Meal Planning Lethargy

I used to really enjoy meal planning for the week, and also enjoy cooking for the family. I liked experimenting as well as making the fail-safes and favourites and I liked choosing recipes that challenged me with either new ingredients or new cooking styles. I loved my kitchen.

Past tense.

Now Tori is older she is turning into a fussy eater. A very fussy eater. She’s reluctant even to try things – you ask her to just try one mouthful and she throws a full on tantrum. It’s tiring and frustrating and I feel like all we are eating as a family is cheese on toast and jam sandwiches.

I know that’s not true – I do cook other things for just me and Caius or even try to give us all the same meal. Arthur is less fussy than Tori but is still wary of new things and when half of the present company rejects your food with tears and tantrums it drains your will to try anything else.

I hate it.

I sit down to meal plan and get the urge to burst into frustrated tears.

It’s not helped by the price of everything and our current lack of a freezer. Eating just seems like such a struggle – I wish I had a money tree so that I could live off takeaways and pre-prepared stuff and not deal with the heartache and headache of trying to feed my family myself.

I think that’s it. I feel like I am failing Tori every time I present her with something she doesn’t like or won’t try and I don’t know how to fix it.

My latest attempt is to order Annabel Karmel’s Fussy Eater’s Recipe Book. It should arrive later this week and I’m hoping that I will be able to tempt Tori into being more adventurous with the recipes in it, or even just persuade her to eat some normal stuff like meat that isn’t chicken or sausages and anything that has a sauce on it. Seriously, if it’s wet Tori won’t touch it – with the exception of spaghetti shapes, which she LOVES. Fickle child.

I really hope that I start to find a few more things that Tori, and to some extent Arthur, will eat so that our diet can expand as a family and I can stop having to cook 3 different meals every night – one for me and Caius, one for Tori and another one for Arthur.

I miss enjoying time in the kitchen, it was good me-time with purpose. Now it just feels like wasted effort and pouring half-chewed money in the bin.

365 Project Week #4 – “Books”

There are a lot of books in my life – I have every faith that this week is going to be reasonably simple…

MONDAY:

We all had a bit too much sunshine yesterday so this morning we had a lazy pyjama day inside, watched some CBeebies together and read lots of stories. This book was particularly popular with Tori today – Sailor Bear by Martin Waddell and illustrated by Virginia Austin. Luckily I quite like it too so I didn’t mind reading it over and over. There’s something charming about a bear in a boat that is endlessly appealing and the pictures are lovely to look at and talk about.

The day was nicely rounded off with pizza, Pimms & Port round a roaring fire. All in all a good start to the week.

TUESDAY:

Today was another work-on-the-flat day. We got a fair bit done and it’s starting to look really good yet I still found time to dip into one of my ‘happy new flat’ books that James bought me as I passed through the kitchen every now and then. It’s a beautiful book, I love the feel of the cover as well as the words and pictures inside it. (I Wrote This For You by pleasefindthis)

WEDNESDAY:

Another extra busy day at the flat today with lots of people coming over to lend a hand. I am endlessly amazed by people’s kindness at the moment – The painting is all but done, carpets are being laid, curtain rails and curtains going up, I have a fridge, an oven and a washing machine in and bits of furniture headed my way from various sources. My faith in humanity has been cemented and restored recently, it feels good.

Coming home I noticed the book my Mum is reading sat by the computer waiting to be picked back up (Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman). Caius leant it to me after I confessed to never having read it despite it being such massive hit when we were in school. I loved it and passed it on to Mum. Book two is sat nearby for her to start on when she finishes.

THURSDAY:

Today’s book is currently my best friend. Full of scribbles about curtains and carpets and paint, shopping lists for tools, jobs that need doing, stuff I have forgotten – this trusty little VIOLENT PINK notebook is very rarely far from my hand. It is my ‘Flat Notebook’ that Caius bought for me shortly after I got the keys – it is a good job really else my flat and I would have drowned in post-it notes by now.

FRIDAY:

I rather fruitlessly tried to power through one of my May Reading books in a free moment this afternoon – as you can see by the page numbers I didn’t get very far. But it’s okay – I have resigned the book (Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins) to my June list so it will still get finished.

Whilst my reading wasn’t so successful today the flat is starting to look much better – the carpets are well on the way to being down, and curtains are going up. Fingers crossed my first night at the flat (on a mattress on the floor…) will be TOMORROW! Exciting times

SATURDAY:

Today was busy. We saw a Jubilee Vintage care parade, collected a microwave, went to my brother’s wedding rehearsal and then had pizza for tea and spent our first night in our new home!

SUNDAY:

I got this book back out today – I finally have my own kitchen again and I can start cooking proper dinners again. I can’t wait to start meal planning, how sad am I?

October Challenge – How Did It Go?

Back at the start of the month I set my self a 3 part challenge for October and I am pleased to say I succeeded (sort of). Yay for me!

1. Blog More. I wanted to post at least 1 if not 2 ‘proper’ blog posts a week over the course of October on top of my 365 project posts and I managed a total of 11 which is a pass. Especially impressive considering I was away on holiday for half-term week and had no internet access.

 

2. Read At Least 2 Books. This is where the ‘sort of’ comes in. I read one and two-thirds. I finished Pale Demon and got very close to finishing Forever but I didn’t manage to fit it in before I went away and the opportunities for reading when sharing a caravan (and bed) with both Tori and Arthur are precisely non-existent. When they weren’t running us ragged we were collapsed in a heap somewhere sleeping!

 

3. Cook At Least One New Recipe. Now here I excelled – I cooked LOTS of new things this month. This is partly down to my random urges to bake and also to the wonderful veg boxes we are now getting – I have to start finding things to do to use all the yummy veggies!

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So one fail but one super success – that equals out, right?

Personal Challenge – October

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I missed last month…oops…

So, Hello October and your very confused weather! My Personal Challenge for this month? Try to get back on top of my blog, finish at least 2 books and cook at least one new recipe.

I neglected Carole Finds Her Wings over September aside from my 365 Project posts and I missed it. I just wasn’t really myself last month and  lots of things suffered for it – I didn’t cook as much, read as much or blog as much amongst other things. So this month I want to try and fix those things with my 3-part challenge.

1. Blog more.

I want to aim for at least one, if not two, blog posts a week aside from my 365 posts. By that I mean posts with words, like this one. Any two – be it a meme or an original post.

2. Read at least two books.

I have just started Pale Demon by Kim Harrison so I am aiming to finish that and then read another one after it. I am thinking it is either going to be Forever  by Maggie Steifvater or The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind. but it could end up being neither of those because I have so many books in my TBR pile that I might pick another one at random in the end!

3. Cook at least one new recipe.

I have petered out on my meal planning too and have been cooking all the old standards that I used to with little variation so this month I want to cook something shiny, brand new and different at least once.

 

Fingers crossed October is a better month than September was and I start to get back on track with everything. I’m fed up of feeling fed up.