The Eye of the Senior Year Storm

May 13, 2024May 13, 2024Leave a comment

It’s been a couple of weeks since I wrote up a beginning of the week homemaking post! The amount of time that is needed to make ballgowns is surprising, even to me. With that being said, home management fell by the wayside in order to free up time to sew, so I’ll be swinging the scales back towards cleanliness and order for the next couple of weeks, and then it will be time to start prepping for Renaissance’s high school graduation festivities!

Cooking

This week’s meal plan:

Monday: Tacos
Tuesday: CP Picadillo Tostadas, Lemony Quinoa Salad with Radishes, Avocado & Basil, Veggie Slaw
Wednesday: Rhubarb-glazed Pork, Crushed Red Potatoes, Spring Beans, Peas & Zucchini Ribbons, Rice Pilaf
Thursday: IP BBQ Shredded Chicken Burgers, Broccoli Slaw, Lemon-roasted potatoes with oregano
Friday: Spaghetti, Normandy Vegetables, Caesar Salad, French Bread
Saturday: Barbecue
Sunday: Thai Spicy Chicken Enchiladas, Peas, Green Bean Salad with Mustard Seeds, Herbs & Baby Chard

Clothing

Laundry will be a priority this week, along with folding and putting away everything (It’s pretty bad in here)
Wardrobe rotation from cold weather clothes to warm weather clothes
Wash Rachel’s choir dress
Nathaniel needs new clothes, especially for church

Cleaning

*silent screaming* There’s so much to do that I can’t even pick a place to start. I might just work on whatever the Tody app tells me is the most overdue and work forward from there. Oh! I do want to spend some time cleaning up the prom dress sewing leftovers, just for the sake of closure. Feels like that’d be a nice thing to do.

Caring

Get Nathaniel signed up for summer school so he can free up space in his regular school year schedule
Driving practice with Emily & Rachel
Help the girls start looking for summer jobs
Replace batteries in smoke detectors
Make checkup appointments for everyone
Create FHE schedule
The girls need haircuts
Decide if Nathaniel is going to YM camp

Creativity

I will be taking a break for at least a week, if not two. The craft room definitely needs a good cleaning and decluttering, but that might have to wait until after graduation festivities.

Gardening

Direct sow 4th Week of April seeds:
- Cosmos
- Sunflower: Autumn Beauty
- Impatiens
- Zinnia
- Cucumber
- Summer Squash
- Viola
Direct sow 1st Week of May seeds:
- Alyssum
- Marigolds
- Sunflower: Jua Maya
- Cabbage
- Green Beans (Bush)
- Lettuce
Direct sow 2nd Week of May seeds:
- Zucchini
- Sunflower: Sunshine
- Melons
- Carrots
Plant petunias
Assemble hanging baskets
Research lawn feeding and weed killing and make a plan
WEEDING
Ramp up slug killing endeavors because the little demons are eating everything

Celebrating

Breathe a sigh of relief that prom season is over, clean up the mess, and engage in some well-deserved recovery activities
Clean up the errant Christmas items that I’ve noticed but told myself to ignore while working on the prom dresses
Do a wrapping paper/gift bag bin purge
Renaissance’s Graduation Party:
- Address & mail out invitations
- Check that everyone has appropriate clothing
- Decide decorations
- Decide menu
- Decide activities
- Decide party favors
- Purchase serving items

Community

Church:
- Check in with this week’s upcoming special musical number
- Check sacrament meeting topics for June and pick hymns
- Enter hymns into Gospel Library app
- Set up/confirm special musical numbers for June
- Check in with newly-assigned ministering companions
- Reach out to newly-assigned ministering sisters
- Taskify ministering reminders
Band Parent Committee:
- Prepare agenda for meeting, print
- Print mailing list signup flyers
- Parade logistics

Top priorities this week:

Summer School Registration
Garden
Laundry
Cleaning
Graduation party planning

Hopefully I’ll get the blog posts written for each of the prom dresses, too. The weather is going to be really great this week, so I’m looking forward to spending time outdoors after so many weeks toiling away in the craft room. Happy homemaking to you all!

Gathering Steam

April 20, 2024April 21, 2024Leave a comment

Welcome to the end of my first week back after the Big Spring Sickness of 2024! Whew, it was a nasty bug—I’ve heard that multiple people in our area required medical intervention due to it. Ugh, so much exhaustion experienced by all. All in all, though, it was a good week full of good weather and a lot of productivity.

Top priorities this past week:

Prom Dressses
Garden tasks
Driver’s licenses tasks

Creativity

Ren’s Prom Dress: I was still quite weak at the beginning of the week, so progress on Ren’s prom dress didn’t happen until Wednesday, but I put in about four hours of work and all of the basic elements of the dress (Bodice, lining, underskirt) are assembled in their basic forms and I can now move forward with attaching them to each other and doing finishing work. The end is in sight!

