Sunday is my menu planning/grocery list making day. In the afternoon or evening when we've settled down from the day's activities, I pull out my cook books and wrack my brain coming up with seven breakfasts, seven lunches, and seven suppers for the week. Plus snacks. Plus fit the budget. Plus be somewhat interesting. It really is gruelling, and I don't highly recommend it. But it works for me. I actually hate doing it. It's just one of my jobs that I don't really care for. The plus side is, however, quite wonderful. I don't have to think about what I'm doing for meals for the rest of the week. So instead of agonizing over meals daily, I just agonize of them once a week and have done with it.
Menu planning may not stay this way for ever, but I don't foresee a change any time soon. I have found something that actually works for me/us for now. As life changes, I'm sure it will change though. I began by just writing down on my calendar each week what we'd have. But somehow it never had a grocery list to go along with it. Then there were the times that I didn't calculate the prices of my groceries too good. I took cash to force myself to stay in budget, and embarrassed myself a number of times by having to tell the cashier to pull back groceries that had already been scanned in order to get back to my price limit. Anyhow, it took me several weeks, but I finally managed to end up making a plan and working the plan. I am probably way behind in this area. I think that most people probably do this, or have been doing this masterfully since their first weeks of marriage, and I didn't begin until way into our 9th year. I do wish I had begun sooner. Like before kids, or at least before four kids. But for better or for worse, here I am doing it. Hating it and loving it all at the same time.
I have found that forcing myself to make a menu has made me be more creative. For awhile I tried a new recipe every week. That can tend to be expensive, so I slacked off on that for awhile. Staying here at my in laws, I am using my mil's cook books, so I am again trying new recipes. It's really a lot of fun, and helps to vary the menu. Jason and I tend to like a variety of foods. There aren't many meals that we like to have every week. Well, maybe not any plain and simple ones that we are familiar with (except crunchy tacos). Since I haven't always been creative with the menu, I have burnt us out on quite a few things. We can only eat these a few times a year (this is tongue-in-cheek, or course. We make do with what we have). Such as chicken and rice. Josie is the only one who LOVES chicken and rice. She missed out on the chicken and rice marathon. I guess that's the only dish that we really got burnt out on. That I remember. But things like oatmeal, spaghetti, beans and cornbread, split pea soup. If you possibly can, they need some creativity to put smiles on our faces. Cook books help a lot with that.
A friend at church told me that she lets her children plan one meal's menu each week, and has them find the items needed for it as they are doing their weekly grocery shopping. I have just now tried to begin doing that, and I let Joel plan a supper menu this week. (All of our boys are really into food, probably because Jason and I are really into food. As in Food Network junkies, basically). So he tells me, "bacon, ham, sausage, hamburgers, hot dogs, eggs, biscuits and gravy." Okay, you can only pick one meat, honey. We don't buy that much meat for a whole week. So he picked ham. Thursday's supper will be ham, eggs, biscuits and gravy. And I will have him help me cook, too. I snuck to the grocery store tonight while Jason was at home just to have a little break from the usual Monday show down. So Joel didn't pick out his menu items, but there will be plenty of other times for that.
I am now thinking of Benjamin Franklin's father and mother, who raised 17 children, and taught them to be content with little, and a simple diet. That is truly something to aspire to.
This is Real Life
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
A Good Season
Jason was remarking last night that he feels that the Lord is giving him/us "a good season". It's been a hard few years, and things *seem* at this point to be making a turn for the better. Not that we aren't working hard anymore, have gotten rid of all our problems, or have all the money we will ever need. But our familly is together again, and that is very, very good.
Let's see....
I've had a cup of coffee with Jason every morning before he goes to work. The boys sometimes wake up early enough and see him before he goes to work. He's come home at every lunch time. And we've had supper together every evening. It's surreal. He has been putting the kids to bed, and my mother-in-law has been washing the dishes every night (because I do the cooking since she's working full time, and she says if you cook you don't have to do the clean up. Sweet!)
Last week Jason and I decided to begin looking for a rent house. We liked the first house we found, and are signing a lease on it today. We liked it for a few specific reasons. First of all, it's .6 miles from Jason's office. It's 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage and it is just well laid out. Spacious bedrooms and closets! The kitchen is smallish, but I think we'll be able to manage fine as there is a nice size pantry. Also, there is no carpet in this house which some people may not like, but we love. We can bring our dog, and the price is just right! We just felt like what more could we ask for? So we put in an application and here we are signing the lease. Yea! I get giddy thinking about where we're going to put furniture!
