Menu &... Exercise?!?

I'm hoping by posting this to the blog I will feel a sense of responsibility that will make me be more consistent and, in the end, finally successful at making workout time a priority each day. Or, at the very least, several times per week. I mean, let's be realistic now.

I'd like to say, "Starting tomorrow...". But we will be up and out and about for the day early, not returning home until later in the evening. We'll be bringing our daughter to take her ACT, visiting with the mother-in-law, possibly stopping in at my sister's house for supper, then hitting a haunted house that a nearby city sponsors. The haunted house is a must - It's FREE, after all! We went to it last year, too. Well worth the time to go through again this year.

So, I will say that starting on Sunday I will hit my poor, abandoned treadmill. I'll start with either a 20mn or 30mn walk. I borrowed Season5 of Weeds from my sister-in-law and haven't gotten too far into it, so I'll pop the dvd into my laptop and watch from the treadmill. I did this the last several times I used my treadmill and it definitely makes the time go faster. Without commercials, each episode gives me about a 25mn walk. Can't really have a more frugal workout than that, right? Well, I suppose it could be a manual treadmill...

Anyway, on to the menu planning:

Saturday > No plans, not likely to be home to make supper. If we are, I'll maybe boil some pasta and add to the leftover chicken salad. !!
Sunday> Chicken Ragu (husband is supposed to make, his mother is planning to come for supper) and Roasted Butternut Squash with Bacon (butternut from garden) !!
Monday> Clean-The-Fridge-Out- Leftovers and frozen pizza !!
Tuesday> Ring Sausage & Fried Potatoes and applesauce (homemade from our trees) as a side !!
Wednesday> Chicken & Dumplings X (had steak, Spanish rice, garden asparagus, rolls - I forgot what we were supposed to be having)
Thursday> Ricotta Stuffed Shells & Steak X (had last night's supper tonight)
Friday> Tacos X

Second try at menu planning...

Saturday > Bruschetta burgers (garden tomatoes) & canned baked beans !!
Company Coming Sunday > Butternut squash soup (squash from garden), bread & butter (though company canceled) !!
Monday > Chicken fried rice (using leftover rice & chicken from freezer) & eggrolls (frozen/premade bought cheaply with coupons and sale) !!
Tuesday > Creamy potato soup (using garden potatoes) !!
Wednesday > Whole wheat pasta and spaghetti sauce with ground beef (ended up using sauce a friend gave me from a large batch she'd made) !!
Thursday > Frozen pizzas or leftovers (for kids while I and spouse may go to Olive Garden for a late lunch) X (we ended up making Chicken Salad Sandwiches as my husband and I had an early lunch)
Friday > Pork stir-fry on brown rice (ended up using Ramen, that son's been wanting to make for weeks, in place of the rice) !!

Can I actually plan our menus?

I have intended to do just that on several occasions. Each time I had started out with great intention, menu ideas and printouts for filling in those menus. Each time those plans lasted only a meal or two before we were off track. However, I found so many ideas when digging through my own freezer and I realized that it is so ridiculous to shop a few times a week as I tried to get our meals planned each night. Between our daughter needing to be chauffered about for various education programs and our son starting school at the junior high and myself going back to work again... It has just been hard to get it together. So I'd like to try again. I'm hoping by blogging here about it that we will be able to follow a menu better. I won't post everyday regarding this. But I will post out the week's supper meals. Weekends will be left to chance for now. (Let's call that Cook's Choice.) We all know the prime reasons why to plan a menu: using what's on hand, being able to thaw meats overnight, everyone knowing what we're having...

Today we had Chicken Alfredo & Broccoli as I'd gotten a great buy on the broccoli steamer last week and I had leftover diced chicken that I'd frozen a couple of weeks ago, as well as half&half and parmesan.

Monday> Stir-fried Shrimp & Broccoli on jasmine rice (parents brought supper of ring sausage & fries) X
Tuesday> Lasagna & salad & garlic bread (had last night's supper tonight) X
Wednesday> Ring bologna, fried garden red potatoes, garden cabbage coleslaw, homemade applesauce (had last night's supper tonight) X
Thursday> Fried breaded pork cutlets, steamer corn, mashed potatoes (too tired to cook, had pizza tonight) X
Friday> Pizza night (made the pork cutlet meal tonight instead as there was more time) X