meal planning the easy way

Do you have any routines in your life that are so ingrained that you're totally blown away when you find out everyone else doesn't do it? That's how I feel about meal planning. I've been doing it for about 4 years now, and I nearly shudder when I think back to the times when I didn't. Aimlessly wandering about the grocery store multiple times a week like a lost puppy, darting between the aisles for forgotten ingredients. Oh, the humanity.

If you've never tried meal planning, or tried it and got sick of it and gave up, I'm going to try to convince you to give it a go. There are 3 huge reasons why meal planning is the best thing ever.

1. It saves you money. A LOT of money, actually. No more forgetting needed ingredients and making extra trips to the store, and impulse buying a bunch of junk you don't need while you're there. End cap display of Doritos, I'm looking at you. I talk a lot about couponing and saving money at the grocery store here and here if you're interested in learning more about that topic.
2. It saves you time. I go to the store exactly once a week. The same day, every week. Barring some strange unforeseen circumstance (oh, family is coming in town this weekend, you say?) I don't have to make extra trips to the store to pick up the eggs I forgot, or that one random spice, or whatever.
3. It saves your sanity. We have enough stress in our lives without that panicked feeling at 5:30 that we have NO idea what we're making for dinner. Kids hangry-crying at your feet in the kitchen as you dig through the pantry trying to put these random ingredients together to make something that resembles a meal. There's only so many times you can eat cheerios for dinner before you start to hate yourself.

Convinced yet? I promise it's not that hard to pull off and you'll thank yourself for it a thousand times over. This is how I approach meal planning. Find a way that works for you if this doesn't feel quite right. Run a little "meal planning" search on Pinterest and you'll find a lot of resources to help you.

On Sunday evening (or, if I'm running behind, Monday morning) I bust out my calendar for the week. When I worked full time, I did this all electronically. Now that I'm home full time, I find it more convenient to use a paper calendar posted on the fridge. Just do what works for you.

You'll need something detailed that gives you some space to write. I use the Intentional Home Printables because it breaks each day up into 3 categories: Things I need to do, things I want to do if there's extra time, and what's for dinner.

Here's why that's important. Fill out your commitments for the week first, and then you will realistically see what days you'll have time to prepare a nice meal and what days you'll need to have leftovers or something really fast. My calendar is almost always overflowing Monday - Wednesday, and then starts to taper off towards the weekend. I typically plan quick dinners for Monday - Wednesday and leave the more complicated or time consuming ones for later in the week when I can actually spend the time to enjoy making them. I like to cook. You might not. If you need fast and easy ever night, then go for it! Make it your own.

The one big issue people seem to have with meal planning is that when it comes time to decide what to make for the week, you suddenly get amnesia and have no idea what you even like to eat. Like you couldn't name two meals that you know how to make if your life depended on it. So you head to Pinterest and give up 4 minutes later because you're completely overwhelmed.  I have two strategies to overcome that.

First, keep a list of all of your family's favorite recipes. I know that sounds dumb because people have kept recipe boxes for hundreds of years, but most of us don't take the time anymore to hand write recipe cards out.

I use the Paperless App for iPhone and iPad. It allows you to make a list of anything really, and you select a fun icon for your list (and who doesn't love a good icon), and it's all in one place. I have a list for warm weather dinners and cold weather dinners. Each list holds all of my favorite recipes that fit that season. I may have the details of the recipe typed out, or it might just be a link to something on Pinterest or a blog. Either way, it's there.

Here's where it gets really useful. I also keep my grocery list here in the app, so I can review my recipes, make my grocery list, and keep it all in the same place. And because I'm so list-crazy, I also copy the recipes I want for the week into ANOTHER list called "dinners this week." Once I've settled on what we will eat that week, I transfer those meals onto my calendar so I have it on the wall. The iPad comes with me to the store in case I need to check my meal list for ingredients or something.

My other strategy for coming up with what to make this week is to give each day a theme. You absolutely don't have to be rigid about it, but it will help get the juices flowing. Here's what that looks like for us. Each night of the week we will have one of the following:

• Soup/salad/panini - some combination of these or all 3. I do this the day I grocery shop because I'm usually beat after an hour in the store and this takes little to no effort.
• Mexican night
• Italian/pasta night
• Asian night
• Classic American night - meat, potato, vegetable. Or burgers. Or some kind of comfort food.
• Something new - a Pinterest recipe or something from a friend I've been meaning to try
• Leftover night - because give yourself a break.

