Monday, October 31, 2011

Menu Plan Monday 10/31-11/6


Monday: Baked Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, and Green Beans (I know this same thing keeps showing up every week.. We always seem to be lazy on this day)
Tuesday: Hamburger Steak with Mushrooms and Peppers and Baked Sweet Potatoes
Wednesday: Spaghetti and Cheesy Zucchini
Thursday: Leftovers!
Friday: Out!
Saturday: Brunswick Stew and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Sunday: Leftovers!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

What a Week It's Gonna Be!

We had our first clinical orientation on Friday. They served us breakfast for free! I looked quite professional in my scrubs and white coat, and no I don't have any pictures of me dressed up haha! It was a long morning of meeting people and being told all of the rules and precautions. The best news of the day was that whenever we rotate there, we get to choose a free breakfast or lunch. They were cooking ribs on the grill as we were leaving and let me tell you, they smelled sooooo good! This is going to be good for my wallet but bad for my waist! We also got a couple of free hand sanitizer sprays. Nothing says "Welcome!" like a free gift!

I had to work Friday afternoon as well. We drew names for Christmas gifts. I am excited to get shopping and am glad with who I picked! I would be glad with anyone considering I just like shopping in general. But I am especially happy with my pick! And I can't wait to find out who got my name and see what I will get! I just love getting gifts! And giving gifts!

This week we have a test on Tuesday, a test on Wednesday, and I have a speech due Thursday. Then there's another clinical orientation on Friday. Luckily, both tests are mostly math which happens to come a little easier to me. I am one of three people not panicking about these tests. But it's still a lot to do in one week.

Monday, October 24, 2011

A Couple of Crafts!

So I think I have made you all wait long enough to see what I have been making lately! This is not everything, nowhere near everything! But maybe this will give you some ideas. Christmas is coming, so if anyone wants to buy any of this stuff or wants me to make similar items, then please let me know!

Here are two sets of coasters I have made. I have a couple of extra sets made as well, just no pictures of them. For a set of 4 coasters, I am charging $7.50. If you need a set of coasters with an odd amount of coasters (anything other than the regular set of 4) I am charging $2 for each additional coaster. I can make coasters in any color theme! These are tile coasters with felt feet, so they will not scratch your furniture.


SOLD!
 Here is a cute dishtowel I made! I just love it! I do not have a set price on dishtowels, because it all depends on the price of the dishtowel as well as what goes on it. For this particular dishtowel, I would charge $4.50. If it only had the frog (or just the flowers), I would charge $3.50.

SOLD!
 These are some gift baskets I have made in the past. I am in the process of putting a few together right now. But I will also take custom orders. I will add pictures of the custom order I just completed and another one I am working on now. All gift baskets come wrapped in cellophane and are tied with colorful ribbons.

This particular gift basket would be $25. It's got a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, a hairbrush, and lots of hair accessories.
SOLD!
This movie night basket would be $30, but it would depend on how expensive the movies were. The basket includes a large popcorn bucket, two small individual popcorn holders, two bags of popcorn, two bags of M&Ms, and four candy bars.
SOLD!
These nail gift baskets would be $20 each. The basket on the left has body wash in there, but that is not included in the price. These each include four nail polishes, nail clippers, cuticle clippers, emory boards, cuticle cream, cotton balls, french tip sets, and I honestly cannot remember what else.
SOLD!
This is a cute gift for a teacher! I will personalize the top with the teacher's name. As you can see in the pictures below, it is full of all things red, black, white, and silver. This box includes pencils, a pen, a deck of cards, ladybug pushpins, magnets, a mini stapler, daisy tacks, binder clips, paper clips, and staples. The empty spots are for candy, which I can add or you can add. I am charging $22.50. This would be a great end of the year gift for a teacher that your child really learned from!


 












Remember, I can make a gift basket with any theme! There are so many to choose from: kitchen, coffee, ice cream, gardening, spa, baby, and the list goes on! If there is something you are thinking about and are wondering if I can make it, leave a comment or email me at mbbunn06@aol.com. The next project on my list is glass etching. I have also made serving trays. I will try to get more pics up as soon as I can! I hope you like what you see and I look forward to hearing from you all!

Menu Plan Monday 10/24-10/30


Monday: Baked Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, and Green Beans
Tuesday: Hamburger Helper, Salad, Corn, and Oranges
Wednesday: Barbecued Porkchops, Seasoned Fries, and Peas
Thursday: Leftovers!
Friday: Brunswick Stew and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Saturday: Out!
Sunday: Leftovers!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Weekends Are For No Work!

