I run a very tight schedule- I’m sure you do too. In this fast paced world it is so very hard to balance what needs doing, what should be done, and what we actually want to do! My schedule during the week leaves me with very little time in the evening,(I typically leave my house at 6 or 6:30 am and don’t get home till 7 or 8pm), and therefore makes thorough planning essential. This is my plan for how I approach meal prep for a week so I can cook basically only once a week.
Now I should mention that in my house at this time it is just my husband and me, and we have an agreement- I cook, he cleans. This means I almost never do dishes- my husband would go so far as to argue that I never do them- he may be right! But one thing I do all the time is the cooking. We don’t go out to eat very often, and because I can be quite frugal in certain areas of my life,(ahem, cheap), I have never used any meal prep services. Instead I do my own meal prepping. I want to spend as little as possible on good food that is reasonably healthy, spend as little time possible preparing it, have it taste great and not get bored. At heart I am a foodie who loves flavorful food, so I’m really not about having a baked to death pot roast every night. Or ever. I hate pot roast. But I digress.
For breakfast I typically have a protein smoothie which takes literally a minute to prepare. My husband does intermittent fasting and skips breakfast. (For more on my proteins smoothies and how I came to eat them everyday check out Kelly Levesque and her two books, Body Love, and Body Love Everyday.) For Lunch I have a salad bowl and dinner is something that I have either prepared in to crockpot or something that takes hardly any time to assemble.
Now because of my frugality I do my meal prepping one of two ways:
I select a base meal, for example: I buy a whole chicken at the store. Cook it in the crockpot on Monday, and serve it with a side. A sample week could look like this:
Monday: Chicken and a Salad.
Tuesday:Chicken Enchiladas
Wednesday: Chicken Alfredo Pasta with Steamed Veggies
Thursday: Leftover Chicken Enchiladas
Friday: Chicken Curry and Rice
Saturday: Chicken Tortilla Pizzas
Sunday:Improvision day!
By the time we get to Sunday we are usually done with our main dish so I make something that I always have on hand that can be easily whipped up, like spaghetti and meatballs.
2) The second way I like to do cost effective meal prep is similar to the first but instead of selecting a base meal, I have base ingredients that I reuse in various ways during the week. For example:
Monday:Vegtable Mexican Soup
Tuesday: Veggie Fish Bake,(lay the fish on a bed of lever over veggies and bake)
Wednesday: Vegtable Soup leftovers
Thursday:Spicy beef and rice
Friday: BBQ Beef Wraps and Salad
Saturday:Beef Stir Fry over Noodles
Sunday: Improvision Day!
For a week like this I would prep the soup ahead of time to be cooked in the crockpot. Then I would prep the beef for the crockpot or cook utilizing another method. Lastly I could chop any veggies ahead of time, leaving only fish, rice and noodles to be cooked during the week.
That is typically how our week goes, I find that for the 2 of us we typically get 2-3 meals out of any large casserole or crockpot meal, that means I only have to prep 2 or 3 large meals, and then have a few extra ingredients on hand for meals that are quick to throw together and we’re set!
Now let me back up to discuss the meal prep itself. The first step is to write out your menu for the week. But listen! It only takes a few minutes, for me it usually takes about 15 minutes. I come up with a “category,” if you will, that I want to eat that week; chicken in the first example, or beef in the second. I look in the fridge to see if I have extra of an ingredient to use up, a bag of spinach, or tomatoes, and take my findings into account and try to find a receipie that will use it up. I then come up with or search for a recipies using may main ingreient,(typically on Pinterest), and then let whatever sounds good guide my choices, (I like to meal plan right before a meal because then I’m hungry and its easy to find recipes that sound good!
I do my grocery shopping and then will spend approximately 1-2 hours prepping at some point that weekend, for me Saturday evenings or Sunday early in the afternoon are usually the best times. I start cooking everything that needs to be cooked ahead of time, while a meat cooks I will start slicing and dicing. Then I assemble ingredients for any casseroles or my crockpot. I also prep my lunch bowls at this time. I would say after doing this prep I usually spend less than an hour during the week cooking.
