Meal & Holiday Planning with Deb

Debbie here from Craftin' Chaos I hope this post finds you all ready to gear up for the holidays. Holidays are pretty stressful to me and I am sure they are for most people. So planning ahead for all of the tasks and shopping that needs to be done can help eliminate alot of that stress. I am going to share some planning items that help me make it a much less stressful time for me. I will also share a few of my favorite products that I use and how these items can help you in everyday life not just to plan for an upcoming holiday. 

First off since Thanksgiving is coming up I want to share menu planning with you. This is something I do all the time not just for holidays and it makes my life my easier and my husband loves to see what is on the menu so I work on about two weeks minimum at a time. I first plan what I am having for the two weeks and then looking day to day at the items on the menu plan my shopping list. This makes it less overwhelming if you just concentrate on each day as a whole. 

I typically make a penciled in categories of how my items are in the store. Such as "Dairy" "Produce" "Meat" etc. then each day I look at what I plan to have and start penciling in what items I need to make that meal. We are simple folk and we like simple foods so it is pretty easy for me. Plus I am one of those cooks that throws this and that in and it works! I am magical in the kitchen ha ha! I am an odd bird probably cause I do love to cook and brace yourself but I do love to grocery shop. I even menu plan and shop for my grown daughter to help since her life is so busy. 

I think the key to a good cook is loving to cook and I do so it just seems to go pretty easy. Although I seem to have trouble with the simplest things such as making macaroni and cheese. I have boiled it over 3 times! I blame it on my new stove. I have not grown to love it still.

So here is a look at my Limelife planner that I had a "menu planning" section added on.

Another view from a past menu planning session

Once I have planned my 2 weeks of meals I transfer the info to a dry erase white board I keep in the kitchen and so hubs can see what yummies he has coming up! He loves this! (This is an old pic as you can see its NOT April! :) 

So you can see this can be a handy tool even if you would like to keep track of what you spend you can mark it at the bottom of the page each week. 

Then I also have a Task Pad and it has M-F on it and for the holidays I used it a bit differently which you can see but it worked for the tasks I had to do because i was using it for a span of more than a week. But you can see how this pad can be a handy dandy tool for each week to write down your tasks to do and what day you will accomplish it or if you did.

Here is a start to my holiday decorating for the week of Christmas. It is not finished but you can see the cuteness starting. I printed off some bucket list stickers to put on for each day and I also utilized the stickers from Dec Brimbles box as well as that beautiful planner charm and sticky notes. 

Now again I wanted to share my planner layout. This is just one of the planners I use it is a Limelife planner. I love this layout especially for me cause I have 6 items I can mark along the left side to designate for specific task, like my shop, home, to do and more. This would work wonders for a family because unless you have more than 6 in your family each person can have their name in the box and you can have a whole week that you can write across for things to do or specifically for that one person. For a busy mother that is a great asset. If I had children at home this would be a handy tool. I have the inserts for my A5 and I also have the spiral bound in the same layout. They offer several layouts but this one I think is the best for someone that either has family to plan throughout the week for or a shop and a busy life like mine. 

So basically this is a post about how not only is planning fun for decorating and getting your creativity in but you can also use it to your advantage and help to keep your meal planning, holiday purchasing so much easier. If you are handy you can create a holiday shopping page, black friday pages etc. I hope you found this information somewhat helpful