Become a Menu Planning Ninja

Seriously, you can become a menu planning ninja! You probably already are, you just need to unlock your full menu ninja potential. 

<<< I crack myself up.... lol

I know it sounds crazy, but I seriously like to plan the menu for the whole year. At some point in December, I sit down and start to plan a year of monthly menus, a general needs shopping list and I take note of what worked/didn’t work last year. I dont need to finish it in one day, just get started,

Believe me, its so easy once you get the hang of it!

I plan my menus on my iPad, but I used to do it in a notebook that I used year to year. I make a page for each month of the year, January through December. I list the days of that month and the weekday. 

I start with knowing that every Friday is pizza night. There you go, 52 dinners already planned! We usually do home made pizza to save money, sometimes we grab a few $5 Little Cesars pizzas etc.. Regardless of how the pizza gets here, pizza gets here, every Friday. 

I also know that I usually have a super busy Wednesday, why is every kid activity on a Wednesday? If I plan to have pasta every single Wednesday, boom, 52 more dinners planned. 

One last trick to ad 52 more dinners? Leftover night! We have left overs every Thursday with our current schedule. Thursdays are a good day for me to clean out the fridge a little and pressure my husband to take more left overs to work before I have to throw them out. 

Ok, the easiest part is out of the way, but the hard part is just being creative. 

My family goes to our homeschool co-op on Mondays from September to May. I love having crockpot meals for Mondays. Nothing is better than walking into the house, after a long fun day, knowing dinner is already done. So I mark on my calendar “crockpot” every Monday, but there is a little more planning here than pizza night. I have a list of tried and true crockpot meals that my family approves of. I am always trying new recipes, but most of the time I like to make what I already know every one likes.

I don’t always choose my specific pasta meal or crockpot meal until I am putting together my grocery order for the week. When I am ordering ingredients for my crockpot meal, I always order enough for at least 2 meals. I pick up my grocery order Sundays after church, prep my crockpot meal for Monday, then throw a crockpot meal in the freezer for another day. 

Now for the hard part. A little smart planning goes a long way. Keep a list! Keep a list of everyone’s favorite meals, try new recipes and write down what your people like. I try not to repeat a dinner more than once every 6 weeks. You can choose the length of time between meals that works for you, 2 weeks,  weeks, 8 weeks... whatever works. 

My kids wouldn’t care if we repeated the same meals every week, they are boring, “Can we have Mac n’ cheese again??”

Jump in and add a meal to your menu. I write it in, make sure I have the recipe in my recipe app and then count 6 weeks into the future and write it again. Keep counting every 6 weeks until you hit a time of year where that recipe wont work anymore. For example, you probably wont be eating Potato Soup in July, so keep counting until September/October and add it back in. 

I follow this process until I have almost every day accounted for. 

Each week I try to remember to write my weekly menu on the refrigerator, I use a chalk board like this one.

My menu keeps me on track all year long. I change things, add things, try more recipes, go on trips and spend many weeks camping all summer long. Regardless of what’s happening, I can refer back to my menu to recenter and refocus through every season. 

I know this post got long, but one more thing. I have grown to rely heavily on my grocery orders. Whenever I run out of something, I add it to my order immediately. I rarely forget to get the basil I need because when I order my groceries it is already in there waiting to be ordered.  

I could go on and on forever about my menus. I get so much joy out of this part of planning, mostly because future Tammy will totally appreciate not having to think this through in the middle of summer or half way through September.

I will try to have my menu all set before the end of January. I dont stress about it, I just take time here and there until its complete. It is a labor of love.

I hope you will try it!

Tammy

Easy Cheater Recipe for One Pot “Alfredo” Pasta...

Before I share this recipe, you must know, this is totally an unsophisticated meal. We make this when I have no other ideas and probably haven’t been grocery shopping this week. 

Don’t judge, just try it. 

Easiest Cheater Recipe for One Pot “Alfredo” Pasta...

48oz (6 cups) Chicken Stock... (You can use water or other stocks, add extra if you like it more saucy)

1 lb of pasta

1, 8oz package of cream cheese (It is easier if you cut into little cubes)

A big handful of Parmesan cheese (If you use the shaker kind, a scant cup might suffice)

Garlic to taste (powder, granulated, fresh, whatever you have in your pantry)

1 heaping tsp dried Basil or other herbs 

Salt and Pepper to taste

............

