Second Week of March

March 8 was International Women's Day and National Oregon Day. I wore my Slugs Need Hugs shirt.

That night, Nichole and I went to watch the General Relief Society Broadcast at our stake center with dessert afterward. 

March 9 was Get Over It Day and National Meatball Day so of course we said our traditional "Get over it, you meatball" phrase that day. It was also Popcorn Lover's Day so Joshua made popcorn I think.

 

March 10 was Mario Day (MAR10). I woke up to one child whistling music from a Mario game. I wore my Mario shirt and a couple of the kids watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie. 

I had some fun with the menu plan for that holiday. I took the scene toward the beginning of the movie where Mario and Luigi are sitting down to dinner with their family and tried to recreate what their dinner looked like. We had spaghetti with alfredo sauce and mushrooms of course. We had salad, dinner rolls, green olives. What didn't fit in with their dinner table but we had to have were peaches, singing a certain song while dishing them out.

On World Plumbing Day, March 11, I wore my Mario shirt again and some of us played MarioKart.

Since March 11 was also Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day, for dinner we had oatmeal, nuts, and waffles.

 

The next day, Lucky, Nichole, and I went to a Utah County Birders movie night. We watched The Big Year and played BINGO while watching it. It was fun and interesting to do something a little different than our normal birding meetings.

March 13 was Friday the 13th and Open an Umbrella Indoors Day but we didn't do anything special to celebrate- just mentioned it. I did reminisce how 2020 had Friday the 13th on that same day (and that year was a big deal) and 2015 we celebrated it with a fun video.  

Jet wanted me to get him a board game from the library so I did- Pictureka- and several of us played it after school. 

 

The next day, Lucky and I stopped by the other library to pick up some things and we said Hi to Libby the Librantula who was out for us to see. March 14 was Save a Spider Day.

March 14 was Pi Day. I baked an apple pie in our Pi plate. We also had pizza pie.

Nichole went down to BYU the day before to celebrate Pi Day with a free piece of pie and a t-shirt.

I forgot to get out the potato chips for Potato Chip Day on March 14 so we celebrated that observed a few days later.

Last Week of School- Monday

We reached the last week of school for the boys. Busy week. It always is. Here's how it started out.

Hummus

Lucky wanted to have some crackers but I told him he should have something with them. There was not enough time to make cheeseball but I told him we could try to make hummus. I'd never made it before. It just so happened there was a recipe for hummus to go along with an upcoming dinner.

So Lucky opened "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volume 1 and made hummus himself. Way to go, Lucky. When we ran out of crackers (because I couldn't stop eating it, too), we moved on to dipping carrots in the hummus.

Later I used the same book to make dinner of ground beef stroganoff and lemon parmesan asparagus.

We added some bread from leftover Italian bread bowls we made for our Creamy Italian Soup before and had a nice meal.

Jordan Page Has Taught Me Well

For Christmas, Jeremy got me "A Season of Family Meal Plans" volumes 1-4 by Jordan Page. I started with Week 1 of volume 1 (January-March) last week and am doing Week 2 this week.

I started out strong last week with French bread already made to use in some of the recipes. I cooked up some pork roast to use in several recipes, including a recipe coming up in a few weeks (I froze the meat after cooking it). I was able to marinade chicken early for Greek chicken and successfully made pita bread. Hooray. I was so thrilled about that. The recipe was right in the book.

In true shelf cooking fashion, I used what potatoes I had and other substitutions I learned from "Shelf Cooking 101" that I got for myself for Christmas the year before.

Jet was my big helper.

 

I still menu plan with holidays in mind but this helps fill in the gaps. Some of the meals I'm just not interested in making and that's okay. The point is not to make you do something you don't want to do but to make things easier on you. The books have other tips and tricks in them as well.

Jordan Page also hosted a masterclass about budgeting, productivity, and meal planning that I was able to participate in at home recently. One of the things she mentioned about saving money was only going out to eat when it's scheduled. It just so happens that that night Jeremy and I had a scheduled eating out date. It was the annual Golden Corral meeting for Utah County Birders. There was some weather so it was not as big a group as sometimes but we had good conversation with the birders who were there. I love our birding friends.

Before we left, I made chicken Caesar salad wraps for the boys. The next day I was able to use some leftover rotisserie chicken in our meal. Since January 12 was National Curried Chicken Day, I found a recipe in "Shelf Cooking 101" that used curry powder, Chicken Divan. 

I've learned a lot from Jordan Page from shelf cooking to organization/productivity. I am grateful for the things I've learned and the resources she has. Check out shelfcooking.com and funcheaporfree.com to learn for yourself.