I hope this helps make your cooking life a little bit simpler! What are your meal prep tips and tricks?
I have mixed feelings about the beginning of the year, part of me is so excited by the prospect of a new year and all the possibilities it holds and the other part is still in mourning because I’m so depressed that the holidays are over! It takes me a while to acknowledge that Christmas is over and I have almost a whole year to go before it comes again. I need a way to cope.
One of the ways in which I cope is by doing a deep purge/organization overhaul of my house, with my husband’s help of course- I am so much fun to live with! Purging your house over the holidays may not be your idea of a good time like it is mine but before you write me off as a crazy try it- you may enjoy it as much as I do!
What an Organized Home Means to Me
First off though I want to say that I am all about functional organization; meaning some of my organization isn’t terribly Pinterest worthy. I don’t buy a container of cereal at the store and then come a home and transfer that into a different container so that when I open my pantry it is a pretty array of white and glass labeled canisters- I am into working smarter, not harder and for me a color coordinated pantry isn’t worth the time it takes at this point in my life. However, having a good organization system that helps me to put groceries away more quickly, find what I’m looking for when I need it, and the ability to tell when I’m out of something, are all things a value so that is where I focus my attention when it comes to organizing.
Our Journey Towards an Organized Home
It all started last year, I had been wanting to do a total overhaul of our basement which had become overrun with boxes, stuff for goodwill, and various items that were “almost” put away, but not quite and were just creating clutter. During the week between Christmas and New Year’s we sorted and pitched, organized and donated- and it felt great! By the end of the week we had transformed a cluttered mess into a nice usable space. My husband, understandably, had been reluctant to spend so much of our time off on this activity but he too agreed that it was time well spent and he was glad we had invested the time into- plus there was now room to set up the ping pong table he had been wanting to play on!
Getting Started
When beginning a purge remember, if you haven’t used it within 6 months to a year it’s probably safe to get rid of it. If you have multiples of something, and can’t remember when you last used one of that particular item, you are safe to get rid of at least one if not all of them. Lastly remember to set up 3 different piles: keep, give away and throw away. It is so much easier to let go of something if you know it is going to someone who needs it more than you do!
This year we weren’t in need of a deep purge in our house as badly as we were in need of a light purge with new organization measures put into place. I had several spots in the house that I had started referring to as “hot spots.” Certain closets like a miscellaneous cabinet in our bathroom, the space under the kitchen sink, and the closet where we keep our games had become totally out of control. In the weeks leading up to Christmas I started keeping a list of little projects that would only take an hour or so but still ended up on my to do list each week, having gotten pushed to the end of the list in favor of something more pressing.
After doing a light purge on these areas, (we did a lot better this past year in not allowing clutter to come into the house so a deep purge was unnecessary), I realized that merely purging would not be enough. I needed storage help! Over the years I have heard a lot of professional organizers say to hold off buying bins and storage containers until after you do a deep purge. I had done this but I had never gotten back around to purchasing storage containers and putting them into use. I finally did, and boy, did it make such a difference! Not only is having nice uniform storage bins more aesthetically appealing, but we were able to squeeze out a lot more usable storage from these areas as well.
You Can Have a Junk Drawer
Another thing: You can have a junk drawer! Having a well organized home means having a home that functions well. This means you may have a junk drawer! Really, it’s ok! You do not want this drawer to contain stuff that should go somewhere else- the random crayon needs thrown out or put away- but you need a place for miscellaneous stuff to live. We should probably call this a miscellaneous drawer rather than a junk drawer come to think of it! Take my kitchen “Miscellaneous Drawer,” for example; I keep birthday candles, packs of gum, the touch up pen for my cabinets, chip clips, pencils and a small notebook in this drawer. I need all of these things in the kitchen, so I keep them there. In my bedroom I have a decorative box where I keep spare buttons, and other such paraphernalia that I want to make sure I have but that is just random. I don’t have a million of these random catch all places but I do have a few, I keep an eye on them so they don’t snowball and it helps to keep all the other clutter under control because this way odd items that I do want to keep have a place to live.
