Meal Planning For Those Who Hate Meal Planning

I don't know if you have ever seen one of those blogs that manages to put out a meal plan for an entire month.  I hate those blogs.  Well, not really.  I just hate it when people are so confident in what they are making for dinner three weeks from now?  Who does that?  I sometimes have trouble deciding what to make for dinner the same day.

Since I an not a planner, but I still like to stay organized, I thought I would share with you my method of figuring out what I can make for dinner on any given day.  This might just change your life.  Or it might not.  If it helps make your dinner planning a little easier, I'll be satisfied.

1. Make a list of starter ingredients.  A starter ingredient is one that I base my meal around.  For me this usually involves some sort of frozen meat (frozen because I stock up when it's on sale).  If I buy a Bountiful Basket one week, it might involve fresh vegetables.

2. For each starter ingredient, plan a meal.  For example if I have ground beef as my starter ingredient I might put Shepard's Pie.  If I have green peppers, I might put stuffed peppers.  Cabbage might be Cabbage Burgers.  Chicken might be Crock Pot Massaman Curry.  You get the idea.

3.  For each meal, list the ingredients that you don't have on hand and will need to pick up at the store.

That's it!  I even made a handy printable so you can try my method.  Download it here.  You can see one of the printouts pictured above with sparkles because using it is so magical.  There is no guarantee, however, that the sparkles will appear when you use the printout.  In fact, they probably won't.  Please don't be disappointed.

I like to to tape my lists to my fridge so I can refer to it when I am trying to come up with dinner.  I can quickly decide what I have on hand, and make a grocery list for what I might want to make later.  I cross things out as I make them and replace the list when my adjustments and scribbles become bothersome.

If you try my method or my printout, please leave a comment and let me know how it goes.

The Jelly Bean Jar Method of Discipline

I have a two and a half year old.  He is probably like most toddlers--strong willed, happy (most of the time), very silly, and can throw a tantrum like nobody's business.  One of the things I would LOVE to get him to stop doing is shrieking like someone is performing surgery without anesthesia.  He does this when he gets frustrated (such as when his foot won't fit in his shoe) or when his brother touches him (which is often).

My friend (Thank you, Audry) gave me a good idea.  At the beginning of each day she puts a number of small treats in a jar.  We used jelly beans and I started with 10-12.  Each time one of the kids would do something they weren't supposed to, I got to eat a jelly bean.  (Yay!  Treats for Mom!)

If you try this you should be prepared for severe tantrums when you eat your first treat.  Losing a jelly bean is a fairly traumatic experience.   The best way to cure this is to eat another one for throwing a tantrum.

At the end of the day the kids get to eat their beans.  This has been a fairly successful experiment.  All I have to do now is to threaten to eat a jelly bean and I get pretty good compliance.  The problem is we are now addicted to jelly beans and need a recovery program.

Common Causes of Internet Trouble

It all started this morning with a few cuss words.  Bryce was in the middle of an email when our wireless internet went down.  We use Clear, and while the service has generally been fine, Bryce likes to grumble occasionally that they don't have ESPN3.  (I personally maintain that it's a good thing that he doesn't have access to ESPN3 while he is in school.  But in the name of maintaining happiness in marriage we try not to discuss it.)

Following the cuss words, (which won't be repeated here because this is a family blog so to speak) I told Bryce that just last night I was having trouble with the internet and had to unplug the router a few times before I got it back up and running.  I also mentioned that there was a class action against Clear that had to do with service issues.  We were both getting ourselves worked up into a tizzy and ready to call and yell at someone over the phone.  (We HATE being without our internet.  It's sort of like air around here.)  So I walked into the other room to see if restarting the modem would work when I saw this:

Our children had unplugged the router and turned it into a place for plastic Thanksgiving decorations.  Well, problem solved.