The end of the week was so insanely busy, I am just glad that it's over. First of all, I am so thankful that I do not have class until 6 p.m. on Thursday. This gives me a whole day to get my schoolwork done. So that's just what I did. I had a midterm for public speaking Thursday night. I was slightly worried about it just because of the massive amounts of information, but it turned out to be quite easy.

Friday morning I had my next respiratory test as well as a patient assessment lab competency. I was completely stressed about both of those! One, the tests always have so much information on them and it's just hard for me to remember everything (luckily for that class it's all multiple choice). Two, I don't like "acting" in front of people so the patient assessment was a nightmare come true. Oh, it was just so horrible! I know I won't have a problem when I am with a real patient, but I just have a hard time pretending. I am not imaginative like that. Amazingly I passed the test with a 92 and the competency with a 97! I am happy with that!

Unfortunately, that was not the last stressful event for the day. I had to go to work and do something I had never done before! I had trained for less than two hours total! Everyone was sure that since it was Friday afternoon that nobody would come in. Wrong! Within five minutes of being alone, I had a customer. I was so nervous that I didn't even tell them my name! But I didn't mess anything up, so that was good! I don't know why I was so nervous about it. I am ready to do it again now!

Friday night we cooked steaks with my parents and their neighbors. It was a late night, and I had an early morning Saturday for a day of babysitting! I was wore out by 4 p.m. We blew bubbles, played tball and football, looked at all of the pumpkins inside and outside, walked the block twice, collected leaves, colored, made art projects with the leaves, did puzzles, played with legos, snacked, and then he finally passed out asleep. Saturday night we went to Raleigh to eat at Brio with my parents and another set of their neighbors. It was a very good restaurant. I only wish I could have eaten more! haha

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

School Scholarship

Since the first day I got accepted into the respiratory therapy program, I have been wondering how in the world I was going to pay for five straight semesters without working. I still occasionally work at my job, but the little I do make is more for us to be able to keep fixing up our house and to be able to go out and do fun things once in a while. It's almost time to register for the next semester and the thought of watching our savings slowly decline has started to seep into my mind.

When Matthew came home Saturday and brought in the mail, there was a letter from the school. When you aren't expecting anything, you instantly think it's bad news. I opened the letter up and read about two sentences before I burst into tears. I just sobbed. I got a scholarship for this semester! Since I already paid up front for this semester (because you have to), I will get back the amount of the scholarship. This amount will definitely cover my tuition for the spring semester with a little left over to go towards books!

I have been praying and asking God to help me to have more faith and to worry less and to depend on Him to provide while I prepare to serve Him with this career in respiratory therapy. He has certainly provided! Two out of the five semesters are now paid for!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Grocery Shopping and Pantry Organizing

I have not been grocery shopping in forever! Matthew and I have both just been on a long run of eating out. It was just so easy when my schedule changed because of school. Eating out is expensive. And it finally has taken its toll. As you read last week, I got back in the meal planning game. Now we're into week two of consistent meal planning! This weekend we went to the grocery store and got a bunch of stuff that we needed. We're not only meal planning for dinner, but also for breakfast and lunch.

As of today, Matthew is going to be taking his breakfast and lunch to work with him instead of buying fast food. I see Matthew as being the bigger challenge because he loves to go out for food. But in order for us to stick to our budget, this has to work. So every night I am going to get Matthew's lunch bag ready for the next day. I also need to find him a real lunch bag instead of a Wal-mart bag! haha I'm such a great wife!

We now have a variety of breakfast foods (cereals, poptarts, protein bars, smoked sausage) and snack foods (chips, dips, cookie bars, goldfish) and fruit (apples, bananas, pears) and lunch foods that are not so healthy. I will make healthy lunches my next goal.

And after the huge grocery store haul, I felt compelled to clean out the pantry and organize it! It looks so amazing! There is a breakfast section, a snack section, a baking section, a pasta section (it's sad that I have over 15 boxes of pasta). I also bought these cute canisters. So excited to get them! I'm going to put my sugar and flour in them.

 

I also bought this two-level wire rack today at TJ Maxx. I have been wanting something to put my fruits and vegetables in. I've been using a wire bowl, but I had just one. Maybe it's just me, but I don't like my fruits and vegetables touching each other. Is that weird? It has rope around the rims and looks like an old antique. It's super tall too. I saw it yesterday but thought $25 was too high. Then I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was so glad that they still had it today! I think I would have cried if it was gone haha.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Menu Plan Monday 10/17-10/23


Monday: Shrimp Alfredo with Mushrooms and Salad
Tuesday: Chili and Beans and Fresh Guacamole
Wednesday: Grilled Chicken Sausage, Sweet Potato Fries, and Baked Beans
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Baked Chicken, Macaroni and Cheese, and Green Beans
Saturday: Out
Sunday: Leftovers

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Menu Plan Monday 10/10-10/16


I'm back into menu planning and cooking! It's quite the combination haha! I know it's already Wednesday but I wanted to post it anyway since I have actually been cooking these meals!

