My Meal Plan Monday

Monday Meal Plan blog posts are quite popular, so I thought I would jump on the bandwagon and give it a go. I figured it would at the very least get me back to my poor neglected blog a bit more often.

I nearly aways meal plan, I can't remember a time when I haven't had a vague meal plan in mind when I went shopping.

So, here is this weeks:

Monday Jacket potatoes with beans and cheese
Tuesday Chicken and Ham pie
Wednesday Ikea Meatballs, oven chips and peas
Thursday Tuna Pasta Bake
Friday Homemade Burgers with salad and relish
Saturday Homemade pizza (well, dough made in the breadmaker, sort of homemade)
Sunday Roast of some sort

So, there you have it, my first Meal Plan Monday. Not very inspiring, and very little that could be called 'cooking' but I am trying to empty the freezer before doing a big shop at the weekend (that is my excuse and I am sticking it!)

Monday

Another Monday morning has rolled around alarmingly fast. We have had a busy weekend full of birthday parties and tired, grumpy children. Also, the usual laundry mountain, Mount Washmore, has almost doubled in size.

I have been pretty slack on the blog front recently, but I have some really good excuses reasons; firstly, my wonderful husband bought me the Hunger Games Trilogy, so that was a whole weekend lost. Then I have been trying desperately to get my mare ready for hunting, throw a half term into the mix and some patchy internet (thanks Virgin) and the blog has been thoroughly neglected.  But I do have some posts coming up, and a plan (I always have plans) on how to keep blogging more regularly. In fact, this should be the first of two posts today!

Creative Childcare Solutions

It is a struggle to find the time to do stuff when you have kids. Some Parents are fortunate enough to have doting Grandparents on their doorstep, more than willing to help out with childcare, but for most of us, it is a case of making do without.

My days get full pretty quickly with feeding, dressing, feeding again, entertaining, feeding some more, and putting children to bed. Add to this the school runs, the cooking, laundry and actually spending some time with my children, and I am not left with much time for myself. I do the horses once a day (thanks to the wonderful set up we have at our yard) which is my own time and I need so desperately. This has always worked so well as I would schedule my visit to the yard to coincide with my children's nap time. They would sleep in the car on the yard, while I had some time away from being just a mummy. It was always a struggle to get everything done during nap time, but if I had managed to lunge one horse for 10mins, as well as the mucking out, it was a good day.

During the Summer months when we have long, light evenings, I could get the yard jobs done during the day, then go back to ride in the evening while my husband would eat dinner with the kids and get them to bed. It is not an option at this time of year though. Added to the fact that my 2yr old son no longer naps every day, and for less than an hour if he does, I am woefully short on horse hours. Time to get creative with my childcare......

 

I could put my son to work. 

 

I could strap him to a pony while I ride alongside.

 

Although, I could really do with one of these http://www.basketsaddles.com/

 

That could be frowned upon though, seeing as I don't actually have a pony, so he would be strapped to an ex-racehorse instead..... So, the next best option was to see if anyone fancied a bit of a child swap. There seem to be quite a few of my friends up for this (Yay!) This means that tomorrow I have the best part of 3hours to myself to play ponies, I can't wait! 



Coping Strategies

I have two methods of coping with stressful situations - First of all I feel the need to hide away from it all, stay holed up in my bed under the duvet, sleeping lots and avoiding everything and everyone. Denial I guess. My other coping strategy is to cook. Somehow I feel that if the freezer is well stocked with wholesome, homemade meals, all will be well.

I am currently planning on stocking up the freezer....

Today has been our worst day for a very long time, possibly ever.
My husband's car had to be towed to the garage by the RAC before 9.30am, my car was in the garage already having an extensive (read 'expensive') service, our computer/entertainment system had stopped working and may never recover. Not a great morning, but what can you do?

My husband gets the news from the garage that his car is dead. This is stressful and my husband is now desperate for a new car. His job requires a car, it is impossible without, and anyone who has had their car go wrong unexpectedly understands that awful feeling.

