Change really DOES happen

It is me -- the one who used to flop on the couch after work & think..."oh, what we will have for dinner?" and fall asleep. My new (at the time) husband would come home from work and find me there. Every day. "Do you take a nap every day?" We would deliberate about what to eat for dinner. There's nothing in the cupboard to make & it would take too long. After a l o o o n g time, we would often drive off to get something to eat.

Now, look, I make menu plans and actually assign what we'll eat to SPECIFIC days, such as Tacos on Tuesday. Yes, me? Can you believe it? Yes, I Miss-creative-non-domesticated-this is TOO-HARD-for-me-I-would-rather-nap-on-the-couch-Woman -- have been writing down a weekly meal plan for over a year now.... and I LOVE it ?!? And the weeks I don't have a plan. I miss my plan. It is CRAZY actually.

But it gives me hope. Hope that I can keep on changing in other areas, too.

Over the course of years (I have been married 17 years now, you know), I moved from no plan at all. To going grocery shopping every other week. To following the detailed once-a-month cookbook plan. To having on-hand ingredients to make specific meals (and still retaining that freedom, oh that delicious freedom, of deciding each day WHAT I would feel like eating because, come on now, I mean, how could I possibly know in advance that I would want Tacos on Tuesday and not Porkchop Romance? Ridiculous! I needed food freedom.) To... finally.... making a Weekly Meal Plan.

How did this free-flowing mama get from not wanting to assign food to a particular day to feeling giddy about the return of my Weekly Meal Plan?

What happened? (I mean, besides the embracing of life's duties as not-so-bad, gaining skills, and growing up into the responsible human being my parents trained me to be? Well...in addition to all that...) I read this:

"In many ways, a schedule can relieve stress from your life. When tasks become routine, they require much less physical and emotional energy. A normal day is easier to get through without having to make numerous draining decisions"...from The Managers of Their Homes by Steven and Teri Maxwell

And so it began: The beginning of The Weekly Menu Plan in an effort for less draining decisions in my day. (Click on the Grocery Cart Challenge for more inspiration. I use her menu plan template.) At first, I had to MAKE myself follow my own decisions. (Silly but true.) That first week, we ate dinner late a lot of nights (which isn't terribly unusual for us but it was still later than normal). But I stuck with it for several months. No grocery shopping until I had made The Plan.

And you know what I found? That the Food Freedom that I tenaciously clung to was NOT worth the Free Brain Space. It's rather remarkable how much time was taken up thinking: "What's for dinner? What will the children not complain about? What is in the cupboard? What would I like to have? What would hubby like? Do I have all the ingredients? Do I have enough time to make that?"

Now I have more space in my brain to make decisions about other equally important all-consuming things. . . like. . . what are we going to do today?

Those pesky little --- I mean BIG -- feelings just need to be ignored sometimes and duty embraced. And I will gain skill. And I will change...one little baby step at a time...over the course of many years. Change really DOES happen sometimes so there is hope for those other bad habits!

Oh, and for the curious, here is my After A Long Hiatus ((because I was in Minnesota for 3 weeks in May and hauling a piano to our house (which is now updated with a photo), among other things lately) Weekly Menu Plan:

Monday: Broccoli pasta (originally found through the Grocery Cart Challenge website)

Tuesday: Sausage & wild rice casserole (my own original recipe inspired from MN-made ingredients)

Wednesday: Grilled cheese sandwiches & Parmesan garlic broccoli, carrots & cauliflower bake

Thursday: Cold tuna pasta & bread (church has been giving away lots of yummy bread)

Friday: Pancakes & eggs (I'm off to dinner with some friends that night & this is a great meal for hubby & kids to make.)

Really, that wasn't so hard, was it? Sigh. So perhaps the other things won't be so hard, either!

Are there long-term changes you have seen in your life?

Kathleen