I love the idea of planning what our nest will eat for the next week, but life usually jumps in my way. We end up going out to eat for a meal or two, or what I planned on making Sunday just doesn’t sound good anymore on Thursday. Often, I make too much for 2.5 people and we end up eating something for several days instead of one meal, blah blah blah. On top of that, when I do manage to get us all packed up and head out the door to buy the groceries, I’m lucky if I remember to take my list with me. Sigh. Sound familiar? (Cile, don’t answer that. I saw her grocery cart once. It was amazingly organized and they DO manage to plan out their weekly meals. WOW!) So this year, I invested in a really cute squirrel memo pad for groceries, thinking this would help. Has it? In a way, yes. I love writing things on it and it lives right between the fridge and the back door so it’s sitting on fairly valuable real estate. Kind of like the Marvin Gardens of my nest.

Isn’t it cute?

Where is this post going, anyway? I’m not really sure, but if you’re still reading, many thanks to you…

Other ideas. I thought this was a really cool idea for menu planning/grocery shopping too:

For details on this DIY Grocery List, click on over to Design Sponge.

In some ways, grocery shopping is a lot more phone (it’s early, cut me some slack) FUN now that I have Wren along with me. I like to carry her in our Baby Bjorn and see how many times people say, “awwww, what a cute boy!” She really enjoys being in the middle of everything and I enjoy having somebody to bounce ideas off of while I’m trying to decide whether to buy the organic bananas, which are still green, or the standard bananas, which are ready to be eaten now and in some cases, yesterday. She squeals and kicks and I take that to mean, “buy both.” Some for today, tomorrow and a couple for yesterday. Thanks for the great idea, Wren.

What’s for dinner tonight, dear readers? Re-runs here I’m afraid. But I think I’m going to make this chowder for Saturday night when some friends are coming over for euchre and eats. How do you play euchre and hold a baby? I’m not sure, but I’ll let you know.

Confessions.

• Instead of buying myself some boots, I decided to buy my Dad some rain boots because he lives in LA where they apparently are experiencing a monsoon of sorts and it’s his birthday coming up AND I needed some retail therapy… So I tried to buy them, but Zappos kept telling me that my ZIP and State combination was “invalid.” And do you think I could get a hold of a real person to tell them that it was a valid combination? Exactly. Screw you, Zappos.
• Orange is my favorite color today. Still.
• Only 21 days until the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies! I better get training, or at least get cable. I love the Olympics. What sport would you play if you were an Olympic athlete?

best!