We decide we will have a good chat about it all once the children are in bed, and head up to the yard to put the horses to bed. When we get there we find my mare is colicky - just what we need.

It has been one of those days where you are just waiting for the next thing to go wrong. Last week was pretty shite, but this week had been a good one so far. Bollocks.

I am going to finish my giant bar of Dairy Milk and then start a shopping list (a frugal one)

Nits!

Not having the best week. Sunday was promising, a nice amble round the countryside on my mare, followed by drinks in a (pretty rough, admittedly) pub with my friends in the evening. Monday was pretty shite though.

We get my daughter to school just in time, only for me to look down and notice something crawling in her hair - she has nits. Fab. She has just started school, so this is the first time we have had to deal with them. I promptly turned her round back out of the school gates and headed straight for Boots, where I had an enlightening discussion with the pharmacist about killing the little feckers. He recommended the Nitty Gritty comb as the very best thing available. I was leaning towards the electronic comb to electrocute the dirty, blood sucking bastards. The pharmacist assured me that as I was planning on running the hair straighteners over my daughter's hair, it would be overkill (quite literally) So, Nitty Gritty it was!

After the de-nitting was done, and my daughter had beautifully smooth, nit free (and very straight) hair, we had to dash off to the chiropractor for my appointment, armed with a (Cath Kidston) handbag full of cars and Octonauts toys to keep my two children vaguely quiet while I was straightened out.

Forty five minutes later, we were on our way home, me straighter and slightly poorer, the kids a bit bored and getting hungry.

We had a very quiet couple of hours before doing the horses, but by the evening the boy was grumpy because he is teething and the girl was manic as she hadn't had enough exercise, I was feeling quite fragile and in desperate need of a glass of wine, but that would have to wait because we had the rest of us to check for nits.

Not one nit between the rest of us (surely pure luck!) which would suggest they came from school, and because I broadcast it to everyone who comes into contact with my daughter (we do NOT want them back) it will be assumed that my daughter is the one who gave everyone nits. Not a great start to school life!

Outing Tomorrow!

Yay! We are taking the horses out tomorrow, to a non competitive endurance ride. It is exciting to be going out.

Today most of the day was spent at the yard making the horses look like they belong to someone, scraping an inch of grot off of the tack and finding all the bits and bobs we need for tomorrow.

I was cursing the horses for growing so much mane, until I realised the last time I pulled them was in June - Oops!

Now everthing is ready, I am just hoping that the rains holds off until we finish unlikely 

Goodbye Summer

It looks as though Summer is well and truly over. And, in perfect British weather tradition, it hasn't faded out gradually, but come screaming to a halt! To be fair, our Winters are not so harsh that we need much in the way of preparation, but a little warning would be nice.

I have a list of things I really need to do before the weather turns - get the horses rugs mended, get the thermostat reset on the central heating, get the chimney swept (I'm sure there has been a bird nesting in there) buy my son a new duvet, and dig out the winter clothes. I'm sure there are more....

Today I became aware of the weather change for a few reasons, firstly my feet felt very cold in ballet pumps, secondly I was anxious to find my fleece headband/ear warmer, and finally I had to wear gloves to do the horses.

Time to swap the polo shirts for polo necks, to start putting on a sweater as a matter of course and to fight my natural urge to hibernate.

But, there are some things to look forward to. I love Christmas (well, the build up anyway!) and it being dark and cold outside, while inside you are toasty and warm. I love the excuse to wrap up instead of bearing my (rather wobbly) flesh, and of sitting down to stews, and mash potato.

Also, I am hoping to take the mare hunting this year and this is very exciting, we haven't been since before the children which was nearly 6yrs ago. We are bound to have forgotten how to behave!

My husband and I are doing an endurance ride at the weekend, but I am starting to worry how I will keep the horses going over the winter - I have already noticed a difference to the time I have in the evenings due to the fading light. Now that my son is down to less than an hours nap a day I am finding time increasingly tight.

May be time to start looking at our daily routine to see what we can change/juggle to make life a bit easier, also need to look at ways to make the Winter easier - there must be something?