Our Morning & Evening Routines

A good morning routine gets your day off to a great start, in my opinion.  It has taken awhile for me to come up with the right one for us, but I think we have finally figured it out.  At least for now, anyway.

I start the day off at 5:30 when my alarm goes off.  I used to start at 5:00, but recently adjusted that when school started again because I felt I needed the extra sleep.  Amazingly, it has really made a difference.  I'm not dragging tail so much by the end of the week plus I seem to have more energy each day.

I make my bed first thing in the morning.  In fact, it is the first thing I do, the moment I get up, before anything else.  It has been a habit of mine for years now.  Then into the bathroom for bathroom duties, I won't go into that, wash my face, brush my hair and then put on moisturizer.

Next I head into the kitchen and put our lunches together while I reheat a cup of coffee in the microwave.  I try to make my coffee in the evenings as it is a great time saver and a pot will last me several days.  I run a little dishwater in the sink to wash up any dishes and wipe down the counters.  Then the coffee and I go sit with my laptop and I check emails and write for a bit.

When it is nearly time to go I head into the bathroom to brush teeth and apply deodorant.  Next up, I get dressed.  My minimalist wardrobe has been ideal.  I make decisions quickly and am dressed and ready to go in less than five minutes.

By this time the girls have come down, fixed their breakfast and are eating (I pack mine and eat at the office).  I leave for work and they finish up their dishes and clean up any mess.  The dishes are dried and put away, kitties are fed and let out, dishcloth and towel are deposited in the laundry basket, sink is shiny and they leave the house for school.

My youngest is home just before I am and then the oldest arrives within ten minutes unless they have afterschool activities which right now they do most of the time.  I start the evening by setting out a fresh dishcloth and towel.  I run a little dishwater in the sink and wash up my lunch dishes and then do my "chore of the day".  I can then write for a bit before picking up kids and then home to get supper on the table, which lately has been a breeze.

The girls take care of their chores and then we have supper.  They have the remainder of the evening for homework or whatever they choose (or a school activity if that is on the schedule like a concert or robotics).

We have a 9:00 curfew on weeknights and that has really been a blessing in a lot of ways.  I thought the girls would give me some grief over it, but instead they were really excited.  Shocked me!  At 9:00 there is no more TV, texting, phone calls, video chat, or online activity.  We shut it down.  We do our 15 minute walk through to put away and tidy up anything that needs attention.  At 9:15 we head off to get ready for bed.  Everyone has to be in their room by 9:30, including me, which at that point we each grab a book and read until we are ready to fall asleep.  My youngest loves this because she is a book nut and my oldest says it forces her to do her required reading for school and she's actually getting it done.  I love it because the house is quiet and I get to wind down after a busy day, enjoy a good book for awhile and then clear my mind for a good night's sleep.

Another thing we do is we all have scheduled shower days.  It took us a bit to get this one worked out so everyone was happy, but we did and now it isn't a big ordeal for time in the bathroom for showering or a fight over hot water rights.  I shower on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  The youngest takes Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings and the oldest has Monday, Wednesday and Friday Mornings.  That also leaves enough extra evenings if someone wants or needs an extra turn.  If it is your shower night we know we need to be in and out well before 9:00.  And in the morning we need to pretty much hit it first thing when we wake up so we don't hold things up for anyone.  Having finally come up with a workable schedule has brought a lot of peace to this household, believe me.

So that is pretty much it.  Nothing is so rigid or tightly scheduled that we don't have a little wiggle room, which I think is also important.  Especially because every day is different and you need to account for that.

Do you do anything like this?

Meals We Prepped #6

Saturday morning I went to Fred Meyer and picked up fresh produce, cheese, sour cream and tortillas for the week ahead.  I didn't do any prepping on Saturday and I got a bit of a late start on Sunday, in fact, I didn't get started until suppertime.  But it still worked out just fine.

 

I'm trying to not use canned cream soups in my recipes anymore.  Last week I made my own cream of mushroom soup for the stroganoff and this week I made a cream of chicken.  It worked out beautifully.

This was very tasty!

