Menu Plan Madness

I love menu planning, but the reality is...life happens, right?  Sometimes our wonderful plans have to be tweaked.  I have to laugh, because I noticed on my recent dinner menus I have "vegetable beef soup" written 2 weeks in a row, yet I didn't ever actually make it yet.  Often times things come up, plans change, people won't be home for dinner, etc, so I switch things around.  And now, I'm laughing even more, because my teenage son just walked in here as I was typing, and asked if we could please have french toast for breakfast in the morning!  Um excuse me, but WHAT are you thinking...that is NOT on tomorrow's menu!  Hee hee.  It's good to be flexible.  Flexibility is part of my job description.  My menus are wonderful, helpful guides, and they keep me organized, but they are not my master.  Today, for example, I had turkey pot pies on the menu.  These are homemade and quite time consuming, especially since one of them has gluten free crust.  The baby has been sick, I'm fighting a cold, the girls are sick, my son won't be here for dinner....so I wisely switched dinner over to turkey soup.  Much faster, and good for healing colds.  Turkey pot pie will be moved to later in the week or early next week (you'll notice on my menu that we had a big turkey dinner on Sunday, which explains all the turkey).

After that long disclaimer about real life, I thought I'd share how I organized this week's food.  Below is my printed out menu that I keep in my Home Management Binder:

Someday I'll learn photography, but not today.  I get this printable menu form at Donna Young's website.  It's great because I can fill in all three meals for one week.  The fourth section says "snacks", but I use that section to make notes, or sometimes to write desserts.  As you can see, Tuesday morning we are having hash browns, so on Monday night I need to cook some potatoes to be ready the next morning.  You can see the reminder note on Monday.  On Thursday morning we're having overnight coffee cake, so on Wednesday I have a note to remind me to make the coffee cake that night. On Friday, I'm bringing dinner out to a friend who is pregnant and on bedrest, so I need to prepare ahead.  So on Thursday, I'm going to make 3 shepherd's pies...my family eats 2 and then we'll take one to our friend.  I'm making them a day ahead of time because I know I won't have the time on Friday  Then on Friday morning I'll make the apple crisp and bread that I'm taking, and the cornbread for our family.  All of that is written in the notes section (well, not the bread for the friends, because that was recently added!).  That way I also have time on Friday to do school with the kids and get my house in order, and our dinner will already have been prepared ahead of time.  Anyway...little things...lots of little things....these little things lead to bigger overall organization within our homes!  I hope this has blessed someone in some little way.

"Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all." "Proverbs 31:28-29