Thanks Again Pinterest!

Egads, it's a darn good thing I went and got cancer so that I'd have all this free time not working so that I could spend my days making all the things I've pinned on Pinterest.

I joke, but seriously Pinterest has been a bit of a Godsend the past couple of weeks. Once we wrapped up Christmas I was left with the usual 'now what?' let down except that I didn't have the pleasure of looking forward to going back to work. I only got to look forward to chemo, illness and boredom.  I think we've covered that already.

Anyway, I made the coasters.

I made the casserole carrier.

And now, I've made the family menu plan.

Here it is!

It's not exactly like the one I pinned but it works for me. I'll explain it now.

Obviously each clothes pin represents a day of the week. (duh)
In the purple basket are 35 or so meals (complete meals; main dish plus sides)
Each Tuesday (I do my grocery shopping on Wednesdays) everyone in the family will pick one meal from the basket (not a blind pick, they can go through it) and Sean and I will pick the remaining for the week. On the back of each card is a list of the ingredients I need for each meal (so, for example, the meal for today was 'Jerk Chicken, mashed potato, mixed veggies and salad'  The back of the card says 'Chicken legs/thighs, potatoes, frozen mixed veggies, lettuce, peppers, celery, fruit for salad (I buy seasonal fruit for my salads) and jerk seasoning'

After the weekly menu has been decided upon I just flip the cards over, make my grocery list, adding in the staples and kids lunches (I eat leftovers for lunch) and Bob's your uncle.

Now here's the fun part. After the week is up, those menu cards go back into the purple basket behind the card that says "Already Used" so that we don't pick them again until after we've run through the other cards. This eliminates the rut of "chicken Thursday"

I've also made cards that say 'restaurant', 'take out', 'leftovers', and 'make your own supper' 

And if I find a new meal to add to the rotation I can just print the card and add it in.

I'm loving this!

So, Pinterest might be a time suck but at least it's serving some purpose!

And now, because I've learned how to do this...