Being Kind, Going Smooth

Note to self; when flying high on the greatness of the start of school and how rockstar all 5 of us are doing with all the changes DO NO read a pioneer woman blog post about sending your first born off to college.  Oh a good nap time weep never hurt anyone right?!

Today I'm trying to find the motivation to make a plan.  You know, a grand sweeping general life plan that will suddenly take nap time and Felix's 5 hours of preschool time a week and turn it into "Becky is so awesome and productive" time.
I've been thinking a lot of something a friend told me over dinner a few months back. "I'm just trying to be kind to myself."  How elementary and brilliant.  Be kind to yourself.  I've said this over and over in my head and I think it's working, lots.
Like today being kind means not stressing over ALL the groceries I've bought over the past three days because there's a plan for it all and it's all needed and WOW we eat a lot as a family of 5 now.  Today being kind to myself means not worrying about how I'm going to fit my 20-30 minute cardio in.  It's hot and I was up with a stomach thing last night and you know what?  Nap is greater than or equal to workout on these days.  Today being kind to myself means being still and calm and enjoying my tiny guy and this long beautiful nap time and not thinking about how lying on the couch or putzing on the computer is wasting that time. It's not.  It feels great.

Today the girls have ballet and it's our first full day of school + and activity.  I'm hoping it goes smoothly and that they're not too wiped tonight.  I think we planned well this fall and there's not too much, but enough. We'll see!

This week I had fun with food.  I went back to a grocery store I hadn't gone to in a while and enjoyed getting great cheap organic produce and delicious deli meats.  My girls LOVE ham and bologna sandwiches so I loaded up for school.  Then Costco to restock snacks and other things we rip through like cheese, eggs, hot dogs and fruit.  Then TJs today for the few specific pantry items we can't live without.  IT's going to be good this week.

Wild Rice Burgers and sweet potato mash
Spinach and baby kale and feta frittata with whole wheat biscuits
Stuffed baked potatoes with ham and cheese and long cooked broccoli
Turkey meatloaf with boiled new potatoes and green beans
Balsamic chicken breasts with sautéed spinach and whole wheat cous cous
Salmon patties and corn

Ian wants to get out his grinder this weekend to make some kind of burger I think and I got a juicy lucy maker while we were in Minnesota so I think we'll be good for the holiday weekend!
I am most excited for those wild rice burgers.  Yum!

Now that I've been feeling more motivated for planned cooking I'm hoping to tighten up the food budget.  I used to be so good about that.  My biggest problem has been summer grocery shopping with the kids.  There are only so many times I can say no to things before I start letting them throw things in the cart we don't really need.  AND since it's so hard to get out with them I'd grab EVERYTHING I could think of when we were out.  Usually 1-2 costco runs a month and a local store once a week is good.  I'm excited for big batch fall cooking soon.  Casseroles and stews and soups and things we can eat all week long or freeze.  Summer cooking is not so amenable to all that.

Happy cooking and back to school to you all!  I hope it's going smoothly for you too!