more about W@H

I wrote yesterday about a wonderful W@H testimony- precious ello's salvation and subsequent baptism. Today I am going to brag on W@H in a totally different way. Like I said W@H is a wonderful group of women and at any one time, we will have a number of things going on. For example right now, we have just started a new BINGO game, we have a Biggest Loser contest going on, we are in the middle of at least 4 different Bible studies, we have just finished a praise challenge, and we have all the day to day chatter about books, eats, jobs, marriages, kids, you name it, we talk about it.

Back to the brag -- I am taking part in our Biggest Loser Challenge -- we are all working different plans but with the same goal, to lose weight. Each week there is a challenge posted to the two teams. This week's challenge -- create a menu for the week and post recipes from that menu. Well for the first time in several weeks I created a menu Saturday. Now that in and of itself wasn't a major brag, I actually did it BEFORE the challenge was posted. I just had to transcribe it to the thread for it to count and I will post recipes soon.

But because of some major motivating from a precious team member, I realized exactly what this menu planning is all about. It isn't just about saving money while grocery shopping and planning healthy meals for my family, both highly important and been sorely lacking around here in the last few weeks. It is also about prioritizing time -- both to actually DO the menu, but having it ahead of time makes it easier to plan out my evenings at home. For example today, I came home, sat down at the computer to check email and in on the boards while the kids and their dad were outside finishing up a few last minute things. Then I was able to get into the kitchen with a clear plan on what to do for dinner. I could plan what and when to do things so that I got dinner on the table, and here is the important part in CLEAN dishes, on a CLEAN table, with CLEAN counter tops. When I walked into the kitchen I had none of those things clean. And all of this was done in about an hour (remember I had to clean things as well as cook) without the benefit of a stove (Shanna when is that part coming??). And what is more, I also have clean dishes, table and counter top AFTER dinner as well!!

Praying things go just as well tomorrow......