Summer 2014

It's uncanny how everything changes!

Lately, I've been eating for weight loss. I eat my daily salad for breakfast these days (which I love) and I've found that I just LOVE eating a salad for dinner, too! I totally would not do this if I didn't like it, but I love both salads so much I take every opportunity!


So, I've been cooking fewer family meals since I've been eating salad for dinner and my husband has been enjoying salad for dinner, too. That makes cooking for the kids easy...I'm just in a loose place right now.

I am very dependent on my Tuesday meal planning and Wednesday grocery shopping. It is the backbone of my care for my family and I love it! We don't shop on Wednesday night anymore, but in the afternoon and since we go to Costco, we often eat pizza for lunch. The kids select a favorite frozen meal to have on Wednesday night (and the parents eat salad) which makes a nice easy night after a few hours out shopping.


Recently my Mom gave us her barbeque grill and I can't express how much we are LOVING IT! This has also made my life even better in the meal department! My husband is willing to grill Saturday and Sunday nights, so we have marinated chicken one night and hamburgers/hot dogs on the other night. Two more nights I'm not cooking! I never would have guessed! I've done some experimenting with marinades which has been fun and trying to find combinations the kids like. My son is a tough nut, but last week we finally put some cheese on his hamburger (DUH!) along with some Montreal Steak Seasoning and he really enjoyed his burger-yay! My daughter loves meat and eats it all!

I'm handling the changes in our meal routines with ease and don't freak out when I notice a new trend. I've tweaked my worksheets and use them every week to plan meals. I feel like I have a "fluid mastery" of this area of my life! I like to document every now and then on this blog because I enjoy looking back over my process!

Current favorite meals:
grilled chicken tenders
grilled hamburgers and hot dogs
packaged Southwest salad
dinner salad: butter lettuce/Costco quinoa salad/egg/crans/sun seeds/dressing
cheesy chicken casserole

Morning Shopping

So much has changed since my last post. One of the big things is that I'm eating more salad! The other is that I am doing the shopping now...and in the MORNING, no less!

I've been really bored lately with the menu, so I've been getting some recipe books from the library to spice things up a bit. My son ASKED for me to make meatloaf this weekend, yay!

My Meal Planning Organization Philosophy

After I started my self-education in January I started getting curious about recipes-online. When I saw a pretty picture of food I thought I might like, I printed it out on a full sheet of blank paper.

This helped me start a notebook of possible recipes to fill in those days with no ideas.

There are so many different SIZES of paper and index cards. I just pulled the plug on the insanity and decided to organize everything on 8 1/2"x11" blank paper-hurrah! What to do:

1-purchase a ream of blank computer paper
2-purchase a box of 100 semi-heavy clear page protectors (don't bother with the flimsy cheap ones, they rip!)
3-purchase 2 at least 1" 3-ring binders

This will allow you to have a RECIPE BOOK for your favorites (tape those index cards from your recipe box on a blank sheet and put in a page protector-or better yet, copy the card onto a document and print it out-then toss the card in the recycle bin!) Your 2nd binder is your "home" for your planning sheets...I keep my main monthly plan in a page protector where I can add to it and reference it for grocery lists, blank plans and blank grocery sheets in this binder. I also put recipes for the month into this binder. So now you have a RECIPE BINDER and a MEAL PLANNING BINDER. All nice and tidy and in one place...my cookbooks (all 3!) are on the same shelf with the binders.

I have friend who have shelves and shelves of cookbooks. Might  I suggest SELLING them on eBay?! There's so many, many recipes to be found online, why waste your shelf spacing STORING cookbooks? Put your favorite recipes into your binder and get rid of the rest of the cookbooks! (Unless a book has many favorite recipes, then I suppose it would be worth keeping).

Finally-A Month Of Meals!

John started a new job recently. At John's old job, he stayed late at work Mondays and Thursday nights, so I did hot dogs and macaroni & cheese for a quick dinner for the kids since he wasn't home. When I started planning meals, I only did Tuesday and Wednesday because we had our Tuesday group and on Wednesdays we went to church. So though time was tight, we had family dinners two nights per week. I soon added Saturday and Sunday to my plan because, well, we need to eat dinner on those days, too!

So I just recently finished my MONTH! WOW, all these meals are real meals that I would eat!

Now that John is working a new job (very close to home!) he is home every night for family dinner! This has been a life dream of mine...family dinners! I'm pinching myself! Not only is John HOME at dinnertime but I have dinner ready! Mind-boggling the transformation I've gone through! Thanks to Lifestyle of Learning!

A practical note: I've been using blank paper and a 3-ring binder for my planning. It is SO much easier to keep things simple...from my planning sheet to my grocery shopping list to printing out recipes from the web...FORGET 4"x6" recipe cards! I have found if I keep everything the SAME SIZE, my life is just BETTER!