Teaching Kids to Cook

I am so excited. SO EXCITED! We are joining a new Homeschool Co-Op and I offered to teach an "Intro to Cooking" class for some of the kids ages 7-12. When asked what my special skills are, I drew a blank. Then it hit me! I'm not good enough at Science or Art or Spanish to teach anyone other than my own kids, but cooking? I can teach cooking. 

I've spent the better part of this afternoon obsessing over my tentative syllabus for this 12 week course. Wanna know what I've penciled in? Because I'm really excited about it and I want to share it with someone, so it may as well be YOU. Even if you don't homeschool, you could teach your own kids how to cook in just a matter of a few months with this basic skeleton of an agenda.

(I still need to figure out how much the supplies and ingredients are going to cost, so I can come up with a dollar amount to charge each child, but I can figure that out later.)

Week 1: Intro to Cooking

I'm going to get the kids each an apron and, while we get to know each other, they can decorate their aprons with fabric markers and puffy paint. We'll also go over cleanliness, recipe basics, etc. during our first class together. No cooking yet, just getting everyone on the same page.

Week 2: Knife safety, Peelers, Whipping Cream

After going over knife safety, we'll learn how to safely use a vegetable peeler and they'll peel some apples for Easy Apple Turnovers. While those are baking, we'll make homemade whipping cream.  I'll never forget my kids' faces when they first saw heavy whipping cream transform into whipped cream. It's magical! Minimal measuring, pretty simple, but fun, right?

Week 3: Differences between liquid and dry measurements

Again, keeping thing simple early on, we're going to make Homemade Ice Cream in a bag. We'll learn about the difference between liquid and dry measuring utensils, cups and spoons, measuring equivalents (3 tsp = 1 Tbsp), things like that. Still learning the basics.

Week 4: Breakfast in bed

I polled some friends and it was a consensus that these kids need to learn how to bring their parents breakfast in bed! So we're going to learn how to cook eggs to order (scrambled and soft/hard boiled, plus the difference between over easy, over medium, and over hard fried eggs) and I'm going to throw in a little character lesson about why they should bring their parents (and eventually their spouse) breakfast in bed. It's all about serving others, people!

Week 5: Baking/Oven Safety

This week, we'll make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins because we'll be heading straight into fall. We'll talk about measuring dry ingredients by making the top of the measuring cup even with the back of a knife, why things go in the mixing bowl in a certain order, stuff like that.

Week 6: Chicken Safety

I can't do a cooking class without talking about cross contamination and the disgusting world of salmonella! We'll make homemade chicken fingers, and while those are cooking, I'm going to bring some basic seasonings (basil, garlic, onion, thyme, oregano) and let them smell/taste each one, explaining why adding seasonings is so important to cooking.

Week 7: Making Lunch

Making a grilled cheese sandwich seems easy, but for littler kids, they don't understand that it's necessary to butter the bread evenly so it all cooks the same, how not to burn it before flipping it over, things like that. Someone mentioned that learning this in Home Ec gave them huge confidence in the kitchen, so I'm throwing this in there. 

Week 8: Boiling Water

Not only are we going to make a pasta dish and learn about boiling water on this day, but I found a fun recipe on Pinterest for putting uncooked spaghetti noodles through hot dog chunks and boiling them, then they look crazy on the plate. Who wouldn't love that? But I wonder what you would serve them with…? Ketchup? Marinara?

photo credit

Week 9: Meatballs, Meatloaf and not clogging the drain

Most kids will love squishing and rolling meatballs, plus a friend told me about a cooking birthday party her son went to where they spent some time talking about properly disposing of fats. To help them understand why not to put fat down the drain, she did a demo with two kids holding hands in a circle, then a couple of kids stood between them. Then she tried to put another kid in, then another, until the "circle" was clogged. Then she lifted another kid up and tried to put her on top, showing what happens as the drain slowly gets clogged up. This demonstration is right up my little homeschool alley!

Week 10: Using a Mixer/Beaters

I can't teach a cooking class without sharing the best ever Chocolate Cake recipe with these kids and their families! They'll also learn how to make homemade frosting with their own set of beaters, and we'll discuss how softened vs. melted butter affects the outcome of a recipe. Then they'll frost their individual cakes in disposable tins and I'll send them on their merry little way.

Week 11: Sugar Cookies

Again, when you have the most amazing Sugar Cookie Recipe on the planet, it must be shared. Plus, my recipe doesn't require that the dough be refrigerated first, so they'll get to make the dough, roll it out, flour the surface, use cookie cutters, bake and decorate. We'll be closer to Christmas by this time, so it will be good timing.

Week 12: Reading a Recipe Independently 

By the end of the class, my goal is to have these kids reading recipes on their own. They will (hopefully) know how to measure properly, go through the instructions independently, etc. They'll make my easy, moist Banana Bread recipe in disposable loaf pans to take home as their final class project.

Doesn't this sound fun!? I'm seriously jumping out of my skin I'm so excited. Hopefully these kids will get 10% of my excitement and actually retain something I teach them so they can learn to be confident in the kitchen. 

If your kids were taking a cooking class, what would you want them to learn? I have plenty of time to tweak or add to my agenda!