Rachel’s Prom Dress: I’ve not made any progress on this, which is extremely unfortunate because I was supposed to begin working on it in earnest this week. We’ll get there when we get there.

Garden

I actually used some of the rhubarb this week, which was good because it’s starting to become a behemoth of a plant! We had a lovely rhubarb/mixed fruit crumble for dessert one night. Soooo good.

I got caught up on starting seeds and direct sowing seeds! Renaissance helped me plant four different varieties of marigolds in one starting tray, and I planted sweet peppers, hot peppers, pepperoncini peppers, Big Daddy tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, zucchini, crookneck squash, broccoli, and cilantro in the other tray. I still have a few spots open for some more seeds in the second tray, which I might use for some herbs.

I transplanted my started pansies and delphiniums into the garden, but they’ve been struggling for weeks in their trays and I do not know what to expect from them in the future.

I direct sowed the last bit of peas, and some Bells of Ireland and Four O’ Clocks. I also went back and fortified the trellises with better staples to hold them to the ground for the peas and sweet peas.

Caring

Driver’s Licenses: Renaissance is officially a licensed driver! WOO HOO! We finally did it! I took her to the DOL on Tuesday and she’s got the paper! We are waiting for our insurance company to get back to us on adding her to our policy, and once we have that confirmation she’ll be good to go. She can’t park on campus until she has proof of insurance, so we’re waiting on that task as well. Michael is also replacing the brakes on the kids’ car this weekend so they can be extra safe.

Rachel has been studying every afternoon for her Driver’s Knowledge test this weekend. It’s a good thing I made a note to make sure she was doing this—every afternoon has found her completely forgetful of the task AND I had to intervene at one point because she was playing video games while listening to a YouTube video about driving rules and considered it as studying. Uh, no. I’ve not been her favorite person this week because I keep insisting on nitty gritty studying tactics. You’ll thank me when you pass the test, girlie.

Emily hasn’t done any practice driving because I’ve been too busy with getting caught up with life this week, but I’ve scheduled daily drives for the next six weeks to get her back up to snuff.

Regarding the bridal shower and wedding gifts, I think I’ll just return them to Amazon and then re-order them and have them delivered to the couple’s new address. I still need to text the mom and get that figured out.

Renaissance and I sat down to talk about her post-high school plans and run the numbers. She qualified for every merit and music scholarship available at the colleges, but we are just middle-class enough to not warrant any financial assistance via the FAFSA, so she was going to be on the line for $17,000-30,000 per year to attend the four-year universities she was thinking about attending. That is simply not feasible for her, so she’s going to go with her alternate plan of attending technical college and earning an associate degree in culinary & pastry arts so that she can have a marketable skill that can then help her finance her future plans. She was really torn between studying music or studying pastry, so either option was fine with her. The pastry program is good in that she can then transfer to a four-year school and earn some sort of business and/or food science degree, if she desires. I think she wants to eventually open a bakery of her own, and that she wants to work with local high school students and the community to offer educational opportunities and/or internships in culinary areas.

I’m disappointed that the money couldn’t work out for a four-year option. I entered the financials into a copy of the spreadsheet that I had made when we did this for Emily two years ago, and I was appalled to find out that one of the schools they both applied to increased their tuition by $17,000 in just two years! It’s bonkers out there, and it led to some very serious conversations with Emily this week in order to adjust her expectations for the future as well. You just can’t expect an 18-22 year old and their family to cough out or sign up for loans in the amount of $120,000 for a college education at a Division 3 school! That’s almost the cost of our first house! Gross. The technical school option will end up costing just $8,000 a year, which is a sum we can work with. And HELLO…a pastry chef in the family? That’s just cool. Ren was also wise and applied to start in January so she can spend a few more months working to save up money to pay for it all. If you know of any bakeries hiring, she’s looking!

It was a really busy week, with a lot of important things happening, and I think it’s turned out well. Hopefully this weekend sees a lot of time for sewing, weeding, and driving practice!

I Dream of Muslin

March 25, 2024Leave a comment

It really is unfortunate that prom dress sewing lines up with getting the garden started. I’m still trying to figure out how to make both of them work together, with preference leaning towards the dresses because I can always come in a little late on the garden. This week will see that preference leaning towards creating the muslin for Ren’s dress, and hopefully more than that.

