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Hot Mess Homemaker Diaries, Greater Sudbury, ON (2026)

08/06/2025

Hey everyone! I haven’t forgotten about you, I’ve just been SUPER busy.

I finished the “no spend grocery” challenge strong. I didn’t really have time to take pictures or post about it. We ended up having meatloaf for the final meal and it was delicious. We are now officially out of freezer meat though we do still have a lot of pasta in the pantry. My husband wants to try the carnivore diet when we get back from our holidays in 2 weeks but I’m not too sure about it. He’s read up on all the apparent health benefits of it and wants to give it a try, see if some of our health problems go away. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? I’m on the fence and looking for tips from people who have tried it. Let me know in the comments ⬇️

Also, YES, we are officially on holidays. We are heading East to visit my husband’s family. We are super excited and can’t wait to see them! I will try to post pictures of our adventures on the East Coast!

HAVE A GREAT AUGUST!

07/30/2025

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #26

I missed writing down yesterday’s meals once again as I was busy with medical appointments and by the time I got home I completely checked out.

So today, I enjoyed a sandwich far too big for my mouth. Southwest chicken on a bakery style bun. The chicken was leftovers but still tasted great as a “new” dish today. But let me RAVE about supper. I tried a new chicken recipe. It’s a bruschetta chicken bake. I was going to have it with pasta but I ran out of time and just made white rice with soya sauce. Holy hello, it was AMAZING! It might be my new favourite chicken recipe. If you want me to share the recipe with you, just COMMENT on the post and I will happily share it with you. This recipe needs to become a staple in everyone’s kitchen.

07/28/2025

EDIT: I forgot to mention the chips! I found these at Winners recently and HAD to buy them. This brand makes dill pickle peanuts that my husband is obsessed with. We buy those at Costco and he eats them by the handful. So when I seen that same brand making chips, I had to get them. Jeff loves BBQ chips too so I thought it would be a huge win. Turns out, I was RIGHT! I don’t love BBQ chips but I LOVED these! They were so darn good.

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #24

Less than a week to go but I think we can go a little longer even! We still have quite a bit of food left in the freezer and pantry.

Today was another day spent with friend and by water. We were at a beautiful beach and snacked on everything from sand cakes to sand sprinkled cookies. Super great for exfoliating the insides right?

Supper was fun to make but not as fun to eat. I made a veggie frittata in the oven but it was so bland tasting and just lacked, something. I just wanted to use up the near last of my veggies before they go bad. Not sure what I did wrong.

07/27/2025

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #23

Today was a funny day. No one was hungry at the same time as anybody else so everyone ended up asking me to make them different lunches throughout the day. The most exciting thing that someone had for was an everything bagel toasted with butter.

was a homemade and it was phenomenal. I used leftover spaghetti sauce that I had frozen after my last batch of spaghetti. I also used the last of the one box of lasagna noodles. Winning! Even my daughter went up for seconds. Living the dream

07/26/2025

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #22

Sorry I went M.I.A. yesterday. The day was incredibly stressful with medical tests all day that I had to fast for. In the evening I managed to eat a granola bar. That’s it. So it wasn’t the best day to post about food.

BUT TODAY, was a good food day. I enjoyed some eggs, at first, they ended up not sitting the best in my stomach. Lunch though, was very nice. A couple of my friends and their kids met with me and my children at a local splash pad & park. The one mom brought basically a charcuterie board for everyone to enjoy. It was delicious and the company was so nice.

Supper was later than usual but still tasty nonetheless. We enjoyed a BBQ-seasoned pork chop and Mexican rice. This I don’t make from scratch. It’s a bowl from Minute Rice. All I have to do is microwave it for 1 minute and it’s ready. It’s a very convenient meal that doesn’t compromise flavour.

After microwaving the rice though, I had this thought pop up and my mind has just been running with it nonstop. Basically, I don’t like the idea of feeding my family these “convenient” meals. I started feeling bad thinking about how I need to fill their bodies with wholesome foods, real foods. So after thinking about that and 100 other sub-topics for about 45 minutes, I’ve decided that I’m going to try to organize myself a little better when it comes to meal planning and try making almost everything from scratch. If one of my many cookbooks has a recipe for it, I’m going to make it that way. No more pancakes from the box, or microwaveable meals for my husband’s lunch. I will probably start experimenting with recipes for homemade bread now so that I can perfect it by school season. I’ll let everyone know how those next adventure goes. So! If anyone has any good recipes they’d like to share, please bring them forward! 😉

07/24/2025

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #20

Well, today was a lovely day. The kids and I got to spend basically the whole day at my Mom’s with family. Family has always been the single most important thing in my life so I’m very grateful that I’m still close to mine and even more so that I get to show my kids just how important family is.