Pour your stock and pasta into your pot. I used my Dutch oven, but any pot that is large enough works. Set the heat on high and cook stirring every few minutes or so making sure the pasta doesn’t stick together.

Once the pasta is almost finished, turn the heat down to about medium/low. 

There should be plenty of stock left unabsorbed. Do not drain this pasta. Throw in your cream cheese, Parmesan, garlic and herbs. Stir until the cheeses are melted and have come together. 

Salt and pepper to taste

I serve topped with a little bit more Parmesan. 

**Note** This will be really thick and rich... If you prefer a more saucy texture, add more liquid. An extra cup of stock or water added at the beginning will create a more saucy texture. Also, I used freeze dried garlic the last time I made this and it was fantastic.

My kids go crazy for this rich unhealthy dish, it takes me less than 20 minutes to make it. I have been known to add more moisture at the beginning and throw in left over ground beef, chicken, ham or sausage.Enjoy.

The Daily Routine

A good routine is the lynchpin of a well planned day. If you are balancing multiple responsibilities at once, raising kids and often swimming against the current, a good tried and true routine is one of the most valuable things you can have. 

I have a routine that works for me. I have sat down and tweaked this routine many times over the years. 2021’s routine will be the culmination of years of practice, failures and maybe a few successes. In another post I will share how I even plan a basic menu for the entire year. 

I tried to screen shot my planner page, but the image quality is a little low in this format, so forgive me!

I mark my wake up time as “Wake up early” because I am terrible at getting up early. One of my goals from a previous post is to get up earlier every day and I will admit it's hit and miss. My alarm goes of at 5:00, I try to get up between 5:00 and 6:00.

You will notice that the time slots are pretty generic. For me, time is just the skeleton of my routine. I know this seems silly to explain, but, I am terrible at time! I make time the bones of my routine to hold up what I need to get done, mark the general flow of the day, and I am not ultra strict about getting things done exactly on time. 

The key is, start super simple, and build from there. You already know what time breakfast is, you already know what time you eat lunch and dinner. Start there! 

One little trick I have talked about a million times over the years is setting alarms on my phone. I started setting alarms on my phone when we had lots of foster kiddos coming and going. When they came to us it was like someone shook their whole world, they often struggled to understand the general flow of a day including breakfast, lunch and dinner. It sounds crazy, but for each event in the kids day, I set an alarm in my phone. The alarm is always a fun song or sound labeled with the item on my routine or time of day. The kiddos would hear Elsa and go crazy because that sound means snack time! (This really works, trust me!)

I still use the alarms because it keeps me accountable to my day. These alarms repeat weekly/daily to keep up with our changing lives and they remind me to get on track. It has been the saving grace of my motherhood, no joke. 

When I dont feel like hearing the alarms, or I am on a trip, camping or moms weekend, I simply switch them off. It is that simple. I love simple. 

This other low quality screen shot is how I accommodate sports/dance class or other weekly events that throw the routine out of whack. If the new routine lasts more than a few weeks, I make whole new time line for that day. I will even adjust my alarms to help keep me on track. 

I use my iPad to plan almost every aspect of my life now. I use the GoodNotes app as my planner, note taking and everything app. I have always loved paper planners. I still really love paper but, I had to change the way I plan because I have too many irons in the fire and I couldn't keep up anymore. I also might have obsessed and purchased way too many planner things to clutter up my space, but that will be a whole different post for a whole different day. 

If you are looking for a paper planner, I will link a couple below that I love. (These are affiliate links, if you purchase from these links, I get a reward! But no pressure...) 

Minimalist Planner This planner is amazing. It is simple, it has monthly and weekly pages. Weekly pages include an hour by hour section that you can use to perfect your daily routine. Perfect for a beginner!

Happy Planner I dont know what to say about the Happy Planner except that it is where my true love for planners and washi tape began! There are a million different styles, page lay outs and colors out there. I have always loved the simple lay outs that allow for more customization. 

I use my alarms and routine every single day except Sunday. Sunday I still try to wake up early, but I don’t fill my day with alarms and routines. I go to church, sometimes have a church meeting, but mostly, I rest and reset. 

This post turned out a little longer than I had planned, but if I am being honest, I really love my routine and I could keep going. It helps me to keep it together, stay on track and it feels really good to reassess when I loose my way or toss it out the window and have a movie marathon with my kiddos. 

I hope there was a little something here that helped inspire you. 

Tammy 

Here is the post about my 15 Minute list.

Priorities...

Here I am, just like every other year, rethinking my priorities. 

