All posts filed under: New Year

New Year, New You: Meal Planning

By Leslie Lindsay It’s a topic that never grows mold or ends up in the trashcan: meal planning.  Hey–we all gotta eat, right?  Well, let me take a stab (ha) at this and see if I can present you with some new ideas for planning yummy meals that you and your family don’t tire of. Gather several notecards (about 15-20).  Find some time and your cookbooks (an hour?), make yourself comfy and get to work writing out your 15-20 “most preferred” dinners-at-home.  (I read somewhere that most Americans have a selection of about 10-20 meals that we go to time and time again).  Jot down everything that goes into that meal, just as you might read on a menu.  For example, “Chicken Pot Pie with Side Salad and Fresh Fruit” would go at the top of the notecard like a title.  Below that, bullet-point what goes into that meal, i.e. your shopping list (pie crusts, vegetable broth, chicken breast, salad fixin’s, etc.).  NOTE:  This is NOT a recipe!  It’s just a list of ingredients.  Do that for the rest of the “typical …

New Year, New You: Finding your center

By Leslie Lindsay Putting a little zen in your life can help you become a better parent, right?  (And now why am I not at yoga now??!).  Well, let’s see here…today, being the ominous Friday-the-thirteenth, I have detected a bad vibe.  Or, as one person told me today, “anger in my heart.”  Excuse me?! I won’t bore you with the details.  (They really aren’t as juicy as I am making them sound).  I think it had to do with a tired, overworked, underappreciated clerk at at local bookstore.  Maybe she was having some bad luck today, and took it out on me?  I don’t really know.  But I do know she was rude and I called her on it by saying, “Um, you are really being unkind to me.”  (wanted to say, “What did I ever do to you b*****?!” but held my tongue). So, I began reflecting on this “bad vibe” business.  Perhaps it has something to do with not feeling centered/grounded/balanced?  And maybe it was the clerk who  mistreated me who was feeling …