Yet again, I found myself spending my weekend drowning in a sea of recipe books.

I used to like planning meals, Hell, i used to ENJOY going to the supermarket.

But, people, those days are gone…long gone.  Planning meals is getting harder and harder by the day.  I buy food, and the kids…well…eat it.  So, then I have to buy more food.  And more food.  And more food.

And I’m not a totally organic-straight-from-the-source-of-nature kind of mum, but I do prefer home cooked meals and I am really conscious of how much fruit and veggies the kids are eating.   I find myself pondering over lunch boxes trying to calculate the protein, carbohydrate and vegetable portions that each person in the family has eaten.  Not too much sugar, too much salt, too much wheat.

And…we haven’t even got started on dinner yet.  Have we had red meat this week, fish too many times?  When will the kids have afternoon activities,  impacting what time we can eat?  When will we be home from work, will there be time to cook?  What have we got in the freezer?

Did I miss the deadline to do an online shop, yet?

This is one of those things that i just KNOW I have to get organised, otherwise it becomes a thorn in my side and an unnecessary decision that has to be made each day (apparantly there are only so many decisions you can make in a day, so you want to save it for the good stuff!).  I am so happy when my weekly meal plan is posted and we have a fully stocked fridge.

However..it has somehow become MY job, when it used to be shared with my husband.  But because I didn’t mind it, it became mine, and somehow I have ended up being the planner, the shopper and the cook.

I used to have a spreadsheet of weekly meal plans, with corresponding grocery lists.  Yep. I was one of those people.  Those spreadsheets gave me goose bumps of satisfaction. But they all needed re-doing with a family of four now in mind.  Plus I need breakfasts, lunches and dinners all to be included.  I’m exhausted.

So, I started scouring the internet for ideas to help me and , not surprisingly, there are websites that you can subscribe to that send you meal plans and shopping lists (although a lot of them are in the US…which is fine but then you have the seasons all backwards for what fresh food is available).

And then I decided to try Hello Fresh (no, this is not a paid commercial…ha ha…although, Hello Fresh team, please feel free to send me free boxes).   They deliver a box each week with a list of recipes and ingredients to cook them.   Two things ticked off at once, but still a home cooked meal.  Awesome sauce.  At least that is dinner sorted.  PLUS, the recipe cards make it easy for ANYONE (yep, that’s you husband and kids) to step in and cook.

But here’s the thing.  Now I feel guilty about it!!  Yep,  bloody guilt!  Is this being lazy? is this wasteful?  another ridiculous concept in the modern age?  First world luxury?  And, should I be ashamed of myself  that I can’t find the time to pop down the shops to feed my family?

Sigh…well, I’m just going to have to shake that off, because, frankly, guilt is a waste of my brain space.   Outsourcing things is smart, not wasteful.   And maybe some time in the near future,  I will find the space and time to enjoy planning and cooking meals again.  In the meantime, I can just bake slice with the children at the weekend instead.

On that note, I’m hungry…what’s for lunch?