If you want to succeed...

...you've got to be prepared!

I've seen a lot of really cute Menu boards on pinterest lately. In fact, my sister has one that she made. Here is the problem....I'm NOT a crafty person! There is just too much pressure to get it right. And let's be honest...I'm really impatient. I like the idea of being crafty...I'm just not.

I have been wanting to create a menu board. I wanted it to be a really cute, crafty one. But I got impatient and just bought a little magnetic dry erase board from Fred Meyer. We're also trying to be really diligent about saving money and paying off my car. So I went the cheap route. I got the board for like $4. I had a magnetic strip at home that I cut up into smaller pieces. I had a ton of white note cards that I cut up. And I had a really cute recipe box that my crafty cousin-in-law had made me a while back.

So after I cut up the note cards I went through all our recipes and wrote them down on the cards. They are now filed in the recipe box. Each week I can put the previous weeks recipes back in the box and go through and pick which recipes I want to make and pin them to the board. Which brings me to my point.

If you want to be successful in eating Paleo...or any healthy lifestyle...you've go to be prepared. You have got to make sure you have plenty of healthy options on hand and ready to go. Kyle and I make a menu at the beginning of the week...make a grocery list and then go shopping once for the entire week. We were really bad before about figuring out each night what we were going to have for dinner. In the past, by the time we got around to thinking about dinner we were already hungry and wanted something quick. A lot of time that resulted in picking something up. The other problem is we would end up going to the store night after night and getting ingredients that we wouldn't totally use and then they would go to waste. By making the weekly menu we can make sure that produce gets eaten throughout the week. Making the menu helps us to save money each week. :)

So...the menu board...it isn't super cute...but it is functional. Hopefully one day in the future I can take the time to make it cute! :) The next step I want to do is organize all my recipes in a big notebook and number them. Then I can number the back of the "menu item cards" and will be able to find the recipes easily.

I guess I'll just add that to my list of projects! :)

I'm also working on some other things to help keep our home a little more clean and organized as we are both working lots of hours. The cool thing is now I have the energy to do it! :) It seems to be working so far...but it is still pretty early in the process...so we'll save the sharing for a later date.