Menu planning progress

….or lack of.  I had a few good weeks of sticking to my menu planning and enforcing the eat at home challenge I came up with in January.  Then I lost my momentum – again.  I think one of the things that really got me out of the habit was that my sweet and wonderful husband took me away for the weekend of Valentine’s Day.  We obviously ate out and left money and take out menus for the sitter and the girls. 

The other roadblock is that although I have been trying to “push through” and “be a trooper” morning sickness and exhaustion have just seemed to really knock me down.  (Side note: I guess now is a good time to share that we found out in mid-December that we are going to have an unexpected blessing arrive mid-August.)  I had in my mind that by mid-February I would be at the end of my first trimester and starting on the best stage of pregnancy - the second trimester.  It hasn’t worked out quite like that, at least not yet.  The exhaustion has been horrible and sometimes just the thought of walking into the kitchen to fix anything other than water and crackers is more than I can handle.  I don’t like feeling so useless, but I keep telling myself that I am older and that I have two little ones to chase around and clean-up after.  (I won’t even comment on the state of the house.)  Steve is great and has tried to help me and be as encouraging as he can be.  He will try to handle the girls after he gets home or help me knock-out a task if I get a spurt of energy.  He has also been willing to either eat cereal for dinner, leftovers (not his favorite), or offer to take us out or bring something home so that I don’t have to worry about cooking.  He has even become a bit of a sous chef for me.  I have had a real aversion to touching any sort of raw meat, and the smell of something like hamburger browning has been enough to cause me to run out of the kitchen, so he has been a great help with prepping stuff in advance. 

I am trying to get back into the swing of menu planning again.  I know it sounds crazy but having a simple thing, like what you are going to eat or fix for dinner that night really reduces some of the everyday chaos around the house.  I know that Natalie also really liked having a menu plan.  Last week when I didn’t make one but still had the previous week’s posted on the refrigerator she asked me, “What is for dinner tonight?”  I told her, “I don’t know.  We will come up with something.”  Her response was, “Mom, look at the chart on the refrigerator.  It will tell us.”

A positive thing has been that with my overflowing pantry that we have had plenty of things to choose from for dinner and some of the convenience mixes (that aren’t my favorites) have really worked out great for side dishes or lunches for the girls.  The bags of frozen veggies have also been a lifesaver to rounding out a meal.  I am going to attempt to make a roast in the crockpot today and try to make bread.  I haven’t made bread in about 3 weeks.  I am thinking the roast will work for at least 2 maybe 3 meals, and we can talk about our weekend plans over dinner tonight. 

Another positive thing is that although we haven’t completely enjoyed home cooked meals, we have still been eating together and spending time together as a family.