Organized Living: The Meal Plan

Our dinners fell by the wayside this week.  In fact, it was just quite pitiful.  One thing I am in the process of becoming is Organized.  Now, this is not easy for me.  Getting organized is one thing, staying organized is another.  Meal planning for me is a MUST, when I don’t, well things like tonight happen.

I haven’t been to the farm or the grocery since last weekend prior.  The refrigerator looks like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.  I had to work late to do an orientation presentation and therefore there was no time to stop by the grocery and get anything.  This is when the Hamburger Helper happened.

So, I read  D’s Starbucks blog confession and Michelle’s Pop Tart blog confession and well, okay here is mine.  We ate Hamburger Helper for dinner tonight…..and it was horrendous, but okay in the end.

Now, I’m standing in the kitchen over the stove with the box from the nether reaches of the cupboards (remember I organized them on vacation).  I’m trying not to think how really, really badly this breaks the Michael Pollan rule (no more than 5 ingredients).  I’m trying to think how absolutely ridiculous it seems to be stirring organic, grass fed, local beef and fresh local butter into a pan that will become Hamburger Helper.  Now, it’s not seeming too bad, I mean it’s dehydrated potatoes for God’s sake until we get to the “flavor packet”.  I mix the “cheese” with my (organic milk) and I just stop and stare that this cannot possibly be a viable color, I mean not unless the mix was made from marigolds because that color orange should just not happen in food.  I have to say I almost quit then, but I was tired and had a headache and there was a lot of homework to be done.

Long story short.  We ate it.  And we didn’t die.  Period.  Was I happy about it?  No. Did the girls like it?  Yes.  I started the new meal plan for the next three weeks while we ate dinner.

When I plan out our meals I can just walk in the door from work and know what I am going to make.  I can prep some things over the weekend to cut out some weeknight time that could be better suited for homework, or baths, or blog posts.  I am much SANER when I have a meal plan which for me and the girls makes a happier household.

In the end we are none of us perfect.  We are all trying the best we can to do what is right for our bodies, for our health, for our farmers, for our mama earth.

But sometimes $#*& just happens.  Our limbs don’t drop off.  A farmer doesn’t drop dead in the field. The sustainable living police do not knock on your door.  The earth doesn’t stop spinning on it’s axis just because you had one night of Hamburger Helper.