2009 February

Homekeeping Book: Menu Plans Part 2

February 19, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: Domestically Challenged?

This is part of the Creating a Homekeeping Book series.

Yesterday, I shared how I keep a homekeeping book to organize the domestic side of my life. We covered gathering ideas to plan meals for 13 weeks, or one fourth of the year.

Now, you’ve gotten all your ideas. Or maybe not. Maybe you will take a couple weeks to gather ideas. That is fine! Just come back to this when you’re ready for the next step.

Next, you will begin to plan out weeks of meals. I did this by printing out a blank 7×5 grid that I made on a spreadsheet. You could easily draw one out. Label the days of the weeks and each meal you’ll plan.

You’ll need 1 grid for each week, so 13 grids if you’re planning 13 weeks. First, fill in your repeating items, like cereal for breakfasts or sandwiches for lunch.

Then, using your idea sheets, begin to fill in your empty spaces. Remember a few key things:

Your schedule. Plan easier meals on nights you know are usually busy.

Variety of tastes. When planning weeks, be sure to have a variety of meals. You don’t want to have a different chicken casserole each night of the week, or a bunch of high-fat meals! If your family eats meat regularly, try to vary the kinds of meats. This may get harder as you get to the end of your lists, and you may need to switch some things around.

Prep time. In general, I try to spread out the dinners that take longer than an hour to make so that there are only a couple each week.

Cost. If you have a group of meals that all take lots of ingredients, you may want to spread those out as well so your grocery bill isn’t abnormally high one week. I found this out the hard way!

Weather or hectic times. I have a go-to week full of easy-to-prepare foods in case we are super busy. I also have a week that is great for cold weather and one for when it’s sizzling hot outside. Not necessary, by any means, but nice to have.

Leftovers. I put an asterisk by the meals that will make good leftovers. I plan at least 2 per week. Then, we can have a leftover buffet on Fridays.

Produce. I try to plan meals toward the end of the week with frozen veggies if possible. This doesn’t always work, but it’s good to keep in mind.

Okay! Now that you’ve filled in 13 weeks of meals, sit back and reflect on how awesome you are. Label each week 1-13 and put the papers away for now.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about making keyed-grocery lists for each week so you’ll never be wandering around the store aimlessly again.

Later, I’ll share my cleaning plan and how to make a homekeeping book for your daughters.

Read the complete series:
Homekeeping Book
Menu Planning: Part 1
Menu Planning Part 2
Shopping Lists, your Key to freedom
A Cleaning Plan for the Housekeeping challenged
Mini-Homekeeping Book for Girls

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Homekeeping Book

February 18, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: Domestically Challenged?

As you may be able to tell by now, I am a big fan of notebooks. I use them to store ideas and to organize different areas of my life. One of my most useful notebooks is also the one that took the longest to put together.

It’s my Homekeeping book, and it was well worth the time it took to make. There are all kinds of books and systems you can purchase, but none fit my family or my picky tastes just so, so of course I made my own.

Right now, my book, a large, 3 ring binder, contains 18 weeks of menus, shopping lists, recipes, and cleaning plans. I plan to revise the book each summer and add a few weeks until I have half a year, or 26 weeks.

For those of you to whom cleaning comes naturally, you might not need a cleaning plan. I have learned that having a plan helps my easily distracted brain, which would overlook many, many things. Especially if there’s a good book that needs reading.

Anyway. The process gets a little tiresome, but I promise if you stick with it, you will save yourself loads of time in the end. When your book is complete, you will be able to grab a shopping list and head out the door without having to think. Save that brain energy for more important things.

Read the complete series:
Menu Planning: Part 1
Menu Planning Part 2
Shopping Lists, your Key to freedom
A Cleaning Plan for the Housekeeping challenged
Mini-Homekeeping Book for Girls

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Lesson From a New Bride

February 17, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: A Wife to Rush Home to, MamaMusings

As I mentioned yesterday, my dear brother Jacob married our adorable friend, Destiny last Friday. I could fill pages of observations about my amazing brother, but since I was a bridesmaid I was with his bride for the wedding and all that led up to it. So I’m going to talk about her.

Destiny taught me something about being a godly wife before she even walked down the aisle, and that’s what I want to share with you today.