Meal prepping was super simple last week.  First thing, I started a pot of rice cooking.  I chopped up mushrooms and onions to sauté in olive oil.  Then I added two heaping tablespoons of flour and cooked that for a couple minutes.  I used some sodium free chicken bouillon and a cup of warm water for my broth and a cup of whole milk and stirred it well so it wouldn't be lumpy.  Salt and pepper to taste.  While that simmered I cooked up some diced chicken I had pulled from the freezer and thawed and chopped up some broccoli.  I added that to the creamy sauce and simmered for about ten minutes.

Next I moved onto the Sopa Seca.  My youngest cooked up the ground pork and onions, then added the canned tomatoes, water, spices and two diced chipotle peppers.  I cooked up a 7oz. package of fideo pasta and drained it.  She stirred that in and then we transferred it to a casserole dish.  We cleaned up the kitchen, ate supper and cleaned up the kitchen again.

Sunday - The freshly made Chicken Broccoli & Rice and a simple salad really fit the bill.  I put the leftovers into the refrigerator to serve again on Tuesday.

Monday - I was very happy to have supper in the refrigerator and ready to go, especially as cheerleader practice ran an hour longer.  I was even happier about it when I got a text from my youngest asking what was for dinner.  Followed by I'M HUNGRY!!!  The moment she got in the car she asked how long until we eat.  Before I left the house I put some grated cheese on top of the Sopa Seca and then into the microwave on high to heat through for ten minutes.  I also left the oldest to make a salad while I was gone.  Dinner hit the table as soon as we walked through the door.

Simple fresh salad

Tuesday - Very simple.  I reheated leftover Broccoli Chicken and leftover rice.  While that warmed in the microwave I set out salad dressing and leftover salad.  Dinner was on the table in 10 minutes!

Wednesday - Same as the day before.  I reheated the Sopa Seca in the microwave and made a quick green salad.  Dinner was on the table in 10 minutes!

Thursday - In the morning I cooked up half a package of leftover macaroni that had been sitting in the pantry for a bit.  Time to use it up.  When I got home I dumped all the ingredients for my pantry style minestrone soup into a pan.  Once heated through I added the pasta.  Instead of serving in with rolls I decided to use some of the hoagie buns I had picked up at Franz.  I put some butter, garlic and dried basil on them and placed them under the broiler for a quick garlic bread.  The girls loved that!

Friday - While fries cooked in the convection oven I put together the tuna schooners and got them ready.  Then popped them in under the broiler leaving the fries in there to stay warm while the schooners finished up.  I hadn't made these in quite some time and the girls were thrilled to have them again.

Saturday - My oldest had to march at the football game for homecoming.  As usual, by the time we got home she was starving.  Chicken quesadillas were quick and easy.  I cooked up some chicken breast while she was at the game and then put the quesadillas together, heating them up in a dry skillet.  The youngest made a salad and dinner was served.

My girls make some beautiful salads

To say I love meal prepping would be a complete understatement.  I feel like it saves me a ton of time, I don't stress at all about what's for dinner, I feel like we have a better handle on curbing food waste and I think in the long run it will also save on my grocery bill each month.  Another thing I've noticed is that I am using up lots of odds and ends of things in the refrigerator and pantry.  We've finished up all kinds of things like cocktail sauce, artichoke hearts, partial packages of pasta, marinades, leftover veggies, etc.  It has been fantastic!

Christmas Prep 2017 - Only 3 Months To Go!!

Yeah.  I am not even kidding you!  Only three months away.

Well, I finally got my rear in gear and started working on some projects.  I even completed a couple and I wrapped some gifts too!  There are actually Christmas gifts in my bedroom closet right now.  Yaaay!

We have a gob of birthdays around the holidays as well so it is a gift giving frenzy around our place and if I don't get a head start on these I'm completely overwhelmed and stressed out, which is never good.  The goal for me is to enjoy the holidays.  And all those birthdays we are celebrating too!

In the next month I plan to complete three homemade gifts, put the final touches on my gift list, work on our annual letter some more and make some Christmas cards complete with address and return address labels.

My final goal is to have all of the gifts completed and wrapped by the end of the four day Thanksgiving weekend.  And I'm feeling pretty good about hitting my target too.  Then I can work on other projects like the cards I want to send out and baking yummy stuff.  Ahhh, cookies!

Love these!

How are you doing with your preparations?  Any big projects completed.  I know some of you have shared some of what you are working on or have completed which is so awesome.  I love to hear what everyone is doing or not doing, ha, ha.

