I’ve been a huge fan of Works for Me Wednesday, sponsored by Rocks In My Dryer, and I finally have some advice to share and a blog to share it in. Hurray!Since our baby is only seven months old, our typical evening looks a little something like this:
Mommy picks up Baby from daycare.
Mommy and Daddy get home from work.
Daddy opens the mail, washes the daycare bottles, washes the milk storage bottles, washes the breastpump parts, and packs Baby’s lunch box for the next day.
Mommy nurses the Baby, changes his diaper, and prays that he will take a 30 minute nap so she can change her clothes and go potty.
Mommy and Daddy cook dinner.
Baby sleeps or entertains himself with the egg beater and potato masher while Mommy and Daddy do chores.
Mommy and Daddy eat dinner while Baby drops toys off the side of his highchair tray, enthusiastically exclaiming “UH, OH!” everytime one of them hits the floor. The louder the better.
Mommy washes dinner dishes while Daddy feeds the Baby as much fruit as he can and as little vegetables as he can without getting a lecture on nutrition from Mommy.
Mommy and Daddy play with the Baby.
Baby goes to bed.
Mommy and Daddy go to bed.
Repeat everyday until Baby goes to college.
If you’re still reading this, you might be wondering if I have a point. My point is, our lives are incredibly tedious and mundane and we often get frustrated that we don’t have enough time to pursue other interests, like exercise and laundry. Since we spend so much time on chores after work, I wanted to find a way to get our chores done quickly so we could actually enjoy some time with each other before we collapse into bed at the end of the day.
This was my brilliant idea:
We make a monthly dinner menu so we only have to go grocery shopping every two weeks and we only buy what we NEED, not everything we have used since the last trip to the store. (my husband’s mother lived through the great depression and WWII in Nazi Germany, so he acquired her tendency to stock up, stock up, stock up)
This month, instead of planning 30 days of meals, I have planned to cook one BIG meal and have leftovers the next day. So, instead of cooking 30 times a month, we will only have to cook dinner 15 times a month. If you also consider that we are celebrating Thanksgiving in November and my mother-in-law always cooks dinner and always makes us take leftovers home with us, we will only have to cook 14 times!
Just imagine all the things we could do with our newly-discovered spare time! I might have to shave my legs this month…
That’s What Works For Me!!
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6 comments:
Hi! You have a great idea that will work well for you! I'm a sahm but still, I know how hard it is to do much of anything, especially for yourself when you have babies. It gets easier!! You are doing great!!
Great idea! I'm slowly converting my husband to an appreciation for leftovers; hopefully in a year or so I can get to the point you're at--only cooking half the days!
That is a great idea.
I save stacks of time during the week by cooking double. It saves lots of time that can be used for much better things :)
Organising Queen and
Marcia's take charge blog
Great idea. My husband is child of the former East Germany where they also stock pile everything. I am learning a lot about conservation and recycling.
Love this idea. I've been meaning to implement this for a while now and your post helped remind me that the best time is NOW to have more family moments in the evening.
thanks!
Left-overs are great! In fact we've been living on a huge pan of enchiladas around here for several days. It's been nice to not cook each evening and spend more time with the kids and baby. It does get easier though as the baby gets older:)
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