I realize that we are now way past the week in between Christmas and New Years but that doesn’t mean that you can’t start chipping away at areas of your home now! Gretchen Rubin talks in her books of how she implements a power hour every week in which she powers through any unpleasant or annoying task that she had been putting off that week and when the hour is over she stops, check out my post on books to help you build the life you want here). I plan to do this in the form of a “Declutter Hour,” and at the end of every week if there is a spot that has been annoying me to clean it out before it has the chance to become overwhelming. I will rotate through my house to help stay on top of things and tackle and clutter before it gets out of hand.
You can also use this approach to get on top of things. You may not have a week in which you can just purge, but do you have an hour a day or just an hour a week? Make a list of areas that are driving you crazy and start tackling it little by little- you’ll be so glad that you did!
Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.
Philippians 2:12 NLT
One of the passages that stuck with me most from the Chronicles of Narnia is when Mr. Beaver responds to Lucy, saying of Aslan: “Safe?… Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” Lucy was like me, thinking that if she was to appear before this King that was also a Lion, surely he must be safe- right? How could people go before him if he wasn’t safe? As seen above Mr. Beaver set her straight, one doesn’t need to be safe in order to be good.
There is some discussion as to whether Mr. Lewis meant this as a metaphor for Jesus or whether he was just writing a scene for a children’s book without a deep metaphorical undertone. Regardless of whether it was intended or not I think it makes a great metaphor for God.
As people we tend to like categories, they make life easier! We make categorization systems for people, plants, food, books, countries- you name it! Usually we want it to fall into a system that looks like this; either it’s right or wrong, either good or bad, etc.. We like bilateral systems. We don’t tend to like gray areas of great complexity- isn’t that why subjects like politics get so controversial? What important, deep subjects in life can be easily reduced to black and white?
We do the Same thing with God. We want to categorize Him, so we say, there’s the judgemental God of the Old Testament, and then there’s the loving God of the New Testament- as if the most complex Being in the whole world could be simplified down into those 2 simple categories. Preposterous! He is loving, He is good, He is also the ultimate Judge.
In Church we tend to do a before and after; the Old Testament God is a righteous and judgemental God, the New Testament God is a kind and loving God. But God didn’t change His personality- He doesn’t change! He is a righteous and judgmental God, He is also so kind and loving that He sent his only Son to die so that we can be saved! Let us not mistake that kind of amazing love for safeness though. We must choose to love Him first and foremost in our lives or else we waste the precious gift of His son to us, and if we do that there will be eternal consequences.
No, He isn’t a safe God, but He is a good God. Therefore let us come before Him with the right attitude of awe and humility befitting His majesty, and let us worship Him.
We are nearing the end of January and that is usually when all these big dreams that we had a few weeks ago stop feeling exciting and instead just feel hard. We want them but sometimes the path there just seems so long and hard. If this is you and you are needing a little boost to keep plodding along towards your goals for this year then check out the book, Find Your Extraordinary by Jessica Herrin.
Ms Herrin is the CEO and founder of the Stella and Dot Family Brands. Before building that company she built Della and James which you may know by its current name, WeddigngCahnnel.com. So she knows a thing or 2 about knowing what you want and going for it- and achieving your dreams in the process!
One of the things that I appreciated about this book is that Ms Herrin clarifies from the beginning that success equals happiness. Not money. Not fame- happiness. She then takes you through her story, guiding you in what steps to take if you would like to find your own extraordinary life.
She talks about how to start believing in yourself beyond what you have reason too- you can’t think that you aren’t someone who can do the hard thing simply because you haven’t done it yet! You have to believe that you really can. Be afraid, then get over it. Be ok with going after your dreams alone, others may not get it, but if you know that is what you really want- go for it!