Refocused Attention on my Home

After a long, cold winter, most people have an incessant need to "Spring Clean" when they're no longer captive in their home. In Phoenix, I tend to feel this pull at the end of a long, hot summer. We're not at the end of our summer, per se, but I can't deny the itch. I must declutter.

This feeling might have been accelerated after staying at a clean, simple, organized and uncluttered home in California last weekend. Or a garage sale hosted by some friends yesterday. Or the freshly painted navy guest bathroom and deep red dining room in another girlfriend's house yesterday. All of these have contributed to an epiphany that, as Jason is getting older and more self-sufficient, my time and energy can be freed up to do several DIY projects that have lingered on my to do list for far too long.

I must touch up scuff marks in tons of areas on my walls.

I can finally fix the frame around the wall decor above my bed.

I want to paint the playroom.

Maybe even paint my laundry room since I'm in there every. darn. day.

My bedroom could use a major makeover.

My closet needs a major overhaul and reorganization.

I would love to figure out a no-sew window treatment option for our office.

There are pictures that need to be hung.

Old toys, books and games to be sold or donated.

Things shoved in nooks and crannies that either need to find homes or get rid of them altogether.

There's work to be done, people. I'm not sure when I got out of the mode of fixing up my home...maybe it was in 2008 when Mike was laid off? Or in 2009 when I was pregnant? Or in 2010 when I had a needy infant? Or later in 2010 when that infant showed his strong will and transformed into destructo-boy? Or in 2011 when I began selling Tastefully Simple? Or in 2012 when I began to homeschool?

So yeah, apparently I've had a lot going on. Redecorating hasn't necessarily been a top priority. But I'm definitely feelin' it now! 2013 will be focused on decluttering and 2014 will give my house the decorating attention it deserves. I'm ready for some changes!

Ryan's Cooking Class Binder

Phase one of Ryan's Life Skills Binder is complete! I compiled a binder that has everything I need to teach him the chemistry of baking and how to follow a recipe. Each recipe will be prepared three times: he'll watch once while I make it, then he'll make it while I watch, finally he'll make the item on his own.

Then, just like in the original idea, when he completes our "classes", he gets to invite over some friends for a party where he'll prepare 6-8 of the recipes himself and celebrate with his guests. How fun does that sound??? 

Here are the recipes I included in the baking section. After his baking party, we'll move on to learning breakfast and dinner recipes/techniques because those are a little less concrete. (I already chose our "syllabus" for those classes and included them below. The dinner items are all easy enough to teach the basics, which hopefully will translate over into most other recipes.)

Baking
Granola (minus the wheat germ)
Granola Bars (also minus the wheat germ)
Gluten-Free Banana Bread
Chocolate Cake
Homemade Frosting
Alton Brown's Chocolate Chip Cookies
No-Bake Paleo Cookies
Gluten-Free Brownies
Monkey Munch
Homemade Bread (either Olive Oil Bread or Whole Wheat Bread)
Gluten-Free, Grain-Free Muffins
Apple Pie
Whipped Cream

Breakfast
Eggs - fried
Eggs - scrambled
Eggs - omelets
Eggs - Dad's concoction
Oatmeal
Pancakes
French Toast
Smoothies

Dinner
Chili
White Chicken Chili in the crock pot
Chicken Noodle Soup
Vegetable Soup
Tacos (with homemade, clean eating taco seasoning)
Chicken Enchilada Crustless Quiche
Chicken Fried Rice
Meatloaf/Meatballs
Mashed Potatoes
Rice
Hummus (not dinner, but I want to teach him anyway)

I can't wait to get started!!! My responsibilities are clearly dwindling as the kids grow up. I can see it now: "Ryan, could you please go get dinner started? The defrosted chicken is in the fridge." Soon my role in this family will be all but obsolete. (Mwahaha...)

Organizing is like cleaning...only less often

The newest addition to our school room...activity bins. More details to come, once it's completed!

If you've been around my blog for any length of time, you know that my life feels complete when I am organized. I genuinely love organizing. I like things to be clean, too, but the problem is that I don't like to clean. Unfortunately, it's a necessary evil that you have to clean (or pay to have it done) when you like things to BE clean. Curses!

I was reorganizing our school room last week and something occurred to me: You can't just organize something once and leave it alone. Systems need to be put in place to keep a space organized and you need to work the systems. Even if you put things where they belong 100% of the time, every once in a while, it's still good to go through the space to purge, rearrange and make sure your systems are working for you. 

Recently, I found this to be true of our school room.

Now that we've agreed to keep Kaylin home for 1st grade, I felt like I needed to get serious about our school space. In November, I transformed my craft/scrapbook room into a place that was functional for teaching the kids and entertaining Jason during our learning hours. With Mike on board to make this a longer term educational decision, I came to the realization that the scrapbook supplies needed to go...and our school room needed to be strictly for school.

It was during this process that I started thinking about people who feel disorganized. Part of the problem is not having systems in place, but the other problem is likely the misconception that once you organize a space, you never need to organize it again.

Organizing is like cleaning...you can't just do it once and expect it to stay that way forever.

The good news is that you don't need to organize nearly as often as you need to clean your home. To keep a general feeling of cleanliness, we clean our house every other week, yet I only go through and organize high-traffic areas/rooms/closets a couple of times each year, if that.  Make sense?

