Mulling It Over

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Thankfully, I have today off. Having the day off is nice. The parts I love the most about having the day off are sleeping in and knowing that when I start work tomorrow it will be a four-day week. I have to get up so early for my job. I have to leave by six, which means I should get up at 5. Usually however, I get up between 5:15 and 5:30. I have learned to condense drastically the things I "need" to do in the morning. I've been trying to eat a good breakfast in the mornings. After one week, I have done well. I hope I can keep it up. The one morning I didn't eat breakfast I was famished and ready to keel over by 9.

I have some things to get done today: finish a baby gift, tidy up a bit, look over lesson plans and grocery shopping.

When it comes to grocery shopping, I don't know how other people do it, but I try to do one big shopping trip every two weeks and then grab other things (eggs, milk, veggies) as needed. I always start by making a meal list for the next two weeks. I list 10 – 12 different meals with sides. When I don't make a meal list we never had the ingredients we need to make dinners and lunches. After the meal list, I make a list of grocery items. I have a master list saved in my Microsoft One Note and I add and delete from that as needed.

Here is the meal plan for the next few weeks:

1. Baked chicken nuggets, salad, corn on the cob
   
2. Pasta & Veggies Dish
   
3. Omelets
   
4. Roast Chicken & Potatoes
   
5. Chicken Pot Pies
   
6. Chicken Tortilla Soup
   
7. Veggie Quesadillas
   
8. Blueberry Waffles
   
9. Beef & Veggie Stir Fry
   
10. Fish, Rice & Veggies
    
11. Homemade hummus and Turkey sandwiches
    
12. WYCF (Whatever You Can Find)
    

 
Some people may think this is over planning, but I think it is absolutely necessary. On top of making eating at home easier, it definitely saves money. For example, I will use the leftovers from the roast chicken for either Chicken Tortilla soup or Chicken Pot Pies. We try to eat at home as much as possible to save money and calories. Not that we don't love going out to eat, because we do. Also, it's not that you can't eat healthy in a restaurant, you can. Nevertheless, it is just so much easier to save money and eat healthfully at home.


 
So, I am overly type A or do you think this a good way to do things?

This weekend we went camping. It was such a good time. Even though we were gone to Europe for almost three weeks less than a month ago, I was ready to get out of town. I love the town where we live, but I am almost always up for a trip. Friday after work, I came home and did a few running around things and waited for Jeremy to get back, then we hit the road. It's about a two hour drive to the White Mountains. There was so much traffic and construction that it took us closer to three hours ,which means we had to set up camp in close to darkness. We got everything set up and started a fire. For the first time we camped in the White Mountain National Forest (ie no bathrooms) but it was so great not to see other people. Jeremy did his sit quietly and stare at the fire thing, while I read my book Catching Fire. Saturday we got up and made a great breakfast on an open fire. I love the way food tastes when it's cooked over a fire. We had bacon, sausage, toast and oatmeal. After that, we did a short hike up Mt. Pemigewasset.
The hike was a total of three miles, which is short for us, but it was just right. The weather was perfect sunny and mid 70's. At the top of the mountain we had lunch pb&j and Cheeze its. Then we hiked down and went to see The Basin. The Basin is a waterfall that has created a huge granite pot hole. All the rock around was so smooth; it made it difficult to remember we looking at very, hard stone. We came back and just chilled. It was nice. We made dinner, and I read. Saturday night was really, really cold. I would say low 40's. My nose was cold all night. We really need to purchase better sleeping bags.

The most exciting part was on the way home. As we were driving out, I saw what I thought was a stuffed bear leaning against a Jeep. My first thought was what a funny joke someone has leaned a giant stuffed bear on their car.  Seconds later, I come to my senses and realize where I am and that it is certainly a REAL black bear. Before I got a picture, it lumbered off into the woods.

*Edit - We did this trip as green as possible. Of course there is always room for improvement. We used no paper towels and brought home all of our recycling.  

After a first week of school this was a great way to end the week. My classes seem to be going ok, but I think my freshmen are going to be tough. I'm going to be doing some work with the night school this year, which will be interesting. Also, I'm going to be co-teaching with a science teacher two days a week. She is a wonderful experienced teacher, but she has her hands full. Her A period class has 20 students - 17 receive some sort of special education services- which translates to needing lots of one-on-one  help and lots of behavior problems. I haven't been in a science classroom in a long time, but hopefully I will be able to help her.