Even you scrooges! (wink, wink)

Last Week's Thrifty Moves

I bought this little gizmo at Home Depot ($9) for our hose which is fully adjustable and can act like a pressure washer if you really need to clean something.  It is also a water saver device.  They did some excavation in the field behind our house and then we had a ginormous (yes, that's a word) windstorm come through and it blew dirt everywhere and covered everything.  It was so bad we were indoors and could taste dirt and grit (gross!).  Then it rained just enough to plaster that dirt to the sides of the house and windows, our vehicles, Laverne!  I was not a happy camper and it looked like a lot of work ahead to clean this mess up.  This little nozzle made quick work of all that dirt however and in just a couple hours I had it all cleaned up without a ton of water.  It also wasn't jarring me like a power washer would have so no residual effects afterward.  I'm really happy with this thing!  Money well spent!

Tuesday, on the way home from work, I noticed the FREE WOOD bin had been filled.  I stopped to check it out and came home with a small bundle of pieces to use for projects.  I have had a couple in mind and I have been slowly accumulating wood for them over the summer.

I was super excited to see the new Albertson's ad had pot roasts and pork ribs on sale.  I wasn't planning to do any shopping midweek but since it was on my way home from picking my daughter up on Wednesday I decided to pop in and see what they had.  I ended up with a HUGE beef roast for $7.52!  And two packages of ribs.  My oldest loves, loves, loves BBQ ribs..  When I got home they went straight into the freezer as is.  I decided not to divide up the packages of ribs into meal size portions because right now I'm a meal prepper so I'll be cooking up the whole thing in one shot!

All the way out to the car the young one and I were talking about all of the meals that we could make with this one roast.  Shredded beef tacos, bolognese, enchiladas, soup, stroganoff (again), something with rice, the list was quite large.  I'm excited to see what we actually do with it.

I downloaded more digital coupons.  One was for $5 OFF $25 Purchase at Albertsons.  I used that when I stopped to pick up the meat.  I also picked up bananas, grapes and milk on sale.

Thursday, on the way home from picking up my oldest from band practice, we stopped at another Albertsons that was on the way home and picked up two more of those roasts.  I found another good sized one for just under $7.  The rest of them were HUGE and I mean HUGE.  I bought another one for $16 knowing the butcher would cut it in half for me, but I decided to take it as is.  I'm pretty sure that one will need to start cooking overnight in the slow cooker.  Or I'll cut it in half and put it into two slow cookers.  I'll figure that out when the time comes.

My oldest is the one that talked me into the second trip.  I was concerned we didn't have room in our very full freezer but she was convinced she could make a spot for them and when we got home she did exactly that.  My girls love pot roast every bit as much as I do and at that price it was smart of us to stock up.

I made creamy parmesan salad dressing.

I got a packet of coupons in the mail from Fred Meyer.

I washed out a two gallon Ziploc bag to reuse.

We fed our kitchen scraps to the chickens.  They are slowing down on egg production with the sudden change in the weather.  I dread the thought of buying eggs at the store.

Speaking of weather, it got pretty chilly around here and started raining Monday.  It rained all week long until Friday when the sun finally came out.  We really needed this rain and I'm very glad to have it.  The smoky skies are cleared out and hopefully this has helped out the fire situation.  The air quality is certainly better.

I try to not turn on the heat in September (after we pull the A/C units and put them away) for at least a few weeks for a reprieve on the electric bill, but it was pretty cold so I turned on the fireplace in the living room to take care of the chill.  Winter jammies and fuzzy socks are out about a month sooner than we usually need too.  Amazing how quickly the seasons change.

How was your thrifty week?

Managing My Home With Daily Tasks & Routines

You can't manage a home without a plan and I definitely have a plan.  Every day I have certain chores that I have scheduled and take care of.  I do as much as I can in 15 minutes and then I am done.  If I have extra time left I'll do some extra cleaning until my 15 minutes is up.  It amazes me how much I can get accomplished in only 15 minutes!

The girls have their set of chores as well.  Mainly they take care of our animals each day.  Feeding kitties and getting them fresh water, changing the litter box, feeding our chickens, getting them fresh water, collecting the eggs.  They also have to clean one of the bathrooms, their bedrooms, dust & vacuum the upstairs hallway and help with laundry.  15 minutes at a time.

