It can't be over until it's begun

When I awoke this morning, after a night of little sleep and much tossing and turning, my first thought was "oh please let this day be over soon," quickly followed by the hope that whatever was going on was avoidable or reschedule-able. Thankfully, the latter was true. (The rescheduling, I mean.)

As the weeks march by, the end of the semester is drawing nearer. This is great, except it seems to be bringing along with it an unfortunate collection of Major Projects, which are stacking up, crowding each other, and all clamoring for my attention RIGHT NOW. Plus, I agreed to accompany high school kids for a vocal solo contest, which means somehow brushing up my pianisting skills and practicing accompaniment. You know, in spare minutes.

Tired and Stressed are top two descriptive words lately. So, instead of telling you any more about the horrors I'm trying to prioritize and systematically work my way through, I will share linkage instead.

Looking at our spending, we realized how much of it goes toward eating out, which happens because we are 1) busy, 2) lazy, or 3) unprepared. A lot of it is #3, but I justify it with the busyness of life. Which is lame. I have cooking and planning skills - why not unite them and manage to save a little money?!
I found this amazing site this morning called Eat At Home. The absolute bestest thing is that she puts together weekly menus, shopping lists, and recipes all together in a single .pdf file. I printed a few :) I figure I can look through them, strike the things that don't fit our preferences or whatever, and use the rest. I could write her a fan letter of grateful bliss.
P.S. Here is the link directly to the Good Part: Weekly Menus


A few other cookery-related discoveries:
- Gramma's Cookin: A collection of tried-and-true everyday sort of meals.

- Ballancing Beauty & Bedlam: There's a whole assortment of sorts of things posted here. My favorite? Tasty Tuesday, which involves recipeness and pictures and links to a bunch of different blogs, but in a manageable sort of way.

- The Pioneer Woman is a site I've visited many times. I didn't realize until today that there is a Tasty Kitchen blog AND her Cookbook (copiously illustrated) is in print finally!

- Crockpot 365 is an old standby. I ordered her cookbook a few months ago and love the ease of cooking and the convenience of so many of her recipes. Tweak freely to make her recipes fit your taste or ingredients on hand. Love her "kid-friendliness" rating at the end of each post too.

For today, that's all I've got. I really need to get back to working on this project..

One more thing - here's a post God used to encourage my heart this morning: Supermom. Thanks, Erin <3

Ok, really - the end!!