So if you hate how disorganized you feel in your kitchen or your bedroom closet or your pantry, dedicate a couple of hours this month to tackling that dreaded space. It probably won't take nearly as long as you think and everything associated with that space will take less time once it's organized. Then next month, tackle another disorganized area.

You'll be so glad that you did!

How to Delete Pictures with Confidence

I'll admit, I take more pictures than the normal person.  My camera sees the light of day every day, sometimes various times each day, about 360 days a year.  And with the luxury of a digital camera, I keep snapping pictures upon pictures of the same thing, trying to get "the perfect shot." 

I have a feeling I'll get this question, so I'll be proactive in answering: Because I have so many pictures, I organize them by date.  I have a folder for each year {labeled "yyyy-mm (abr)" like "2011-03 (Mar)" so they stay sorted in date order}, then I label each picture with the date, so they stay organized in their appropriate folder.  Within each monthly folder, there might be sub-folders for events with more than 5-10 pictures, like Easter or a party or even a really eventful Family Day. 

I like knowing where I can find pictures after the fact, and keeping them in order is the best way for me to do that.

Moving on...

A few weeks ago, I took an amateur  Photoshop class from a wedding photographer. Her method of keeping pictures sounded too painful for me, but this week was the first time I put her suggestion into practice.  It was SO FREEING - I just have to share it with you.

Are you ready?

Let's take Easter, as an example.  We went to Mike's uncle's house, who has a huge acre + property with orange trees and neighbors with horses and space for the kids to roam.  It was a beautiful day and everyone was having a blast, so I just kept snapping pictures.  200 pictures in less than 4 hours, to be exact.

I started where I normally do, and made a folder for Easter titled, "04.24.11 - Easter".  I then followed this photographer's advice and made a sub-folder titled, "best" and began looking through the whole day's photos.  The ones that stood out to me immediately were dragged to the "best" folder: I tried to only keep 1 or 2 shots from each series.  One of Ryan picking oranges, one of Jason trying to climb the ladder, one of everyone playing volleyball...you get the idea.  I took about 10 per setting, but was brutal and only chose one favorite, two at the most.

I went through the rejects one last time and found a couple more to add to the "best" folder, then I went through the "best" pictures to make sure I really loved them all.

The last step was the freeing part.  It scared me to do this, but I highlighted all of the pictures outside of the "best" folder and I hit "DELETE." 

I have never done this before in my life.  Sure, I'll delete out of focus pictures or those where I caught someone mid-blink, but I always have that thought in the back of my mind that I need to keep every shot that's in focus and decent.

But this photographer insisted that if a certain picture doesn't catch her eye the first time she looks through the lot, she's confident that her clients won't love it. 

This picture was the final choice of the 10 pictures I took of my sweet Kaylin walking with her baby brother.  I love that she's looking at him.  I love that he's in mid-step.  I love that her hair is blowing in the breeze.  I love the color and I love the composition.  It's the perfect representation of the moment I was trying to capture.

What's funny is that as the above picture was uploading, I decided to go through this process with another picture-filled folder.  When I opened our vacation to San Francisco, I realized that I already had a "best" folder, but the rest of the pictures were still there because I must have been too chicken to hit "delete."  I just went through the best pictures, then the rejects, grabbed one of the rejects into the "best" folder and hit "delete" with no regrets.

Seriously, so freeing. 

The only time I'll keep more than 1-2 shots per setting is if I want to do a collage or storyboard of some kind for scrapbooking.  But other than that, DELETE.

Give it a try!  I can't wait to free up some space on my hard drive...

Crafty Idea: Memorial Bear

A sweet friend of mine, Brooke, shared an awesome idea with me.  When her father died, her grandmother took his shirts and created these amazing keepsake bears and patchwork pillows for the kids and grandkids.

Now, I can barely sew a button, but I'd imagine these wouldn't be too cumbersome to recreate - if you can work a sewing machine, that is!

Homemade Clorox Cleanup

You all know that I try to be as chemical-free as possible, especially with my cleaners.  But there are just some areas of my house that don't seem clean without bleach.  (my toilet and kitchen sink, to name a couple)

I keep bleach in the house for pouring into toilet bowls and I keep Clorox Clean Up for our sink.  I feel like it kills more bacteria and germs than my standard all-purpose cleaner.  It's probably my imagination, but food-born junk freaks me out. 

After finding raw chicken juice all over a fridge shelf recently - AGAIN - I ran out of Clorox Clean Up while disinfecting the spill.  In my attempt to buy less groceries for March, I ended up looking up a recipe for homemade Clorox Clean Up.  Sure enough, you can make anything at home these days!

All you need is:
- 1/4 cup bleach
- 1 Tbsp. dishwashing liquid
- fill the squirt bottle with water

I ended up just mixing it in my empty Clorox Clean Up bottle.  It works just as well as the $4 bottle from the store!  I'm seriously shocked.  So, of course, I had to share. 

Happy cleaning!

Sometimes You Just Gotta Go With It

(our overflow fridge in the laundry room)

Have you ever found defrosting chicken in a puddle of could-be-salmonella-y juice on the fridge shelf?  Then you have to tear everything apart and clean it, drips and all, before it gets dried and crusty and passes the could-be germs on to other food packages.  Even though all you wanted to do was start your crock pot and go along with your day.

