Mainly this is to let you know that things may not look right if you happen to be visiting while things are being moved around. Plans are in the works…but for now, please excuse our mess.

Oh, and be sure to check back to see how things are progressing.

I’ve never been one to get my Christmas shopping done ahead of time. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas until it’s really time. I got a good chuckle when I was in a grocery line earlier this month and the cashier told me (it was DECEMBER 4!!!), “I’m going to finish my last-minute Christmas shopping tomorrow.”

What? Last minute?

Well, I guess because in the commercial world Christmas starts well before November even starts, December 4 can seem like last minute. Of course, if you wait until the TRUE last minute and hit the shopping mall, you’re probably headed for some aggravation and disappointment.

However, if you use some of my tips below, last-minute shopping can be much more pleasurable and the recipients of your gifts will probably pretty happy too.

- Food clubs. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Many of us think of the fruit-of-the-month club or something like that but this kind of thing has caught on. You can find just about any kind of monthly club that your recipient is interested in: salsa, jellies, desserts, wines, beer and even barbeque sauce.

- Gift cards. It seems like such a small presentation, but it is quite a popular gift. Do you know how many people pack the stores the day after Christmas just to return gifted items? A gift card avoids all of that. Have the kids put together some festive wrapping or decorate and envelope for a personal touch.

- Charitable gifts. These gifts put others first and help great causes at the same time. Perfect for the person who ALREADY has everything, you can make a donation to various international charities (wildlife foundations, disaster relief, medical missions, peace keeping efforts and more) in the name of your gift recipient. They will receive a letter thanking them for their donation.

- Food gifts. Before toys and technology, people gave what they had and that was usually some sort of food item. Sweet breads in decorative loaf pans, cakes, cookies and cupcakes still make great gifts for teachers, grandparents, neighbors and friends. Give the delectable offerings time to cool sufficiently before wrapping them.

- Memberships/Subscriptions. Has one of the people on your list been meaning to join a gym? You can gift them a membership for Christmas. When money gets tight, memberships and subscriptions are usually the first to go. Renew a subscription to their favorite magazine or a service like AAA Motor Club.

- Gift baskets. Most stores have them on display at Christmas time. You can purchase one that is already made if you see one that fits your recipient’s tastes. For teachers and coworkers, baskets with mugs and coffee or hot chocolate are a safe bet. Or better yet, create your own with a basket and small items that reflect the recipient.

Overall…have fun. Dress your packages up, make your own cards. The personal touch will always go a long way.

Here are a few tips to take the pain out family meal planning:

First, choose a quiet time once a week when you have enough time to sit down and prepare your menu for the week ahead.

Look through your cupboards, fridge and freezer and make a mental note of all the food you already have in there.

Start with the food you’ll need for dinner. Plan your next weeks dinner menu around the food you already have. So for example, if you have pasta, simply add pasta sauce and ground beef to your list.

Plan as many dinner meals as you can around what you have in your kitchen already. Once you “run out” of meals then start planning new meals from scratch.

Once you have all your dinner meals then move on to breakfast. In my house this is fairly easy as my kids like to have cereal and fruit or toast and fruit (they’re not very adventurous at breakfast time!)

Once breakfast is sorted, then move on to lunch. If you have older kids who have school lunches you don’t really have much to worry about. If you have toddlers or younger children, a lot of the times they can actually have leftovers from the night before.

Lastly, add snacks, fruit, juice, milk and all those little extras we always seem to need.

Keep your weekly food shopping at that, once a week. Plan your weekly meals and do one shopping trip. If you have to keep going back and forth to the supermarket a few times a week, you can end up spending more money.

Stick your weekly menu on your fridge so all you have to do is glance at it in the mornings and take out whatever meat needs thawing and you can also make a mental note of how much time you’ll need to prepare dinner that night.

I guarantee if you take the time to do this once a week, you’ll actually save time and definitely save money. So it pays to plan ahead and be prepared.

With a little thought and planning ahead you’ll be on your way to hassle-free meal times… now if you could only get your kids to eat all their veggies!

How to Manage Your Mood with Food
by Susie Cortright

Here’s a meal-by-meal guide to eating for energy and managing your mood with food.

Breakfast
Eating a good breakfast boosts your concentration and revs your energy, particularly in the morning when you may need it most. Without breakfast, you’re more likely to make that second pot of coffee by mid-morning.

