Planning Ahead

Hold on to your pants people. This is a super exciting post . . . okay, so I'm lying, but I thought I'd share anyway.

By nature, I'm a control freak planner. I like to know what's going to happen and when it going to happen and usually, how it's going to happen. But when it came to meal planning and grocery shopping, I've always let the chips fall where they may. I figured why not let the question of "what's for dinner?" be a mystery that gets solved around 4:30 every afternoon.

I love to cook. I love to throw things together based on how I feel at the moment. Before, I had Andrew this was really not a problem. I'd decide what we wanted at the end of the day, run in the store, grab what we needed, and head home to make dinner. But since I had Andrew, dinner has been more work than fun. Especially, on days when I'm working. So finally, after fighting this battle for almost four years, I decided to plan our meals. Yuck and boring. I also, decided to plan them for an entire month to save time. The last and only element of surprise has now been removed from my life (slight exaggeration? maybe). And you know what? It's not as bad as it seems.

So here it is in all it's glory. My goal is to cook four nights a week. Most weeks it happens. Wednesday nights are mostly sandwich nights. No need to plan that. Of course, this isn't set in stone, but after doing this whole meal planning thing for a month, I have found it to be very helpful. I look ahead to the next week and know what I need to buy and what I have. It cuts out a lot of the guesswork and the "oops, I didn't thaw anything out for dinner". Also, I've found that I've been saving money at the grocery store. I used to start with a basic list and grab as I went through the store. But now I know exactly what I need, and I don't buy a lot of extras. I will probably stick to this when I'm working, but when I'm off, I think I'll wing. Makes life more interesting.

So that's it. I told you it was exciting. But really, it's fairly simple and straightforward. And yes the picture is in sepia . . . not because I feel that it makes the thing look better but because that's what my camera was set to when I took the pic, and I was in a hurry to get it taken. If Patrick caught me taking pictures of my meal plan he would (1) laugh at me and (2) think I was completely off my rocker. And he may not be far off.