Then have you ever started cleaning that one shelf in the fridge and just kept going and going and going?  Until the whole fridge was empty and your counters had glass shelves and drawers piled high?

Yeah, me neither.  I clean my fridge, um, (*cough*) all the time.

Sometimes you just gotta keep going when you get motivated, you know?  And sometimes you wish you would have put the thawing chicken in a baking pan so the juice would have stayed contained.  Because this is not the first time this has happened to me.  Or to thawing meat in my fridge.

Someday I'll learn...

New Year, Fresh Start

One of my big goals this week is to start fresh in my filing cabinet.  I'm taking receipts and certain paperwork from their regular files and moving them to new files labeled "through 2010."  For instance, my folder with household receipts will move from the "Household" folder to a new "Household through 2010" folder. 

I did this back in 2008 and when I recently purged my file cabinet, I knew that I could pull and shred all of the information in the "through 2007" folders without looking at it.  Some of the items from 2008-2010 needed to be kept "just in case," but instead of going through it all, I just kept it all for now.  I'll throw it away next year.  :)

Back in 2008, my hope was to do this type of back-filing annually, but you know how life goes: it didn't happen.

This year, I'm creating a clean slate once again. 

I know I keep more papers and receipts than most, but I thought this tip might help someone else out there who gets overwhelmed with paper clutter, like me.  :) 

Happy New Year!

The Secret to Joy is Perspective

Just a little reminder that the next couple of days might be a little stressful/overwhelming/exhausting, depending on where you're dragging your family or who is coming to your home.  The kids will have too much sugar, get too little sleep...they might be ungrateful for a hand-knit sweater from Great Aunt Edna...or have a meltdown in the middle of the Christmas Eve service at church...relatives will undermine your authority...expect it all.  The good, the bad and the ugly.  Prepare to have some (or all) of your expectations for "the perfect Christmas" to be unmet.

Then decide to choose JOY.

You can absolutely choose to be filled with joy instead of any other negative emotion that creeps in.  Set the tone for your home as one that is relaxed and peaceful.

And let the fun begin.  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

No powdered sugar? No problem!

DID YOU KNOW...powdered sugar is just regular, granulated, white sugar that's been pulverized in the blender? 

I'm sure the people at C&H use a huge, mega-machine blender, but still.  Why can't we do this at home?

Last night, I came to the disappointing realization that:
1. the icing needed to set for a minimum of 24 hours and my kids weren't going to get to decorate their gingerbread house, as promised in their Advent calendar activity,
2. my gingerbread kit did not come with all of the icing ingredients, and
3. I was completely out of powdered sugar and I needed 2 lbs of it. 

Lovely.

Then I remembered seeing a tip on one of the all-natural blogs that I read.  She made powdered sugar out of Sucanat (a coarse, all natural sugar cane).  That was a light-bulb moment for me; I didn't realize powdered/confectioners sugar is just finely ground white sugar.  DUH!

So I tried it.


...and it WORKED!!!

You have to blend it on high for a pretty long time and I had to tap my blender a few times to get the sides to move down to the blade, but seriously...I was shocked that I made my own powdered sugar.  You'd have thought I'd ground my own wheat or something!  I was so proud...

Too bad my gingerbread house didn't cooperate.  The sides fell repeatedly until I screamed so loud in frustration that I'm certain you might have heard it faintly from your own home...where ever you live.

I actually suggested to my kids (before my final attempt) that if the walls fell again, they might want to run and hide because I would probably end up throwing gingerbread pieces all over the house.

With a little propping and finagling, it stayed.

I vented my frustrations on Facebook and got THE BEST tip: use a hot glue gun.  Who really eats the hardened gingerbread house pieces after all that hard work!?!?  Next time, forget the royal icing.  I'm using hot glue, baby!!!

1 Corinthians 13 for Christmas

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny glass balls, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.

If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in a nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing the choir's cantata, but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

Love stops cooking to hug a child.

Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.

Love is kind, though harried and tired.

Love doesn't envy another's home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.

Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way.

Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can't.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.  Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost and golf clubs will rust. 

But giving the gift of love endures.

(author unknown)

Tuesday's Time Saving {Multi-Tasking} Tip

Ladies, pay attention.  We were made to multi-task.  Not all of us do it well, but for those of us who can multi-task, we should take advantage of this amazing gift God gave us!

A few weeks ago, my BFF called and said, "I'm not in the mood to clean my bathroom, so I thought talking to you would help the time go faster."  What did I do?  I plopped down on the couch and chatted for 20 minutes.  When she was done cleaning, I ended the conversation with, "Ugh - now I need to go fold my laundry." 

Um, HELLO?!?

I could have been folding my laundry while we were talking!!!  What was I thinking?

Over the past year, I've gotten out of the habit of talking on the phone, mostly because, well...I'm a talker.  And when I spend more than 5-10 minutes on a phone call, I get lost in the moment and end up blowing off errands, the gym, my to-do list, or worst yet...my children.

As a sidenote, what's awesome is the fact that my kids rarely act up when I'm on the phone anymore. It used to be a given: I answered the phone, everyone misbehaved.  We're talking dancing on the coffee table and purposely body slamming each other.  It was awful. 