Cooking

This week’s meal plan:

Saturday: Beef Stew
Sunday: Cheeseburgers & Fries
Monday: Spaghetti
Tuesday: TBD
Wednesday: TBD
Thursday: TBD
Friday: TBD

Clothing

Stay on top of the laundry. I was looking at Nathaniel during church yesterday and I think he needs a new wardrobe because he grew again. I had to buy him a new pair of running shoes, two sizes larger than the last pair I bought him in JANUARY. I don’t know how he is not in constant pain with the rate at which he is growing right now. Also, he’s now wearing the same size shoes as Michael does. Maybe one of my children will actually end up taller than me.

Cleaning

Basic upkeep because of the prom dresses.

Caring

I need to buy a wedding gift and a bridal shower gift for one of Emily’s friends who is getting married in the next few weeks. It’s incredibly weird that my kids’ friends are starting to get married. Wasn’t ready for that.
Need to figure out what Emily’s plans for the next school year are so she can apply for things at the right times.
Driving practice for all three girls so maybe they can take their driver’s license tests over spring break.
Might meet a friend for lunch.
Parent Teacher Conferences this week. I don’t know if I should even bother going, especially after hearing what quite a few teachers had to say about parent teacher conferences while I was doing my student teaching—the parents whose kids are doing fine are the ones who show up and there’s little to say to them, and the parents whose kid are not doing well and who really need to talk to the teachers don’t show up at all. Conflicted.

Creativity

At Home:
- Renaissance’s Prom Dress: As I write this, I have just finished altering the pattern and cutting the first (and hopefully, only) muslin for Renaissance’s dress. That is the hardest part of the entire process, so I’m feeling good about things today. I taskified the dresses last week and, according to the schedule I have planned out, I’ll be on-track to finish on-time if I’m able to finish sewing up the bodice completely this week, which is totally doable if things go as they should. I didn’t know what to do about preparing the silks for sewing, and the internet had very conflicting information on that subject, so I just gave Silk Baron a phone call and had a lovely, candid chat with whomever answered the phone that just made my day. They convinced me to not prewash and just stick with dry cleaning the silk, and to also really consider using dress shields, so I think I’ll follow their advice on that.
- Rachel’s Prom Dress: I think we have everything we need, materials-wise, for the dress. We picked up the oh-so-pretty fabric on Saturday and had a lovely girls’ morning together. I love that bonus of sewing for the girls—we have to hang out together to do it right, and it inevitably leads to more hanging out. I have also preemptively ordered some crinolines for her so I can see ahead of time if they’ll be complimentary to the gown as I’m making it up.
Van Crafting Sessions™: Not really feeling the wedding shawls at this time. I have more time this week for van crafting, so we’ll see how I feel about stuff at the end of the week. I did feel a pull to start working on the Smitten EPP quilt in the past few days, though—I might head that direction.

Gardening

I do not have time for this! Usually I can pop in and out of the house and plant this and weed that, but with most of my time being spent on the prom dresses I’m worried about getting dirt on my hands that could potentially transfer to the dress materials. Maybe I can work to get ahead on the dresses this week and use any free time to go get stuff done in the garden.

Celebrating

Renaissance received her acceptance letters from both Pacific University and Linfield College! Now to wait for scholarship decisions. The late FAFSA has been such a headache.
Easter’s this Sunday, and I have no plans whatsoever. I don’t even know if I’ll get to the point of making plans. We have a ham and we’ll cook it. Maybe I’ll put Easter treats on the girls’ radars and they’ll take care of it.

Community

Band Festival
Choir Contest
Engagement Party for a lady at church that conflicts with something else that I hope ends up being cancelled so I can go to the party instead. Why is there always something responsible that you’re signed up to do when a party comes along? However, having been on the receiving end of RSVP back-outs because something better came along for the invited guest, I stand firmly on the hill—nay, am willing to die upon said hill—of honoring your previous appointment commitments despite how enticing a later invitation may be because it’s really rude not to.
Church Easter Brunch: I’ve signed up to bring fruit. Michael wants to sign up to bring biscuits and gravy, but I am going to leave that entire project to him, rather than commit in my name and have it potentially fall through and embarrass me.

Top priorities this week:

Prom Dresses!
Garden
Easter
Girls’ driving practicing

March(ing) Along

March 18, 2024March 19, 2024Leave a comment

Halfway through this banger of a month! This week technically has quite a few things going on, but as I look at the calendar I don’t feel overwhelmed by any of them.

