Week in review: thoughts, comfort food, and spending

It’s been a bit of a crazy week here so I’ve been craving comfort food.

My dad has been in the hospital, my 12 year old little brother has been a typical moody middle schooler who hates homework, and my two boys have been sick. I feel like I’m at the max for what I can handle when it come to family right now.

Do you ever feel that way? Like you’re at your limit for brain power in one aspect of your life?

The beach on Wednesday was a great mood lifter. Nothing like free fun with mother nature to cheer you up, right? It was pretty cool to see the waves from Tropical Storm Hermine. So far it looks like Naples is going to escape any real threat from the storm.

Luckily my dad is doing better, my brother is less moody at the current moment, and my boys seem to be on the mend. Needless to say, it’s been a rollercoaster of a week.

The craziness of the week left me craving comfort food so I whipped up this delicious creamy potato and vegetable soup, all from leftovers.

I can’t wait to put together a recipe for it using exact measurements.  I literally put all my leftover veggies (broccoli, carrots, peppers, mushrooms, and onions) in a steamer, pureed them, then added cream and cheddar. I sure do hope I can replicate this!

It was ridiculously easy and so delicious! Check back soon for an easy fall recipe!

Spending this week

After lots of consideration, I’m going to stop sharing our weekly spending.

It’s too time consuming for me to put it in blog format and I’m not sure it’s something that is super helpful to anyone. I’ve noticed that I’m spending more in some areas of my life and less in others. I’m not sure that reporting that spending is actually helpful. Please tell me if you think otherwise!

Instead, I’ll share a few successes and failures for the week.

This week our biggest success is that Tom’s loans officially have a 5 in front of them! We have $5,940 left before he is free of education debt.

Next we will tackle our mortgage and save more for the future. We also have my student loans to consider, but hate to pay those off fast since it’s possible that I could get mine forgiven if I go back to teaching.

Another success is that we finally have enough money to give to others. Making an income from my blog has allowed us a little more wiggle room. Now we have some money to give to our church and to charities. It’s not like we are giving a lot, but it still feels good to contribute. This week I attended Love that Dress, an event that benefits PACE Center for Girls.

My biggest failure this week was spending too much on milk. My boys are slightly lactose intolerant and prefer soy and coconut milk. I’ve yet to find a good soy milk in bulk. They hate the Costco soy milk. Instead, they love the soy milk from Trader Joe’s. Since they were sick this week, they drank a lot of milk which meant I went to Trader Joe’s three times this week. It’s dangerous because I can’t leave there without buying more stuff. They have the best food!

Food Waste Friday

I only had two things to waste this week: a leftover spinach salad, and a bunch of cilantro. Both had gotten a little mushy and gross.

The creamy vegetable soup was a great way to use leftovers. I need to get back into the habit of creating recipes from leftovers once a week. It saves me from wasting a lot of food.

Any good ideas for using up leftover cilantro? I need all the help I can get with this one. I love the flavor of just a couple leaves so the rest ends up going bad in just a few days.

That’s a wrap for my week in review. How was your week?