But now, my kids know that I'm not on the phone for long, so they only interrupt me for safety reasons.   I noticed that a few days ago and praised them up one side and down the other for behaving so well while I was on the call.  Then I realized that this is their new pattern.  It's a beautiful thing.

So next time you get a call from a friend, look around and see what you can be doing at the same time.  Dishes, laundry, dusting, clipping coupons, chopping onions for dinner...there's always something to do, right?

Our New Command Center

I've always had a junk counter.  Some people have a drawer, I have a counter.  I hate it, but I need somewhere to stow my stuff when the table needs to be set for dinner or the rest of the kitchen is taken over by baking.  Everything ends up on the junk counter until I have time to put it away.

My junk counter is our "command center."  It's the place where I drop my purse when I come home, charge my cell phone, sort through mail and coupons, take messages, you name it.  But it's always been awful to look at.  Even when it was tidy, it was cluttered. 

This was the old "clean" look

This weekend, I needed to grab a recipe off my blog and was so annoyed that I had to go all the way upstairs to get it.  Again.  This is a daily occurrence...sometimes multiple times a day.  But there's no good place to keep the laptop downstairs, mostly because it's old and the battery is dead and it needs to stay plugged in all the time. 

Then it occurred to me: what if I turned my junk counter into a little media nook?

Before

After

This popped into my head because soon, I'll be getting my mom's china cabinet for our formal glasses and dishes, which are currently kept in a weird closet off the back hall by the garage door.  But I've been wanting to turn that closet into a "kids closet" for years...keeping their arts and craft supplies, socks and shoes, gloves and hats in the winter, swimsuits and sunglasses in the summer, etc.  Once that happens, I can carve out a shelf in there to act as our "command center." 

In the meantime, I turned our laundry room counter into a temporary drop zone.

Before

After

Those stackable black shelves each have a vital purpose in controlling my incoming paper clutter: The top is a catch-all for mail and items to go through, the next shelf is for coupons, the third shelf is kids paperwork and the bottom is for unread magazines (that I grab for the gym).  I also added a couple of little buckets to contain smaller items of the kids' that seem to get lost, like Ryan's mouthpiece and stickers for football.  And the little white basket is for Christmas cards that need to be hung.  (yes, I already received my first Christmas card - I'm waiting to get a few more before putting them on the wall)

I haven't been this excited about an organizational project in a long time.  When I get the china cabinet, I'll post before and after pictures of that back closet.  I can't wait to get that done!!!

Tuesday's Time Saving {Serving Platter} Tip

This week's Time Saving Tip is my Thanksgiving Day/Christmas Party edition. Really, it's for any event that you throw at your house, but it's just in time for the holidays!

I do this whenever I host a gathering where there will be lots of food served; I got this tip from my hostess-with-the-mostest mom. While I'm getting the kitchen ready and choosing serving dishes, platters for the veggie tray, chip and dip bowls, whatever - I write notes about what's going to go where, then I put the note IN the bowl or ON the serving platter. I know this sounds pointless, but sometimes when guests are arriving and there's a lot going on, I'll get distracted and forget why I got out a certain basket or bowl. Also, if there's a note that says, "cheese and crackers" on the plate for the cheese and crackers, you can easily ask your husband or a friend to pull the item out of the fridge and put it where it belongs. (Can you tell I get a lot of "Which plate does this go on? This one? No...? THIS one?" when my husband offers to help.)

I host our joint family Easter dinner every year with anywhere from 15-25 people. My kitchen isn't fit for large crowds, so I've figured out that if everything is set out to serve the meal buffet-style, it needs to have as few "bottleneck" areas as possible so the dinner line doesn't get out of control. Putting the gravy before the potatoes or the butter before the rolls makes people wander around, searching, instead of flowing through the line quickly.

Does anyone else have any hostess tips???  Go ahead and leave a comment if you do!

Planning for Tomorrow, Today

I've been feeling so behind on so many things recently.  And when I get overwhelmed, I tend to go to one of two extremes: crazy "get it all done NOW" girl or unproductive, procrastinator girl.

Lately, I've chosen to avoid responsibility. Certain items on my to-do list have been rolled over day to day, week to week...it was getting out of hand. But I'm done now.  My to-do list will not go away if I ignore it.  In fact, it will continue to grow like a weed.  Or a rash.  Or the unwanted hair in that odd place that you won't tell anyone about.

Every day, I have a list of things that I want to get done.  The list is new each day, crossed off items stay on yesterday's list, incomplete items are rolled over to today. The list could have 4 things or 14 things, but anything that I hope to accomplish goes on the list.

From that main list, I chose 2-3 "most important tasks," or MITs.  Those are my top priority.  Some days it's bigger stuff like getting the oil changed, other days the items are simple, like putting away laundry or clipping the kids' fingernails or taking a shower.

For some reason, I have gotten myself into the horrible habit of procrastinating this regular habit of personal hygiene. It should not be this difficult to fit in a daily shower!  I have a confession to make: I just showered for the first time since Monday.  Today is Thursday.  How did this happen?  Yesterday, showering stayed at the bottom of the list as everything else got done ahead of it.  Why?  Probably because I knew I wasn't leaving the house and there was so much other stuff to do.

I could write a whole post about showering, but the purpose of this post is to encourage you to plan your day tomorrow before going to bed tonight.

