One Week Down + Grocery Lists

I can't tell you how much I appreciate all your advice and words of encouragement! Terry and I are excited for some rest tonight and tomorrow morning before we head to Anaheim for the pre-race expo and stay the night there before the race itself on Sunday morning. Wish us luck!

Today marked the end of my first week teaching at my new school. I am having so much fun getting to know my new students, and it's wonderful that they kindly greet me in the halls. After work today, Terry picked me up and we headed to a new-to-us restaurant nearby. We just went in for an appetizer to let the traffic die down a bit, and their pizza was phenomenal! We ordered the M.S.G. Pizza, a funny name for a mushroom-sausage-green onion pizza, and I can't wait to go back for more. The rest of their menu looked really inventive, too!

This week was really tough for both me and Terry, and I really slacked in the kitchen and grocery shopping areas. Every time we tried to pack our lunches, we found ourselves scratching our heads, wondering how we would create a meal out of spinach and raw oats. I finally shaped up and made a seriously delicious quiche last night (I used Lisa's crust and filling recipe, and we used manchego, spinach, and tomato to make it delicious). We had leftovers for lunch and still have more for tomorrow! So we scraped by this week, but I promised Terry I would make a list and menu today so that he could shop on his day off (teamwork!).

Success! I was starving while I wrote out my menu, so you can imagine I was drooling and thinking of my favorite foods. Obviously, I wound up with comfort foods, which are sounding mighty good lately. Chili cheese fries? (I'll show you how I pump up the nutrition in that one.) Pasta pie? That one came from a recipe on Courtney's blog, and I'm excited to see how it turns out. I plan to make two pies so we can have lots of delicious leftovers throughout the week. No more scrounging for lunches around here!

As you can see, I only planned our meals up through Wednesday night. We'll likely have enough leftovers of something (pie and/or chili) to see us through the entire week of lunches, but this dinner strategy is pretty normal for me. I don't mind stopping at the store a second time during the week, and it's a great chance to stock up on more fruits or snacks as needed. Plus, honestly, I really don't know what I want to eat on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so I'll leave it open for whatever recipes strike my fancy.

Tonight, I'm taking it very easy. I came home to an incredibly clean house, because my husband is awesome, so my weekend started on a great note. We ate pizza early, so Terry's slicing up some bread, cheese, and salami for our second dinner.

Taking a break from the vegetables, apparently

 I hope to get a bit of grading in before bed, we'll watch some Arrested Development tonight, and we head to Anaheim tomorrow!

Do you plan and shop for full weeks, or just a little at a time?

And because it's Friday:

Hope you have an amazing night! See you tomorrow for a very nervous pre-race post.