Ballin' on a budget

Spending some time on this last Friday of 2013 thinking about some ways to get better organized before school starts back up. With Jake working all hours of the week, me being in nursing school and starting my new job at the hospital and the kids being in school and daycare... well, I may die if we don't get better at organization. Maybe it is my OCD, maybe it is just the inability to function any longer in what I affectionately refer to as my organized chaos. Either way, I am going to schedule every detail of our lives that I possibly can, to make the crazy, unscheduled parts slightly more bearable.

My first go-to when trying to figure out how to do something new is not the wonderful critical thinking skills I keep locked away in the back of my brain. It is Google. Google knows everything. I mean seriously, you can Google anything and you will get a billion responses. I love Google and Google loves me and if I could, I would marry it. That being said, Google has not come through for me this time. There are simply not a lot of resources out there when you Google things like "Large family organization," or "Meals for large families on a budget."

I would think that in this day in age where I can sit and type this ridiculous blog of mine, there would be some other crazy lady out there with a litter of kids doing the same thing. The only things I can find are from women who either a.) have waaaaaay more money than I do and live in a furniture catalog/movie set or b.) Have many children, but only blog about homeschooling and feeding the chickens. Nothing wrong with either of those things, they just don't apply here.

The meal planning blogs I find are all filled with ideas for things like 'Salmon Salad with Parsley and Capers' or 'Spinach Infused Penne Pasta with Ricotta Cheese.' Sure they're probably decent and healthy options, but what kid is really going to eat that crap? and I don't even know what the hell a Caper is. Can I buy them at Aldi, because if I can't, it ain't gonna happen.

I need some direction on how to be a real life, ballin' on a budget, inner city mom of 5 picky ass kiddos.

So, I guess I will create my own. I am going to unlock my critical thinking box, bring it to the front of my brain, and let it loose. Today I am working on a menu plan and I hope to find the time to share my findings and ideas here on my blog so that other real life, middle class, working moms can have a good search return when they go to Google.