Meals and Planning..

I've given one planner over completely to meal-planning. Maybe it would would better within my 'bullet journal', but I feel like it would take up too much space, unnecessarily. I already have another planner with areas for each meal and a grocery list, a water counter, and the daily readings from Mass. It all fits together so well. 

We read the Mass readings aloud at breakfast, as the start to our school-day, our day is bookended in Scripture, my husband reads aloud at bed time as well. Right now, Isaiah precedes The Wizard of Oz.

Meal planning comes naturally to me, I love doing writing it all down and seeing the week

progress on paper. Living out my plans, is a constant struggle. I'm lazy or distracted, or else I forget entirely to go shopping and my plans are abandoned. But as we transition to a more intentional life, meal planning is essential. I want our meals to mean something, to be times of communion as a family. Acts of hospitality and love. I also need them to be healthy, sustaining, and frugal. All my intentions, existing together demand a primarily plant-based diet. A monastic table, rich in the living things we can grow, harvest, and grow again. 

I'm writing out the coming weeks meal-plans, and to keep track of how we're progressing towards our monastic table..I mark each meal with a notation to indicate vegan, vegetarian, or meaty. Only the meals on Sundays or feast days are meaty, and my goal is that out of the 21 meals in a week, 10 will be without animal products (excluding honey, which seems both penitential and hospitable). It's easier than expected, but writing out goals always is..living them is another thing entirely.

I would love to hear your mealtime goals, and what inspired them! Blessings.