I’m tremendously grateful to everyone who reached out to wish me a happy birthday, and the older man’s heart is weak with all the love I received.

Despite my birthday landing on a Wednesday, I had a good week with plenty of love, a super delicious birthday cake (even if I rarely eat cake), and some lovely presents.

I’m at the age where birthdays are more about being with friends and family and less about being celebrated with presents. I was impressed that the entire family woke up slightly before me to sing happy birthday.

My youngest daughter made a fabulous card for my birthday, officially stating I’m old! It was a wonderful card with a lot of heartwarming text and a lovely drawing of our first Bernese Mountain dog – I loved that dog a lot.

Garden Troll

Owning a house is rewarding. However, it comes with a shitload of maintenance and projects. Some projects I have initiated, and others I’ve been asked to do – you know what I mean.

My DIY skills have certainly been tested numerous times, and at times I call in reinforcement from the knucklehead gang, or I will ask the contractor to do work. I avoid working with electricity or plumbing purely because I have the utmost respect for both trades.

• If not done correctly, electricity can risk an overload and potentially start an electrical fire or create additional problems elsewhere in the house.
• Plumbing can cause long-term problems, especially if you have a constant leak or incorrect pitch of the sewer lines.

I recently kicked off a large-scale back garden project with multiple phases or deliverables. On paper, it seems doable, whereas, in reality, it takes longer than anticipated. And there are some parts of the project where I need to rent equipment or seek help to get it done.

1. Expand the outdoor sitting area by extending the stone patio with another 7×8 feet, and build a timber frame pergola.
2. Create a nice pebblestone area for the hanging firepit.
3. Plan and prepare an area of the garden for a kitchen garden.
4. Design and build a chicken coop to raise chickens and harvest eggs.
5. Install an above-ground pool to elevate our garden parties.
6. Extend the decking area with another 8 x 16 for additional lounging options.
7. Move the existing pergola to the raised deck.
8. Replace the sliding door with a French door (two-door).

Our summer and back garden projects are taking longer than anticipated, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s a lot of work, and I sometimes lose focus on one project to briefly jump on another – and perhaps I have started too many projects.

Anyway, I played with a trench digger this past weekend. My electrician had told me we needed to dig trenches 12-18 inches deep to properly hide and secure the conduits for the power feeding the new pool and my grilling station.

This monster chewed through hard soil, dug up rocks, cut roots, and made trench digging a joyous activity. What would’ve taken me a whole day to dig manually only took me two hours. I can highly recommend renting the right tools for the job.

After lunch, I got dragged behind a tilling machine. I have never used a tilling machine but quickly realized that it is a hard job. These machines take on a life of their own once they start digging into the soil. They rush forward, so you have to spend a lot of energy holding it back, which makes it a challenging task.

Lunches and Dinners

Spending more time on school lunches makes it more fun for the kids to eat lunches. My daughter recently stated that she’s the only kid at lunch that get gourmet lunches. She loves 90% of my lunches, although some are less delicious.

We are tasting a few more chicken dinners and lunches this week, exploring the variety of excellent chicken recipes.

For lunches, I make chicken Kyiv Bites, a chicken breast ground up, shaped into meatballs, and stuffed with a mixture of garlic, parsley, and butter.

I prepare chicken thigh skewers while the chicken bites are roasting in the oven. I ran out of pellets for the Traeger grill, a rookie mistake, so I had to make the chicken on the stove. It was not bad, but messy.

I bought some large croissants at the local supermarket, ripped them together with ham, and covered them with an egg, milk, and grated cheese mixture. Then I baked it for 40 minutes in total.

For dinner, I found a Vietnamese cabbage roll recipe on Instagram. I steamed large cabbage leaves and stuffed (and rolled) each leaf with a mixture of ground chicken, fresh mint, cilantro, carrot, garlic, some secret sauces, and some boiled rice noodles. Afterward, I fried the rolls gently on the pan before I steamed them in batches—a lot of work but delicious.

I quickly moved on to two different chicken breast recipes. Both are simple dishes where you dunk the breasts in flour mixed with pepper, herbs, and other pieces. You fry the chicken until done, remove it from the pan, and then make your sauce. In this case, one sauce was with parmesan and cream, and the other with chicken stock and capers.

On Thursday, we’ll eat the leftovers from the first three days. I discovered we have a lot of food left over if I make dinner for four nights. Now I make for three nights, enjoy meals on the fourth night, and have the opportunity to use the Traeger on Friday evenings.

It’s a win-win meal plan. We spend less money on groceries and can enjoy more BBQ meals.

Lunch & Dinner

	Lunch	Dinner
Monday	Chicken Kyiv Bites with BBQ Honey dip	Vietnamese Cabbage Rolls
Tuesday	Bagels with sundried tomatoes, pesto, and mozzarella	Chicken Piccata with Quienoa
Wednesday	Ham & Cheese CroissantBreakfast Bake	Marry Me Chicken with Mashed Potatoes
Thursday	Bang Bang Chicken Skewers with Quienoa	Left-overs – enjoying a mix of meals
Friday	Hummus Snack with Pita Bread, Carrots, and Cucumber.	Camping Style; Cooking over the Fire, with smores

Have a fantastic week, my friends. I hope you enjoy these meal plans. It is much easier to make food in advance, although you must invest several hours preparing meals during the weekend.

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