Meal Planning Simplified

As a wife and a mother, so much of my time is spent planning, purchasing or preparing the food my family eats.  Taking the time to evaluate how I plan, purchase and prepare food can allow me to achieve a higher level of  simplicity. 

There are several things that have simplified the way I plan our weekly food menu.  When I first got married planning a menu was a foreign concept to me.  I had grown up in the city with a grocery store right down the road from us and often my Mom would pick up the items she needed for dinner each night.  (A shopping habit that has it's advantages!)  However, most of our married life we have lived in a small town that required a decent drive into town (or a bigger) town in order to get the items I needed for dinner.  I had to learn to make a menu. 

Most of our married life I would shop for groceries every two weeks.  After we moved to this house we have found that it works for me to get groceries every week.  Now, when my husband told me that I would get groceries every week I was pretty sure we were going to see the grocery bill hit the roof.  I was positive that I could do better getting groceries every two weeks.  I agreed to the plan and wondered how it would work.

I am here to say it is working out beautifully!  Here is why:

*When I would shop for two weeks I was more inclined to purchase more food than we needed because two weeks seemed like a long time away before I would get into town again to get groceries.  There was more milk to purchase (and thus my fridge was super crowded) at the beginning of the shopping rotation.

*I was more apt to purchase stuff because it was a good deal - more than if we needed it for the week.  (Now, this was just me.  I am sure there are some that are far more disciplined than I am and would not have this problem.)


Here is how I have simplified my grocery shopping:

*I make a menu for the next week.  ( I often try to combine meals to make more than one; but not the same one.  For example:  We have baked chicken one night for dinner I will make a salad with chicken in it the next afternoon for lunch.)

*I have gone to having salads for lunch.  We often have a slice of gluten free toast with the salad.  This makes lunch time meal prep a breeze!  I love this change in the menu. I purchase an organic spring mix for the salad base and work around that.  If I need to I usually have left over money from my shopping that I save.  If we run out of mix I have Rob pick up a container on his way home from work.  This insures us that the mix is fresh and has not been sitting in our fridge to long.  Gross!

*We have gone to making green smoothies in the AM for breakfast.  This is very easy and simple and the kids LOVE it.  I do feel that the kids need a bit more than just the smoothie so they have a bowl of rice cereal, or yogurt with granola on it.  It still is very easy to make and clean up is very simple!  I purchase bags of spinach for the smoothies.  I freeze the bags and one each morning for the smoothies for that day.  I can just add frozen spinach and it works just fine.  :)

*I get only what I need for what is on the menu.  Now, this has taken me a *LONG* time to figure out:  It does not matter how good of a deal it is - if I do not have the money for it - it is not a good deal for me!  (Like I said, this took a long time to sink in.  I was finding myself going over the grocery budget because I could not pass up good deals that were "too good to pass up"; but it was sending me over on the amount of money I had to spend.)  This has helped me to stay in budget and that helps with the stress of grocery shopping a lot!

*I shop at Aldi for 97% of my stuff.  Now, some of you might not have this store; but I LOVE this store.  There were things on my menu that Aldi did not carry.  Then I would have to stop at Walmart and get some things there.  Now, I get everything at Aldi (for food and grocery purchases) except for out salad mix.  That I get at a local store on the edge of town.  Aldi is great too because I do not have to worry about the sale items.  For the most part, their prices are the same week after week and I can plan y menu and know what the price is going to be. 

* To simplify our food I have two to three days out of the week that we have the same thing for that meal.  This works great because I only have to come up with a few meals each week.  I can vary those and keep those other days the same. Here are the days of the week where I menu stays the same: 

Wednesday nights - we attend church on Wed evenings.  Having a meal that is the same and easy to fix is a plus!  Right now, Wed nights are omelet nights.  I can vary the omelet week to week.  It is an easy meal to fix and one I can feed in shifts if Dad is running late getting home from work.  The Littles can eat before Dad gets home and I can make him a quick Omelet when he is pulling into the driveway. 

