The other day I was out running errands and got a glimpse of myself in the rear view mirror. I was HORRIFIED at my eyebrows. They were out of control!! I had no idea when I'd plucked them last and it showed! When I got home I told my husband that he needed to tell me when that happened and he was so confused. Like "you do something with your eyebrows?" :) It's easy to be so busy taking care of our family that we forget to do things like that for ourselves. Maybe for you it's not your eyebrows but painting your toes or something as basic and being able to eat! Finding the balance of taking care of our families and finding time for ourselves can be hard. I read somewhere that when taking care of our families we should focus on the people first and then the building. I liked that because sometimes it's hard to know where to start. The main physical needs our people have are food and clothing. Getting those two areas organized will help our homes to run more smoothly and give us more time for ourselves (hopefully).
When I had my first baby I was OVERWHELMED by the job of taking care of this fussy kid on top of a husband. My wise mama told me to start by making a menu. If I had my meals figured out for the week that would take some of the stress off. And it did! Menu planning can help save time and money. Most people find that the fewer trips to the store they make, the less money they spend. And with four kids now it's a lot of work to run to the store if I've forgotten something. I started menu planning by making a list of the meals my family would eat. Then I print out blank calendars for each month and fill in with meals. http://www.printfree.com/Calendars.htm One way to simplify it is to have similar meals on each day of the week. Chicken on Mondays, hamburger on Tuesdays, something easy on Fridays etc. I don't follow my menu exactly but if I make my grocery list based on what I need for the recipes then I at least know I have those ingredients in the house.
Another way to make meals for your family is to do batch cooking or make freezer meals. I haven't done this in a while but should because it's so nice on busy days to have something in the freezer to pull out for dinner. Something that's healthier than frozen pizza. Batch cooking means you make a bunch of things at once - for me it means I double a recipe and freeze half. You can search online for recipes that freeze well - I have found most of mine on http://www.food.com/ and searched for OAMC (once a month cooking). These are some of the recipes I have tried and liked:
http://www.food.com/recipe/bacon-wrapped-chicken-oamc-79944
http://www.food.com/recipe/chicken-packets-oamc-50767
http://www.food.com/recipe/mexican-stuffed-shells-oamc-57772
http://www.food.com/recipe/sweet-salsa-dump-chicken-oamc-107570
http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-black-bean-salsa-chicken-oamc-103572
http://www.food.com/recipe/oamc-chicken-divan-352419
http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-teriyaki-chicken-oamc-252650
http://www.food.com/recipe/bourbon-chicken-oamc-429659
Here are some other ideas for making the "meals" part of life easier. The first is to clean as you cook. This makes after dinner clean up easier. Sounds basic but it's easy to forget the basics sometimes. Next, do your food prep things like grating cheese in the morning or when baby is napping. I think that one of the hardest things about having babies is getting dinner cooked. For some reason it seems to be their fussiest time of day so if I could get as much done beforehand as possible, it made the last half of the day easier. I cook dinner in the morning when I can too (if it's a meal that can be reheated). That is the time of day I would prefer to be in the kitchen and the kids are less fussy then. When you have young children it's a treat to get to clean dinner up right after dinner. Usually I've had to leave it till after they are in bed because we had to go from dinner to bath time in order to get them in bed on time. Now that my kids are a little older I work at getting dinner cleaned up right after we eat and that is when the kids go outside to play. If I start the dishwasher then, I can unload it before bed making the next morning that much easier.
I have friends that use http://emeals.com/ and find it helpful. For a small fee you can select the type of recipes you'd like (gluten free, clean eating, regular) and they'll send you the menus and grocery lists. I mentioned Food.com for freezer meals and also like http://allrecipes.com/ to find recipes. You can search by ingredient, check ratings, and read reviews.
So - that's the food part of my post. Now to laundry. How do you organize your laundry? I do laundry by room because less sorting makes it easier for me to put away. My two oldest kids share a room so that's one or two loads a week. The other two kids also share a laundry basket, then there is towels, bedding, husbands work clothes (and anything that needs ironed), our regular clothes, and our whites. I used to do all laundry on one day of the week. I didn't do other chores that day - just laundry. We have too much with a family of six, so now I do some every day. I use a weekly cleaning list to organize my household chores Each day of the week has different chores and certain loads of laundry on it. http://moneysavingmom.com/downloads/household-management-forms If you do and put away just one load a day, the laundry might not be so overwhelming. And if you're not good about ironing, get rid of the clothes that really need it. The middle of the night can be a good time to start a load/put a load in the dryer, if you're getting up with kids.
I am always interested in how people organize their days, their chores, and the work of running a home. I have more info for getting the house clean but for today hope you can find something useful!
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