Every time I take a few minutes at night to plan for the following day, I end up checking most everything off my list. I pull coupons for errands I need to run, grab receipts for returns, look up contact information and account numbers for calls I need to make, I do as much the night before as I can, so I have no excuses to put anything off.

I feel prepared.  Maybe even mentally psyched up for chores that I normally dread. (ahem...cleaning the bathrooms) There are also times when, instead of adding something to tomorrow's list, I think, "I can just send this email really quick...that way there will be one less thing to do tomorrow." 

But when I plan the day-of, my chances of productivity decrease substantially.  Maybe it's just me...?  This week, I've finally gotten my act together and pre-planned each day the night before.  My to do list has been shrinking at lightening speed. I feel like I can breathe again.

So give it a try tonight.  It shouldn't take you more than 5 minutes to write out 3-5 things that you'd like to do tomorrow.  I hope it works for you as well as it's worked for me this week!!!

Family Day Challenge

I've been getting a lot of questions about our "Family Day" since posting about it last week.  I'm getting the feeling everyone thinks I'm nuts, but it's not that hard.  Really, it's not.  If I can commit to having a weekly Family Day, so can you.

We started honoring Sunday as our Family Day about a year and a half ago.  I think it started as a month-long challenge to see if we could avoid making plans on Sundays and just hang out at home all day without getting bored.  Since then, it's become our favorite day of the week. 


Here's what we try to do:

...avoid making plans or agreeing to outside commitments

...avoid the t.v. and computer (though lately the Cardinals game is usually on for a few hours, which is fine because Ryan and Kaylin end up watching it with Mike, instead of Mike zoning out while I care for the kids)

...find a few things that we can do throughout the day as a family (ex: go to the park, wander around Costco eating the samples, have a picnic, go swimming)

...find a few things that we can do a couple at a time (ex: Mike and Ryan taking a bike ride, Kaylin and me baking together, Mike taking the big kids to Home Depot)

...pull out forgotten toys and games (ex: Slip 'n' Slide, tea party sets, puppets)

...make unplanned trips to the store for ice cream or decide to go out to dinner on a whim (very unlike us...we're planners)

...immediately stop productive activities to polish Kaylin's toe nails and play Wii boxing with Ryan
 

...stifle our Type-A personalities and let the little things go

...have fun and laugh with each other...a lot


Here's what we don't do:

WE DON'T...have rules or guidelines about the day (our house rules still apply)

WE DON'T...have expectations of any kind, other than relaxing and enjoying the day together

WE DON'T...plan a bunch of things to do all day (ex: 10:15 paint, 11:05 go on a walk, 11:38 sing Kum-By-Ya)

WE DON'T...spend every minute of every hour together as a family


Most of the people I've spoken to about this have given me a dozen reasons why it won't work for them. 

"There's only so much I can do with the kids before going stir-crazy."

"My husband will never go for it."

"I just have too much to do."

"I won't be able to stay off the computer for the whole day."

"Sunday is sacred NFL time for my husband...he watches games all day and I'd be alone with the kids."

"We have too much going on in our schedule to stop everything for a whole day."


So I decided to pose a challenge to you. 

Pick a day on the calendar and decide to try your own version of Family Day.  If your husband is too into football to engage with the family on a Sunday, choose a Saturday.  Or if your kids aren't in school yet and your husband gets days off during the week, pick a Tuesday or Friday.  It really doesn't matter when it is.

Don't make any plans that day.  Nothing.  That doesn't mean you can't leave the house, just don't agree to be anywhere at any certain time...even if it's to meet other family members.  Make this day about just your little family unit: you, your husband and your kids.  And your dogs if you want.  But that's IT.

Vow to be media-free all day.  The t.v. and computer can allow people to get in a self-focused zone, but remember that your cell phone can be just as big of a distraction. Anything that takes your attention away from your family, specifically your kids, should not be allowed on Family Day. Video games might also be a no-no for most people, but we play the Wii as a family, so we do allow limited (about an hour of) video game time. (plus, in our family, no one gets angry or irritable if they don't win, so it's positive time together)

Sundays work best for us because we can go to church on Saturday night, but also because Mike's really, really, really kind of into college football, which is an all-day Saturday affair. 

Also, we purposely set aside time on Saturday to clean the house and run errands so that most everything is done on Sunday. (this summer, I posted about our Family Chores power-hour each weekend)  We don't have looming projects hanging over our heads by Sunday...we're able to truly relax.

The other question I've gotten a lot is: What do you DO all day??? 

Our typical Sunday looks like this:

- Either Mike or I sleep in...we take turns.  The other gets the baby up and fed at 7am.  The big kids get up and play in their PJs.

- If I get up first, I usually make something fun for breakfast like Waffles, Crepes, Apple Fritters or Cinnamon Rolls. A while back, we went through a "let's go get donuts" phase, but that's over for now.  If Mike gets up first, he usually makes pancakes or eggs.

- Mike and the kids make coffee, then Mike goes outside to sit on the back patio and drink his little cup coffee.  If it's nice out, the kids will play outside while I clean up the kitchen.  Otherwise, they stay inside and play.  But this is a huge relaxation thing for Mike.  Sometimes that transitions into yard work, sometimes not.

