Meals and Exercise... I just need a plan

Tomorrow is Halloween. Which means that the end of the year is coming quickly. I love the holiday season, but it's always stressful- too much to do and not enough time.

I feel like I'm losing it lately. I find myself frustrated with the kids, annoyed that I'm not making time for exercising, and disappointed that I'm eating way too much unhealthy take-out food again. I know it's time to take a look back at my goals that I set for myself in March, but I'm afraid that I've slipped so far backwards that I'll feel like a failure.

I need to get back to blogging, because that was the one thing that made me accountable and helped me to stick to my plan. What changed that led me to stop blogging? Time. I picked up more hours at work, and at the same time I started volunteering at Jake's new school. A little bit in the classroom, but mostly with the parent organization supporting the school. My job: fundraising. Which is basically a full-time job in and of itself. The school needs money in order to get all of the programs off the ground that we want in our brand-new elementary: art, music, PE, library, garden, playground supplies, field trips, and a million other "extras" that no longer fit into the basic school budget. All of which are important, and all of which require money to get the programs up in running. If I'm going to lead the fundraising committee, I want to do it well. And that's one job where no matter how much time I devote to planning events, soliciting donations, writing grants, etc. etc. etc... there's always more that can be done.

I don't know if I can make the time to get back to blogging with any regularity. But I do know that if I don't do my menu planning, we end up eating out or picking up take out for almost every meal. So I'm going to try to start with that. And here's my plan for the week.

Breakfasts: Frozen waffles. I think we'll try to make to the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning to pick up some fruits so that we'll have some options.

Lunches: I'll have to see if I can make enough dinners to have leftovers available for lunches. Otherwise, I have some frozen meals stored up.

Sunday:

• Dinner: Pre trick-or-treating meal with friends. Not sure what we'll have yet. (Edit: Pizza)
• Exercise: Pilates Didn't make it

Monday:

• Dinner: Chicken Salad (made ahead of time on Sunday)

Tuesday:

• Dinner: Stuffed Peppers Chicken and Bacon Sub Sandwiches
• Exercise: Muscle strength class- trying out a new class at the gym Didn't make it

Wednesday:

• Dinner: French Dip Sandwiches with Sweet Potato Fries

Thursday:

• Dinner: Grilled chicken and frozen veggies
• Exercise: Muscle strength class (if I liked it on Tuesday), or maybe just treadmill Didn't make it

Friday:

• Dinner: Leftovers Chris and I got a babysitter and went out to dinner

Saturday:

• Dinner: Dinner out somewhere to celebrate eating in the rest of the week. Dude, if I actually cook dinner four nights in a row this week, it'll be a huge improvement over the last month or two. Edit: Leftovers.

Sunday: Daylight Savings Time Ends! And time to create another meal plan. Fingers crossed that I can stick with this one.  :)

Somebody Please Stop Time, So That I Can Catch Up

You may have noticed, I haven't been blogging much lately. (And if you haven't noticed, please don't tell me, you'll hurt my feelings.) It's been a month since I've posted anything at all, and two months since I posted anything much more than food/menu planning stuff. It's not that I haven't had anything to say, it's just that I haven't been able to figure out how to make time to write it. Don't know how to get back in the swing of things, but for now, this'll have to do. :)

Jake turned 5 last month. He had his last day of preschool a couple of weeks ago. And today he started Kindergarten. I realize in the grand scheme of things, this isn't really a big deal. Another birthday, another transition- he'll have many more of each. But for some reason, it feels like a pretty big deal. This is "real" school- no turning back now.

This was what Jake decided to wear to his preschool graduation. He might have been slightly overdressed, but man, what a cute kid.

And here is Jake, ready for school this morning. I'll spare you the later pictures of him, crying and clinging to mommy. Luckily, I was able to turn away so that he couldn't see my watery eyes (there were no pictures of that).

At the end of the day, he was smiling again and even said that he "sorta" liked it. My baby's growing up. One day down, 12-16 or more YEARS to go. Maybe I won't tell HIM that, just yet. I think I might just go cry myself to sleep now.

For posterity, here's Jake's account of the first day of school:

-Lined up, went to class. ("I cried a little in the morning. It was a new school and I was missing my old school. Some other kids cried a little, too.")

-Circle time- the teacher read The Kissing Hand and the kids put their nametags around their neck. Then they split into small groups to go through stations: Coloring and cutting out Chester the Raccoon from The Kissing Hand, Playdough (Jake made "a burrito and some spaghetti"), Making handprints with a heart-shaped sticker in the middle (their own kissing hand), and Reading books on your own.

-Snack time outside (Jake ate freeze dried strawberries), followed by a little play time on the small yard.

-Returned to class, another circle time. That may have been when Jake's teacher did a puppet show about Curious George and how he learns to "clean up his space." Or when the second teacher read It's Okay to Be Different. Or when the music teacher taught them about quarter notes and "one" notes (Jake sang "one" in different pitches for this. I have a feeling there was more to this, but the story got a little fuzzy around here.)