Cooking

This week’s meal plan:

Saturday: Potstickers, stir fry veggies, rice
Sunday: Corned Beef, potatoes, cabbage
Monday: Tacos, taco veggies, rice, tortillas
Tuesday: Honey Garlic Chicken Sheet Pan Dinner, carrots & broccoli, rice
Wednesday: Taco Pasta, creamy green salad
Thursday: Thai Chicken Stiry Fry, stir fry veggies, rice
Friday: Irish Beef & Root Vegetable Stew, rolls

Clothing

It’s all about the prom dresses, baby

Cleaning

I repeat: It’s all about the prom dresses, baby

Caring

Rachel needs help with rehearsing for her choir concert this week. She’s singing the mezzo line in a very difficult song and it’s hard to sing the middle part on anything, let alone this whopper. Time has been scheduled to work with her.
I feel like I need to find some time to spend with Nathaniel. But Cross Country starts up next week and I’ll be spending a lot of time at his meets for the next many weeks, so maybe I can just allow it to happen then?
A lot of office stuff needs to happen. We’ve just been really busy and it’s been hard to find the time to do that.

Creativity

At Home:
- Fat Quarter Shop upcoming quilt: It’s called the “Layer Cake Latte” quilt, and it’s coming along. All the blocks are completed and I am in the midst of joining them. All that’s left is adding the skinny border around it and then the top will be done. I had hoped to get it completely quilted before the due date, but that’s not going to happen because I FORGOT ABOUT THE PROM DRESSES and need to sew like the wind on those.
- Prom Dresses: Yeah, they’re all I can think about at the moment. Ren’s fabric is here and it’s gorgeous. The pattern for her dress was only available as a PDF (boo!) and it’s printed but not yet taped together. Not looking forward to the taping. Once the Layer Cake Latte quilt is assembled I’ll hop right on over to sewing up Ren’s muslin. Rachel has picked out a dress pattern that I crazy, crazy love and cannot wait to tell you about because it’s so cool—it almost shouldn’t even exist—but I have to focus on Ren’s dress first because she’s a senior and that’s how that works.
Van Crafting Sessions™: I’ll keep chipping away at designing wedding shawls for my girls. A lot of the kids’ music lessons are cancelled this week, so I might not have a whole lot of van crafting time.

Gardening

Set up trellises for peas, reattach trellis netting on France for eventual sweet pea climbers
Something with the Delphiniums
Sow pansies, violas
Put plant markers in by sown seeds
Start marigold seeds

Celebrating

Easter’s on the horizon, but I don’t think we’re doing anything in particular for it.
Nathaniel’s birthday is next month, so I’ll start slowly getting organized for that. Time to pull up the “gift ideas” note to myself that I add to throughout the year and start watching for sales.

Community

Choir concert
Need to do things for Ward Music
Help Ren with her intention to volunteer for the craft show
Band is doing their monthly performance at the local assisted living home

Top priorities this week:

Finish the Latte Layer Cake quilt, photograph it, and write up the various posts
PROM DRESSES
Rachel choir stuff
Garden
Office/Ward Music/Band Parents

I Forgot about the Prom Dresses

March 12, 2024March 19, 2024Leave a comment

I was so proud of myself last week for how well I had cleared my schedule so things could be manageable, and then over the course of one day so many projects came to rest on my plate. At least they’re all projects I’m excited about!

Happy Daylight Savings Time to those of you who are mandated to go through it. I’m feeling it! Hopefully the sluggishness wears off quickly.

Cooking:

This week’s meal plan:

Monday: Orange Chicken, Stir Fry veggies, Rice
Tuesday: CP Soup
Wednesday: Taco Pasta
Thursday: CP something, pie for Pi Day
Friday: Michael’s birthday dinner, which he has not decided upon yet. I’m going to guess it’ll be steak, baked potatoes, Caesar salad and herbed rye rolls.
Saturday: Pasta/Emily’s choice
Sunday: CP Corned Beef, boiled potatoes, cabbage, maybe some Irish soda bread

Clothing:

Maybe this will be the week that I finally conquer the folding pile.
Keep thinking about and making plans for Easter, spring and Rachel’s travel outfits.
Materials and supplies are going to begin arriving for making prom dresses for Renaissance and Rachel.

Cleaning:

I don’t have a definitive plan set, which I would like to create. Basic upkeep for the next few weeks.

Caring:

I’m really struggling to remember what I’d like to do here. I blame the sleep deprivation from Daylight Savings Time. Um, I need to care for my poor sleep-deprived brain by adjusting my sleeping ASAP. I’ve learned over the decades that sleep is #1. You mess with the sleep, you mess with everything.

