Sunday Evening Meal Planning
I have stuck to my work plan of no nights and weekends, so far, which has been a bit difficult as my colleague is about to go on her own maternity leave, and she is transitioning quite a bit of her caseload onto me. Even so, I find if I keep my door mostly shut most of the day, eat lunch at my desk, and really stay focused on priority tasks, I can get everything done in between the hours of 7:30 and 5:30, give or take twenty minutes on either end. Although I have billable work I can do at home on evenings and weekends, I am trying to be really disciplined about NOT doing it. I think if I succumb to the law firm culture of work work work all the time, I will end up going out on maternity leave early with high blood pressure and lots of health troubles anyway, which will not help my billables in the end. I’ll keep it slow and steady.
Even that makes for a busy week, though. Weekends are for laundry, dishes, cooking, and trying to get Jack situated for the week at school – Lord have mercy, that child has unfathomable amounts of home projects for us. Just in the past seven days we have volunteered at the school fall festival (it was last weekend – inflatables, face painting, and lots of booths, including one that sold crates upon crates of Silly String – we had fun); put together a week’s worth of treats for staff appreciation week; prepared an All About Me project complete with actual printed pictures that we had to have printed at Wal Mart and then drive and pick up, woe this digital age; helped him write twenty things he’s thankful for; practiced his computer class work and his reading assignment; done two days of math homework . . . I’m glad to have opportunities to participate and be involved in his education, but phoo!! We always have to save at least a few weekend afternoon hours to sorting all of that out, usually while Liam is napping.
In addition to all of these assignments, I also managed to go to church, help the boys plant some apple seeds (so they could share apples with hungry people, *sniff*), skillfully avoided making a robot out of boxes (Jack has a lot of faith in my ability to transform your average cardboard box into something amazing), and cooked like a madwoman despite Liam’s being constantly and devotedly underfoot. I made a chicken and fall vegetable pot pie, pot roast, and lentil and sausage soup for us to eat through the week. I’ve also got frozen chicken patties and boil-in-a-bag rice for one quick weekday meal, winter minestrone which I pulled out of the freezer for another, and for lunches, leftover lasagna and enchiladas from last week’s dinners. Fridge is stocked. I’ve done about forty-seven loads of laundry, which means we only have about sixty-three loads left to complete before we go to bed tonight. I also made a blueberry pie, Martha Stewart style. Or rather, it was the anti-Martha Stewart pie – store bought crust, store bought pie filling. Hey man – I brushed the crust with egg whites. I contributed. It was a step above frozen Sara Lee, and it was freaking delicious, and I’m gonna eat some more of it tomorrow. I’ll be sad when I have this baby and have to start counting calories again.
I’m 28 weeks now. Still gained less than 10 pounds – but Baby’s growing, so nobody’s worried. My biggest craving is milk and meat. The voodoo of pregnancy hormones has somehow turned off my lactose intolerance, and I am enjoying daily tall glasses of chocolate milk, oh so delicious. And meat. Before Tex made his appearance, I’d been working meat out of our nightly meal rotation for a while – not wholly, but mostly – but it just feels like what I need to be eating right now, beef especially. So I go with it. All the bloodwork I have done at the OB is coming back perfect, so I guess going with the cravings is serving me well.
Christmas is coming, and I’ve not bought a thing. Well, that’s a lie – I’ve bought a couple of things for my nieces, but that’s it. Next weekend is Christmas shopping weekend. I’ll do some online, some at the local mall, but I’ve got to get going. We have 9 siblings, 4 parents, 2 children, 2 nieces, each other, and roughly a dozen caregiver/coworker/service type people to buy for. This is not a Christmas list that one can quickly knock out on Christmas Eve Eve, as my husband would traditionally prefer to do. It takes some time to find something meaningful for each of these folks, and most years I get started in July (also to spread out the dollars). I have got to get on it.
So that’s my state of mind, Sunday Eve. Ugh, Monday comes quickly, but I suppose I’m ready for it. The hatches have been battened. Off we go, onto the treadmill of another hectic week.