-Lunch happened sometime, too. Jake ate his goldfish. (Hey, I packed a sandwich and other things, but yes, that was all he ate for lunch.) Then more playtime on the small yard. Overall, I think he had a pretty good day. We'll see how tomorrow goes!

Menu Planning for the Week

Last week was supposed to be a recovery period for me, after the crazy busy week before. Instead, I used the week for a preschool clean up day, working, a parent-teacher conference, a fundraising meeting, a treasury meeting, more working including consulting at monthly clinic, Jake's 5-year check up, a quick speech screening for Jake, swim class that was cancelled after we were already at the gym (somebody pooped in the pool- not my kid!), more working, and dentist appointments for Chris and me. Not much time to rest and relax. And sadly, I didn't manage to squeeze in any exercise, either. Part of the problem was that I had meetings and appointments during all of my regular exercise times. And the other part was that my normal workout buddy was out of town, so I wasn't motivated to make exercise a priority. But this week is a new week, so I'm going to try to get back into the routine.

Breakfasts: Chris has been awesome to finally eat up almost all of the cereal in the house. Which apparently motivated him to buy two more boxes. And I have some granola that I need to finish off in order to do my part. I think I saw some frozen waffles that Chris also bought (yep, he did some grocery shopping- such a helpful guy!), so we'll be eating those, too.

Lunches: I'll have to work to generate some leftovers for lunches this week. It's been a bit of a stretch the last two weeks as I haven't been making meals quite as regularly as I was in previous weeks.

Sunday:

• Dinner: Pizzas from Fresh N Easy
• Exercise: Pilates

Monday:

• Dinner: Grilled steak, corn on the cob

Tuesday:

• Dinner: Chicken Bacon Subs with sweet potato fries
• Exercise: Spin class

Wednesday:

• Dinner: Leftovers

Thursday: Jake's birthday!

• Dinner: I need to talk to the birthday boy- we've invited friends over, so Jake and I will need to sit down and have a little menu planning session. Will report back later. :)
• Exercise: Kickboxing

Food Waste Friday... Three Days Late

It's Food Waste Friday (err, Monday, see The Frugal Girl for my inspiration), which means that it's time to post a picture of all of the food that I am throwing away this week. It's an effort to hold myself accountable for the food that I have wasted (while attempting to save money and do something better for the environment). View my first post on this topic to learn why this is important to me.

Turns out, I don't actually like the Cascadian Farms brand of raisin bran. I much prefer the good ol' fashioned Kellogg's Raisin Bran (two scoops!). I don't remember why- it was too bran-ny, not enough sugar on the raisins, or something like that, probably. All I know is, I got it, I tried one bowl, and I had a hard time making myself eat it again. I tried to pass it along to Chris, but even he didn't really want to eat it. So, it sat and it sat and it sat. And nobody ate it. And then Chris just tried a bite tonight and declared it inedible- soft, stale. Time to go! The good news, though, is that we did get through several other boxes of cereal without having to throw them out. We're now down to one box of granola with chocolate- what's not to like?

Meal and Exercise Plan

I am not doing very well with sticking to my exercise plan. For the last couple of weeks, I have made it to only two out of the three classes at the gym, and haven't really been doing any walking or other exercise. And I'm not quite sure how to find the time to do more since I have been picking up more hours at work, in addition to my other commitments which are currently cutting into my "free" time (as if there is such a thing when you have kids). I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering if it's realistic to think that I will do some physical activity every day. Or maybe I should just really make sure that I make it to at least three classes at the gym each week and not worry about anything more than that. I'm gonna have to think on that one a little more. For now, I'll stick with my original plan and see if I do any better this week.

Breakfasts: CEREAL- we're not making much progress here. I bought frozen waffles last week because they were on sale, but was going to store them for another week until we got through some of the cereal first. But then I forgot to bring them in from the car, and they defrosted. I didn't want to refreeze them, so they were put in the fridge and had to be eaten sooner. But this week is the week that we're really going to eat cereal. I mean it.

Lunches: Leftovers.

Monday

• Dinner: Shepherd's Pie (I have a frozen one from Trader Joe's that I think should finally get eaten) and canned pears (yep, still clearing out the pantry)
• Exercise/outdoor time: Walk (mid-day)

Tuesday

• Dinner: Fusilli alla Caprese with chicken breast strips from the freezer and canned corn (I have the corn and fusilli pasta in the cabinet)
• Exercise/outdoor time: Spin class

Wednesday

• Dinner: Leftovers
• Exercise/outdoor time: Walk (evening)

Thursday

• Dinner: Potato latkes (again, from the freezer) and feta, basil and cherry tomato omlettes
• Exercise/outdoor time: Kickboxing class

Friday

• Dinner: Out somewhere, anywhere. I have class all day, and will again tomorrow. No cooking for me.
• Exercise/outdoor time: Walk (mid-day)

Saturday

• Dinner: Steak and fresh veggies- whatever I find that looks good at the store. Celebrating finishing what will be a long, busy week.
• Exercise/outdoor time: Walk (evening)