My Mom and brother made brunch for us. Fun fact: eggs are my favourite food and have been my favourite food since my Nanny Glenna introduced me to dipping your toast in your egg yolk. BUT since having surgery on my stomach in January 2024, eggs tend to hurt my stomach. Now, I RARELY ever have eggs and I used to have eggs for breakfast every single morning. It makes me quite sad. But this morning, I didn’t care, I wanted an egg, a piece of toast, and 1 piece of bacon. (Note: this is not a picture of my plate). I thoroughly enjoyed my brunch and it barely hurt my stomach today. WIN!

Supper was a lot of fun. Once again, I was served instead of having to be the cook. (Also, again, the plate pictured was not mine). My Mother made not 1, not 2, but THREE salads with sausage on a bun. The first salad was a Caesar pasta salad, the second was a new one for us to try and is called a Big Mac salad, and the last one was a potato salad. I basically just ate salads. They were actually really good.

I guess you could consider today a cheat day since I didn’t eat at home with the food I have here but who cares, I loved my day.

07/23/2025

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #19

For lunch today I was home alone so I decided I just wanted some mushroom caps with ranch dressing. Simple, easy to pop in the air fryer to cook, and enjoy. Not the most healthy option but I was happy to eat them.

Supper was 🐟 fish & chips, poutine-style. Plus, the tartar sauce was homemade. I took a picture of the only ingredients you really need to make a very tasty tartar sauce. The amount of each ingredient really depends on the persons personal preferences. It was a good enough supper. The potatoes I chopped and air fried for the fries were a little too crispy for my family’s liking so the gravy helped.

See you tomorrow!

07/22/2025

✨These pics aren’t just pretty — they’re your little pockets of pep talk energy for this wild and wonderful wellness journey we’re on together. 💖

Save them. Screenshot them. DM me for the full picture and use it as your phone background. Heck, print them out and tape them to your fridge, bathroom mirror, or anywhere you might need a reminder to be gentle with yourself. Think of them as post-it notes from me to you: You’re doing great. You are enough. You’ve got this.

Let’s keep going — one kind thought, one healthy habit, one snack that didn’t come from the kid’s stash at a time. 😅

07/22/2025

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #18

- we enjoyed chicken with both lunch and supper today. For lunch I had crispy chicken on a sunflower seed salad while others in the house enjoyed their crispy chicken over top of fries while drizzled (generously) with dill pickle sauce. I did have to have a taste of that because I just tried throwing something together that wasn’t salad that was a little bit different, and let me tell you, it was great!

was a wonderful BBQ-sauced chicken breast with melted mozzarella cheese with a side of chicken & herb rice. Also very tasty. So good that I dove face first into it and then remembered I wanted to take a picture of the meal.

I’m starting to run out of food and I’m going to have to start being really creative here. Let the good times roll.

07/20/2025

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #17

So today I completely forgot to take any pictures of food at all. I did take this one selfie to send to my sister. She made this shirt for me and it means so much to me because it’s the skyline of the town my kids were born in. This particular town holds a lot of sentimental significance in my heart. Plus, my sister still lives there with my 3 nephews and it’s very far from me so now I also have a piece of them with me.

07/20/2025

No-Spend Grocery Challenge Day #16

This morning was all about making memories — we headed to the Japan Festival because my kids are deeply obsessed with Japanese culture right now. And let’s be honest… short of surprising them with an actual trip to Japan (which is definitely not in the budget), this was the next best thing! 💴🇯🇵✨

We sipped on delicious drinks, munched on authentic bites from local Japanese vendors, and the best part? We spent under $25 total — thanks to all the free kids’ activities. Budget win and cultural immersion? Yes, please!

Once we got home, Madison requested her classic comfort lunch: grilled cheese and tomato soup. Because honestly, why mess with a classic? It’s a classic for a reason. 🍞🧀🍅

And dinner? Well… I meant to take a photo before diving in, but my stomach had other plans. So here’s what’s left of tonight’s porketta roast feast — a prize I actually won last month in a good ol’ game of Porketta Bingo. Yep. That’s right. Bingo porketta supremacy. 🐖🎉

All of this — no groceries bought. Just some creativity, a little luck, and a whole lotta grilled cheese.

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