Knowing I have these categories or themes helps me to quickly fill out my meal plan for the week. If we want a break from Asian food one week, I skip it. If there's 2 new recipes I want to try, I do that. It's not meant to be limiting, but only to help the process move faster.

That's how I do it. It takes around 15 minutes or less a week and is worth every second. Once I do the meal plan, I typically make my grocery list and go through my coupons in the same sitting (if possible). Really savvy couponers will review the coupons and sales first and then make the meal plan based on the best deals for the week. You can totally take that approach as well. The times we've been really hard up for money, that's what I've done. It takes a bit more commitment to plan meals based on what's on sale rather than what you really want to eat, so I only do this occasionally or if there's a deal that's too good to pass up. You can read more about that couponing strategy here.

Anyone else out there swear by meal planning? Or do you have some meal planning obstacle that you could use some advice on? Do share!

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Colonial American Flag Quilt (with free pattern)

Christmas has come and gone, which means I can (finally) share with you guys some of the quilty projects I completed last year but had to keep under wraps.

This one is probably my favorite. After the one bojillion hours I spent on it, it better be.

I have a very unique relationship with my mother in law, in that we actually like each other. Quite a bit, actually. She's amazing. She came and stayed with us for weeks after both boys were born. And not the kind of "help" like "I'll hold the baby while you clean the house and cook me dinner" kind of help, but the "let me clean the house and cook you dinner while you hold the baby" or "let me hold the baby while you take a long shower and nap" kind of help.

You know, the helpful kind.

The inspiration from this quilt came to me at the 4th of July (imagine that) while we were at my in law's house. Tammy loves red white and blue everything and has a soft spot for colonial American era stuff. Thus, this quilt was born.

It was a labor of love to say the least. It's a simple enough pattern, but it has lots and lots and LOTS of half square triangles. I worked on it from July to November. There's just only so many HSTs I can make before I had to put it away for awhile for my own sanity.

Also, what can't you do with half square triangles? So versatile.

If you're interested in making one for yourself or a gift, here is a link to my FREE pattern guide here. It's fairly basic. Make your HSTs in whatever method you choose, assemble the rows, connect the rows, and applique the stars using a zigzag stitch. I used fusible web to adhere the stars first, which I highly recommend. Then I straight line quilted the whole thing.

The amount of fabric you'll use will vary a bit because it really depends on how scrappy you want the finished product to be. A good guide would be:

• white fabric - 1/2 yd from 4 fabrics
• red fabric - 1/2 yd from 4 fabrics
• blue fabric - fat quarters from 4-6 fabrics
• 1/2 yd binding
• 1-1/2 yd backing

I used gold thread to applique the stars. I like to think that if Betsy Ross had access to gold thread in her day, she would have too. She's cool like that.

Here's Old Glory in all of its, well, glory. The little blue birds on the white fabric are probably my favorite part. They only made it in there because I totally miscounted and cut too few white ones. Whoops.

And yes, there are 13 stars and 13 stripes. It's at least that accurate.

I chose more traditional fabrics than what I typically go for since that's what Tammy gravitates towards. I was able to incorporate some vintage scraps, which I always love to do.

See that yummy crinkly effect? You get that by NOT prewashing your fabrics, but instead washing the quilt after it is complete. Always on cold water. I threw in a few Shout Color Catchers to help prevent the red fabric bleeding. Thankfully I didn't have any issue.

Hope you like it, Tammy! If not, I'm taking it back because it took freaking forever. Love you!

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2015 Goals

Happy New Year! We enjoyed the heck out of the holidays around here. 4 Christmas celebrations with family, lots of food, and many a day spent in pajamas watching Christmas movies. Great times.

2014 was my best year to date. I made some big life changes - mainly leaving my full time job to stay at home with my crazy boys - and had a full year of adjusting to what all of that entailed. With more than 12 months of stay at home mommyhood under my belt, I feel like I've hit a stride and am ready to tackle this coming year.

