As most of you know, I’m quite sick with the normal pregnancy stuff I always experience for the first 15-20 weeks of my pregnancies. I’ve tried just about every remedy known to man and not much works for me besides just grinning and bearing it–and reminding myself often that it is worth every bit of this for the end result!
Since we have two young children (they’re 3 years and 14 months) and my husband works longer hours, we are keeping it really simple for the next little while when it comes to what we’re eating around here. My husband is doing all the grocery shopping (bless his wonderful heart!) and I’m not worrying too much about getting the best deals or sticking to a small budget.
It’s about survival, folks, and I’m grateful that we’re in a position where we have saved and scrimped in the past so that we have wiggle room in seasons like this. I well remember my very first pregnancy when we were barely making ends meet and my husband was in law school. Sure, I didn’t have young ones to care for, but we had very little money to work with and it was much more of a challenge financially.
So here’s the menu I concocted for this week:
BREAKFASTS
Cereal, juice x5
English muffins with peanut butter, apples
Scrambled eggs with cottage cheese, toast
LUNCHES
PB&J, carrots, cheese
Annie’s mac and cheese, grapes x2
Canned beans, cottage cheese, peas, brown rice x2
Baked potatoes, cottage cheese, cheese, veggies
Turkey and cheese sandwiches, grapes
DINNERS–These are all meals which can be put together in a matter of minutes as Jesse is generously doing most all of the dinner prep for us after he gets home. (He’s such a great husband, isn’t he?!)
Beef hot dogs, tater tots, pork and beans over rice, frozen veggies
Spaghetti sauce (from a pouch) with ground beef (already cooked up) over noodles with cheese
Turkey and cheese sandwiches, grapes x2
Beef sausage in the crockpot with potatoes and carrots, toast
Burritos–refried beans, cheese, salsa
Carryout
So far, I’m eating a much less-varied diet than the family so what I personally will be eating this week will likely look a bit different than the above. We stocked up on a number of quick and nutritious snacks that I might be able to stomach and I’m doing my best to get in as much nutrition as I can with each bite I’m able to take.
For those new around here, you can see what a more normal, non-survival menu looks for us here. We usually stick to a $40/week grocery budget, but we’ve raised that to $70/week for the immediate future. In the long run, I think by raising our grocery budget, we’ll actually save money since having the fixings for lots of fast and easy snacks around will curb the urge to grab take-out multiple times per week.
I look forward to being about to get back into cooking and baking from scratch and doing more bargain shopping. In the mean time, though, I’ve very thankful for modern conveniences like grocery stores. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be a pioneer woman during the first trimester? I’ve been mulling on that a lot!
For more menus, see the big round-up over at I’m An Organizing Junkie.
Related: For anyone interested, I wrote about our minimized and simplified daily routine here.