Lists...

Most of the time, without a list, I would be lost!  I am a perpetual keeper-of-lists...and loser of lists!  I write them, they go into my pocket and then I forget where I put them.  Or, I make up a fabulous grocery list and pull out of the driveway, get halfway up the street and realise I have left it sitting on the kitchen counter....and I go back for it.  Why go back?  Well, afterall, I spent all that time making it in the first place!
Over and over again, you will hear (or read!) that you need to make a list before going to the grocery store!  You will be more efficient, you will save money, you will make fewer trips to the store...Of course you will, but first you have to figure out a system that works for you and your family (of 2 or 4 or 8 or whatever!)...Do you need one list with EVERYTHING on it?  For some, that is the way they do it...Our neighbours do it all on Wednesdays...this even includes the trip to the hardware store, or going out to get a new pair of pants, or taking an old pair of pants to the cleaners.  For them, it is all about Wednesdays, and if it isn't on the list, it doesn't get done or it doesn't get bought (get bought?  can I say that?  Where is my English teacher husband when I need a proof-reader?).  In our house, there are three lists that refer to groceries...One that includes what we already have (on a week to week basis), this is not an all inclusive list of everything we have, but rather a list of what we have that we will be eating this week...For example, we have tomatoes and a cucumber left from last week that we will eat on Sunday (In other words, DON'T buy more tomatoes!).  Our second list is the Costco list, and this one is a bit of a running list as we try not to go to Costco more than once a month (heck, we can't afford to go to Costco more than once a month!).  The third list is the grocery list...I divide it into four sections: Breakfast, Lunches, dinners and Daycare.  Before I make up a menu for the week (yes, I do this every week, as I have learned that it just all ends in chaos and too much take-out pizza if I don't),  I hit the grocery store flyer.  Based loosely on what I learned at a young age from my father (a man who made, and still makes! many more lists than I will ever make!), we eat what is on special...and what is local (or as local as I can get...Yes, we eat bananas, but no, they don't grow on Vancouver Island, or even near it!)...So, if pork roast and cottage cheese is on special, then that is what we will be eating.  (although, not usually together).
Lunches are a combination of what will be eaten, what is on special and what is healthy...A big thing about lunches though, is always making sure that you are buying (and therefore packing) what is going to be eaten...And with kids, what was eaten (and liked) last week, sometimes isn't what is going to be eaten this week!  Go figure...Today, for example, I packed Kate a turkey wrap with mayonnaise and lettuce (she ate a whole plate of lettuce last night at supper!).  Half of the wrap came home, because she "didn't have time"...however, there was time to eat the mandarins and the popcorn and the piece of applesauce cake...but not enough time for the wrap...Huh, I am that blonde, I suppose!  Don't you?  Lesson learned, don't put lettuce in the turkey wrap...But do put chocolate chips in the peanut butter and banana roll-up!  (mmm, melted ones!  Yummy!).
If I take the time to ask them (since I try very hard not to take anyone with me to the grocery store!) for suggestions for their lunches, generally, we have some success.  This week's request (for next week), Bagels...Please, we haven't had them is soooo long!
Okay, bagels are on the list for next week...the big question is, of course, will they still be in demand when next week gets here?

to pack or not to pack?

That is the question parents are asking all over the place tonight...Will it be a snow day tomorrow...In some places (Foxboro, Mass), they have already called it for tomorrow!  Around here, it is falling fast and furious, but...the big question on Vancouver Island always is...how long till it turns to rain?  How long will it last?  And , personally, I am packing lunches for tomorrow because I am very hopeful that tomorrow will not be a snow day!  (I do not relish the idea of a house full of children home from school, wishing it would stop raining so they can go out and play in the snow before it all melts!)...I love snow days, don't get me wrong.  But I mean real snow days, when we have 14 inches of beautiful snowman building snow and some bright sunshine and the kids can go out and build snowmen and forts and have snowball fights, and then head down to the school yard and slide and slide and slide, until their legs are burning from climbing back up the hill so many times, and their hats and mitts are soaked through.  Then they come home and eat all the cookies in the house and drink mugs full of hot chocolate with marshmallows and leave chocolate rings on all the tables and the empty cookie packages on the counter.  And then, because they are still starving, they eat the lunch that was packed the night before (for school!), on the floor in front of the television like they are having a picnic.
So now, what do I pack?  Well, if it is a school day, but they get to go out and play, it will be good to have something hot in their thermoses...so, some chicken gnocchi soup (new recipe from Eating Well magazine: chicken breast cut up, onions, carrots, celery, all cooked till soft, add 4 cups chicken broth and heat medium high till boiling, add the gnocchi and cook for another 10 minutes) to use up some of that Gnocchi that was in the pasta basket I won in the school raffle at Christmas.  And we have some pita bread, so that and some cheese cut up and carrot sticks...There is a loaf of banana bread in the freezer that will be ready to cut up in the morning, and then of course, two mandarins for Kate, and applesauce, an apple, a pear and a mandarin for Duncan.

I hope if you get a snow day, that you get a chance to play too!

what did we eat?

When I was in elementary school, we ate lunch in a large cafeteria (okay, well, it seemed large back then!).  I remember when the school bought new tables, and we had the ones that had benches attached to the table (before that, it was all wooden tables and chairs)...I guess those would be old now!
There was a kitchen too, but no real hot lunch to speak of.  Well, there were hot dog days and pizza days...Oh what pizza we had!  It was just flatbread and tomato sauce (and I saw it at the grocery store last time I was in Quebec, not sure you can get it outside Quebec tho'), and we thought that it was soooo good!  And I do recall that there was the odd time when you could get soup, and there were always drinks you could buy...chocolate or white milk and then fruit drinks in cartons too: grape or orange (colour)...
So, I guess when it came to packing lunches, our parents were really "on their own"...my lunch usually consisted of a sandwich (pb and j or bologna and mustard with cheese), an apple or an orange and cookies or a granola bar.  We always had Nature Valley Granola bars, that came in the two pack.  And we would get money to buy a drink, or on hot dog days or pizza days we could have that.  Really quite boring...one of my best friends hated sandwiches, except for pb and j, and her dad almost never packed her that.  He packed amazing sandwiches!  Egg salad or tuna or ham and cheese with lettuce and tomato.  Or cream cheese with grape jelly!  Yum!  It was my good fortune that when my lunch was pb and j, she would happily trade with me.  So, I started making pb and j all the time just so she would trade with me.  Unless there was meatloaf...My dad made amazing meatloaf (he still does!) and a meatloaf sandwich with some chili sauce and lettuce was my all time favourite lunch!  Just recently, I made meatloaf for supper...I'm not afraid to say that I was disappointed there were no leftovers to make just one meatloaf sandwich.

So maybe ask your family what they like and then keep a little list on the fridge to use as inspiration...Tonight, Duncan asked me if I was making muffins for breakfast (must have seen me bring the blueberries up from the big freezer).  When I asked him why, he said he really likes it when he gets muffins with butter in his lunch instead of a sandwich.  I said, "better than ham and cheese?" and he said, "Well, it makes for a nice change"...
Guess I am getting up a little early tomorrow to make muffins!