Setting Goals: Plan It!

Goal #2. Make a plan

The second of my Three Summer Goals is possibly the most simple. On Saturday--during nap time or after Connor goes to bed for the night--I will plan out our family's meals for the week. I will go through our refrigerator and cupboards and make a list based on recipes and staples needing to be restocked. Then Connor and I will go to the grocery store on Sunday, we will cook our meals accordingly, and do it again the following week. Ta da! Goal #2 accomplished. 

This has been something I have attempted for over a year, and it has always failed in the long-term. I didn't realize how notorious this failure was until a few months ago when I told my mom that we were heading to Detello's (an excellent family-friendly pizza joint down the road) for dinner. Again. She snorted a bit and said, "What? You didn't plan your meals this week?" I sheepishly told her that yes, I had and that yes, again we had veered from the plan.  

Perhaps that was because that week's list looked something like this:

Monday: chilli

Tuesday: chicken? salad?

Wednesday: Bryan's meal

Thursday: leftovers

Friday: out?

Saturday: ??? see what's left

I look at some of these old lists--they are all kept as a cruel reminder of my past downfalls in the notebook that contains my weekly lists--and wonder what I was thinking. On Thursday, what would we be having leftovers of? Thy mystery "Bryan's dinner?" How does one buy ingredients for "chicken?" without knowing what type of chicken is going in the oven, on the grill, or in the wok? This was not a plan. This was lazy.

My new goal is not to simply make a plan, but to make a reasonable plan. One that I can stick to because I have specific dishes, ingredients that will cross over into multiple recipes, and food that can be remade on "leftovers" night rather than simply being reheated. This week's list was much better:

Tangy Rosemary Ranch Skewers with peppers, onions, and potatoes

Black Bean Soup with salad

Smoky Turkey Burritos with corn

Orange Chipotle Chicken with green beans

Four meals that left enough room for a night out or two out and a night or two of leftovers. Two meals that used the same unusual ingredient (chipotle peppers) that does not keep fresh for long. And each meal can sit in the fridge overnight, make an easy-to-pack lunch, or be put in the freezer if we need some flexibility.

Because that's what the old lists lacked. My previous plans were too grand and, frankly, too lame at the same time. Each week I would tell myself that "This week I'm serious. We won't eat out at all, and we won't buy anything new until everything is out of the fridge," secretly knowing that we would probably only make it until Tuesday's Kid's Night at Champps before breaking this promise. It simply isn't realistic for us to never go out and to cook every meal. When it was just Bryan and I, we were more likely to eat in only once or twice a week rather than the reverse. We like going out as a family; Connor enjoys the attention of other diners, and we grown-ups enjoy feeling like our lives haven't changed all that much now that we are parents. During the school year, there are some nights when both of us are too burned out to cook. Rather than feel guilty about this, I have decided to embrace it.

So far, this week has been good. When Connor fell on his head twice in the same day, we pitched the night's plan, took him to Barnes and Noble to play with Thomas the Tank Engine and bought him "noodles and puffs" at Leann Chin. And I felt just fine about it.

Update: Goal #1 is going better than expected. Bryan and I are being very good about working hard for less than an hour each day on our house projects. So far, we have cleaned out Bryan's office entirely (including a lovely boxelder bug cemetery that has apparently cropped up over the last two years), setting up the new wireless printer and putting the old one up for sale, and buying some plants to make the front of our home look a little less like a playground for water-logged toddlers. Goal #1 has expanded itself into a full-blown redecoration and reorganization of our whole house; we have decided to become all 21st century and tweet about it. You can follow us at https://twitter.com/decoratewithus.