I'm always a fan of setting goals, but not really a fan of New Year's resolutions. Why? Because resolutions are usually too lofty (loose weight. be more healthy. travel more) so we usually just give up on them after a few weeks. Or days. Or hours.

Goals are more specific. Attainable. They should stretch you, but be realistic. Nothing worse for the soul than failing just days into a resolution that you weren't likely to be able to keep in the first place.

I like to pick a couple of themes for the year to come back to. A list of 42 resolutions just doesn't work for me. If you can't remember them without looking at a list, how in the world are you going to keep up with them? Answer: you can't. Pick 1, 2, or 3 things to do, and do them well. That's the recipe for success. Last year I only had one: simplify. Streamline my life to enjoy it more. Mission accomplished.

So with that said, I used some of my downtime this last week to really think about what I want to accomplish in the coming year, and what I want to leave behind in 2014. Here's what I came up with...in case you're interested.

Cultivate: No, I'm not taking up gardening. I mean to cultivate in the context of relationships. I did a lot of this in 2014 by pulling back from my job to stay at home, but just because you're around your family doesn't necessarily mean you're focusing on them.

I'm a do-er. I have to do lists of things that I want to get done each day/week/month/year. Hence this blog post, right? But I struggle to just be sometimes. To ditch the list for a few hours and just play cars on the floor with the boys. Or read books. Or whatever. I still want to stay on top of those things that need to get done, but I want to be intentional about making time for the people that matter the most. To make this attainable (a goal instead of a resolution) I plan to do the following:

- On days we are at home, spend at least 30 minutes each morning and afternoon working on something with the boys to stimulate their minds. That could be educational, reading, an art project, or exploring outside. I'll be focused on spending time with them and not secretly also trying to clean something or check email. Not that I've ever done that. Nope. Not me.

- Date nights. Ah, this seems to always be on the list. I'd love to go to dinner with the Hubs every Friday night for the rest of my life, but it's not in the budget. Nor can we find anyone to watch the kids that regularly. Instead I'm instituting a cell-phone-free Netflix night a week. Simple. Affordable. Attainable.

- The Year of Weddings. My baby brother and sister-in-law are getting married this year (to other people, not each other. That would be weird). That means a year full of opportunities to extend love, time, and grace to both of our extended families.

- Friendships. Remember friends? Those people I used to make all kinds of time for before I had small children. Thankfully they're still there, and I want to see more of them. Or at least talk to them! Facebook doesn't count. I'll visit or call a pal at least once a week to catch up on life.

Create: I want to keep up the momentum from 2014 in the creative department. I learned after 10 years in a creative field that having to create "on the clock" can actually suck the creative energy right out of you. Being able to make what I want on my own schedule has done wonders to fill my creative reservoir. In 2014 I made 11 quilts (I think...it's kind of a blur), which is 3x more than I had ever made in my life previously. I hope to continue to do so this year, taking on some bigger projects.

- Make 4 large quilts, one to be completed each quarter of the year. Some of these have been on the to-do list for YEARS. Time to knock 'em out.

- Learn the violin. This probably sounds strange, but for at least a decade I've said over and over that I want to learn the violin in my 30s. Well, my Hubs heard me and bought me a violin for Christmas. So sweet. My main goal here is just to not be terrible by the end of the year. I'd be a fool to say I'll have time to practice each day. My goal is 3x a week.

That's my list. It will be challenging, but I feel like it's do-able. I won't make it happen every week because LIFE. Someone will get the flu and I wont' have time to phone a friend. Or family will come visit and I won't have time to sew or play violin that week. That's FINE. But at the end of the year I hope to see real progress in these areas.

As far as blogging goes for the new year, I have to admit that I've enjoyed taking some time off for the last few weeks. It's been nice not obsessing over what my next post will be about, editing photos, etc. So I'm going to ease my way back into it. I've let go of the pressure I put on myself to post three times a week. I'll share something when I feel compelled and have something meaningful, but I won't force it if I'm not feeling it. The blog is an outlet. A hobby. Not a job. And it was kind of starting to feel like one. Hopefully you guys don't mind too much. And having more time to focus on making the posts better will ideally make them more enjoyable for you to read. Quality over quantity, right?

What are your hopes for 2015? I'd love to hear them!