Creativity:

At Home:
- Prom dress prep—Dates were announced last week and I realized I had no plan whatsoever for making their dresses. We strategized over the weekend, and I think it’s doable. Ohhhh, the girls have picked some lovely designs and fabric. I’m really excited about these dresses!! Hopefully my “adventurous beginner/beginning intermediate” garment construction skills are up for the task…eek!
- Sewing on the Fat Quarter Shop upcoming quilt—Sneak peek this Friday!
Van Crafting Sessions™: Planning out personalized wedding shawls because I’m a person who gets things done years ahead of time

Gardening:

Peas, trellises, etc.
Seed check
Rhubarb watching
Plant delphinium
Use up the herb jungle
Direct sow alyssum, cabbage, pansies, poppies, viola

Celebrating:

Michael’s birthday is this week! I hounded the kids to get him gifts, so that’s an improvement over last year. Problem is, I gave them all my ideas for gifts and now I don’t have any other ideas and no gift to him from myself. Sigh.
After a quick text conversation with my people last week, I don’t think we’re going to be doing anything for Easter, but I’ll follow-up this week just to make sure.
The potentially brewing project I mentioned at the end of last week is dying a slow death. I thought it was dead for sure, but a spark of life was breathed into at the last second. I will follow-up today to find out what is going on.

Community:

I am nagging Renaissance about the WREF scholarship that’s due on March 17th. I do not get the feeling that it’s accomplishing anything.
Band Parent meeting this week—Many of my concerns from last week are resolving.
I was sustained in a new calling for church on Sunday: Ward Music Coordinator. It basically just means I make sure we have music during sacrament meeting. I pick the hymns, make sure the music makers know what the hymns are, and I set up and support the special musical numbers. We have Stake Conference this week, so no pressure for me this week. If I went ahead and taskified this calling, it would make my life a whole lot easier over the next few months as I settle into it. I should also resurrect my own music practice times since I know that I will inevitably have to pinch hit some musical numbers on the fly when scheduled performers cancel at the last minute.

Top priorities this week, aside from sleep health:

Michael’s birthday
Garden
WREF Scholarship application
Prom dresses
Resurrecting music practice time

Happy Homemaker Monday: July 10-16, 2023

July 10, 2023July 9, 20238 Comments

(Note: I wrote this yesterday [Sunday] because my weekdays are super busy and I’ve no time for blogging on Monday mornings.)

I came across the Happy Homemaker Monday link-up last autumn and earmarked it as something I wanted to do once I got done with grad school because I’m still a homemaker at heart who loves to make my home comfy and beautiful. I love reading through Sandra’s thoughts and her enthusiasm for taking care of her home and family, and it’s hard to find blogs like that these days. So here’s my first, of hopefully many, Happy Homemaker Monday posts:

The Weather:

We have some lovely summers here in the Pacific Northwest, and we are in the middle of some great weather right now. It was pretty warm last week, so this little bit of cooling is welcome. It will make our afternoon activities much more bearable.

As I Look Outside My Window:

We are “allowing” the garden “to lie fallow” this year because I was too busy with school to get out into it during the spring, but it’s making me a little squirrelly to see it be so fraggly. The kids have their weeding chores and the weeds are slowing being eradicated, so that’s good. I just have to keep telling myself that this is a not gardening year. ((shudder))
I did go buy some basil plants and a tomato plant because it’s just not summer if there’s not basil and tomatoes in my garden. I now visit them every evening after Michael and I get back from our after dinner walk. Makes me happy.
I missed the window for harvesting my lavender. I was going to try my hand at making lavender wands this year, but alas. Oh well, it’s still very pretty to look at.
I love our super shaded front porch so much. The kids and I have been spending a lot of time out there eating ice cream, drinking drinks, working on hand projects…it’s a great little spot that doesn’t get sunbaked and is hidden from the view of people walking by on the street.

Right Now I Am:

Waiting for my Lime Curd Bars with Coconut Crust to cool on the counter so I can bring them to church for our “Linger Longer” after meetings are done. Michael is giving one of the talks in sacrament meeting today, too, so I’m thinking about ways to make it better.

Thinking & Pondering:

Renaissance’s birthday party
How to explain/teach goal-setting to teenagers
I’d like to throw a Mother/Daughter Halloween tea this autumn
How in the world will I organize Rachel’s bedroom after I gut it this week?
Do I just quilt the Patriotic baby quilt on my regular machine, or do I go forward with cleaning off my cutting table to make way for the Big Boy sewing machine with the super throat that I bought last summer? I think a cutting table clean-off would require gutting the craft room, and I can’t gut more than one room at a time or my house will burst into flames and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The kids’ bedrooms are the priority right now, so I think I have to quilt on my regular machine, which I’m not very excited about.

Listening to:

My main man, Claude Debussy, as I try to keep the energy chill in the house on this beautiful summer morning.

How Am I Feeling:

Last week was a huge disruption to my routine, as most holidays are, and I still feel a little off-kilter. Sleep hasn’t been great for various reasons. I’m hoping this all evens out in the upcoming week. I’m excited about the improvements I’m making in the house. I wish it wasn’t such hard work, but it is definitely worth it.

