10-2-2009 - (3) Everyday Things That Make My Life Easier

My mood while writing this blog: THANKFUL

Have you ever walked aimlessly into your kitchen to cook your family a meal, only to get in there and have no idea what you will fix?? This has actually happened to me far too many times to count! And it is never pretty!....children with low blood sugar having meltdowns, stressed and frustrated mom who is about to join the children in the scream fest....you get the picture.

How to change this? Menus!! I had stopped doing this, and now that I have started again, I could kick myself for ever stopping! It is often the most simple things that make the day run smoother, and the menu is most certainly one of those things. I make mine 2 weeks at a time, b/c that is the way I shop. I make the menu, and then I write out my grocery list...and wa la...HUGE weight off the shoulders!

This most definitely makes mornings better. I am not a morning person, and it takes me some time to get moving. My children, on the other hand, wake up with lots of energy, and you would think that they had not eaten for days! Cereal became my breakfast of choice for them, just because it was simple and it took no thinking, and that is a plus when my brain is not quite working yet anyway. While nothing is wrong with cereal, I would like to feed them something more filling. We will still eat cereal on occasion, just not every morning.

So how does a menu help with this? It helps because now I know what I need to take out the night before, in order to have a head start on breakfast the next morning.(For example, last night I put the electric griddle out on the counter, fixed the coffee pot, and took out a heart shaped cookie cutter for cutting out the center of the bread) If I have to take everything out the next morning, then you can forget it, cereal will be what you get, b/c I do not have enough energy in the mornings to do all of the gathering of supplies (which is never just in one area of the kitchen), prep, cooking and cleaning. So this morning, the on button was pushed on the coffee pot, and the griddle plugged up. That took care of quite a bit of the busy work! All I had to do then, was pull a few things out of the fridge and a couple of things off the pantry shelf, AND I knew what I was doing ahead of time, so didn't have to use my already foggy brain to think something up! The few things that I did the night before may not seem like alot, but for a mom who does not function well in the mornings, it makes a big difference! Thanks to my menu, I knew what I was making for breakfast and could start the night before!

The same goes for lunch and dinner. I can get a jump start on those the night before as well....pull meat or bread from the freezer to defrost, soak beans, chop onions, etc.

Not only does a menu save time, it also saves money! Preparing food at home is much, much more economical than eating out, and who doesn't like the idea of saving money?!