Menu Plan Monday, 29 feb. - 6 mar.

I won't lie: one of the things that went out the window when I got sucked way too deep into this illness was menu planning. This meant that our nutrition went downhill too, because it meant that, as we had nothing planned, I would cook nothing and we'd make do with scraps or junk food. Thankfully, Oath had lunch (the big meal around here) at daycare, and now he's having it at kindergarten, so he did not suffer much from our bad diet. I knew that shouldn't be happening, but I had no energy to change it, so that was the state of things for about two and a half years.

I tried to start that habit again and again, but I never could keep it going for longer than a couple of weeks at a time. Partner wasn't particularly interested in helping me plan it out, and when I did he wasn't particularly interested in cooking his share, either, which coupled with my lack of motivation... well, let's say it was doomed from the beginning.

But then, I started my bullet journal.

I started it because I felt the need to do something towards organization without being too tied up to one strict method. It doesn't make much sense, I know, but it has somehow worked for me. Since then, in January, meal planning started to happen again. At first, it was slow-going, but then I found my pace and I am so glad I did! We spend much less, we eat much better, and there is less stress and frustration for all involved.

So, this week's menu plan is:

Monday:

• "A la cubana" rice
• Fish sticks + red cabbage salad 

Tuesday:

• Spaghetti carbonara
• Nachos 

Wednesday:

• Oven-baked mackerel with veggies
•  Hot-dogs

Thursday:

• Peas and ham
• Noodle soup 

Friday:

•  Mushroom and shrimp cream
• Chickpeas with "chorizo"

Saturday:

 We've planned a day-trip with Oath and his cousin/our nephew, L., so we won't have lunch at home. Probably not dinner, either.

Sunday: 

• Macaroni with tuna.
• French omelettes   

 Linking up at I'm an Organizing Junkie's weekly "Menu Plan Monday".

Oath's Mom

Coming back

There's this weight in my chest that says I've been away too long.

The years have gone by, and things haven't gotten better. In fact, they got quite worse, so there's this need to get out of my mind just so I can see clearly what's happening inside it. Does it makes sense?

Long story short, life came over me like a bulldozer with the worst intentions, and without really noticing the exact moment where it all started to go downhill, I found myself buried deep in a depression that seemed too heavy to ever lift. It still feels like that: heavy, dark, sticky, like molasses. It doesn't want to let me breathe, move, or even think.
I am fighting, though. I am fighting for me, for Oath, for Partner, for all the good things that I once knew were out there (even if now I can't see them). I fight because I am stubborn. Letting go would be giving up, and the last part of me that is still me clings to the idea that I can't do that. Giving up is loosing, and the perfectionist in me doesn't want to hear about it, even when she's too ready to throw her hands on the air and admit defeat.

It's a blessing and a curse, having that Inner Perfectionist. She's keeping here all while drowning me in the molasses of depression.

I hope I will start writing again, probably in a much different tone than last time, because the things I need to tell now are wildly different. And I hope, too, that it will help me regain perspective, and see further than I am seeing now.

Love,
O.M.