On the Breakfast Plate:

I used to be much cooler, breakfast-wise. Now it’s just a protein bar, pills, and caffeinated water before yoga, followed by a protein shake after yoga. Renaissance makes me an egg sandwich on the mornings that we work out together.

On the Lunch Plate:

I still hate lunch. Dumb lunch, interrupting my work flow. However, I’ve been grilling up a few chicken breasts every other day so the kids can add chicken to whatever they’re eating and up their protein intake. I’ve been noticing that they are ingesting very carb-heavy meals and I’m trying to curb that tendency.

On the Dinner Plate:

(Sunday) Michael will make tacos tonight!

What I’m Wearing:

My favorite pink gingham shirtwaist dress, which I wear to death and will eventually need to reverse engineer to recreate a million more.

On My Reading Pile:

Banners, Buntings, Garlands & Pennants, by Kathy Sheldon & Amanda Carestio
The Good Wife of Bath, by Karen Brooks
(Dead) Kindle: The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups, by Daniel Coyle
A Magic Steeped in Poison, by Judy I. Lin

On My TV This Week:

Hopefully nothing; I like to keep my television watching to bad weather days. I did binge-watch some Clarkson’s Farm last week when I wasn’t feeling well.

On the Menu:

I meal plan on Saturday mornings, so my plan started a couple of days ago:

Saturday: Italian Sloppy Joes
Sunday: Tacos
Monday: Spaghetti, Green Beans, Caesar Salad, French Bread
Tuesday: North Carolina Pulled Pork (new recipe!), Corn on the cob, Broccoli Slaw
Wednesday: Steamed Buns, Stir Fry Veggies, Marinated Cucumbers, Rice
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Cedar Plank Salmon, Baby Potatoes, Caesar Salad, Rolls

Looking Around the House:

We’re in the midst of decluttering the kids’ bedrooms. I’m pretty much finished with Emily’s and Nathaniel’s room, but some of their stuff is randomly strewn about the house. Everything’s messy after a year of grad school, but this summer is the antidote to that messiness and we’ll crawl out from underneath the weight of the clutter by the time school starts back up.

To-Do List This Week, beyond the obvious laundry and like:

Start gutting and deep cleaning Rachel’s room. Oh, this is going to be a BIG job.
Move forward with plans for Renaissance’s birthday party
Go to the DOL and renew Renaissance’s driver’s permit
Driving practice sessions for both Renaissance and Rachel
Maybe plant some seeds in the garden for autumn crops?
Get graduation cards and thank you cards sent out

Devotional:

I’m experimenting with a new spiritual practice of choosing a word each week and pondering on what that word means to me, character-wise and in practical application. This week’s word is “energy.” I’ll report on what I came up with next week.

This last week’s word was “sunshine,” and I didn’t spend a lot of time with it because I was feeling crummy. But I do love that it’s a word that describes something tangible and also can be applied as a positive adjective.

What does it mean to me to embrace sunshine in my life?

Physically: Getting as much of it as I can during these summer months and being oh-so-grateful for it because I know I’ll miss it dearly come January, February, and March. Being careful with it because too much of a good thing can be very harmful indeed.
Emotionally: Making the choice to look on the bright side of things. The last few years have been an interesting experiment of watching people become what they fixate upon. I am more and more convinced that focusing on the negative just breeds more negativity in one’s life. You don’t have to scream about all the bad things in the world all the time in order to change them. Better to stay calm, be cheerful and cordial, strive to make things beautiful and lovely, AND work the proper channels to fix what’s wrong. Screaming doesn’t help things, but writing letters, voting, and contributing funds to important causes does. Better to do those things quietly and live your daily life gracefully so you can be a bringer of sunshine to yourself and those around you, rather than making people dread interacting with you and avoiding the causes you’re passionate about because you’ve soured them towards them with your ranting and seething. I accomplish much more positive change when I’m calm, collected, and cheerful, and our home is such a lovely sanctuary from the stress of the world when Mama is content. My husband and children deserve a safe place to land each evening.

Well, that’s everything. What a delightful exercise in noticing what’s going on around me and contemplating my actions for the upcoming week. I enjoyed writing this post! I wish you all a beautiful and productive week ahead!

Meal Planning and Sharing Cooking Responsibilities with Teenagers

November 10, 2021November 8, 2021Leave a comment

I’ve noticed an uptick in views on my two autumn meal planning posts in the past couple of weeks, and I thought I’d take a moment to write about how we’re doing dinner in our home these days with four relatively kitchen-ready kids. Quarantine really had the kids baking and cooking a lot out of sheer boredom, and I’ve had a lot of back and foot pain for the past year, so we’ve morphed into a more “all hands on deck” meal preparation group.