Monday: Baked Chicken, green beans with lemon, brown rice, and tomatoes and okra
Tuesday: Grilled Pork Chops, stuffing, and yams
Wednesday: Sandwiches
Thursday: Shrimp Alfredo and salad
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: Out
Sunday: Leftovers

Monday, October 10, 2011

Yard Sale!

We finally had our yard sale on Saturday. I am so glad it is all over with! I feel like I have been going through junk for weeks. Now I just have to get rid of all that stuff that I didn't sell, but that's the project for this week.

I ended up making about $175. I was hoping for more, but I'm happy with that.

I am shocked at the fact that people want everything for next to nothing. If it still looks new, then I think it's worth more than $1. One girl was especially rude. She had a suede purse, 2 cute ceramic signs, and a pack of thank you cards from my pile and a bath rug, picture frame, super nice scarf (like a pashmina), and a little planter from Tammy's pile. We told her $12 for all of it and she handed me the purse back as she made a disgusted face. Everything she had was practically brand new. I really wanted $5 for the purse, but had told her $3. Is $3 too much for a suede purse that's barely been used? I don't think so. She really got under our skin. It's people that are rude that make you think twice about having a yard sale.

My mom made the most.. over $400, but she sold some furniture and my dad sold a bunch of fire extinguishers for $10 each! Tammy made a little over $200. So altogether we made over $800. That number sounds pretty good! haha I wish my number alone was that good!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Exhausted!

I am so tired after the weekend trip to Charlotte. On Friday and Saturday nights I didn't get to sleep until 1 or 2 a.m.! I usually am asleep by 11 p.m. So that was an adjustment. Plus riding in the car made me extremely tired, both ways.

The trip was fun, but I am glad to be home! When we got there Thursday, we pretty much had time to pee and then we were off to a high school volleyball game. That was a first for me. My cousin did so good though! I was glad we got to see her beast at her sport! We ate dinner at the house, and that was not a fav. They  had cooked roast. That happens to be my least favorite food right next to beef stew, but I didn't want to be rude so I ate it anyway. I was starving a few hours later and luckily had packed a protein bar in my purse haha. It's always weird to me when you are staying at someone's house, they say to make yourselves at home but it's strange to be scouring their pantry for a snack and eating when nobody else is.

On Friday, we woke up and headed to Ikea. I was so excited to go to Ikea! I love it! I managed to get a ton of stuff and spent less than $100, and that included the rug I wanted! I can't wait to show you the finished rug, there are big plans for it! And most of the other stuff I got was for gift baskets. We ate lunch at McAlister's Deli and did some shopping at Stein Mart, where I got 2 cute shirts on clearance! They ordered pizza and wings for dinner and we may have made a grocery run for cookies. Mmm!

E picked me up about 11:30 that night. I was so tired already and was ready for bed, but like I said, I didn't get to sleep until really late. We slept in on Saturday and then headed to Concord Mills to do some shopping. We ate at Moe's for lunch and the cashier told me he was giving me the special because I was a special girl. That means, I got a free drink! haha I will accept being hit on if it means I'm saving money! We finished up our shopping with frozen yogurt, which was amazing and I cannot wait for the place here to open, and dinner at TGI Fridays. I managed to only buy 2 things at Concord Mills, again both on clearance.

Sunday we went to Elevation Church. That was quite the experience. Although different, I kind of liked it. I'm not sure I'd want to go there all the time though. We met up with another friend for brunch. This was someone I haven't talked to in months, one of the people I just stopped talking to for multiple reasons. I didn't really know what to say to her or if we would instantly be friends again. It was nerveracking just thinking about it. And it was quite awkward the whole time we were eating. We acted as if nothing had ever happened between us, but you could tell that both of us couldn't avoid thinking about it either. I'm not sure what the next step will be in our relationship. I'm not sure if it's something that can be salvaged, at least not in a way that it will be exactly as before. I guess it was nice to see her though. It is hard to say what I really thought about the whole situation. It was just so weird.

I was so glad to get back home and was half asleep most of the car ride. I missed Matthew, but I am not sure he missed me haha. He has been ill ever since. Oh well. That's a man.