Preparing for the week

As I told you yesterday I am somewhat obsessed with coming up with ideas for my daughters lunch... and in order to subside some of the stress (I have created for myself) I created a spreadsheet. Some people like to go for a walk to relieve stress, others may lay down with cucumber slices over their eyes... I like to create lists and spreadsheets. They are comforting to me... each item sitting nice and pretty in its own cell and separated by columns... just waiting and ready to be checked off or crossed out. Can't you just feel the stress leaving your brain while thinking about it! (OK I know this may only be the case for some people, but you should try it!)


Saturday morning I created the following table of meals and snacks for the upcoming week:

 

From this table I created my shopping list - I like to organize my list according to the lay out of my supermarket and the different sections within the store...

 

• Produce
• Deli/Prepared Goods
• Meat/Seafood
• Frozen
• Dairy
• Grocery
• Non-Food Items

  

I believe this a fairly common practice for creating grocery lists... I started doing it after I read it in Ina Garten's Back Basics cookbook - I think Ina likes lists too!

We (meaning the whole family - which yes you are correct is totally insane) went food shopping Saturday afternoon. Then Saturday night ADG and I went out to dinner with my sister and brother-in-law - it was a lovely dinner at a greek restaurant followed by a block-party fundraiser where I met my new best friend... the margarita fountain! Rita (that is what I call her) is an electric light-up fountain of margaritas - don't worry I have already put it on my Christmas list! As you can only imagine this new friendship resulted in a slow start for me Sunday morning.

Once my dose of 2 Aleve and a large cup of coffee kicked in I began preparing the beef brisket to go in the slow cooker for 6 hours and then made a double batch of turkey meatballs. Lastly I prepped the chicken breast by cleaning and pounding them a little bit. Last night's dinner was on the table in less than 10 minutes! One day down... 5 more to go! 

 

My evenings this week are pretty booked up - Princess had her 1st gymnastic class on Monday night, Butterball has his gym class tonight(Tuesday), my first PTO meeting is Wednesday and dinner with my girlfriends (don't worry Rita is not attending) Thursday... Friday I planning on going to bed at 6:59pm!

 

 Here are pictures of the lunches I made for yesterday and today:

 



Monday

Tuesday