Do I Have To?

Do I have to? How often were those words uttered in childhood and still they go through my head today? There were a few things I “have to” this week – dreaded paperwork and menu planning. Paperwork – need I say more? Never my favourite occupation – it’s not that I can’t, it’s more that I just don’t like to… Know what I mean?

In fact I dislike it so much that I even got around to doing the second task, the menu planning. It’s something that we have been thinking about for awhile now. The benefits are many – your shopping list makes more sense (hopefully) and you will (hopefully) have the makings of some interesting meals at the end of the shopping trip. Most likely you will also save money at the grocery shops and be less confused, more focused as you wander from aisle to aisle. Another benefit is that you don’t end up looking in the presses (cupboards) in hungry desperation wondering “what’s for dinner?”

How did I solve this menu planning dilema – by reading lost of blogs of course! Aren’t I a good little procrastinator? I wandered over to Small Notebook for a look, knowing that organising skills abound there and guess what was going on over there? You got it- menu planning troubles! So I am not the only one pondering this wonder of old-fashionedness.

I had a good read and then followed the yellow brick hyper-road over to Simple Mom’s blog for a read and wow – she has this whole thing nailed down! Many of the commentators also had good ideas so now here I was armed with solid plans.

I had recently gone through a few magazines, preparing for the trip to the recycling centre and I had torn out quite a few good recipes that I thought would suit us and put them into a folder. I also have a gmail calendar on the go so I went through the recipes and slotted them into various days on the calendar, adding the ingredients needed to the event description so that I don’t have to go through the recipes to get a shopping list organised.

I really like the fact that I can so easily repeat each recipe at odd intervals – every five weeks or every seven weeks so that our eating pattern does not become too repetitive. As I was entering the information I was also writing put a shopping list so it all seemed so easy all of a sudden.

Isn’t that often the way with things that we have been putting off for ages, dreading to do or simply feeling “do I have to?” When we actually get down to it the task does not seem so bad…

Now for that paperwork…