Sunday

• Dinner: Leftovers
• Exercise/outdoor time: Pilates

Pastetli

I had a bunch of parsley that I needed to use up, so I looked online to find a good recipe. Parsley salad? Yuck. Couscous? Not for me. But I did find this recipe for Pastetli (which is a Swiss meat pie) that sounded interesting. I mean, the actual recipe is a bit confusing (some mushrooms, some white wine, some brown gravy mix? Just how much is some? Oh, I see later on, 1-2 (to) dl of wine. How much is a dl again? I don't do metric. And the recipe ends with "Set everything aside to finish the rest of the meal." Um, what? How do I finish it when you just ended the instructions right there?). Apparently, the recipe was provided by someone's mother-in-law who is Swiss and did the translating (from what language, I'm not sure. What do they speak in Switzerland? German? French? Italian? Romansh?). So, I used the "recipe" as a starting point, and modified it to work with what I had in the house. Puff pastry? No, of course not, but I did have a package of Pillsbury crescent rolls in the fridge that expired recently. Time to use it up before I have to log it as food waste! Anyhow, dinner turned out pretty well, so here's my version:

Pastetli (Makes 5 servings, 7 WW points each)

• 1/2 bunch of fresh parsley (I used almost a whole bunch and it was too much. But my parsley wasn't as fresh as it should have been, so you may want to use more than 1/2)
• 2 cups of mushrooms
• 1 lemon
• 2 chicken breasts
• poultry seasoning (or paprika and garlic powder)
• black pepper
• 1 small onion
• 3 cloves of garlic (I like garlic and don't believe there is such a thing as too much)
• 1 package of brown gravy mix
• 1 cup of water for the gravy mix (or white wine or half and half)
• 1 package of Pillsbury crescent rolls (or similar)

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

-Chop the parsley leaves (try not to get too many stems). Dice the mushrooms. Place parsley and mushrooms in a small bowl, add the juice from one lemon, stir and set aside.

-Dice the raw chicken breasts. Season with poultry seasoning and black pepper. Place in skillet with onion and garlic. Cook until lightly browned on all sides.

-Make brown gravy mix according to the directions. Or substitute white wine for water if desired, or half and half if you want a richer creamier taste. (I just used water.) Add gravy to the chicken mixture, and add parsley/mushroom mixture. Stir to combine everything.

-Unroll crescent roll dough into one large rectangle on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press into a 13x8 inch rectangle, firmly pressing the perforations and seams to seal (or you could actually buy the seamless dough sheet. Yes, they do make such a thing, who knew?).

-(Okay, confession: this part I didn't really do. I tried to make these into 5 little rolled up chicken things, and although they tasted good, it really wasn't pretty. There's a reason why there's no picture posted with this recipe. So here's what I would do if I made this recipe again.) With the long side of the rectangle placed vertically, spoon the chicken mixture into a 4-inch-wide strip down the center of rectangle. With scissors or sharp knife, make cuts 1 inch apart on long sides of dough rectangle to within 1/2 inch of chicken mixture. Fold strips of dough up over chicken mixture to meet in center; pinch to seal. (To make it even fancier, you can kinda criss-cross the strips of dough, and let the chicken mixture peek out the top. Totally up to you.)

-Bake 18 to 24 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet; cut into crosswise slices. Serve warm. Apparently, peas are a traditional side dish with pastetli. We just heated up some frozen mixed veggies. Yum!

Food Waste Friday... Almost Perfect

It's Food Waste Friday (see The Frugal Girl for my inspiration), which means that it's time to post a picture of all of the food that I am throwing away this week. It's an effort to hold myself accountable for the food that I have wasted (while attempting to save money and do something better for the environment). View my first post on this topic to learn why this is important to me.

I was all set this morning to post about what a terrific job I did this week managing to have zero food waste, two weeks in a row! And I did do a terrific job using up the leftovers, celery, parsley, kalamata olives, and I've already forgotten what else, but it turns out it wasn't zero waste. But then I opened up the cabinet where we store Brody's baby food (which I actually don't use much since at 16-months old he eats almost anything now. Nice to have at least one kid who's not a super picky eater.). And I found tons of little black ants crawling everywhere. Ants, yuck! (You can kinda see them in the picture if you look closely and maybe squint.) So, I threw out all of the open snack-type foods. There really wasn't much, just banana crackers, some rice cereal (which he hasn't eaten in so long that he probably wasn't going to finish it anyhow), some teething biscuits, mini freeze dried fruits. Most everything was close to being finished already, so I am sorry to have to waste it, but it wasn't a lot, and not things that he's excited about eating anymore. But the good news is, finding the ants reminded me that I do still have some jars of baby food in the cabinet (sealed, of course, so totally ant-free). I guess I'll feed them to Brody, even though he hasn't had any baby food in quite a long time. But he does like feeding himself with a spoon, so I'm sure he'll enjoy them. Or at least have fun making a mess while trying.