Moments before the wedding, after a frenzied day of preparations, everyone left the bride in her room with the four of us girls attending her. Along with me were my daughters Coco and Soleil, and the maid of honor, Destiny’s sister, Mariah.

The five of us stood brimming with excitement, trying not to wrinkle our dresses, and nervously patting our rained-on hair.

In that still, quiet moment, my thoughts turned to God and the smile he was surely giving us. “Let’s pray for Destiny,” I told the girls. We all laid careful hands on her most beautiful dress and each of us took turns asking God to bless not only the wedding, but the marriage to come.

When we finished, Destiny began to pray in her soft voice. She asked not for an awesome wedding or a trip-free walk down the aisle. Instead, she prayed for her husband-to-be and his family. She asked God that her ceremony would be a witness to those in the audience. Finally, she prayed that their marriage would be a ministry to others and honor God.

On the day when no one would blame her making it all about herself, this sweet girl turned the focus right onto Christ. If all wives woke up each morning and prayed that same prayer, how different would our lives be?

I try to keep a habit of asking God to show me daily what my husband needs from me. Too often, though, I forget. Instead I think of all the ways he could meet my needs.

There is no shortage of marriage books out there, and I am a huge fan of anything that helps me grow. At some point, though, instead of focusing in, we all need to look out and see who we can bless through our marriage. Besides our husbands, of course.

I’m not suggesting we stop trying to make our marriages better, healthier, godlier. I just want to share a reminder we could all use once in a while. Even the godliest of wives have their days. Or months, or seasons.

Ever since my new sister’s sweet words, I have been reminded to ask God not just to help me get through another day of being married, but to make my very marriage a ministry to others. To look beyond making it work for us and look to making it work for Jesus.

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My Dog Ate My Blog Post and Other Excuses

February 16, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: MamaMusings

It’s been five days since I last posted, and I’m fully aware that I have broken the first rule of blogging: Blog regularly!

Once you hear why, I think you’ll be inclined to forgive me. My brother got married Friday! Coco and I were bridesmaids; Soleil was the flower girl, and Eric the best man. All waking hours last week were consumed with the wedding J

Wednesday, I was up half the night ironing very stubborn tablecloths. When my alarm went off Thursday at 5am to write, I snoozed it for a good two hours.

Thursday morning, I squeezed in an early dentist appointment before we set off to decorate the church for the reception and had the rehearsal and dinner. Then, the wedding party and four of the bride’s out of town friends all crashed at our house for a girls’ night.

Friday was the wedding, and after staying to clean up, we arrived home at 1am with three guests. My husband was on-call for work and was called twice during the night. A little one had a bad dream. I could only dream of sleep.

Saturday morning, I awoke early to a phone call arranging shuttles for our guests. I then went to a morning Bible study and raced home for an appointment at our house with a flooring company. While the man was going over an estimate for flooring, I worked up an estimate of my own and figured I had seven hours of sleep total over three days.

After some family time on Saturday night, I dropped into bed. We turned off the phones and alarms. Finally, I could catch up on some sleep! And sleep I did, until my husband gallantly woke me at 11am. I forgave him instantly for interrupting my REM when I saw in his hands was a steaming hot tray of breakfast. The wedding inspired him, I think.

I ate leisurely in bed, while Soleil set up an additional tray next to me and filled it with my pretend breakfast. It was lovely.

Since I only write when the kids are sleeping, I enjoyed a nice Sunday of catching up on cleaning and washing the massive amounts of bedding we went through. We had no distractions, except for one welcome one.

My dad called to say they’d like to have the girls Monday for a visit. This means as soon as Eric gets home from a couple hours of work, we are going to enjoy a rare day alone together.

So there they are: My excuses. What do you say, can you forgive me?

Tomorrow, I’ll be back on schedule and I can’t wait to share some things God sneaked into my heart at the wedding. Until then, Happy President’s Day!

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Confessions of a List Lover

February 11, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: MamaMusings

Last night, I attacked a stack of clutter that has been staring me down for years. I have a strange need to keep papers. In part, I think I am fearful that I will lose my memory one day and my detailed lists will be evidence of the life I lived.

