this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

A month or so ago, I made a goal to plan my meals out a bit further in advance.  I hate having to decide what to eat, and too often I'd put it off and end up at the grocery store not really knowing what I should buy because I never really put together a full menu.  Which would often mean an extra grocery trip mid-week.  Nothing wrong with extra grocery trip, except for a trip to pick up one thing never ends up as a trip to get just that one thing.  If I can keep my grocery shopping to once a week, I spend a lot less. 

So, if you don't like doing something, it only makes sense to do it less often.  So I did it.  I wrote out a month of dinners.  And of course it wasn't written in stone (though it was in pen - and full of lots of cross outs), I made plenty of adjustments week by week and day by day, but for me having the rough outline was wonderful.

I will admit though, before my weekly grocery trip this week, I hadn't written out the new menu.  I did what I normally do and came up with a few things and a somewhat random grocery list to go with it.  But, I did make a complete menu based on what I purchased and what I had on hand (it's on my sidebar - check it out), and I'm working on the monthly menu.