Mischieva: Others have given you great suggestions with menus. I don't think I have anything else to add.

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We have been eating leftovers from Saturday night's dinner this week. Last night, however, DD, who is getting yet another relapse of her cough, felt like a change from leftovers and so, we shared a packet of ramen noodles. I also had some apples that were not getting eaten (turning a bit mealy), which I sliced and sauted with a bit of butter, sugar & cinnamon to make a sort of caramalized apple for dessert.

b'fast today: cinnamon toast for DD; bran muffin for me
lunch: leftover rice, chicken curry & green beans for DD; egg salad (made from leftover hardboiled eggs) sandwiches for me; oranges
dinner: probably leftover roast chicken with green beans

Mischieva: How are you doing today?

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I have the following for protein:
arm roast
1 chuck steak
1lb chicken
1 pkg bacon
2 walleye fillets
2 frozen chili
1 frozen soup/stew
3 eggs

Which is more than what I thought. I'll put the roast in for tonight and then can make beef barley soup later this weekend. Tomorrow I can make chicken stirfry or pad thai. Dh can cook the fish on Sun. He'll likely make bacon and eggs one of these a.m.s as well.

So, that gets us through the weekend. I might run down to the store and see what's on sale... Hoping to get to the city and stock up too.

Ugh, is it confession time again already? LOL

Cyd: thanks so much for the suggestions -- I like the ones especially about kids cooking with the boxed mac & cheese... definitely will show those to my 11 yr old DD who is learning to cook, she'll be thrilled.

Striving: How goes the ban on soda?

Bless: Sorry to hear about DD's cough... but you continue to be an inspiration -- somehow when I think "egg salad sandwiches" as a meal here -- I always think it's too easy -- so obviously not a good choice (anything easy can't be good too, can it?) -- but when I see someone else mention it - I don't look at it that way at all (does that make sense?) -- it's more... OOoooh egg salad! Why didn't I think of that! -- thanks for making life a little easier by example

Canada: Notice how (thus far) I've successfully avoided talking about "me" in this post? Yep, lol there's a reason. Barley soup sounds great (I haven't had that since I was a kid) -- care to share your recipe?

And for the condensed confession... <drum roll please>

Breakfast: toast, and oj for me and DH -- toast, yogurt, milk for the kiddos

Lunch: Pizza Hut, shhh (and Striving? YES I HAD SODA TOO!) lol -- ok, confession done, I feel slightly better for it -- (but darn it was tasty!)

Dinner tonight is still undecided. Yes, I am the original campaign manager for the phrase "Failing to plan is the same as planning to fail" -- yes -- it's been my motto for about the last 100 years -- and yet.. *sigh* I don't really care that much until it comes time to eat again -- and then I simply beat myself up for the bad decisions afterwards.

*sigh* -- it's either going to be a chicken something or other... (casserole of some sort..) or a sausage something... We had pizza for lunch (did I mention YUM?) -- lol so my original plan of chicken parmigiana isn't so appealing, nor really is the hot sausages (hubby had a sausage pizza) -- so I'm going to go find something to make involving chicken (probably) that isn't italian. I'll report back soon (grumble grumble).

Thanks for helping me get back on track... I hate how I feel when I have to come here and 'fess up lol -- I just don't think about it in time to do anything to stop myself lol. Going to go find a recipe, make a plan for tonight.

Thanks again

Ok - tonight we're having a baked chicken casserole I found on the back of the Stove Top Stuffing box... chicken, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, stuffing... I'll let you know how it turns out... only 10 min prep, 30 minutes to cook, so I've got some time to do some other things before I need to deal with dinner.

Thanks again for the mental shove towards doing what I should do - instead of just what I wanna do... much appreciated

Good for you Mischieva. I'm glad you enjoyed your pizza. I also had pizza for lunch ~ leftover from Tues night. It was planned... DDs have gymastics 30 miles away from 6-7 two nights a week for the month of Oct. I had planned on eating out with them last week b/c we had piano lessons as well but then we celebrated DN's bday at DGM's.

Anyways don't laugh, but we bought the pizza at the corner gas station! It was amazingly good.