As summer was beginning this year, I put in three zucchini plants in the garden because our one zucchini plant in 2020 failed and I didn’t want to run that risk again. I then decided to go through all my cookbooks and find every zucchini recipe I could so that I’d have an arsenal of ideas for dealing with the very likely avalanche of zucchini we’d encounter. Whilst perusing zucchini recipes, I noticed a lot of fantastic vegetable recipes that I’d always wanted to try every summer but had never gotten around to preparing, so I decided to make a giant master list of summery recipes in my bullet journal. I tried to choose as many recipes from this master list over the summer, and the kids got caught up in the novelty of it and started helping me prepare dishes. By the end of the summer, we often had four different people working in the kitchen at once and could get a full, vegetables-included dinner on the table in about forty minutes.

Another recently-added consideration is that I’ve developed a soy allergy, which means I can eat very little processed foods anymore. Soy is in freakin’ EVERYTHING, people, UGH! So we’ve had to start making a lot of stuff from scratch, which means more cooking and time in the kitchen.

I decided to invest in a 24″x36″ whiteboard at the beginning of autumn and drew in gridlines. With school and after school activities returning to something resembling normal, I knew I was going to become very busy very quickly and that we were going to need a dinner command center that the kids could consult if I wasn’t home when it was time to start cooking dinner.

I went through my cookbooks again, this time for autumny recipe goodness, and now I spend a little time each Saturday morning while Michael and I are catching up and planning out the next week to write down each day’s activities in the top boxes on the meal plan board, and then I use my autumn recipe master list to plug in some dishes in black ink. (Or, for busy weeks, we just have easy-to-make foods, obviously.) As the kids wake up, they come along and write a star in their personal color next to the dishes they’re going to make, keeping in mind what they’re going to be up to that particular day in regards to music lessons and the like. (Don’t volunteer to make anything if you’re not even going to be home at dinner!) It’s been a godsend with my foot surgery recovery…very little standing in the kitchen for me anymore.

^{Last week’s meal plan, with activities blurred out because it’s a bad idea to post your kids’ schedules on that internet.}

It’s interesting to read through the many iterations of meal planning that I’ve done over the years. It just goes to show that we’re always adapting to new circumstances and abilities, and if it works for you in that moment, then it’s the right choice. I used to get critical of myself for not doing things the way I saw other adults doing things in their homes, and it’s only been recently that I’ve really figured out that it’s ok to change the way you do things and it’s ok to not take another person’s advice if you have a pretty solid expectation it will not work for you. You do you, and I’ll do me. But share what you’re doing so I can steal the ideas that will help me out, and I’ll keep sharing what I’m doing in case you want to steal some of my ideas, too.

Happy eating!

Autumn Meal Planning

August 22, 2015September 6, 20151 Comment

The kids are back in school, the house is quiet enough to allow for thinking again, and the mornings are getting a little cooler. This means that it’s time to think about food. I don’t know what it is about feeling the weather start to change, but some impulse just gets switched on in me to start reorganizing my pantry and kitchen cupboards…and then I start to think about soups, and roasts, and spices…and then I can’t stop myself from poring over my cookbooks.

And then the Autumn Dinner & Breakfast Menus happen. Mmmm, apples, pumpkins, and cinnamon.

I was talking about my method of meal planning with a friend a few days ago and she demanded that I share it once I got it typed up, so here it is…enjoy!

So, yes, a month’s worth of meals…and then I repeat it TWICE so that it’s actually three months’ worth of meals. Favorite foods go into the “Week #1” slot because a quarter is actually 13 weeks long, so that week gets four times at bat. I like my autumn meal plan to end with the week of Thanksgiving, so that I can start my winter meal plan with the Christmas season, so that means this year I’ll morph into my autumn cooking on Monday, August 31st.

Mondays and Tuesdays are all crock pot meals because we’re busy after school or have something happening close to dinner time.

Wednesdays are “easy to make” or “uses leftovers” because I have church responsibilities on some Wednesdays, so I need extra time for last minute prep and the like for that.

Thursdays are my “I have time to cook awesome food” days. (I really like good food.) I try to choose one weekday each quarter that I’m going to zealously protect from outside interference, and I really like it to be Thursday. Then I’m home all day for the most part, I have time for more involved recipes, I do a lot of my crafting, AND Thursday is the night before all the week’s homework is due, so the kids need to be home for that. No outside activities on Thursday, and our tummies are full with good food so we can crank out a solid homework session after dinner together. (I also try to have a dessert on-hand as well…it works well as a carrot for tough homework sessions, or as a treat for us all not killing each other over math homework.)

Friday is Date Night, either at home or out on the town, so Michael and I eat grown-up restaurant food and the kids get to have the food they love that Michael and I don’t want to eat.

