Sunday – Lasagna with Caesar Salad. I use this recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. I’m sure there are much more complicated ones out there, but when I’m looking for a classic recipe I always look to Betty. She’s never steered me wrong. She keeps it simple enough that it’s manageable and she offers lots of tips and tricks. She’s very much for normal people like me.
Monday – Leftover Lasagna. Work smarter, not harder, friends.
Tuesday – White Chicken Chili. I’ve never tried this recipe before, but I love that it can be made in a crock pot. I love coming home to a meal already made. Feels like someone else has made dinner for us. I feel like white chicken chili is all about the toppings. Pulling out the corn chips, avocado, cilantro and sour cream to top it off here.
Wednesday – Butternut Squash Ravioli with Brown Butter Sage Sauce. I bought the ravioli from the store because I’m a working mother, not a wizard. My husband is notttt a fan of butternut squash nor ravioli. He’s traveling this week though, so I won’t feel guilty making this for just the boys and I.
Thursday – Leftovers. Most likely the chili from Tuesday!
Cocktail – Hot Buttered Rum. Had it on my November list last year and never did get around to it! So I’m going to get to it this week!
Bake – Cinnamon Rolls. These are the best I’ve ever made. There’s another recipe that I want to try from Sarah Kieffer, but I’m so scared to deviate!! I KNOW these are always good, so why try another? But what if Kieffer’s are better. Ack! The indecision – I’ll let you know on Instagram what I decide!
Treat – Chex Mix. My mom always always had a tin full this time of year, so I’ve always kept with tradition and had it around the house for my family too. Don’t you love tradition?
Happy eating this week, friends! Please share if you make anything amazing this week!
Monday – BLTs with tater tots and salad – I always try to keep Monday nights easy, so I’ll make the bacon in the oven (at 400 on a foil lined pan for about 20 minutes), slice up some heirloom tomatoes, add iceberg lettuce because it has the best crunch, husband will put a fried egg on his, I’ll throw a quick salad together and there will be clementines and tots with ketchup for the kids. If I have a little extra time, I’ll make this very yummy herb mayonnaise, or maybe I’ll just sit back with a drink and a book with that extra time instead.
Tuesday – Sweet Potato Tacos with black beans, quick slaw and pickled onions – I buy frozen chopped sweet potatoes and this is basically the easiest taco Tuesday ever.
Wednesday – Lemon Ricotta Pasta – I’ve wanted to make lemon ricotta pasta since reading One Italian Summer (which wasn’t all that good, but the food descriptions took me there!) and I searched high and low for a recipe that seemed worthy. This one has great reviews. I’ll probably add some pan fried chicken for my husband and some pillsbury rolls with jam for my little guys.
Saturday – Cheeseburgers on the grill with sliced veggies & dip (we usually mix one container of cottage cheese with a packet of ranch seasoning) and oven fries (just slice up potatoes to the size you like best, roll around in olive oil and seasonings – we either use steak seasoning or garlic salt with Parmesan, place in a single layer on a sheet pan and bake at 400 for 20-30 minutes, mixing around half way through.).
You guys, I was looking through my blog this morning as my first *School Year Is Starting, But I’m Not Working Yet* order of business, and I really thought I had more on here than I do. Ha! It’s a bit bare bones isn’t it? I have pages and pages full of post ideas. One of my goals for the school year is to get this little spot up and running with regular posts each week. I do still love Instagram, but I know there are mixed feelings on it. This could be a really cool spot with a little more time dedicated to it, couldn’t it? On to this August to do list though!
If you’ve been following me for a while, then you know that every month, I make a list of things to do in certain (favorite! fun! exciting! whimsical!) categories (Bake, Treats, Cocktails, Meals, and Home). Typically, I do four things under each category and then I pick one from each category every week. So every week I’m crossing something off from each little list. I find that if I list everything out like this at the beginning of the month, I automatically eliminate the need to make any crippling decisions during the month. I do it all at once, and then I’m just left with time to actually do those things on my list! It works, trust me. I’m much more productive since I’ve starting planning my months out like this. You could obviously make the categories anything you’re into. And maybe you could just do a couple under each category if you think it’s unlikely that you’ll do something every single week. This is just what works for me. Make it your own!
So (drumroll please) the August LIST! Just click on the text for a link to the recipes!
Feels a little late to be sharing this, February being a short month and it already being the 9th, but better late than never! But I can imagine this coming in handy next year when I’m looking for monthly to dos. I think I’ll share every month (but hopefully a little earlier next time!).
