Menu Plan Monday

I'm so glad to actually be posting this this week. Usually Mondays come and go so fast, but this week I have my menu set, shopping done and am posting this on time :)

Monday - Weeknight Lasagna (from the recent Kraft magazine - I love getting that!!)

Tuesday - Hot dogs

Wednesday - Grilled cheese and soup

Thursday - Oven Fried Chicken Toes and Cheese Fries **

Friday - Spaghetti

Saturday - Pizza night

Sunday - Easter Brunch out and then probably sandwiches or something later

** My two oldest daughters have been showing a big interest in helping me make dinner. Usually, because that is my worst time of the day, I tend to put them off. I say things like "not tonight" or "there's nothing to help with," etc. I know this is not a good idea, but for me, it's hard enough for just me to make dinner, let alone add trying to teach anyone anything. However, I know that I'm not doing them, or myself, any favors by not letting them help out. So...I am going to try, once a week, to make a meal that is designed to have them actively participate. For now, I will probably focus on just letting my oldest two help out, but we'll see how that goes :) Our Thursday meal is from a Rachael Ray cookbook designed for kids (I can't remember the title right now).

Last week we made make-your-own-pizzas as part of my effort to let them participate more in making dinner. They were a huge hit. They don't know about my plan right now, but I'm sure once they find out, they will be very excited. I would like, at some point, to involve them more in the meal planning and the shopping, but, I shouldn't get too ahead of myself...:)

For a bunch of great meal ideas, visit Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie. Happy Eating everyone :)

Random Thoughts Thursday

I am often bombarded with random thoughts and there have been a couple earlier this week that I wanted to mention in this post, but...I cannot remember what they are! At. all. The mind just isn't what it used to be... :)

Wordless Wednesday

Takin' It Off Tuesday

(I am running behind this week, so even though it's Thursday, I'm just going to pretend that it's Tuesday).

This week was a much better week scale-wise. I didn't see huge changes in numbers, but it did move and it was in the right direction. So...no complaints from me. Also, I can continue to see that clothes are fitting differently. YAY!! I drank a lot more water and really limited how much soda I drank. I could have done much better in the eating department, but I did have one pretty major success with that. We went out to eat one day and I had a delicious sandwich. I could have very easily eaten the whole thing, but decided to just eat half and bring the rest home and eat it the next day for lunch. That is a pretty unusual thing for me to do. Now, if I could just do better with eating in general, that would be great! I look at it like juggling. The balls that I need to keep in the air are exercise, eating well and drinking a lot of water. The problem is that I really don't know how to juggle and can only seem to keep two "balls" in the air at any one time.

I walked 31 miles this past week and my goal for this week is 25. As of today (Tuesday :)) I have walked 8 miles and "ran" on the elliptical machine for 5 so I am saying that I am up to 13 miles right now.

I have a goal to lose 40 pounds total (I have lost 13 so far) by the time my 40th birthday rolls around in July. That would be such a great gift to myself :)

Random Thoughts Thursday

See...I love the idea of theme days...

My children are still young (4,4,6 and 9) but as they get older, I am finding myself with a little more "free" time. Most of the time, it's when everyone is in school, but sometimes it's unexpected like when they go over to my parents house at the last minute. When I'm in the thick of things, I often think of what I'd do if I had a child(ren)-free moment, but when it actually happens, I don't know what to do with myself. I think it's because there is really so much that I could be doing, that I don't even know where to begin.

Lately, I've been spending much of my free time exercising. But today, was a day off from exercising and I found myself with a chunk of time while everyone was at school. I had so many plans: listing some things on Craigslist, cleaning, doing some laundry, organizing a couple of things...

Do you know what I did? I ate lunch, watched my DVR'd The Biggest Loser and made a mad dash around the house, picking up a few things, before I went to pick up my little ones from school. I think sometimes that those preschool hours are the quickest hours of my life!! Hopefully next time I'll be a little more productive!

Wordless Wednesday - A Little Makeover

Takin' It Off Tuesday

The scale has not been my friend this week and I'm a little frustrated about it. It has been like two steps forward and one and a half steps back. I keep trying to tell myself that I am still moving in the right direction but it's just not at the rate that I'd like.

I am trying not to rely on the scale so much, but I am very obsessed with what it's going to tell me. Honestly, it's what gets me up and going some mornings. I thought a little bit about putting the scale away for a while and then take it out again after a couple weeks. My fear is that I would get a lousy number and I would be totally discouraged.

I have one good theory about why I have almost stalled out. I think that I haven't been drinking enough water. I have discovered Diet Dr. Pepper and have probably been drinking way to much of that. I am going to try and drink more water and see how that goes.

I have been doing pretty well with eating and I walked a little over 25 miles (for exercise) this past Sunday through Saturday. I'm happy with that. My goal for this week is 30. I think I can do it. As of Tuesday, I have walked 15 miles, so I'll do 5 on Friday and 5 on Saturday (hopefully). So with that and the water, I'll see how the scale does. Clothes are fitting differently, so I think I'm making some progress:)