Cooking Marathon

Since August when we found out we'd be moving I have not really been planning my meals on a weekly basis like I like to. It's usually what's in the freezer or what can I throw together real fast. It hasn't been bad just not organized so yesterday I planned my meals for the entire month. There were a lot of sales on meat so it worked out well. I am so excited with all the stuff I am going to make. I have 20 pounds of potatoes to use up so I have a bunch of new potato recipes to try out. Today I went shopping and bought everything I needed for the month except for some of the fresh produce. I cooked everything and prepped all I could so now I have 30 meals almost complete. It's 11:30 and I just finished cleaning up. With this being such a crazy month I knew I needed to do this. Neil and I used to do this at Gma's and stay up all night making a month's worth of meals and it was so nice just to pull something homemade and nutritious out of the freezer and add a vegetable, fruit and bread and call it good. I still need to make about 150 rolls for the month, maybe tomorrow. My family loves rolls and it's nice to do it in a couple of batches. I also love that it is so economical. Neil looked at the menu and asked do we have money for all this? Yes and I only spent half of what I budget myself for food. We're not eating out right now and I just crave it so I've planned to make some of my favorite Olive Garden meals at home including salad, breadsticks and alfredo dipping sauce. I love that stuff. It's not quite as good as the real thing but pretty close. I am just so excited. I love cooking for my family and it makes me happy to serve a meal that was well thought out and balanced. It's one way I show how much I love them. I am just so giddy. I forget how much I love doing this. I remember back in the day, planning pretty gourmet menus for the kids at Park City High. Sometimes I miss all the experimenting I got to do with someone else's money. Now I wouldn't even waste my time with Conner and Sam. Now Mikey just might appreciate it. He eats everything.