Homemaking

Some of the greatest homemakers aren't allowed to share in their "trade" because frankly they are too busy to stop and share. As women, we all have our own talents and unique ideas to run our households. I am so lucky to have so many women and so many different styles of women to learn from. Those ladies that do have time to share make money off it through books. One lady I am LOVING at the moment is "The Fly Lady." If you have heard of her before, many responses are "She is intense" "She is way over the top." I am not sure of her in the past, but her principles are simple. She doesn't have one system, instead she shares her way of doing it and suggests you make it your own. She always says, "You are never behind, just jump in and get started." I was given the opportunity to blog surf this afternoon, while the boys were watching a movie and Ike was sleeping. I have found blog surfing my way of getting new information to make my household run more smoothly. So in the spirit of sharing, I thought I would write some things down that help me make my life easy. You may find these old news or some you can try to apply in your house. Note: none of my ideas are orginals...they are all from someone else and I have made them my own.

1) Meal planning. I am not sure what we would be eating or how I would be able to go through the week without meal planning. This relieves stress when grocery shopping, coming home at the end of a hard day, adding variety to our meals, serving a variety of fruits and veggies.

2) Freezer cooking. I belong to a group of families in Lincoln that get together once a month. Each has been given a recipe to make. They make that one recipe x the # in the group. This allows my family to have a few convience meals in the freezer, so I have a "night off" some time throughout the week. This also allows me the opportunity to bless others with meals w/out trouble or stress on me to find the time to make a meal. Pot lucks aren't a chore either. I take it out of the freezer, cook it, and off we go.

3) Setting out clothes for the next day. The boys have a designated drawer in their room. On Saturday mornings, I put 5 outfits for the next week in their drawer. This gives them the flexibilty to choose which outfit they want, but it also decreases frustration with not being able to find a certain shirt or having all the shirts and pants on the floor from the long decision process.

4) Using leftovers up. Planning meals allows a person to help in re-cycling their left overs. For example, we had meatballs last week, but I wasn't able to use all the meat. I am making spaghetti this week, so I will put the rest of the meat balls in that dish. Then in a few nights we will be having Strombolli, which needs sauce. I will use the sauce from spaghetti to use as sauce for the Strombolli. I might also make a huge batch of spaghetti, so I can make Lasagna the next time cottage cheese goes on sale.

5) Shining my sink. This is the Fly Lady's key principle. It is so simple, yet so productive. If you "shine" your sink every night, this means you will have all dishes put away for the next day. Which in turn causes you to clean off your counters/tables, since your sink is cleaned. It makes a person (i.e. me) want to make sure everything is picked up throughout the whole house. It doesn't take any time to do this. She has many other key points to make your household run much smoother.

Share any great ideas you have: