Blimey - it's Meal Planning Monday Already!

Well, after joining in the Meal Plan Linky for the first time last week, here's week two's effort - which is a wee bit hurried as the weekend just disappeared!

Monday: Baked Sweet Potatoes with Tuna, Sweetcorn and Salad - exactly as it sounds. Easy, tasty and sneers 2 of their 5 a day into them painlessly!

Tuesday: Roast Beetroot Risotto - I have a glut of Beetroot in the garden (yay I LOVE Beetroot!) so I'm going to pull some up, wash it, cut into wedges, roast it for 40 mins then add to some risotto which I make with garlic, onion, veg stock, glass of white wine, a dollop of creme fraiche and lashings of Parmesan!

Wednesday: Mixed Seafood Pasta - have a bag of mixed seafood thatci'm just going to cook with some olive oil, garlic and saffron before adding to pasta with basil. Will be interesting to see if the kids eat it :-)

Thursday: Spanish Tortilla with Chorizo and Salad (homemade and delicious!)

Friday: Homemade Dairy Free Pizza - it's just me and Toots for tea on Friday so we're having pizza topped with roasted artichokes (she loves them), roasted peppers, olives and basil.

And we're only planning up to then as we're off camping at the weekend (fingers crossed for good weather!)

Meal Planning Monday

 

Well, this is my first ever entry to meal planning Monday courtesy of the Meal Planning Linky on At Home with Mrs M! although far from being my first ever meal plan.  In fact, as Thrifty Mummy, meal planning is the one thing that I consistently do to actually try to keep the costs down.

As I live in Scotland, our wee angels go back to school this Wednesday - so no more leisurely dinners cooked with a glass of wine in hand and served well past 5pm.  Oh no, back to the REGIME which is probably reflected a wee bit in my meal plan for this week.  The theme being 'easy meals'.

Monday - Full English Salad (courtesy of BBC Good Food this month and reflective of the fact that I still have sausages and some salad left from our final BBQ *sniff* of the school holidays)

Tuesday - Baked potatoes with tuna, sweetcorn, mayo and salad

Wednesday - Spaghetti Bolognese (bulked out with courgettes and fresh tomatoes as the kids will have failed to consume any of their 5-a-day that I pack into their snacks and lunchboxes for school!)

Thursday - Sweet Potato, Egg and Chorizo Salad with crusty bread (a family favourite that I really should feature on this blog in my favourite recipe pages).  Essentially, it's griddled sweet potato slices and chorizo, served with boiled egg and salad and drizzled with a dressing made up of chorizo oil (from cooking) mixed with lemon juice and garlic.  Simple but delicious!

Friday - Thai Style Turkey Patties Served with sweet chilli sauce and salad

Saturday - Veggie Pasta (with sauce out of a jar!)

Sunday - Roast Chicken with new potatoes and roasted summer veg. 

My Pet Peeve...

This week's Brit Mums Blogging Prompt got me thinking - for all of 5 seconds!  Because my pet peeve is such an obvious one...

Homework!

Not so much for Toots - she's just started P1 so it's all reading books (Biff and Chip anyone?) and key words and lovely learning to read stuff.  No, it's Cheeky Boy's homework that really gets me- and he's only in P4 (all of 8 years old!).

Ever since P2, we've been bombarded with homework.  And this year is the worst yet!  Spelling or writing on a Monday (he'd rather stick pins in himself than write a story - especially after a day at school) .  Reading on a Wednesday and Friday.  Maths on a Thursday.  And the occasional piece of project work thrown in for good measure too.  Correct me if I'm wrong but if they need to do this amount of work at home, what on earth are they doing at school?!

Now that they're in P4, they're also expected to write tdown what their homework tasks are and when it's due in their school diaries (CB's makes it home about twice a week if I'm lucky even though it should come home daily!) and the teacher doesn't check that they've done it.  Because they're supposed to be responsible enough to do it themselves.  Right.  Last week, I made the mistake of asking the teacher why they hadn't had homework (as it was so unusual I was starting to suspect something was up).  And I was right.  He'd missed not 1 but 4 pieces of homework - all due the following day!!!

And, perhaps it's just my son (but I don't think so) but he's neither mature enough or focused enough to take himself merrily off to do his homework as soon as he gets in from school - unless it's maths (but sadly, it very rarely is).  More often than not it's spelling - which requires input from me; project work - which requires digging around the recycling for craft materials, researching the internet or generally helping to hunt down either raw materials or information.  And frequently, we fall out over it.  I haven't seen him all day - it would be nice to spend some fun time with him.

There seems to be no recognition that a) they should be doing the work in school b) most parents work so don't have the luxury of long afternoons to get homework done and c) kids have other things going on besides school - like playing, going to the park, going for walks, sports, visiting their relatives - that kind of thing.  All part of life's rich experience and all that - or is that just me?!

I'm 40. I've got O'Grades, Highers, a Degree and a Postgrad (this isn't me boasting just illustrating a point). Point being?

I'VE DONE MY FLIPPIN' HOMEWORK!!!!

Thrifty Ways to Get My Groove Back

Thrifty Ways to Get Your Groove Back!

Since having kids - as I'm sure many will agree - resulted in life becoming one long roller coaster where my needs pretty much come last in the house - even behind the cats! 

So, after a lifetime spent on the couch (well, not quite but I've never been accused of being a gym bunny, that's for sure) I took up running a couple of years ago.  2nd April 2009 to be precise.

I've always said running wasn't for me, I don't have the build, I'm too busty, I'm more of a dancer blah, blah, blah.  However, when a good friend's mum - who used to smoke a few a day, was still partial to a wee whisky and, more importantly than either of those facts, was 65 at the time - decided she was running the Edinburgh Marathon in 2009, I realised that my excuses for not getting out there and putting one foot in front of the other were paper thin. 

So, I originally took up running - run a minute, walk a minute, repeat for 3 minutes, then 5 etc. - as a bit of a challenge to myself and to prove that I could actually run for a bus (after years of knowing quite the reverse was true!).  Even though I'm not a fan of the gym, I do walk everywhere and always have done and I wasn't particularly overweight - so I was completely shocked at a) how hard I found it to run for a minute and b) how much pain I was in the next day after a paltry 10 minute session. 

However, even though it was awful and I felt sure that I probably couldn't run as I'd always suspected, after only 1 week of frankly pathetic efforts, I signed up for the Cancer Research UK's Race for Life 5K around Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh (i.e. up a bloody great hill!) and emailed all my friends to ask them to sponsor me.  Talk about no way out!

The first 4 weeks of training were fairly awful.  I was still counting my running in minutes rather than miles and, as the date for the 5K drew nearer, I began to panic that I wouldn't make it past the 'running for 10 minutes without stopping' stage.  However, by week 6 I'd turned a corner and was happily putting on my running gear 3 or 4 times a week.  So, I was delighted to finish the Race for Life in a quite reasonable (although not anything to write home about) 34 minutes. 

Panicked that I would suddenly develop lazy-itis, I immediately signed up for the 10K Race for Life, trained for it and completed it in just over an hour (1 hour 6 minutes).  Again, I don't think Paula Radcliffe needs to be losing any sleep but given that it hadn't been that long since I'd struggled to run a minute, walk a minute, I was chuffed.

(That's me 2nd from the left coming over the finish line - phew!)

Although there have been the odd glitches here and there and weeks that have gone by without me so much as looking at a running shoe, I've always got myself back into my 'groove' and have more or less steadily kept running since April 2009.  There have been days when 2 miles seemed like 20 and days when I've done 6 miles feeling no pain at all.  I've even managed to run a half marathon (which admittedly was an accident because I got lost!) but that's not the point.  I ran, 13.5 miles.  Me.

Nothing quite beats lacing up my running shoes, plugging in my iPod and setting out around the beautiful countryside where we live.  And the added bonus - apart from feeling better than I've ever felt and having more energy to keep up with the kids - is that somehow, without reducing my food intake (or wine) at all, I've lost 10lbs!

Oh, and apart from investing in good running shoes, I don't have to pay a penny so it's a pretty thrifty way to get fit, enjoy the scenery and do something that's just about me.  Despite all my misgivings running definitely helped me get my groove back.  Big time.