Each day we get up and make our beds first thing.  Laundry goes into hampers.  Each of us is responsible to leave the bathroom clean and tidy when we finish using it.  I keep a toilet brush in cleaning solution handy for a quick swish each day.  We wipe the counters off each day with spray cleaner and a rag.  We wipe down the toilet mid week between scrubbings.  It takes less than two minutes to do this and makes all the difference in the world.

When we get home each day we hang up coats, purses and backpacks.  Shoes get put away.  Lunchboxes get emptied and containers go straight into a sink of soapy water and get washed immediately.  Then we do our chores, whichever happens to be on the list for that day.  15 minutes later we get to work on dinner (which is profoundly easier these days as I've already shared).

We take turns on "dish night".  Each of us has a dish night.  The girls have two apiece and I have three nights.  I take the extra day as I have more time during the school year than they do.  In the summer I let them trade off and take an extra day each week.  We hand wash our dishes even though we have a dishwasher.  Counters are wiped down, stove top is wiped down and table is cleared and cleaned.  Once dry the dishes are put away and the sink is cleaned out and rinsed.

Monday - downstairs bathroom/laundry room

Tuesday - dining room

Wednesday - laundry, trash & recycling to curb

Thursday - kitchen/entry

Friday - bedrooms

Saturday - laundry, upstairs bathroom

Sunday - laundry, dust & vacuum

I recently added an extra laundry day.  We used to only do laundry on Wednesday and Sunday.  I added Saturday so we are only doing one load a day instead of two on Sunday.  Another idea I picked up from the FlyLady.  It makes a big difference for us to only do one load per day.

We have morning and evening routines too and I'll go into that in more detail in another post, but the one evening routine we do every night, I think, is truly what makes it all work.  We do a 15 minute "walk through" at the end of the day to make sure everything is neat, tidy and put away.  Sometimes I'll run the vacuum real quick or clean something that got dirty, but for the most part we find we walk around and chit chat.

Once our walk through is done we each head off to complete our final evening routine and call it a day.  Like I said, I'll be sharing more about that part later as I think this post is lengthy enough.

15 minutes at a time!  That is it.  I don't feel overwhelmed and I get my stuff done!  Even better, our home stays clean!

How I Keep Our Home Clean

Some of you may have heard of the FlyLady method for home management.  I never had until just a few weeks ago.  The methods I use are very similar, but in checking her out I found quite a few little tips and tricks to incorporate that are making a HUGE difference at our house.  I'm sure a lot of you already know these things, but for those who don't I thought I'd share what I do and the tips I've gleaned from her to keep our home clean, organized and me a happy camper!

We both do zone cleaning.  I do daily zones while she does monthly ones.  My home is rather small so daily zone cleaning really works for us.  You may find her technique works better to do zone cleaning on a monthly cycle.

Like her, we only work in 15 minute increments.  You can seriously get a lot done in 15 minutes.  Since there are 3 of us (3 times the mess) that equates to 45 minutes of cleaning.

Everything is spread out into daily, weekly and monthly tasks so we don't ever feel overwhelmed, which can easily happen if you have a busy schedule like we do.  The key is to not overtask yourself to the point you become overwhelmed and give up.  The FlyLady and I completely agree on this one.

I recently picked up two things from her method that I've added and I can't believe the difference that has made:

I shine my sink!

What does that mean? Click on the link above and it will tell you.  I can't believe what a difference this one daily task has done for me and it is infectious.  It affects my girls too.  I gave my kitchen sink a thorough scrub and I maintain it every day.  When we go to bed it is clean and empty which makes getting up and starting my day in the kitchen amazing.  It has really made that big of a difference and it literally affects how we approach the rest of our home as well.  It really is that amazing.

I started tagging my hot spots!

What is that exactly?  There are certain spots in our home that no matter what I do are ripe for piling up with crap.  It makes me crazy.  So rather than repeat myself over and over again, rant, yell or carry on like a crazy person I stick a post-it note on the wall and it works!  I can hardly believe that it does, but it really does.  And as a result the girls and I are much better about setting stuff down.

Tomorrow I'll go over my task schedules with you but for now I challenge you to shine your kitchen sink!  Let's see if that one simple task transforms you the way it did me. 

I bet it does!