- While Mike's outside, I'm usually cleaning up breakfast, folding laundry or doing something else productive.  Because I can't relax until the kitchen is clean and a few things are off my to-do list.  That's just me.

- Around 10ish, Jason naps and the kids start getting bored, so we usually all play something together.  A board game, the Wii, rolling a ball down the hall to each other...it just sort of naturally happens.  Someone comes up with something and we all join in.  Or some of us play while others watch.

- 11:30ish, Jason gets up and we all eat lunch.

- 12-1ish, we'll usually go somewhere or run errands.  Or swim.  Or play catch in the backyard. Or go to the park.  This week, we went to the Pumpkin Patch.

- From 2-3, the kids usually have a quiet time in their room while Mike watches football and I catch up on stuff: meal planning, cutting coupons, recently scrapbooking, whatever.  Jason's quiet time is always a nap, the big kids tend to fall asleep most days, too.

- 3-5pm - Anything goes.  If it's hot out, we'll swim or do something around the house.  If the weather is nice, we'll usually do something outside.

- 5:00ish - Dinner.  We usually grill on Sundays...Mike offers, I don't argue!  Sometimes we go out to eat, sometimes we do something simple like smoothies and popcorn.

- 6:00ish - Lately, we've been doing movie night.  Last night, I was crazy and decided we all needed to bake pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies.  It made quite the mess and hyped everyone up right before bed, but the kids enjoyed it.

- 7:00 - Bedtime, as usual.

Family Day usually feels very long, but isn't that how it should be on the weekend?  Most of us are busy, busy, busy all week and Family Day is the perfect excuse to stop and rejuvenate ourselves before we turn around and do it all again on Monday.

Even God took a day of rest...don't you think He might have been setting a precedent??

I know some people who honor the Sabbath so strictly that they'll prepare meals ahead of time in disposable containers so no one has to cook or clean.  You decide what works best for you.  But seriously, talk to your spouse and kids about giving this a try.  Pick a date, block it off on the calendar and vow to relax and enjoy your family.  I promise (I wish I could give you a money-back guarantee) ... you will not regret it. 

The Importance of Traditions

I truly believe kids need traditions in their lives.  They find comfort in predictability in a world where they have very little control and traditions create predictability.  Personally, we have established daily, weekly, monthly and yearly traditions for our family. 

Our daily tradition is as simple as praying before bedtime.  We also eat together as a family every night. Weekly, we have Family Day on Sundays, where we don't make any outside plans and try to stay home to spend time together, specifically focused on the kids.  Monthly, Mike takes the kids on "special dates" to Home Depot or Lowe's to build things together.  And I'm sure many of you share annual birthday and Christmas traditions that are similar to ours.

As the holidays approach, I begin thinking about traditions.  Most of my (positive) memories as a kid revolve around our family traditions.  If you think back, yours probably do, too.

I've heard it said that if you don't have a lot of childhood memories, your life probably wasn't very eventful. Things were probably pretty routine for your family with few "out of the ordinary" events to stick out in your head. But anymore, it seems that nice, normal, simple childhoods are rare.

For me, I hardly remember eating meals as a kid.  Though I know I ate three square meals a day, I couldn't tell you what we typically had for breakfast, lunch or dinner...even through high school.  It's all a big blur. Yet every Sunday as a teenager we went to the movies.  I remember the tradition well, even though I don't remember the movie titles.

Knowing that the mundane details of life fade away in our minds, I try to intentionally create memories for my kids. Last year, "Simple Mom" wrote a post titled Family Traditions: 10 Ideas to Get You Started that has some other fun ideas, if you're interested. 


Some traditions I've incorporated into our family include:

- Saturday morning cartoons (since the kids rarely watch t.v., this is a treat)

- Sunday is Family Day (we decline invitations to BBQs, birthday parties and play dates)

{squirt bottle + batter = letter pancakes}

- Breakfast in bed on Mother's Day and Father's Day

- Half-birthday celebrations (consisting of the dinner menu of the half-birthday person's choice, plus cupcakes with candles for dessert) and many other birthday traditions.

- Annual Easter Egg Hunts

- Christmas in July (I'm going to start allowing the kids to invite friends next year)

- First and Last Day of School Traditions (also, there are other great school tradition ideas in the comment section of this post)

{the full fondue spread}

- Fondue on Valentine's Day

- Annual Family Pie Night (to get my whole, extended family together between Thanksgiving and Christmas with no competing family commitments)

- And you know we have our Christmas Traditions, like decorating the tree the day after Thanksgiving, daily advent calendars and 25 Days of Christmas activities. (there are more great Christmas tradition ideas in the comment section of this post)

I love traditions. What traditions do you have?

Q&A Wednesday - Kitchen Staples {Food}

"What are the foods that you always keep stock of in your kitchen? I want to start cooking more and eating out less, but I never seem to have everything I need for any of my recipes."

I've mentioned before that we don't eat a lot of processed foods, so things are pretty simple in my kitchen.

A few years ago, when I finally gave in to enjoying cooking for my family, I came across the book, "Express Lane Meals: What to Keep on Hand, What to Buy Fresh for the Easiest-Ever 30-Minute Meals" by Rachael Ray.

In this cookbook was a list of staples that Rachael Ray suggested people keep on hand. Then in each recipe, she listed the staple items that would be needed and a few additional items that could be purchased in the Express Lane on your way home from work. It really transformed how I thought about cooking.