Then Ms Herrin discusses what she calls, “The Six P’s of the Entrepreneurial Spirit. First you have to find your passion. That’s fun but then you have to choose the Path of least regret and you may have to sacrifice things you enjoy but remember you’ll be doing the things that awakes the passion within you. Third, she talks about the power of a positive mind. This isn’t just about believing it will be ok but instead about how to work through difficult thoughts and doubts that are real and could happen. 4th, she talks about the people in your life, are you surrounding yourself with people who help you to grow? What about the people who are holding you back? She then talks about perseverance, she shares times in her life when the going got tough and she had to stick with it. The last P is Productivity and she discusses how to prioritize. There are always going to be tons of things to do- but what absolutely, positively has to get done, and what would just be nice if it was accomplished? She closes talking about the power of gratitude and finding the people who will come around and support you.
Even if your dreams are not of the entrepreneurial type, there is still a lot you could glean from this book. This isn’t a book about building a business, but rather about building a life. And not just any old life, but one in which you find true success through happiness- a life in which you find your extraordinary.
Disclosure Quick reminder that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you- it’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!
Christmas seems like ages ago, and long gone is the Christmas tree and hustle and bustle of the season. I always feel a bit bereft after taking down the Christmas tree and so many of my Christmas decorations, so I decided a while ago that I wouldn’t take it all down! Here in Pennsylvania it is cold and except for the sporadic snowfall, it is quite bare outside as well. I don’t want the inside of my house to feel bare as well! I want it to feel cozy- extra cozy! I want to decorate for winter, after all winter is a season too!
What should you take down and what should you leave up?
Since I just can’t quite cope with taking away all of my Christmas and winter decor at once I tend to leave up greenery,(I use faux so I have the ability to do this), my little trees that look wintery, and instead only take down the things that are expressly Christmas related. Now there is some discussion over whether to leave up any decor if it is very glittery and my feeling is this- if you like it leave it, and if you’re tired of it take it down! I would say by conservative standards you should take down anything glittery but since I like glitter to brighten up winter’s darkness I leave it.
I don’t typically use any red in my decor throughout the year. I’ll add in a touch or two of red in the Autumn and I use red at Christmas. So I take down most touches of red except if I have berries in with my greenery.
My rule is if it’s true in nature it can be true in my decor!
For this reason I also keep up certain glittery accents as well; trees, frosted every green accent balls, etc.. I love the look of white, glitter dusted branches, I love it outside my house when the branches glisten with snow and frost and I love it inside as well- faux snow and frost that is!
But you don’t want everything to be bare?!
I call this decorating for winter. In our excitement over the holidays we forget that winter too is a season. Maybe you decided to take down the glittery accents and trees but still you want something to make your come special through winter! Think cozy! Throws, pillows, and candles can really warm up and transform a space you want your decor to appeal to all the senses, and in winter I love to appeal to the eyes, and the sense of touch. It has been said that we feel texture with our eyes as well as our hands so bring in lots of different textures! Replace pristine books with worn, warmer looking ones, faux fur pillows too look soft and warm, woven baskets to chase away the sterile feel of a Christmas ridden home.
Here’s a quick list of some of my favorite winter decorating items:
Branches- bare branches in a big vase can be a show stopper! Pinecones Every green and Frosted evergreen branches Candles, candles, and more candles! Faux Fur pillows and throws Deer sheds, (antlers) Twinkle lights Logs in the fireplace- even if it’s not a working fireplace! Faux Sheepskin Throw
Want Other Touches of Winter?
Just because the Nativity Scenes and Santa’s have been put away doesn’t mean that the snowmen have to leave yet- where I live we still have another 2 or 3 months of snowman making weather! In addition you can leave up decorative little trees, silver deer figurines, and wintery accent balls like I did below!
Remember What You Like
I know myself and I want glitter and branches and basically want my home to transform from a Christmas wonderland, to a winter wonderland for the next few months. But what do you like? I think winter is also a great time to add more white to your decor than usual. Also maybe you keep a pretty traditional style home but would like to incorporate more vintage elements into your home then why not try it now?!
Maybe you are tired of some of the colors and decor that you have been using as staples in your home, take this season as a little breather and an excuse to play and have fun with your decor! I think the number one reason we get bored with anything is because we stop having fun with it. So have fun! And check out my post on Creating a Cohesive Color Pallet as a springboard for ideas if you have the urge to switch up some of your decor!
