In a few weeks I will be heading back to work part time. A big change. It's been a full year since I have held a "real" job, OK, well I have had a real job this past year, and it's been harder than any job I have held in the past, but when you are living a passion it just doesn't always seem like work. I will continue to make art andsell it in my Etsy shop (no worries. In case, you know, you were worried or something). But I digress.
This post is supposed to be about meal planning, and it will be. But first you must know the anxiety I am experiencing having a little less time to do all those household and family needs like planning and making meals. So I am going to start planning meals...um...again.
You see, the last few years I have been planning, buying, prepping, and doing everything I could to organize all those wholesome meals. I have used so many meal planning techniques I could probably write at least one chapter on each to complete an entire book! Plus antidotes on which technique WOULD work best for a certain type of person and family, because you know I tried it and discovered that all of them just didn't jive with my groove.
Here's the plan, thanks to Simple Mom blog, I am going to try and plan all of my meals using Google Calendar. Put them on a two week rotation because let's face it every week I have something easy like a variation on "taco night" that can repeat at least once a week. I will then generate am ingredient list for each meal, which will in turn generate a shopping list. Whew! I will be reporting how all of this goes here for your, uh, pleasure I guess.
First step is to create an additional calendar in the calendar section from gmail. This will be my meal calendar. I will share the calendar with my husband so he too can make decisions and corrections to the plan. I will still write out what meals are happening during the week on my menu board that way the rest of the household is in the know. Fingers crossed this technique will all work out!
I totally understand the challenge of getting yummy, wholesome meals on the table in a consistent and timely manner! We've had a major overhaul in our house with regards to meal planning - pre-babe it went something like this: "want do you want to eat tonight?" "I don't know, what do you want?", then rush out to the store to get the ingredients and whip something up - or resort to take out. Now, post-babe, I make a plan and do a major shopping trip once a week with mini trips to fill in the gaps throughout the rest of the week. I'll probably adjust this as the farmers markets start up again in spring and we have more fresh produce in Michigan. Anyway, thanks for the link and the inspiration to get even more organized with feeding the fam! I'll be checking in to see how your new plan goes.
ReplyDeleteOh I used to do the same thing! The whole "What do you wanna eat?" "I dunn-o..." Oh, that was exhausting back then and it so doesn't work now. I feel you on this. I do a major shopping trip once a week and still inevitably forget something. Fingers crossed this plan works. I will keep you posted. And THANKS for being my first follower!
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