A combo tonight, our of respect for the theater. When Tiny is in a production, sometimes, apparently, all to my surprise, I am sucked in and end up doing things like pulling apart garland to make stars for Santa to glide through, washing chocolate fountains (holy blick! do NOT sign up for this job, ever!), and figuring out how to get teenagers to stop playing dubstep holiday music. 

Seeing as these are all skills new to me, my normal scoreboard post is being combined this week with the plan post. Let’s see if that turns out to be what I should have been doing all along.

Week 8 Scoreboard

Here were the goals, with fruit and vegetables based on sales, and meat based on what I had on hand given the goal of getting the freezer emptied:

• Mon: meatloaf, sweet potatoes, green salad. blackberries. peas.
• Tue: pan-fried halibut, pineapple, couscous, green salad
• Wed: sandwiches, veggie sticks and ranch, apple slices
• Thur: End of Term Pizza Day!
• Fri:  Oven Ribs, potato salad, bbq etc.

Here’s the actual:

• Mon: meatloaf, sweet potatoes, green salad. blackberries. peas. 4 people. Score: 2 points.
• Tue:  roasted chicken, peas, oranges, apples, rice. 5 people, not together. Score: 1.5 points.
• Wed: baked ziti. salad was available, but not one of us wanted it. 5 people, not together. Score: 1 point.
• Thur: Pizza Day! 5 people + extras. Score: 1.5 points.
• Fri: leftovers and mayhem. 5 people attending. Score: 0.5 points.

I did follow the plan pretty well if you know me–that Wednesday? where I jumped ship? I jumped to Prince Spaghetti Day, which is the default.  On Friday, it was Refrigerator Buffet, which is normally a Thursday call. I also gave myself points for all of us eating at home, even if not together, as a start on the revamping of the scoring system. It’s a work in progress, so if you’ve got opinions let me know in the comments or on FB or Twitter.

Week 8

• Score: 6.5
• Plan followed?: 2/5
• Effort?: low-to-middling

Sunday Night Goal Post!

The ‘goal’ I’m referring to in the title here is Family Dinner, and maybe I need to reassess that idea.  Clearly, getting more than 3 of us reliably to the table has been a struggle, and maybe that’s not the best place for my energy. I’m on week 8 and I’m not making a bar graph ( who am I kidding, as soon as xmas is over I am DAMN SKIPPY making a bar graph) of who shows up to dinner, but there are three reliables and two outliers, and there’s just no changing that.  So maybe the goal should be more ‘together’ rather than ‘dinner’.

I mean, I’d rather be playing Scrabble. So maybe I should start Family Scrabble. The goal was never all about the food, but more getting together. Dinner seems like not a great time for us to do that, and maybe I should find a together time that does work for us.  Possibly they all want to vacuum with me?

It’s a thought.

That said, we still need to eat, and follow a budget. And it’s a holiday week, with theater craziness to boot.  So this week’s meals are:

• Mon: soup and grilled cheese, apples, carrot sticks
• Tue:  beef curry, rice, spinach, pineapple
• Wed: Dinner with friends
• Thur: Dinner with family
• Fri: Recover from all the group dinners.

I’m encouraged by the comments about the scoring, and considering a revamp. If you’ve got thoughts, let me know. Upping the daily score to 4 points, one each for: nutrition, people attending, following plan, and eating together, is something I’m thinking about.