if you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, there’s 2 things you know i perpetually suck at : laundry and all things food {grocery shopping/cooking/cleaning up after…hrrm, excepting eating…i’m REALLY good at the eating part…}

i’d been getting increasingly worse {if possible} at planning meals, like to the tune of “what should we have for dinner?” every night at about 4:45pm without an effing clue what we were going to eat. needless to say, we were eating a lot of eggs and burritos. a LOT of eggs and burritos.

so, guess what i did? i meal planned. yep. me. the one who wants nothing to do with things in the kitchen. and it has made my life SO. MUCH. SIMPLER. want to know how i did it? even if you don’t, just humor me here people, i’m still in shock that i actually DID this!

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i decided i would force myself cook 3 meals a week {to which lover said, “three? that’s it?”…work with me here lover boy, be grateful it’s 3 and not the 2 i seriously entertained.} i figure that leaves us with a couple nights of leftovers and a couple nights for scrounging {read : eggs or burritos}. i also knew that if it wasn’t fun, i wouldn’t be interested {gotta hold my attention somehow…squirrel!} i couldn’t be happier with what i ended up with…see? see?  😉

the lists : 1 per week for 4 weeks {variety is the spice of life y’all}

the front is my grocery list for the week. separated by food groups because i’m OCD like that. oh, and it makes shopping simpler, win-win.

and on the back are the recipes for that week’s meals.

i yank this page out for the week, and boom-baby! i’m D.O.N.E. DONE! no headache trying to figure out what we’re going to eat each night. no pain-in-the-butt list making minutes before we head out the door to shop for the week. nothing but sweet, simple, empty thoughts in my head, bahahahaha! 🙂

and one of my favorite parts? because i’ve slid them into plastic sleeves, i can use a dry-erase marker to cross off items i already have in stock {like i’m my own store or something}, write in other random things i need to buy and wipe it clean when i’m done! hip-hip!

{the blue tint in this^ picture is about to make me barf, but i’m too lazy to fix it tonight. sorry. please don’t puke on your keyboard. that would not be good.}

i’ve actually been test-running this for a couple weeks, and i’m really happy with it!

i’ve already had to tweek the menu items for some weeks {trying to find recipes we ALL like to eliminate dinnertime whining}, but with the PSD files, it’s a breeze! some weeks i make all three meals, other weeks it’s two and the third meal rolls over into the next. i’m no meal plan tyrant…i still like to roll with the punches for the most part!

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and here’s one of sweet pea because that’s a kind of a food and this is a food post right? {nods head in agreement} plus, she’s cute  🙂

bon appetit!