This Weeks Menu

This week's menu is a little different because my oldest has spring break, which means I'm not packing lunches for him. There's also no gym class, which means no Tuesday crockpot. That's probably a good thing. My husband was getting a little burned out on my crockpot experiments, although last weeks experiment was so good I will be posting about it in the next few days.

So I am sticking to the basics and favorites, offering more elaborate breakfasts on some days (since I have a little extra time), and being flexible with lunches. Hopefully it will all shake out nicely.

	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sunday	banana muffins sausage links	lunch on-the-go	Burgers and Dogs Beans Broccoli salad cake and ice cream
Monday	roll up pancakes blueberries	PBJ carrots cheesy goldfish	Enchilada casserole corn cornbread
Tuesday	sausage biscuit strawberries	grilled cheese chips peaches	pizza; BBQ, meat salad
Wednesday	kiddo omelet	pizza leftovers snowpeas	stewmeat mashed potatoes green beans
Thursday	donut holes peaches	cream cheese and jam bagel strawberries	Tortilini Alfredo chicken broccoli
Friday	pancakes sausage links	cheese and crackers apple slices	Tacos corn salad
Saturday	oatmeal	picnic pack lunch for campout	backyard campout: hotdogs

Just like last time, I've linked the recipes that are already either in my recipe book here or I found on-line. That way if you see something you think you might like to try you can find it easily. If you do, let me know how it goes. I'm curious to hear how others like the recipes I'm using. Have a yummy week!

Trying to Remember

So many, many, many, m-a-n-y years ago my wonderful grandmother taught me to knit. She had a bunch of books for reference that described simple stitches to get me started. I had already struggled with crochet, so I thought maybe this would suit me better. Loved it!! It was fun to see the progress, take it anywhere, and of course try new patterns. The only problem was, as a young tweener I didn't know what to do with my creations.

Similar to some of the fabric I've purchased over the years with grand plans, they sat. Life got away from me and I didn't have time to crack open my beautiful knitting/crocheting case my grandma gave me.

Fast forward a couple decades and I am in a new phase of life. A big part of why I haven't been able to quilt (or blog) much is that I now spend a lot of time in the car. That's right, I've upgraded to the minivan and I'm officially the family bus service. 2 different schools (on opposite sides of town, yeah), gym class for him, speech therapy and dance class for her, throw in special activities and my monthly quilt class and I am clocking a lot of hours...and miles. I have struggled to find something portable I can take with me to work on in my down time between activities or sitting in the car, and then I remembered Grandma's knitting case.

I busted it out in January, so very excited to make some leg warmers for the 2 days of winter we had coming. I assumed 3 weeks would be plenty of time. Silly me. What was I thinking? But, I finally did it! Winters last stand. Low 60's with a few rain drops for a day and I was prepared.

I had a lot of fun with the project though. It was tough to remember some of the stitches and coding; of course nowadays we have youtube to help with that. What would Grandma say?!?

I now have started working on a headband. I am practicing increasing and decreasing stitch counts and wanted to try smaller needles. How cow, size 3 makes a small and tight stitch. Awesome challenge though. Let's see how long this one takes me.

New Weekly Menu Attempt

I am still adjusting to our new schedule. Kids are off to school and I am working hard to create a well-managed system for the house so it will run more smoothly. I don't feel like I've made much progress on that yet. Maybe by the time they graduate? Who knows...

It's one of the reasons I haven't been posting as much lately, or getting as many quilt projects done as I'd like. I have been trying to post more of the foods I've been making, and I have been trying to make a weekly meal plan as well. This is not just for food cost management, but also to keep me on track each day to make something for dinner.

I mix it up with tried-and-true recipes and new recipes I've been wanting to attempt. I have been able to keep this going for a few weeks now and it's been quite successful. So...in an effort to combine my enjoyment of blogging with my new management efforts, I am going to start posting my weekly menu. Though it's not quilting, it is a craft (both the food and figuring out how to balance everything) and I'm excited to use this for accountability and sharing my efforts with others. I will link meals when I can so others can try them also, if they'd like. If nothing else, maybe it can inspire others to try weekly plans or more cooking at home.  All this said, I still hope to continue posting more quilts and other finished projects, too.

Here's this weeks meal plan:

	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sunday	oatmeal milk	leftover pizza and pasta	quesadilla    -chicken/cheese carrots
Monday	pancakes sausage patty	PBJ Applesauce cheez’its	meatloaf roasted potatoes green beans
Tuesday	muffins kiddo omelet	lunch at home	crockpot teriyaki meatballs rice broccoli
Wednesday	oatmeal milk	PB-banana chips carrots	beef kabobs rice snow peas
Thursday	toast hard boiled eggs	CC&Jam sandwich apple slice pizza goldfish	mac n cheese fish/chicken mix veggies
Friday	waffles eggs	ham/cheese roll ups peaches chips	crispy chicken mashed potatoes corn
Saturday	roll up pancakes sausage	picnic sandwiches crackers apple slices	movie night: grilled cheese bites carrot sticks popcorn