The kids are adjusting well to the move. They have made friends with the kids in my in-law's neighborhood and are learning about the do's and don'ts of living in the city. For the first time yesterday they played a long time in the backyard contentedly. They are used to much more space, so they have come in quite a lot asking to go out front or just not knowing what to do in the space they have. Joel has been finding snails, and that has helped a lot.
Don't know a good way to end the post, except with one of my favorite poems.
Keepsake Mill by Robert Louis Stevenson
Over the borders, a sin without pardon,
Breaking the branches and crawling below,
Out through the breach in the wall of the garden,
Down by the banks of the river we go.
Here is a mill with the humming of thunder,
Here is the weir with the wonder of foam,
Here is the sluice with the race running under--
Marvellous places, though handy to home!
Sounds of the village grow stiller and stiller,
Stiller the note of the birds on the hill;
Dusty and dim are the eyes of the miller,
Deaf are his ears with the moil of the mill.
Years may go by, and the wheel in the river
Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day,
Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever
Long after all of the boys are away.
Home for the Indies and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers we all will come home;
Still we shall find the old mill wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam.
You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled,
I with your marble of Saturday last,
Honoured and old and all gaily apparelled,
Here we shall meet and remember the past.
Let's see....
I've had a cup of coffee with Jason every morning before he goes to work. The boys sometimes wake up early enough and see him before he goes to work. He's come home at every lunch time. And we've had supper together every evening. It's surreal. He has been putting the kids to bed, and my mother-in-law has been washing the dishes every night (because I do the cooking since she's working full time, and she says if you cook you don't have to do the clean up. Sweet!)
Last week Jason and I decided to begin looking for a rent house. We liked the first house we found, and are signing a lease on it today. We liked it for a few specific reasons. First of all, it's .6 miles from Jason's office. It's 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage and it is just well laid out. Spacious bedrooms and closets! The kitchen is smallish, but I think we'll be able to manage fine as there is a nice size pantry. Also, there is no carpet in this house which some people may not like, but we love. We can bring our dog, and the price is just right! We just felt like what more could we ask for? So we put in an application and here we are signing the lease. Yea! I get giddy thinking about where we're going to put furniture!
The kids are adjusting well to the move. They have made friends with the kids in my in-law's neighborhood and are learning about the do's and don'ts of living in the city. For the first time yesterday they played a long time in the backyard contentedly. They are used to much more space, so they have come in quite a lot asking to go out front or just not knowing what to do in the space they have. Joel has been finding snails, and that has helped a lot.
Don't know a good way to end the post, except with one of my favorite poems.
Keepsake Mill by Robert Louis Stevenson
Over the borders, a sin without pardon,
Breaking the branches and crawling below,
Out through the breach in the wall of the garden,
Down by the banks of the river we go.
Here is a mill with the humming of thunder,
Here is the weir with the wonder of foam,
Here is the sluice with the race running under--
Marvellous places, though handy to home!
Sounds of the village grow stiller and stiller,
Stiller the note of the birds on the hill;
Dusty and dim are the eyes of the miller,
Deaf are his ears with the moil of the mill.
Years may go by, and the wheel in the river
Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day,
Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever
Long after all of the boys are away.
Home for the Indies and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers we all will come home;
Still we shall find the old mill wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam.
You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled,
I with your marble of Saturday last,
Honoured and old and all gaily apparelled,
Here we shall meet and remember the past.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
2011 Books
So here's my list of books read in 2011. This is taken from memory, so I could have left something out or gotten the timing wrong on a few. Some I began last year and finished up during the first two weeks of this year so I am including them. On one hand I think it's pretty meager, and on the other hand I think, "not bad, considering". You can decide for yourself.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Persuasion by Jane Austen (another great reader)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - the boys and I listened to this together. I had never thought of reading it to the kids, I just thought Dickens was (for the kids) ... out there ... still ... for now. I was wrong. I have to credit Brandy at Afterthoughts (see blog roll) for giving me the idea, as she reads it to her kids annually during the Christmas season.
Julius Ceasar by the one and only - William Shakespeare
Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo
The Man Who was Thursday - my first Chesterton. Loved it. Wild.
The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson
Parents and Children (CM's Volume 2), just half of it.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
A New Year
We are moving in two weeks so this will probably be the last you will hear from me for awhile.
There's so much I want to write about, but just can't right now. Also I know that once we move I can blog with an actual keyboard!
I really want to blog about what I read in 2011, something that I think is a lot of fun to reflect on, especially since 2011 was an especially difficult year.
So until we meet again.... Love from the J Crew!
There's so much I want to write about, but just can't right now. Also I know that once we move I can blog with an actual keyboard!
I really want to blog about what I read in 2011, something that I think is a lot of fun to reflect on, especially since 2011 was an especially difficult year.
So until we meet again.... Love from the J Crew!
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