Crazy Weeks!

Whew.  I've officially made it through the first two weeks of school.  I've always heard friends that are teachers tell me how exhausted they are at the end of their day, but I don't think I fully understood the type of exhaustion they were experiencing until I stepped into it myself-- it's a heart, mind, and soul job.      Daily I'm challenged in unique and different ways and I love it.  I would have to say though, so far my favorite part is the moments I get to have with kids.  When I get to walk down a hallway and hear about how their day has been, and when they dare to share a little piece of their life with me, those are the moments that I treasure the most.  Next week, I'll get to begin my services for kids with special needs, and I am beyond thrilled to start working with kiddos each day to build relationships and to help them access the tools that they need to access the general education curriculum.  I feel honored that God has asked me to step into this role and into this place, and even though some days even in the first few weeks have been beyond challenging, I know why I'm here and feel privileged to be able to speak truth and love into kids.  I can't say that every day is easy.  Sometimes kids like to test and challenge me in ways that I never expected, but I am thankful for new days, for fresh starts, and to learn and grow from the mistakes I make.

So, that's where I'm at.  Now that I'll actually begin my direct contact with kids on Tuesday, I'm sure I'm going to have a lot more stories!  The last few weeks have been testing, scheduling, working with gen ed teachers, trying to meet some of my students, and occasional teaching.  Now it's the real deal and I'm ready to roll! (Well, as ready as I can be...)


2 Weeks of Pre-Made Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Made in a Day!
And now for the fun part, where I get to share with you crafty ideas, food fun, etc... with the last few weeks being hectic, I knew that I wasn't going to have a ton of time to cook some healthy and delicious food.  I also didn't want to resort to eating frozen meals every day because of all the extra preservatives, sodium, and I just never feel quite full after eating them.  So instead, I managed to find a few recipes that allowed me to make healthy breakfasts, lunches, and dinner that I could make with fresh ingredients, freeze, and then take out of the freezer whenever I was ready to go.  That's right, I made almost two weeks worth of meals (breakfast to dinner) in about a day of preparation that are healthy and delicious, and you can too!  So, here's how...

(My freezer...)

Dinner                   Lunch                Breakfast 

Breakfast

Most days for breakfast, I have some cereal or oatmeal, but sometimes there are just those days where I sleep a little later, move a little slower, and need something I can just run out the door with to eat.  I found this website that has pre-made, healthy egg mcmuffins-- you can use whole wheat english muffins, eggs (or egg whites), turkey sausage, and reduced-fat cheese for a pretty good breakfast sandwich that you can grab out of your freezer, heat in the microwave, and go!  

Lunch
For lunch, I found some recipes for pre-made wraps.  I found some Bean, Spinach, and Quinoa Burritos on the Real Simple website that I really like.  They are healthy, delicious, and you can just take them out of the freezer and reheat in the microwave.  (Directions for reheating are on both of these recipe websites).  I also made some barbeque chicken wraps.  I made the barbeque chicken with just three ingredients in a crockpot-- throw chicken, a bottle of barbeque sauce, and pineapples into a crockpot for about 6-7 hours on low (Recipe found here).  Once the chicken is cooked, I mixed it with some rice, and then just threw it onto a tortilla and made a few wraps out of it.  I then froze them and reheated them in the microwave for about 2 minutes.  Sometimes I even like eating them cold!  There are tons of other pre-made wraps you can make by just throwing some things together.  I think my next attempt will be a mexican style wrap, with black beans, onions, peppers, chili powder, rice, avocado, ground turkey breast, etc... once I try it out I'll be happy to share!

Dinner
So, last, but certainly not the least-- dinner!  Over the last year, I have really fallen in love with my crockpot.  I've found so many easy and healthy recipes to make and there is nothing better than coming home after work to your crockpot meal that is ready to eat and has the kitchen smelling like you've been cooking yummy things all day!  I found this link on Pinterest that has 28 dump chicken recipes .  Here is what I love about it: the recipes are super easy, very healthy, and most of the ingredients you probably already have!  The website gives instructions on how to make them freezer meals and how to reheat out of the freezer.  I found about 6 or 7 recipes that I really liked, and made them all freezer meals.  Now, whenever I want an easy dinner, I just need to take the freezer meal out of the freezer the night before, put it into the fridge to thaw, and the next morning, just toss it into the crockpot so that it's ready for dinner that night!  Easy enough, right??


So, I hope these recipes make your crazy weeks a little easy, and give you comfort that you're eating good and healthy meals even in the midst of craziness!!