be used for gifts, so really my totals are:
Shelf Price - $61.06
OOP - $48.49
Saved - $12.57 / 21%