Sunday afternoons:  This has been a hard one for us to figure out.  We get home from church and hour after we are used to eating.  So, we need something that is quick and ready.  For years (and all while I was growing up) we did a roast or a baked chicken complete with all the fixings.  While a part of me loves this tradition, I had to be honest and say it made for a difficult and full Sunday afternoon with all the dishes that went along with a big meal.  Now, we do Southwestern Beans.  On Sat night I put in several cups of pinto beans into my crock pot, cover them with water and turn them on high.  They cook for the night and in the AM I turn them on low.  I also cut up some tomatoes and lettuce for them.  When we get home from church we have beans ready to eat with all the fixings (cheese, sour cream, and veggies).  It requires only a bowl to eat them so there are not a lot of dishes.  I leave the left over beans in the crock pot, set it in the fridge and use them the next day for lunch on a Southwestern Taco Salad.

Saturday nights:  We do a Popcorn, cheese night with apple slices.  It is all finger food and healthy for you.  James and Rob feel like it is not quite enough so they usually make a sandwich to go along with their popcorn.  By far, this is one of my most favorite meals of the week; and our daughter in Germany has said that she misses this meal the most while away from home.

These few things have helped to simplify our meals and my meal planning and grocery shopping.  I know there are advantages and disadvantages to different ways to get groceries; but this has been great for us right now.  What things have you done to simplify your meal planning and grocery shopping.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I am glad you did!

Blessings,
~Martie

Holidays, Homemaking, Pets

Monday was Labor Day.  My thoughts were that the Littles did not know about Labor Day being a holiday yet; and so we should just do school anyway.  That was my plan.  It was vetoed by the Principle of the School (Dad), who said we needed to take the day off.

A couple in our church gave us a bed that they no longer were using.  So, I needed to get the bedroom in order to change our room from being a Queen Sized bedroom - to a King Sized bedroom.  That took some time and planning.  I also moved our old Queen Sized bed into the boys room for James to use.  (That took a lot more work; because their room is a BOY'S room - and well, you know what *that* means.)  After cleaning, and a small lecture on putting stuff away when you are done with it, I had two boys with sheepish looks on their face - but a clean bedroom.  Glory Be!

The bigger bed arrived and was assembled before the couple left.  (Thanks Peter and Debbie).  I can not believe how much bigger it looks than our old bed!  I am so overwhelmed with their gracious gift to us.  I had been praying for a bed because Rob's back has not done well on the one we had - so I know that God answered my prayers through this couple.  Thanks so much!!! 

I was able to enjoy dinner out with a girlfriend from church.  I had such a wonderful time just fellowshiping and visiting with her.  I need to do it more.  Seems like life gets so busy that we forget that we need those things too.  I felt "all grown up" driving in the car, without any kids heading to a night out with another lady.  It was wonderful to laugh and to talk and to get to know each other better.  I think that is the thing I hate about moving the most - is having to start at the beginning with someone.  To have to build friendships from the bottom up; yet it is a wonderful thing to in knowing that I have friends in so many places that I am able to have in my life that make my life richer even if we are miles away.  I had a wonderful time, Julie thanks for the fellowship!

This past weekend my husband was sick.  That meant I needed to take James to do his chores at the farm on Sunday.  I was shocked at how big Romeo has gotten!  It will not be too much longer and we will have to be taking him to county fair.  We all try very hard to not think about that too much!  James has done a great job in taking care of him.  I have been very proud of his dedication to him.  Romeo has been a pretty sick cow and required a lot more care than a calf normally takes in this project.  James has taken on more jobs to give him the money to be able to purchase the medications and shots that Romeo has needed.  I can not help to think this has been a life changing project for James in teaching him the hard knocks of life.

I came home to get school stuff ready for the new week for the Littles.  I fight the feeling that we are not doing enough; but just keep trying to remind myself to keep making small steps forward.  I tend to want to rush things.... it is one of my many faults.  School is going great.  Zak is making steps forward and that makes me very happy.  The new meds have brought about some side effects; but nothing major yet.  I keep watching and praying that we have a good transition to the new dosage. 

