This Mom's Menu for the Week of August 20, 2018

Last week was great. I got SO much done and I think that we are finally settled into a good rhythm with the kids back to school schedules.

Since I decided to write my cookbook, I've had to really step up my cooking and recipe development. I am committed to two new posts per week on this website, plus this weekly menu post. On top of that I am aiming to finish a minimum of 3 recipes for the cookbook per week.

In case you and I share the same math skills ... That makes at least 5 new recipes per week! Which seems insane to me, but at the same time is SO much fun.

One thing that I've struggled with in the past is being effective with my time.

Even though I had all the time in the world, I would somehow waste the majority of it, then find myself cramming last minute to get things done (or just not doing them at all).

Lately I've made two major changes that have proven to be super effective. The first thing, which may seem surprising) is that I have been taking my kids to school in the morning.

Last year, my husband did the AM drop off and I did the PM pick ups. This was really nice, but I found that since I didn't have to be anywhere by any certain time, I often wasted a ton of time doing nothing.

Now I am up by 6:00 am everyday, and out of the house by 7:15. I drop off my oldest first, at 7:30, then I head to Starbucks (my go-to order is an Americano, btw). Even with the Starbucks run, I usually have about 30 minutes to kill before I can drop off Trenton at middle school.

I have been spending this time, with my two youngest boys, listening to kid friendly podcasts in the car, and making occasional grocery runs (Did I mention that I'm developing FIVE new recipes per week?!?)

I drop Lucas off at 8:45 and am home by 9, where I can finally get started on my day.

You may think that since I can't start working until 9 am, that my new morning routine is a time suck - but since it forces me to get up an going I am finding my days SO much better. In all honesty, I probably wouldn't be getting started before 9 if left to my own devices anyway.

The second thing that I recently started using is a project management program, called CoSchedule. I will spare you the details, but let me just say, that I love it so much and it has completely organized my professional life in the matter of a few weeks.

If you are self employed or just curious, let me know and I will be happy to give you more information on how I use CoSchedule.

This weeks menu

This week is pretty standard, minus one little thing - my oldest turns 15! This is crazy for me to even imagine, I mean, I still tell everyone that he is 13, so 15 is like a total mind youknowwhat.

In our family, we don't have big parties for the kids each year. Instead we let them rotate years which saves a TON of my sanity and makes the big parties that they do have, even more special.

Don't worry, we do still celebrate them each and every year. Eli's birthday is on Wednesday, so he gets to pick dinner and desert. Then on Saturday we will have a meal with our more extended family, plus he will have some friends over as well.