Now that I'm much more comfortable around the kitchen, I have my own mental list of things that I try to have on hand. When things from this list are on sale, I stock up, so I rarely buy staples at a premium and my grocery bill stays low.

The following items are things that I use regularly enough that they don't expire before I need to replace them.

What's always in my FRIDGE?
- organic milk (both skim and 1%)
- bread
- eggs
- butter (both spreadable and sticks for baking)
- condiments (peanut butter, jelly, mayo, ketchup, mustard, relish, salad dressing, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, pesto, salsa)
- plain yogurt
- seasonal whole fruit (always apples, plus whatever we get at the co-op, and bananas are usually on the counter)
- washed and cut up fruit (for easy snacking)
- unsweetened applesauce
- deli turkey
- sliced cheese
- shredded cheese
- feta cheese
- shredded parmesan cheese
- garlic
- onions
- seasonal vegetables (zucchini, broccoli, celery, corn on the cob, etc.)
- salad ingredients (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, etc.)
- flax seeds (I grind them up and put in oatmeal and smoothies)
- usually a couple of containers of leftovers

What's always in my FREEZER?
- minced garlic (from Trader Joe's, pictured)
- chopped onion
- chopped celery
- raw chicken breasts
- ground beef
- ground turkey
- salmon
- leftover grilled chicken, chopped
- cooked ground beef/turkey (sometimes a combo)
- cooked beans (black, white and kidney, stored separately)
- frozen vegetables (broccoli, green beans, corn and peas, plus leftovers from the co-op)
- frozen fruit for smoothies (strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, bananas)
- homemade chicken broth, portioned out
- homemade bread crumbs
- heels from bread in a zipper bag, waiting to be made into bread crumbs
- pureed vegetables to add to sauces and casseroles (things that my family doesn't normally eat: spinach, squash, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, kale, etc.)
- extra fresh items that I don't want to spoil (bread, butter, cheese, etc. - I freeze almost everything)

What's always in my PANTRY?
- baking items: unbleached flour, whole wheat flour, bread flour, sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, chocolate chips, corn meal, cocoa and yeast. Plus I always stock up on stuff like brownie mix, cake mix and frosting when they're on sale to bring to parties and pot lucks if I'm in a hurry.
- old fashioned oats
- dry cereal: Cheerios, Kashi Go Lean and whatever other low-sugar cereals are on sale
- nuts: raw almonds, chopped walnuts, pine nuts
- lentils and dried beans: black, white and kidney
- raisins and dried cranberries
- granola bars
- tuna
- a jar for desserts
- pretzels
- crackers (usually Triscuits)
- raw agave nectar and honey
- spaghetti sauce
- canned tomatoes
- canned tomatoes with green chiles
- canned green chiles (usually two cans, unless on sale)
- canned evaporated milk (usually one can, unless on sale)
- canned sweetened condensed milk (usually one can, unless on sale)
- pasta: penne, spaghetti, bow ties (all whole wheat)
- dry brown rice
- taco seasoning
- oils: olive, canola, sesame seed oil
- vinegars: balsamic, apple cider, white rice
- whey protein powder (for smoothies)

What's always in my SPICE CABINET?
- olive oil spray
- canola oil spray
- salt
- pepper
- red pepper flakes (to spice up Mike's individual plate)
- garlic powder
- cumin
- Italian seasoning
- dried parsley
- dried basil
- chili powder
- corn starch
- kosher salt
- cinnamon
- baking soda
- baking powder
- nutmeg
- pure vanilla extract

Most of my recipes can be made with the items I have on hand. My staples used to be things like Hamburger Helper, canned vegetables and Rice-a-Roni, but I've made a conscious decision to eat more whole foods and eliminate preservatives where I can.

Was this helpful???

Five Minute Clean Up

My house is quiet. The little kids are napping and Ryan is in his room for an hour of "quiet time." All is still...

Just a minute ago, I ran downstairs to refill my water before putting myself down for a nap. (WHY did I stay up until midnight last night!?!?)

One look around my kitchen made me cringe. Dishes were scattered everywhere. Crumbs (from the kids making their own sandwiches for lunch) covered the counter. Smushed cracker crumbs littered the floor. Trash was sprinkled all over: produce stickers from apples, cut up pieces from this morning's paper craft, wrappers from snacktime, even a wrapped up wet diaper sat next to (but not IN) the trash can. (okay, that last one was my fault)

Seeing everything in disarray like that made me shut down and want to go upstairs and hide. But, in the spirit of my new "set the timer for an hour" Saturday morning ritual, I gave myself five minutes to pick up as much as possible.

In five minutes, I:
- Piled the plates, cups and silverware into the sink
- Threw away every piece of trash I could find
- Wiped down the counters and kitchen table with a wet sponge
- Quickly ran the vacuum over the floors
- Tossed dirty washclothes and dish towels into the laundry room
- Put the phone on the charger
- Returned shoes to the hall closet
- Grabbed a couple of things to put away on my way back upstairs

With the exception of the sink-ful of dishes, my kitchen is no longer a disaster.

And it only took five minutes. I'm doing the five minute quick clean more often! But for now, I'm off to take a much-needed nap...