I will close with this picture.  I posed it on FB; but wanted it here to as a permanent picture on my blog.  Anna was outside playing and fell asleep.  I do not know how long she had been asleep before I found her; but she slept another half hour or so after I shot the picture through the front room window.  So precious.  The dog seems to be part of the family.  We have been blessed with a very very large and very very loving dog.  I am thankful for him!

Trust you have a wonderful day.  God is so good - all of the time!

Blessings,
~Martie

Learning from Childhood

When I was little my Dad would come in to our room (my sister and I shared a room) to tuck us in and say good night.  I still remember it like it was yesterday; but it has been almost 40 years ago.  I remember that I would hear Dad's footsteps as he headed towards our room and I would close my eyes and try to lay really really still and pretend that I was asleep.  I would do my best not to wiggle or to giggle and I can only imagine what I looked like when my Dad entered the room.

What I remember most was what my Dad would say trying to get me to start laughing.  He would say,  "Ahh, someone is playing possum....  I am sure someone is playing possum.) Then sometime after he would say that I would start giggling and laughing and he would sit on my bed and share a laugh as he told me good night.  Then one night I asked him what that meant - playing possum and he told me.

He told me about the possum and how it plays dead when it feels threatened.  How it will lay very still acting like it is dead until the threat is gone and then get up and walk away.  A defense mechanism, so to speak.  I was intrigued by the story; but that is all that is was to me.  Just a story.

Until this weekend.

I went to let the Thor (yes, his name is back to Thor because Zak could not remember 'Trooper' and Anna kept messing it up and calling him 'Pooper' - so we decided to go back to Thor...).  I turned on the light to the porch and there sitting right there by the front door was an dead opossum.  Ugly creature it was.  Laying there dead - mouth open - looking quite dead.  My first thought was - how are we going to get him off the porch.  My second thought was,  "R-O-B!" 

I soon had a companion beside me looking out the window at the creature.  It was Rob who noticed it first.  "He's still breathing..."

Suddenly I was a little girl again, laying in bed, very very still trying to fool my Dad and I heard his words echo in my mind.  "Someone is playing possum..."  And, I wondered if this is how it  really  works. 

Perhaps I am still a city girl and so something like this is still very big to me.   Perhaps I am a home school Mom that tires to make everything a learning experience.     Perhaps I am just crazy; but.... I just *had* to get the kids up to see this.  I left the Littles sleeping; but the older kids were fetched and told to come and see what Thor had done.

We all stood in the windows and watched the 'dead' breathing opossum as it lay there and wondered, "Is it dying?"  There was talk about perhaps we were witnessing a slow death and internal bleeding was causing the death to be long and painful.  Then there were wagers as to how much blood he would throw up when the bleeding finally did him in.  He looked pitiful and full of pain.  Someone said they felt sorry for him having to 'suffer' this way.

Still I kept wondering if I was witnessing what my Dad had told me about years ago.  Could something that looked so hurt, so dead,  just be playing?

We decided to call Thor into the house.  (Through the back door.  I had visions of a rodent getting into the house and causing quite a scene; and I also knew that was a possibility - it was after all, Saturday night.)  Thor came running in through the back door and was eager for a treat.  He was so proud of himself.  Treats were given and the watch continued.

It did not take long.  A minute - perhaps two.  It seemed as soon as the creature was aware that the big black dog was gone from the porch he twitched his ears, raised himself up on all fours and walked down the steps of the porch like he owned the place.

I was amazed.  I wanted to call my Dad in the middle of the night and tell him it was true.  They really do play dead when they are threatened!  I tried to think of an object lesson to tell the kids - something about Satan and his deceitful ways; but nothing came to mind.  I was tired.  I gave Thor another treat and told him how much of a good dog he was to keep us safe from the danger of the opossum.  (I just did not have the heart to tell him he had been fooled.)  I turned out the lights and headed for bed; hoping the dead opossum thoughts would stay here on the porch and not enter my dreams through the night.

Trust you had a wonderful weekend. 

Loving the Country Life,
~Martie