I’ll be to the point.  Food.  Or, if you prefer, meals.  How about groceries?  Stocked pantry?  Do you cook?  Will you cook?  Is there anything to eat?  Anything? 

Putting meals on the table has been a personal struggle for me over the last couple of years.  I won’t tell you how many days my husband has come home from work and has had to help get supper ready.  I won’t tell you how many times over the last year there was more canned cat food in the house than actual human food.  Well, I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.  I’ve lost count.

In years past, I’ve allowed myself to get carried away at the homeschool conference.  The bookfair is huge!  This is looking out over one side of one half of the book fair.  In the past, I’ve bought too much with too little thought.  It’s easy to do. 

This year, however, I went in with a very clear thought in mind:  I only want a couple of gems.  I don’t even need anything tangible.  I don’t have to spend anything.  I want a couple of things that are really for me.  Give me pointers!  Give me one or two things to work on to really make our homeschool better. 

I got ‘em!  I really did! 

In choosing which speakers to hear, I was torn.  They all looked to be good.   But I could only pick one for each session. 

On Friday at 2 p.m., Vicki Bentley was giving a talk called Organized (Well, Almost!) — Time Management for Busy Moms.  There were 7 other talks I could have chosen.  I thought about this:  I already work AND homeschool.   I have four children and a husband.  I garden and paint and craft.  What can she say that I have not already covered on my own?  (Pompous of me, I know, but I’ve just been doing this for so long!).  I decided to go have a listen anyway. 

I got seated, took out my planner to jot down some notes and reached for my pen.  I didn’t have one with me.  No pen.  Really?  And I’m a homeschooling mom at a homeschool conference?  Yeah, I needed to be in that talk.

She suggested many things that I needed to hear.  Simple ways to maintain a to-do list, tips for not forgetting things.  She was funny.  She was a good speaker.  But she hit on food and I just hung on every word. 

The subject of food was not the bulk of her talk, but it is my current weak area, so I tried to commit to memory (no pen) what she said.   She mentioned doing ahead whatever you can.  She talked about buying in bulk (meat for example) and going ahead and making more of what you need — one for now, some for the freezer.  She talked about rotating menus.  It was very funny (and I’m paraphrasing here) when she said that your family won’t mind having the same thing today that they had one day last week.  They won’t even remember it.  Especially if the alternative is not eating at all, then they won’t mind a bit!

She said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  How can something get done if there was never a single thought as to what would be put on the table each night.  It is vital here that I give it some thought ahead of time, especially since I work.

I left her talk committed to doing better in the meal department.  And guess what I found when I went back down to the bookfair?

Beautiful placemats.  Gorgeous placemats!   I was amazed, especially since I had looked at a similar, lesser version in a department store recently wondering if it would kickstart our family mealtime again and then not bought them.   This time, I bought six of them.  They are wonderful, heavily laminated placemats to set our table with each night — Michaela’s job. 

I want to get back to making mealtime a consistently looked-forward-to time where we talk and enjoy eating.  No more hiding under my desk when Thomas gets home because there’s nothing to eat!  Except catfood.

The table of the elements placemat.  I’m particularly fond of this.  I just think the elements are cool.  It’s been a long, long time, but I enjoyed chemistry in college.

Thomas and I both love early American history.  This will be nice suppertime conversation as well.  Makes me want to go back to Yorktown.

The plan?  Here goes.

Prerequisites:  Shop sales.  Buy in bulk.  When making something, make extra.  Keep the pantry and freezer full. 

• plan a week’s worth of dinner menus
• write each one on an index card
• look at the card each morning and do whatever needs to be done to have it ready.  (We will be doing a LOT of crockpot meals.)
• keep the cards in my little makeshift menu box

My goal is to have four week’s worth of meals on notecards so that a meal is not repeated until the next month.  It will hopefully add some ease to my week to take 7 notecards out shopping and then use them during the week.  It will hopefully add ease to my month to cook extra and put things in the freezer.  It will hopefully add ease to my day to know exactly what I’m cooking for supper that day. 

Michaela helps make meatloaf for the freezer.

Right now Food Lion has ground chuck on sale for 1.97 a pound.  We eat a lot of venison, but I could not pass this deal up.  I bought several value packages and made a meatloaf for Sunday lunch.  I made two more for the freezer. Food Lion also had large bags of frozen broccoli cuts, so I got several of those.

My first menu card:

meatloaf (page 35) — see below
broccoli cuts (frozen)
mashed potatoes
gravy (from mix I get at Sam’s club–Thomas likes it)

I modified the recipe a tiny bit (minus one ingredient) but here it is:

Crockpot Meatloaf

2 lbs ground beef (I used ground chuck)
2 eggs
2/3 cup quick oats
1 pkg dry onion soup mix
1 tsp ground mustard
1/2 cup ketchup, divided

1.  Combine gound beef, eggs, dry oats, dry soup mix, ground mustard and all but 2 Tbsp ketchup.  Shape into loaf and place in slow cooker.
2.  Top with remaining ketchup.
3.  Cover.  Cook on low 8-10 hours or on high 4-6 hours.

This meatloaf was a huge hit! And so easy!  It’s from one of my favorite cookbooks!

Fix-It and Forget-It Recipes for Entertaining

One of the final points of Vicki’s talk was this:  “I admonish you ladies to get off the computers.” 

There was a very acknowledging sort of laughter throughout the room.  It’s true.  The computer can be a huge time waster.  You can sit down with the intention of being on for 15 minutes and the next thing you know, 2 hours down the drain.  And we wonder why we’re behind in our housework.

I’ll let you know how it goes!  There’s chicken thawing for tomorrow and two clean crockpots ready to be plugged in!