Lists. The word alone makes me smile. I am a maker of lists…a lover of them, really. Though any somewhat-blank surface of paper will do, I have an addiction to spiral-bound notebooks. Eric (my enabler) once bought me a pack of superbly thick ones at Costco. This was in 2004.

I had taken to stacking the notebooks on a bookshelf in my room when they were full. Here’s why: After going through them last night, I could tell you exactly what each girl got in their stocking for the last four Christmases. I could tell you what Coco and I brought to her fifth grade science camp.

I could relive some heated arguments with my husband and remember the emotions that were so strong I felt the need to record them. I could even tell you what I ate on April 8, 2005.

That stack of notebooks has been the one thing standing between me and a clutter-free house, and therefore a clutter-free brain. So, I did the unthinkable. I sat down for a good two hours and went through every single notebook.

I pulled out the pages I would someday use, such as story ideas. I kept a couple pages of cute doodles from my daughters. In my hands were about ten pages. The rest, I bravely chucked.

Having accomplished this task…I can breathe easier now. Yet a part of me knows that no matter how many systems I develop to conquer paper; I always end up with a stack somewhere that has to be dealt with.

All was not in vain, however. I learned a few things about myself reading my old lists. Things like this:

I have been worrying about what I eat for way too long.

I like making lists about cleaning more than I like cleaning.

I have a great book in me if I could just sit down and write it.

I am more forgiving than I thought. So is my husband.

Yes, I am happy to be free of my paper burden, but in a way I am now even more convinced that keeping records of some kind is a good idea.

What I do refuse to toss are my old prayer journals. What better way to remember life than through my most heartfelt prayers? What better way to see what God has done?

All this makes me wonder. Maybe my prayer journals should look more like my notebooks did. After all, God did create my mind to work like this. Why not share my lists with Him? My great ideas and dreams. My rants.

What if I had spent as much time hanging out with God as I did making all these lists? What if I had thirty notebooks full of communion with God?

Now those would be worth saving.

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Rainy Day Jar

February 10, 2009 By Homegrown Mom Filed Under: Creating Family Times

I awoke this morning to a dark and dreary sky. Rainy days are not too common where we live, so we try to make the most of them. We love to snuggle in bed and read stories, or have hot cocoa by the fire.

While the girls and I love those comforts, there comes a point where we all (but in particular five year old Soleil) just need to move.

Out comes our rainy day jar. It is simple to make and we also use it at times when it’s too hot to go outside. Find some craft sticks and write an active activity on each with a sharpie. Then, put them all in jar, with the written on side at the bottom. Your kids take turns picking a stick to see what fun activity you’ll do. No craft sticks? Use slips of paper instead.

Somehow everything is more fun when you pull it out of a jar. The best part of this is you never know what you’re going to get, so make sure you only include things you’re willing to do at a moment’s notice!

Ideas for your jar:

Good old standards:

Freeze dance

Simon says

Hide and seek

Balloon or beach ball volleyball (try to keep the balloon or ball from touching the ground)

Make forts out of blankets and sheets

Games that may be in your closet:

Twister or Twister dance moves

Dance dance revolution

Toss across

Nerf guns – For extra fun, combine these with forts!

Plastic bowling or mini golf kits

Have a PE class:

Do you have any of these around your house?

Stability ball (So many uses!)

Workout videos, especially any fun dance ones

Jump rope

Mini trampoline

Or, just lead a class on your own. Kickboxing, salsa dancing, military-style workouts…the opportunities are endless. Make it fun!

Make something up!

My kids have all kinds of silly games that they’ve made up over time. I made up a now-infamous comb and marble game when I was little that my family still teases me about. Give your kids a ball, blanket, or stuffed animal and see what happens.

You pick!

This is by far our favorite stick. Whoever draws it gets to pick whatever they want to do.

Once we use a stick, we keep it out of the jar until it is empty, and then start over. That way, we get to do everything in the jar at least once. The only stick that goes back in, no matter how many times we use it is “You pick!”

If all else fails…

If you are stuck with too many rainy days in a row, why not bundle the kids up and let them splash around for a few minutes outside? You’ll most likely spend more time cleaning up than you do playing, but it’s a great mood-booster!

Have any rainy day traditions? I’d love to hear about them!