My February Resolution

Last December I thought and thought about my New Year's Resolution. It didn't seem right to just skip it, as much as I hated the idea of it. I've never gotten much out of my resolutions but a sense of failure so, why keep doing that to myself? But I knew there were things that I just needed to work on. So, after a lot of prayer and thought, I came up with my master plan. I was so excited for ages to finally get to do it. The idea was this: Rather than having one big goal (which is always something like, read scriptures every day, or loose 100 pounds, or something equally unreasonable in such a big chunk) I broke things down into 12 mini goals. Each month I work on one thing that I know I need to work on. January was out of the question, as I knew we'd be packing, living at other people's houses, moving and getting settled. So my first month's goal started in February. The goal for the month of February was to make a menu and a grocery list for every week of the month. I'm proud to say, I did it!

Here were some problems I ran into:

1)I didn't have any of my own dishes, pots and pans, or measuring cups. Most of the food I made had to be easy enough to throw together or not be completely reliant on exact measurements.

2)After a month of cooking every single night I just got worn out of cooking.

3) I don't have a good 'arsenal' of recipes and when you throw issue 1 into that mix, we realized if I didn't find new recipes to try, we'd be eating pizza (homemade :) every night.

4) I don't have any idea how much money I 'should' be spending on food- Lottie is starting to eat table food and Matt is home and we are in an entirely different part of the world. I don't know when prices are high or low yet...and that worries me.

Here are some things I discovered:

1) I actually really enjoy cooking. I love the 'puzzle' of it- figuring out when to put each dish on the stove, the presentation of the food on the plates (not that I get fancy or anything...) and I get satisfaction out of knowing I'm making something my family will really appreciate.

2) The time I cook is a really good time for Matt to bond with the girls and give me some 'alone time'. Matt was able to take the girls for the 30-60 minutes that I was cooking nearly every night and it was lovely to listen to them laughing together while I had that chance to do something that wasn't even remotely close to kid level:)

3) Its wonderful to go to the grocery store, load up the cart with tons of food, get the bill and feel completely satisfied that the money isn't being wasted (like when I'd just wander around and throw things in the cart that looked good).

For those of you who are interested, here are the meals I made this month. Some of these we repeated so I didn't actually make 28 separate meals:

Baked Potatoes, Caesar Salad, rolls

Top Raman Salad, yams

Meatloaf, acorn squash, rolls

Talapia, Asparagus, diced Red potatoes

Burritos, Spinach Salad

Spaghetti, fruit, french bread

Chicken Pot Pie

Stir fry on rice,rolls

Chicken Chip Enchiladas, green beans

Shrimp Alfredo, Caesar salad, crescent rolls

Hot wings, Spinach Salad, bread sticks

Quiche, fried rice

Ham and Cheese Crepes, fruit salad (one of the one's Matt raved about)

Easy Chicken and Stuffing, broccoli

Dumplings and salad

Chicken Alfredo, carrots and crescent rolls

Pizza, Caesar salad

Chicken Sandwiches, grapes, cookies (a meal we took to the beach!)

Chicken Spinach Salad, biscuits

Hamburgers, Seasoned Fries, mango

Pork and Stuffing, corn

Teriyaki Shredded Pork on Rice, and peas

We had leftovers scheduled once and we went out to eat once as well. So total, I planned 24 different meals for the month of February.

I'm going to keep this up for the next month. Hopefully I've started a good habit (that's the idea!) that will keep going for the year. I'm excited I actually got something out of this more than just a full belly!