Menu Plan Monday: Week of October 26th

Last week, nothing went as planned at all. I had a great menu plan put together and was really, really in the mood to cook a bunch of great stuff. But then, Swine Flu struck.

Monday afternoon, I felt really tired and decided that canned soup was going to be dinner that night. I planned on taking Monday night easy and then get some cooking done on Tuesday. Nope, I woke up with a fever and body aches. I called my husband home early so he could take care of the baby while I tried to sleep. Instead, I called the doctor as soon as he got home and managed to get an appointment shortly after.

I wasn't as upset about the diagnosis of swine flu as I was when the doctor told me that he didn't want me handling the baby. How can he tell a new mom to not take care of her baby? Plus, how was I going to manage without handling her? I broke down in tears in the doctor's office.

After leaving the office, Joe took us home and he went to get my medicine as well as a flu shot for himself. I was very thankful that he was able to find the Tamiflu in our area, although he did have to try a few pharmacies.

Joe took Wednesday off of work and took care of the baby completely. It was very hard for me not to hold her or feed her. Thursday, he went back to work. But was home by 9:00am because I called to let him know that Grace had a fever and I was able to get her an appointment for 9:15.

The pediatrician prescribed her the liquid Tamiflu and again, we were very lucky to be able to find that in our area too. He did have to travel a bit further out for Grace's medicine though. But we were lucky to find it and also have it and mine covered (still, we paid a co-pay) by our prescription plan. Whew!

It's been a very long week. My poor husband has been running around like crazy taking care of the both of us and also working the weekend to make up some missed hours. Between the missed time from work and the extra expenses for office visits and prescriptions, etc., this will be another week or two (maybe three) of using what we have for meals. I know that I have at least a month's worth of stuff in the freezer and pantry. Probably more than a month, but I don't want to empty them totally.

This week's menu plan will be showing some repeats since we didn't get around to preparing much from last week's plan. I am really thankful that I didn't thaw everything at once like I normally do, because I didn't have much of an appetite and Joe didn't have much time to cook.

I need to check the veggie bin and be sure that my veggies are still good. If they are, then this is the plan for this week:

• Monday: Potato Soup, Salmon Cakes, Corn Bread Casserole.
• Tuesday: Steak, Baked Potatoes, Green Beans
• Wednesday: On-Cor Veal Parm, Pasta
• Thursday: Beef Barley Soup, Biscuits
• Friday: Enchiladas, Spanish Rice, Corn
• Saturday: Halloween
• Sunday: Leftovers

For more menu planning inspiration, be sure to read Menu Plan Monday hosted by I'm an Organizing Junkie.