Menus. Ugh.

Menu plan. Who am I kidding?

Guess what?

I don't plan weekly menus.

There. It's out. I'll give you a minute to absorb the shock.

I hate menu planning. I've hated it since day 1 of being married. And I've tried every trick in the book to do it, every type of chart. Can't stand it.

Plus, those times I actually have planned a weekly menu, we haven't used it at all. It just becomes a decoration on the refrigerator door.

What I do instead is stock the refrigerator and pantry with a good variety of meats, grains, vegetables, fruits, and dairy, and we have what we need. Kris almost never wants what I had planned, so it's easier to pull out meat in the morning and figure out what to make with it during the day.

What was freeing about this entire arrangement, though, was when I realized it isn't a sin to forego the menu plan.

Really? It's not a sin? No, it's not!!

I always thought a good wife, of course, plans a menu and shops accordingly. And I felt guilty week after week, year after year, as I failed yet again at my menu planning standards.

Then my friend was talking to me a few days ago. She used to plan menus meticulously, buy what was on the list, and actually make it. Now, she just grabs the foods she knows her family eats, and decides each day what to make.

It was that conversation with her that finally freed me of the guilt that has been lingering for so long.

It's yet another chain off my mindset of just how things ought to be. Some people cannot fathom the rigidity of structure that exists in the minds of other people like me. Structure. Order. Boxes. Outlines. Lists. Routines. Everything in its place. No deviation whatsoever--ever!

I actually have to tell myself that some expectations I have for myself are not commandments handed down by Moses from the Lord.

The older I get, the more I'm able to come to a balanced version of my personality, where structure is there for support, but doesn't hold Gospel weight for importance.