Meal Planning / Recipe Binder

So sorry guys that it has taken me so long to get this up but here is my long awaited meal planning binder / recipe binder. Once I have used it for a little while I hope to also post about how I meal plan. Please excuse my horrible picture quality I just used my iphone for the pictures. 

So as you can probably tell I am using a 3 ring binder mine is an inch and a half because it is what I had leftover from school. I find binders are the best way for my OCD self to organize. I went online and found a cover I liked for now. 

When you first open up my binder this is what you see. I have a large zipper pouch, plastic pocket dividers and in those dividers are page protectors. Now that you see what I used I will show you how I organized my binder. 

Inside the large zippered pouch I included some shopping lists that I printed online and just cut into strips. I am including links for a few items I used if you are interested in using them as well. (http://www.vertex42.com/Files/pdfs/2/shopping-list.pdf). 

My dividers are labeld: Meal Planning, Breakfast, Mains, Sides, and Desserts. I would recommend a holiday tab as well but I store all of those recipes in a seperate 1/2 inch binder. Eventually as my recipe collection grows I forsee adding more dividers and breaking down categories further. 

Now lets take a peak into a couple of my divders. 

Again I used good ole google to find a meal planning sheet that worked for me. I finally found this one which is perfect I love having places to write two snacks for each day because as you all probably know I am 100% a snacker. I am not so strict on eating things on certain days so if I happen to switch around things during the week I just draw arrows or normally I will have written in pencil so can just erase and rewrite. Here is where I found this printable (http://giftsweuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Printable-Weekly-Meal-Plan.pdf). 

Now to take a look into my Mains Divider. 

All of my food category dividers are set up the same way so I will just show you one. In each section there is 3 places a recipe might be. 

1) is in the front divider pocket in the section. This is where I put recipes I want to try whether they are printed from online or clipped from a magazine. 

2) is in a page protector. The recipes that make it to be typed and in page protectors are recipes I love and want to make again. 

3) which is not pictured is the pocket in the back of each section. These will be recipes from the front section that I have made and love so that I am able to type them up and print them to go in page protectors (and blog them). 

I want to eventually figure out how to post a pdf to my blog so everyone can easily print my recipes but I am not there yet. 

Well guys I really hope this helps someone who wants to get a little more organized in their meal planning. If you have any questions feel free to leave comments and as always follow my blog or instagram which is Jenny221222 if you want to see more from me. 

Personal Happiness Project

Well I am just a few days away from starting my career and while I should be happy and overjoyed in the back of my mind I am mentally so negative these days. I want to lose all this weight and be such a different person but I have come to realize its going to be a long hard journey so I need to work on getting back to the happy person I know I can be so I have decided to make my own happiness project. I started out by making a list of things that make me happy and then took those and turned it into my happiness project. 

 

I broke my list down into categories of how often I would like to do things:

Daily: I want to work on my faith starting with getting back to having quiet time doing a devotional and journaling about what I am struggling with and whats is going great. My new devotional book and journal are pictured above. I also daily want to make an effort to being more grateful for all I have. The third thing I want to try and do daily is to "let my light shine" my youth minister used to always say I had a fire in my eyes that could improve everyones day I want that back. 

Weekly: I want to take 1 hour minimum for myself it can be anything from reading to going to get my nails done. I also want to weekly get back into a church. I grew up being at church 2 or more days a week doing every activity possible but as I moved on to college my church made some major changes that I really dont like so I am hoping to get involved with a new church who has a large young adult population. The third thing I really want to work on doing weekly is blogging!! I love writing even though I am not very good at it. 

Monthly: Once a month or more I want to do something for others. I have always enjoyed helping others and volunteering so I have decided once a month I want to volunteer some where if I can and if I cant atleast by a meal or coffee for someone to brighten their day. I also want to tackle a new organization project a month just because an organized home leads to an organized mind for me. The third thing I want to do monthly is something to further my education. It can be anything from a blogging class to something having to do with my nursing career. I just love learning. The final thing I want to do monthly is to get out and do something fun that can either be with my niece zoe, by myself, or hopefully with friends I meet. 

My goals for this project is to in general be happier, gain more knowledge, grow stronger in my faith, and to meet some new friends since all of my other friends have spread out all over the country, 

I would love for all of you to join me on your own personal happiness project. Make your own list and leave it in the comments if you dont just let us know that you are joining in. 

Let us all grow in leaps and bounds over these next few months!!