September - by request

Most people are aware by now of how overly prepared and organized I like to be.  This extends into all aspects of my life - and one of the larger areas of concern is dinner plans in our house.  This all started many years ago, yes I have all the back calendars, no I have not gone all the way back to check them all, so I am not sure how many years exactly we are talking about - but it has been longer than we have lived in this house... and started before we got pregnant with Travis.  Anyway, the premise behind all the planning originally was to stop the back and forth every night about what we should eat for dinner, which normally ended in picking something up because no one could make up their mind about it, or in eating the same 3 things all the time.  Also we wanted to make sure that the food which was purchased actually got eaten instead of thrown away.  It is amazing what we used to buy at the grocery store and then never get around to using.

Anyway - since moving to this house I have hosted several neighborhood happy hours, and while here, the ladies have noticed my planning tendencies, and a few of them have asked that I share my menu plans for assistance in them trying to plan their own family meals.  So, that is what I am doing today.  This is the month of September:

I assume everyone can read it - if not, I suppose I could type it out if asked nicely (and bribed with ice cream)

Now, we do not always strictly stick to what is written out on each day - and you can see that there are many days which have a protein but no veggies listed (mostly because I didn't want to keep repeating exactly the same things we have been eating veggie wise, but I had no ideas at the time, so hopefully I'll come up with something later).  Some days I know that we intend to see family, so I block it in, but I am not necessarily sure which day it will be - hence this weekend when I think we are doing Mom and Dad's on Sunday (not Saturday which I originally put) and not sure if Saturday or Monday will be when we see Blake's parents.  However, either way, we plan to spend part of the weekend at each location, so I tried to plan.

Anyway with doing this, it allows me to easily make my grocery list at the beginning of the week and then try to only hit up the store on Mondays to get us through the week and either Thursdays or Fridays to round out the weekend.  Having a set plan makes it easier to only buy what is needed food-wise that week, which cuts down greatly on food wasted because it looked good at the time but then got forgotten about in the back of the refrigerator.  It may not be for everyone, but it sure helps us with variety and knowing what is coming up.

So, if I am staying on top of things, I will try to remember to post October's meals at the end of September or beginning of October.