Instead, keep your blood sugar on an even keel with complex carbohydrates. Avoid refined carbohydrates, such as white bread and white sugar. These have a high glycemic index, which can cause spikes and dips in your blood sugar levels.

The right complex carbohydrates provide your brain and muscles with the steady flow of the energy they need. Grains are great sources of B vitamins, which aid in the metabolic production of energy. The best carb choices for breakfast are natural whole-grain breads and cereals.

For the best breakfast, add a low-fat protein, such as yogurt, cottage cheese, or skim milk, and watch your fat intake as well as your meat consumption (meat takes more energy to digest).

Mid-morning Snack
Turns out, snacking may not be such a bad idea. Eating every few hours helps your body use nutrients more efficiently. It stimulates your metabolism, keeps your blood sugar levels steady, reduces stress on your digestive system, and decreases hunger, which means you’ll be less likely to overeat when mealtime finally rolls around.

If you’re craving carbs, which many of us do at this time of day, choose whole-grain bread, cereal, or fruit.

Fruits and vegetables deliver a low-fat, high-fiber alternative to the vending machine choices. Raw carrots and sugar snap peas, for example, provide a crisp, satisfying crunch and won’t zap your energy. Challenge yourself to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day
.
For maximum energy throughout the day, avoid foods that are laden with simple sugars, such as cookies, pastries, candy bars, and sodas, which can bring on erratic blood sugar levels.
Instead, try some lean protein (low-fat yogurt, cottage cheese or lean meat) to help tide you over until lunch.

Lunch
At midday, go light. Because a hefty helping of carbohydrates can increase the amount of seratonin in the brain and cause that sleepy feeling, focus on low-fat protein. Protein can actually raise energy levels by increasing brain chemicals called catecholamines. Eat a lunch of low-fat cheese, fish, lean meat, poultry, or tofu.

Mid-afternoon Snack
Choose something that will keep you satisfied until dinner. A little bit of fat is fine. It gives those carbohydrates and proteins some staying power. My favorite? All-natural peanut butter and a few crackers.

Before Your Work-out
Carbohydrates are fastest to digest and pack quick energy. Add protein for staying power, but stay away from fats. They can make you cramp.

Dinner
The agenda for the evening can dictate what you’ll eat for dinner. Need to stay on overdrive for back-to-school night? Choose low-fat proteins. If you’re in relax mode, indulge a little.
Whatever’s on the menu, remember the Pie Test. Envision your plate as a pie. Seventy-five percent of the pie should be filled with fruits, vegetables, and grains and 25 percent with other foods, such as diary products and meat.

Before Bed
Before turning in, a carbohydrate-rich snack can supply seratonin to help you fall asleep. But go easy. Too much food can reduce the quality of your sleep.

Eating for energy is one of the most effective, powerful, and fast-acting mood-boosters. Try it today and see!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This article is excerpted from More Energy for Moms, by Susie Cortright, http://www.momscape.com/energy Susie is the author of several books for women and founder of the award-winning Momscape.com, a website designed to help busy women find balance. Visit http://www.momscape.com/ today and get Susie’s free course-by-email “6 Days to Less Stress.” (Reprinted from Zongoo)

The key here is to make every meal you cook count! When you are going to prepare a family favorite, double, triple, even quadruple the recipe if it will keep in the freezer. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? Why not give yourself a much-needed break — cook ahead today so you can relax tomorrow!

The first step in meal planning is always the most challenging. To make it less challenging I suggest that you grab the following supplies: Pen, paper, your personal recipe collection or your favorite cookbook and a comfortable chair. Start by writing down a list of your favorite meals and plan on preparing a grocery list that will coincide with your list. Now, since we are talking bulk cooking here – if you normally would serve up one pot of spaghetti – plan to serve 2 (that would mean that you will have to double the recipe – so be sure to alter your shopping list accordingly) – It will take the same amount of time to cook – just a little extra planning is needed.

Next you can use a blank calendar and simply write the meals down on the day you will serve them. I personally post my meal plan up on my refrigerator for the entire house to see. This also helps to prompt me for the next day of meals that will be served.

The most important tool in meal planning and bulk cooking is your freezer. If you have a small freezer, don’t fret; you can fit many meals in that small freezer space – it will just call for a little more creativity on your part. With the use of freezer bags, that you can stack flat and the use of some freezer proof containers you will be surprised at how many meals your freezer can hold.