Now before I dive in, I should explain that I have a little monthly planning hack to help myself get more crossed off of my dreams list. Every month, I go through my calendar, and count how many weeks I have in which to fit a reasonable number of fun things. It’s generally four. So then, I have categories for things that matter to me. Baking, Treats, New Meals, Cocktails, and Home. Sometimes I change the categories, like if I want to focus on organization, for example, or marriage, mental health, physical health, the boys, outings, etc. What I’m saying is that you can choose any category you like. Then, for each of those categories I pick four things (or however many weeks we have) to do. So at the beginning of every new week during that month, I pick one thing from each of my categories and cross them off of my list. Doing my months this way makes me feel like I’m still getting to do what I love and I don’t get overwhelmed with the number of choices out there. Decision fatigue is real! Phew. Maybe I’ll have to post this little monthly planning hack again as a stand-alone post, but (drumroll please), here’s my February to do list – complete with links!
If you follow me on instagram, I’ve talked many times about a document I made several years ago after having my first son, Charlie. To give you a little background – I was just going back to work after maternity leave and felt so sad about it all. I wanted to stay home longer with him, quit my school librarian job, throw caution, our family insurance, and my pension to the wind, but I just couldn’t. But after I had a second son, and then a third, I’ve since come around to being a working mom and I’ve actually found that I am a much more balanced and happier person this way. Now…of course, I am on a teacher schedule which I highly recommend if you have kids and are looking at work options. I have summers off, long holiday breaks, I get off at 3pm every day, and I don’t take any work home (Let it be know that I often did have to bring work home my first few years of teaching and of course I have no homework, papers or tests to grade).
Ok but that’s right now – when I started back at work after that very first maternity leave, I was struggling emotionally and just with figuring out routines and how to make days meaningful when I was so tired all the time from working all day and then caring for a child all night. I would sit in my office while pumping and watch the online video feed of my son crying at daycare and I would cry too. I would get so upset about how unnatural it is to separate a mother from her child at 12 weeks when he was just so tiny and helpless and needed his mama. Phew! I’m getting emotional just thinking back on it.
Well…I soon got pregnant with a second son and decided that something had to change. I had to figure out a way to manage it all – to make childhood magical and special for my kids even if I was so freaking tired I couldn’t even think about how to get to bedtime every night. I wasn’t depressed. I was just struggling with how to do it “all”. And no one was going to figure it out for me. If I didn’t make the memories happen – they just weren’t going to happen. My husband is wonderful, caring and everything one could want in a partner for life but he doesn’t really care about having green milk on St. Patrick’s Day, God love him. I found that things were passing by without me noticing. I forgot St. Nicholas Day, I forgot to send a homemade card from the boys to my mom for her birthday, I realized my husband’s half birthday had been the week before. These things matter to me. All these special, (seemingly) silly little moments passed me by without me doing anything about it. My life was being lived. Not celebrated. And not to mention that we didn’t have clean laundry because I kept forgetting that I had to do a load of laundry every day, and I had to make dinner every night and also somehow keep the house clean and get the boys to daycare and myself to work on time?? After many weeks (or was it months?) of floundering – enter, The Document.
As a librarian, I have a mind that likes to put things into categories. (I live by the Dewey Decimal System after all). So I started to think through what things are important to me. Tradition. Family. Celebrating major and minor holidays. Baking. Acts of Kindness. Food. Having a clean house. Predictability. I am a huge believer in rhythms. If you know nothing about rhythms or the importance of routine for small children, try reading Simplicity Parenting. It’s one of my favorite parenting books and gave me so much inspiration for what I wanted my own parenting to look like. Anyway. I could go on at length about all of these ideas, but I wanted this post to serve as a little introduction to these ideas, and where Making Every Day Special came from. I especially wanted to have a place on here for this spreadsheet that I made to manage our life. It may seem a little structured and boring to you at first, but I feel like it has helped me so much in just wrapping my brain around doing “it all”. I’ll probably use this space to talk through some ideas for celebrating life every day, but now this document has a place to live!
Just click on this link to make a copy of the Making Every Day Special that will go directly to your Google Docs. If you don’t have Google Docs – Here is the Word Document.
I left my text in there to give you ideas for things we do and celebrate, but make it your own! I usually go through throughout the year and add and delete things for the new year. Delete everything that doesn’t speak to you, and add new columns for things that are important to you.
The Metroka Family 