Each year I review the failures and successes I have walked through the previous year and try to plan the next year better than the last. This year has been super hard. I think most of us have struggled through this crazy year in one way or another. I want to take the time to honor my future self by learning and making changes today, instead of making reactionary choices later. You are welcome future Tammy...

This year I am working on prioritizing my time with God, my family, my self and my time at home. 

I am a social creature, I am fed by social interaction ... helping others ... spending time with people. Having to stay home and be more isolated has deeply affected my heart. I have been depressed, lonely and literally dying to get out, needing to be needed by people. This is what I want to change. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am not planning to change the most fundamental parts of my personality, I am going to simply try to learn other ways to fill my cup. 

This year, I am going to organize. I know, I know, if you know me personally, I have said this a million times. This year it is different. I am organizing everything.

No, seriously, its different... 

I am pretty organized in a lot ways, in some ways I am not organized at all, but I want to find new, more efficient ways to get and stay organized, stay positive and keep on top of things. I have a lot of “stuff” so I need to focus on purging and simplifying in that way. I do a lot of “things” in a lot of different places in my life, I would like to schedule and take care of those things more efficiently and stop procrastinating. 

What are all of the things that fill my time? Well... Let me think... I am a wife, a homeschooling mama to 6 kiddos, Women’s Ministry director at my church, the director of a homeschool co-op, a ministry student and a social butterfly, to name a few. It is a challenge to fit it all in sometimes. 

I am not waiting until New Years to start my goals, I am starting today. 

I am making two big changes right out of the gate. 

Change one: I am going to make a new schedule for my day to day and homeschooling. This is the perfect time to reorganize this aspect of my life because I have my kids on a January to December schedule. Starting January we will be starting a new school year, a few kids are starting as new curriculum and my next class starts in the middle of the month. 

I will ride on the coat tails of this natural change. It feels a little bit like when I write a task on my to do list, after I have already completed it, just so I can cross it off... Success... I will post more later about how I plan to organize my day. 

Change two: Get up earlier! I HATE waking up early. Seriously, this might be the hardest change to stick to. I struggle with sleep, so waking up early takes a really long adjustment period. I will admit, the times I have stuck to waking up early, I have been more productive and efficient with my time. It’s just the getting up part that sucks. 

I have about a million other things on my list. I cant wait to check them off!!

This is going to be a long hard road, but I am excited about making changes. Hopefully I will remember to make blog posts about it as I go so I can share these changes with you.

I definitely need encouragement and accountability! 

Lots of Love, 

Tammy

A Growing Flock and the Daily Grind!

Pausing here for those of you who thought this was going to be a pregnancy announcement... lol no...


 You might be surprised to hear that the best part February for the Wightman Acre isn’t all the birthdays and Valentines treats... It’s the NEW BABY CHICKS!!

Every year about this time we get our new little chickens to raise into laying hens. The kids love to get to hold them everyday. All of us marvel over how rapidly they grow and change until they can be transitioned outside to be with the other hens.

The excitement of the new chicks will probably fade in a week or so, and they will become a chore like everything else... but not yet!

 What else is happening you ask? All of the same old things! Except, well... we have fallen off the wagon on some of our favorite past times. One thing that helps my family stay running like a well oiled machine is freezer baking!

We are busy very often. With 6 kiddos worth of activities and schooling to accomplish, its hard to have the home baked goodness we have grown to love! Also, lets get real, it saves a boat load of money when you make things from scratch!

 Homemade Jumbo Chocolate Chip Muffins are one of the kids all time favorites. I am trying to get back into the habit of baking for one whole day, every week. This week I will have baked about a million muffins, so I don’t have to make breakfast every. single. day.

As we look forward to spring and better weather, we are trying to get all caught up on our school work! If we can keep working and get done, then we can focus on playing outside when the weather gets nice.

All 6 of them are working hard! Actually,
the one closest to the lens is pouting...

 On the windy blustery days, we school all day long. Working hard to get ahead so we can have more days off!

We also look forward to the spring weather as we ramp up our egg laying season! The new chicks won’t start to lay until they are about 18 weeks old, and we have a handful of birds we have to let go of this year, hopefully, we will have a good season of home grown farm fresh eggs!

The kids sold eggs so rapidly last year that we hardly had enough eggs for our family. Hopefully the extra birds will remedy that and the chickens will still pay for themselves, and maybe a few fun summer activities.

On deck for this spring? Garden planning! We cannot wait to get the garden growing!