Vegemite and Meal Planning

So many things to say...where to start?  Okay, well, I have been planning, for years, to start a meal planning habit, with week long charts filled in with what we're going to eat (and make) each day, with grocery lists an recipes and...just has never happened.  It feels so overwhelming and, I know, I know, it really isn't.  And, in the end, it will be so much easier, so less stressful, so less expensive, so much more healthy.  But still.  Never happened. 

And so, everyday about 4:00, I stand in front of the fridge and/or the pantry and wait for an idea (an easy idea) to reach out and punch me in the nose.  Also...never happens.

And now I started back to work, outside our home, fulltime, and...I NEED a plan!  I've reached out to a few friends and have started collecting their weekly menus.  And I've started listing what we have every night.  I'm going to try to pull together all this valuable information and see if I can't come up with a system that works, for me, at least.  And I will share.  Soon.

But yesterday, as I should have been grocery shopping, I was hunting down a jar of Vegemite.  We have a Mom's Book Club meeting this coming week.  We read What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty, which is a story taking place in Australia.  We always have dinner at our meetings and the dinners have started to tend towards some type of theme - the last couple were in relation to a location in the book.  So, this week, we're trying Australian dishes.  Remember that Men at Work song, Down Under?

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six-foot-four and full of muscles
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

I'm bringing, to the book meeting, Vegemite sandwiches.  They sound quite disgusting but I'm so curious to try one!  Here's the description on the Vegemite site (I can't paraphrase better than this):

Vegemite is considered as much a part of Australia's heritage as kangaroos and the Holden cars. It is actually an Australian obsession that has become a unique and loved symbol of the Australian nation.  A Vegemite sandwich to an Australian kid is the equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to an American kid - but the taste is QUITE different!

Vegemite is one of several yeast extract spreads sold in Australia. It is made from leftover brewers' yeast extract (a by-product of beer manufacture) and various vegetable and spice additives. It is very dark reddish-brown, almost black, in color, and one of the richest sources known of Vitamin B. It's thick like peanut butter, it's very salty, and it tastes like - well let's just say that it is an acquired taste!
Australian children are brought up on Vegemite from the time they're babies. It is said that Australians are known to travel all over the world with at least one small jar of Vegemite in their luggage, for fear that they will not be able to find it.

Yum, huh?!  I saw the Chocoshrooms in the next aisle and had to grab them also -had to even snap the photo when I got in the car 'cause I opened the box right away to eat them - truly nummy!  So much for grocery shopping.  Maybe tomorrow.