In my travels, I've found some delightful food at small town gas stations.

Mischieva, I have had the equivalent of one 12 ounce can of soda. I'm usually had two by now and would soon be approaching three. So while it's not 100% it is a decrease.

Well lookie here, Mischieve has plans for dinner. Two out of the three meals have been from home for the past two days. WOOO HOOO!

That's an improvement.

Is it too soon to ask what's for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Tomorrow's already Friday. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but what are you doing mealwise for the weekend? (No, you may not throw the computer at me. Put it back on the desk, LOL!)

Keep up the good work!

Well so I had good intentions... but when I went to make the casserole I realized the stuffing portion was "best by" August... so well, that turned out to be a "no thanks" here lol.

Instead dinner turned into pb & j's all around -- ah well. At least we were home. Today has been yet another in a series of 3 "fairly crappy" days -- can't seem to focus on anything, and while I have moments where I accomplish stuff, I have more moments where I accomplish nothing. Spent the better part of this afternoon curled up on the lanai doing schoolwork with the kids, so that was a plus -- just lost track of time, so by the time I was ready for dinner (and realizing that my earlier plan wasn't so viable) -- it was a sink or swim moment - and pb & j seemed to be the path of least resistance.

Tomorrow -- breakfast will be toast, yogurt and oj again -- lunch will be grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup - and dinner -- will be spaghetti and meatballs (the kids are doing a cooking class tomorrow where they'll learn how to make dinner, and the perk is that we'll end up bringing dinner home with us after class.) We may decide we don't really want to eat it after we see how it's made in the class and all, lol but right now that *is* the plan. We'll see.

Saturday -- breakfast will be cereal, toast, fruit (as I'll be at the store tomorrow for the milk and fruit part) -- lunch will likely be leftover pizza for the kiddos (from today) and hot sausage sandwiches for me and DH -- and dinner... will be chicken and rice (ala crock pot).

I'll re-evaluate Sunday and make some sort of list then.

Oh and as a special super-low tonight lol I had a ginger ale with my ultra-nutritious pb&j tonight. Not so great, I know.. but at least it wasn't a complete loss today. Baby steps baby steps.

Mischieva,
PB&J is definitely better than going out! Good for you not to be tempted.

Nice to see you have a game plan for the next couple of days.

Dragged myself out of the house this morning. I had to go to Sacramento to fill out some paperwork for something. Since I was all the way there (30 minutes), I figured I'd hit DH up for lunch at his restaurant. It was good - we haven't had much time to sit down, just the two of us lately. Had a nice crab/avocado wrap. Actually had half and brought half home for tomorrow. He sent me home with a small piece of pecan pie as well so I had that with a cup of tea about 3.

He just called and said that he was making something to bring home but I'm still not hungry so I passed.

I defrosted a couple of pork chops a day or so ago so I'm planning on making those tomorrow. I'll have one Fri and one Sat night. DH will undoubtedly be working both of those nights.

Mischieva: Wooooooooo Hooooooooo! Nothing wrong with PB&J sandwiches. Try them grilled like Striving does sometimes - very good!

DD will have leftover baked salmon with either rice or bread; I will make some pancakes to eat with leftover beef curry, I think.

Mischieva, Great Punt. Your plans didn't work out but you still decided to do something from home. I'm very VERY proud of you. PB & J is pretty good!

Look at that you have a plan. I know you don't like vegetables, but don't forget to pick up some fruit and maybe a vegetable for each dinner.

You keep looking at the negative, about all that you aren't doing. Start looking at the positive, all that you did. Plus you're improving each day. One day this week you were thinking about getting a meal for dinner. Now you have a menu plan for the weekend. In addition, you had the kids working on school work, you have an activity for cooking class, and dinner, the garage has been rearranged, you put some stuff away. Baby steps will get you where you want to be.

Now, don't forget to shop.

Two sodas for the day with multiple glasses of ice water and hot tea.

Next week, let's work on the vegetable portions. Your assignment is to think about vegetables that your family, including parents like, and ways to make other vegetables palatable.

I'll be here, will you?