Where did the time go?

My blog has been dormant for over a year now - wow!

2011 is coming to a close with all the freshness of a new year just around the corner. I am not so much a new year's resolution type but I certainly am goal oriented. Goals can be set at any time of the year but there is something about a new year that inspires goal setting.

Some goals for 2012:

1. Dust off the blog!
2. Re-connect with my hobbies / passions including photography, running, beading and paper crafts
3. Re-connect with my online passions - flickr and blogging
4. Establish good routines for health and fitness including menu planning, healthy cooking and making time for the gym

That is a good start!

For the menu planning and healthy cooking goal I have recently committed to a menu planning challenge through Twitter. The challenge is to engage in meal planning on a weekly basis and reduce the food budget to $100 a week. I am not sure $100 a week is sufficient for my complex family - I am not even really sure what we are currently spending but I know for sure we can do better than we currently are. Things to improve on:

• Use a grocery list 
  We tend to shop with no list and no idea of what is needed for the week. We end up buying more than we need and food is wasted as a result. Case in point - there are three packages of romaine lettuce in the fridge!
• Less eating out
  Because there is often no plan for dinner, we often will order in or go out in favour of figuring out what to cook. I am not saying we will never eat out but I would like to reduce this to once every two weeks.
• Menu Plan
  I plan on engaging the help of my family in this task - I will be asking my boys to pick out one recipe each week for dinner and hopefully I can entice my husband to participate as well. Since I need to satisfy varying dietary needs this will at least ensure they will have what they want one night a week ;-). 
• Lunches
  I have developed bad habits with lunches over the past two years and want to get back to healthier choices. I have been buying most of my lunches at work and since the choices are in a mall food court, you can just imagine what that means! My goal is to bring my lunch every day. This will also save in the spending department - an average lunch runs about $8.50.

So, there you have it! I will be working on a Menu Plan over the weekend to start on Monday. I will post the plan every Sunday and let you know how we did in keeping to plan at the end of the week. 

Comments

[Barb]

Good to see you blogging again! My blog was v quiet this past year as well... I too am hoping to blog more and maybe do some more papercrafting in 2012. :)

Happy new year, Marlene!

[Nathalie K]

Good luck with your grocery resolution ... I will be following your progress to get some ideas as to how I can reduce our food bill ... groceries are over $300 weekly for a family of four which includes one vegetarian, one low carb eater, one perpetual weight watcher and one 15 year old boy (nuff said).

And - nice to see you blogging again. Hope you share some of your beautiful pictures along the way. My blog went dormant for months too, and one of my resolutions is to update more often this year.

Happy New Year!

[Marlene]

Great to hear from your Nathalie! I bet we spend about $300 a week on food as well - I really need to figure it out so I know if I am improving...

Photos will be back soon as well.