Simply Monday.....on Thursday: What's for Dinner?

What to eat for dinner? Seriously, I hate even thinking about this question. Are you with me? I know you are - I heard all those mental moans out there when you read that first line. I try to plan ahead. And actually I've been doing pretty good this last week or so, but there's still got to be a better way. And I think I may have stumbled upon it. I'm not even sure when or where it happened, but I found this:

Sounds perfect, don't you think. And it is. The best part is that ITS FREE!!!! OK, so you have to sign up for a free newsletter, but I figure I can always go unsubscribe later if want to. So far the one issue I've gotten was pretty good. So go here to sign up and get your free copy. As a quick side note - there are other little booklets of a similar nature that look good from that same website.

Now - I have to tell you why I liked this booklet so much. First of all - it's a downloadable PDF, so it's instant gratification. But I love that it goes through planning your menus step by step. I'm mean, seriously, we all know how do plan menus. I think my biggest problem is that it seems a bit overwhelming. But this booklet breaks it down into doable, logical, steps that makes it seem, well, easy. And I think I've figured out a way to also incorporate my frozen dinners from my Big Cook in too. But we'll get to that part down the road a ways.

For now I just need to make the time to do it. So, I was thinking that maybe some of you would want to join me. It would be fun to do it all together. We can motivate each other and share ideas along the way. So, if you want to join me, here's what we're going to work on this week:

1. First of course, you need to go here and sign up. They will email you the link to download the booklet. Download it! (You will need a PDF reader for this. Go here if you need one.)


2. Read over the booklet - or if you want, just the first 7 pages. That's what we're going to work on this week - just step one.


3. Decide where you're going to keep all this menu info. Personally I have a recipe binder (so do a few other gals in my family - I know - I made them) that I'm going to use. Most of my recipes are already in there, so I think that will work well for me.


4. Print off page 7, or just make your list on any piece of paper.


5. Make your list baby. I'm going to concentrate on just dinners for now. My older 3 kids eat breakfast and lunch at school (nice) so I really only have to plan those meals for the weekends - oh and Spring Break (the next 2 weeks! I have a love/hate relationship with year-round school).

That's it. Oh, but you only have until Monday to do it. Well, you can take longer than that, but that's when I'm planning on moving to the next step. I think that's doable. Make you're list on Sunday after church if you need to. And don't forget to include the whole family - you don't have to do this formally (though it might make a good FHE activity), but do ask everyone what their favorite meals are, etc.... And be prepared to share with the rest of us. I would love to hear what everyone else comes up with, too. Aim for about 28 meals (like the booklet says), but if you don't make it, no worries, that's what the sharing is for. We can remind you of meals you've forgotten, inspire you to try new ones, good stuff like that.

So who's with me? Let me know - leave me a comment so that I don't blabber on about this each week if no one is playing along. Invite you're friends, share the love. In fact - to get you just as excited about planning your menus as I am, I will host my very first give away. (I mean, come on, you deserve something just for reading this far.) I will make cute recipe/menu planning binder for one lucky winner. It will look something like this one:

Though, obviously I would put your name on it - not mine.

Here's what you need to do to enter

• Leave a comment saying that you're going to play along and plan your menu with me.
• If you want a second entry, post about this on your blog (facebook, whatever) with a link to get your readers back here (so they can enter if they want to also). If you choose to do this, make sure to tell me in a comment about that, too (the same one a different one, doesn't matter).

Got it? I'll give you until Saturday, March 28th at midnight (Hawaii time - you should all be sounds asleep by then anyway) to leave all your comments. Then I'll announce the winner (chosen at random) in Simply Monday on the 30th. And if I get enough comments that I think it warrants it, I'll make another binder and chose 2 winners.

So, you feeling lucky? Well, I can't wait to see who's going to play along. And I am seriously excited to do some menu planning. Even if the actual menu planning part is boring - at least this part is fun

PS - yes, I know that it says I posted this on Wednesday - but it's late and it's already Thursday for most of you. Besides I had the new picture already done and I didn't want to change it even though I ended up posting it a little early.