Here are a few essential and widely used meal planning techniques and tips:

Multi-recipes ~ Using this strategy requires you to cook many main course meals in one day. For instance, on a Sunday morning you could prepare a roast in your Crock pot, some spaghetti on top of the stove, a baked Chicken in the oven and perhaps a nice salad. You also could quarter and boil some potatoes, cook some rice and some veggies (either fresh or canned). What you now have is 5 different meals that you can use throughout the entire week. You can eat one of the meals that very evening and you could Freeze or refrigerate the rest. This technique works very well for some people and it provides a wide variety of dishes that you can use. I personally use this technique from time to time. I usually do my multi-recipe cooking on a Sunday and it can take up to 5 hrs to complete but what you are left with is 2 weeks worth of food that you can enjoy. And notice that the meals that I use in my Multi-recipe list are easy to prepare.

One Cook Wonder ~ With this strategy you would cook one main course recipe that can be used for different meals. For Instance, let’s say you just baked a large turkey. You could slice some of the turkey off and serve the breast with gravy, dice some of the turkey and prepare a turkey gumbo and use the rest for either a soup or turkey salad. Mind you, you do not have to prepare all of those meals on one day. After the Turkey has been cooked and cooled, you can freeze and refrigerate the turkey that you cut off the carcass and prepare your other Turkey related meals at a different time.

Quick and Easy meals ~ Be sure to incorporate those quick and easy meals into your planning process. If your family loves Sloppy Joes – cook up the sloppy joe meat in bulk and freeze it – then all you need to do is defrost the meat, grab some buns and viola.

What about Hamburger Helper? Why not cook 2-3 boxes of it, separate it into 3 separate large containers and freeze them. That idea alone allows you to prepare 3 meals in just 30-minutes.

Designate a meal for a particular night ~ Every Friday night in my house is either Pizza or burger night. The idea here is to choose any night of the week and just designate a meal to go with that night. I always make sure that I have plenty of Frozen Pizza’s with a variety of toppings on hand in my freezer. The same goes for those Turkey burger patties (my family doesn’t eat much ground beef). The idea behind this process is that you now have one night’s meal already planned. You can also stock up on that meal when the products are on sale. If you see Frozen pizza’s being sold in bulk, grab them up!

Love your leftovers ~ This is one of my favorite parts of meal planning as it allows you to use your imagination. At least every other week or so be sure to go through your refrigerator and take inventory of what you have in there. When you combine 2-3 leftovers, you may find that you have a meal right there. You can use left over pasta from spaghetti to prepare a pasta salad, leftover spaghetti sauce and just a few pieces of chicken can be a wonderful dish to top with cheese and place in the oven. Again, with a little imagination – you can make your leftovers work for you!

Use the sales paper ~ everyone loves a good sale and I use the sales paper to help me in my meal planning. When I see our Family favorites on sale – instead of buying one, I will purchase 3-4 of the same items and simply come home and prepare the meals or freeze the food that I purchased. My family and I love Chicken. When I spot whole chickens on sale I’ve been known to purchase up to 5-6 at a time. Keep in mind that I have a family of 6 and in my family of six; there are 3 teenagers (and you know how much they can consume). By shopping like this, I actually save hundreds and hundreds of dollars a year in food alone!

Helpful supplies

Labels/freezer bags/Freezer-proof containers: Be sure that you have all of your freezing and refrigerating needs on hand. When storing food in freezer safe containers be sure to place a label on the container with the name of the meal and the date the meal was prepared.

Crockpot: This handy appliance is my best friend in the kitchen. When using a crockpot you literally prepare the meal, place it in the crockpot, Set it & Forget it. It is a hands free cooking experience. I cook whole chickens in my crock pot and then slice the chicken up to freeze and use for sandwiches, enchilada’s, chicken salads, chicken soup, chicken stew.. as you can see – the possibilities are endless.

As you can see, meal planning is a money, sanity and time saver – what else could a busy mom ask for?

Now, let’s get Cookin’!
======
Aurelia Williams, certified Personal Life Coach and owner of Real Life Solutions and Real Life Coaching. She’s the author of Journey To Joy , an empowering and life changing eBook. You can contact Aurelia by visiting http://www.reallifesolutions.net/