Busy day, busy week, busy weekend.

So it's Friday afternoon in my office and I'm tired. I've had a busy week at work with a ton of meetings and guests in from out of town. I've also had late nights of work dinners and of course, watching the World Series. The weekend looks equally busy. No matter how busy I am, I will definitely find time to plan my meals for next week and get the shopping done. I would literally freak out on Sunday night if I hadn't done this some time over the weekend. I like to get up on Saturday morning early (it helps if you are the morning person in a house full of "night" people) and have a cup of coffee and plan the menus. The first place I start is our house calendar. I make sure I have down anything we need to know for the week including any evening activities. Then from this I plan what to cook each night. If I'm really feeling organized I even look at the grocery store newspaper ad to see what's on sale. I have a few favorites and try to find some new ideas from friends and magazines. If I have a work function, I pick meals I know my husband is comfortable cooking and write those in on those dates. From there I make a grocery list based on these meals, then add the things I need for my son's packed lunches, breakfast for all of us and any other items I need. I learned a tip from the Barefoot Contessa television show and divide my grocery list up in sections on a big piece of paper. I have Produce, Meat, Grocery, Frozen, Dairy and Other (cleaning, health and beauty) as the sections. This makes it so much easier to get all the items as I have a terrible habit of getting all the way home without some essential ingredient. The helps (but does not entirely stop this from happening. After the grocery store, I make sure to put everything up and I clean all veggies and fruits before putting in refrigerator. I know it's a pain when you are doing it, but it makes things go faster during the week and you are more apt to eat an apple than something bad for you if it's all clean and ready to eat - okay - I'm still more apt to eat the candy bar, but someday this might really work.

Spending this time over the weekend really does help and when I figure out what I'm cooking next week, I might update this blog - or I might just go to the grocery store and then home for a glass of wine.