I love alliteration, so Saturday is “Soup, Salad, or Sandwich” dinner day. I usually make some sort of soup stock on Saturday morning from all the peelings and ends of vegetables I’ve used in the past week (I keep them in a container in the fridge), so soup is a natural next step for dinner.

Sundays are “Mexican Sundays,” which is something we started while we were in Australia and couldn’t find any decent Mexican food. It was such a huge hit that we’ve kept it up since we’ve returned, even though I’m getting a little sick of it. The kids love it, so it keeps being a thing.

And I’m trying something new this autumn by having a breakfast menu too:

I don’t have a breakfast listed for the fourth Saturday, mostly because I can’t think up another potato-based breakfast, but also because I’ve decided that a “free day” might work nicely.

I do have themes for each day, which has worked well enough in past years, but I find that I’m in a bit of a rut with breakfast now, and there’s always some really great recipes that I just don’t think of at 6:30 in the morning, or while I’m making up my shopping list, so this menu plan will help me realize my dream of pumpkin waffles and apple cinnamon everything in the mornings.

Mondays: Oatmeal. I don’t know why, that’s just how it’s always been in our house. The kids don’t like it much anymore, so I’m trying some new flavors and combinations in the hope that they’ll re-convert. I try to serve some sort of yogurt or nut alongside for extra protein.

Tuesdays: Eggs

Wednesdays: WAFFLES. I’m obsessed. (And, hello, alliteration!) We usually have some bacon with them, too.

Thursdays: Omelettes

Fridays: Pancakes. And sausage links.

Saturdays: Potatoes. Michael loves potatoes for breakfast, and I don’t, so this is my special “I love you/Happy Getting to Stay at Home Today” gift to him on Saturdays.

Sundays: Muffins or quick breads. I love muffins and quick breads, but I’m too busy during the week to make them, and they’re not the most filling, but I do have time on Saturdays to bake and then they’re a lifesaver as we’re getting ready for church in the morning.

AND, because I always get to the end of autumn and realize that, once again, I did not make that scrumptious-looking Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust, I’ve made up a treat plan, too:

I’m pretty excited about the pumpkin cheesecake and the crème brûlée–I have wanted an excuse to buy ramekins and a kitchen torch for so long!

It’s a lot, I know. And usually by this point in the conversation people ask me why I do this, and the answer is super simple: So I have more time to craft. And I get to eat good food. I’ve found that the more organized I am in regards to the daily things–food, clothes, cleaning–the more time it frees up for the creative things, which are some of the more exciting parts of my life. I don’t see the need to re-think dinner every day, and I’d rather use that brain power for creativity. My kids are better behaved when they’re well-fed, I feel and think better, and we’re a much happier family.

BUT…I’ve also learned to be very realistic with myself in regards to meal planning. There are (usually, about four) back-up meals in the freezer for days when everything falls apart (read: sick kids, and I’ve been washing sheets continually since 3am). And if I notice that a day in the week ahead is all sorts of busy, like those freak show days that end up having dentist appointments and parent-teacher conferences together, I schedule us to hit a drive-thru because it’s stupid to make things harder on an already difficult day. Then I don’t buy the food for that meal at the grocery store that week because we’re not going to use it. Good adulting takes a lot of work, but also a lot of honesty with ourselves, and the ability to cut ourselves a little slack when things get a touch crazy.

So that’s it for now. I do still have to come up with sides and the weekly grocery lists. (All my grocery lists DONE for the next three months! Woo hoo!) I’ll work on those over the next week when I have spare moments. Food, done.

Autumn Quarter Meal Plan

September 30, 2013August 22, 20153 Comments

I used to follow an elaborate method of meal planning until a few years ago when I just couldn’t keep up with it anymore. My weekly menu planning time ceased to exist for some reason, and we’ve been in a bit of a free fall ever since. I’m not one for chaos, so I’ve decided to give a quarterly meal plan a go.

I’ve planned out four weeks’ worth of meals, and we’ll go through the rotation three times: October, November, and December. I’ll get good at making the same things over and over again, and I won’t have to sit down to plan out the next week anymore. It’s just done. Go shopping and cook.

Here’s what I’m planning on making (over and over) for the next three months:

(CP) = Crock Pot

That’s just dinners. I’m very intrigued by this method of preparing lunches for the week, and I’m going to start planning to implement the practice in the coming weeks. Food is too basic, too…easy?…to be stressing over. I’m tired of trying to decide what’s going on the table anymore! I need to reserve my energy for conversations, teaching (so mentally exhausting) and just enjoying life. This is something that can be simplified that won’t cut corners because it’s simplified. I’ll let you know how it’s going as we go along.