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Simple Living: Weeknight Meals Comments Off

Filed under the home, yum food
Written by Annie on 26th Mar -08

The Tools of Simple Weeknight Meals

A weekly meal plan
A well-stocked pantry
An uncomplicated kitchen
A weekly grocery trip
One extended prep time per week
Simple staples
Leftovers

Using the Tools

A Weekly Meal Plan
There is menu planning, and then there is life. The two don’t go together very well. You can plan all you want to make that beef stroganoff and rice pilaf and chocolate mousse on Tuesday evening, but when the washer breaks and floods the basement on Tuesday afternoon, your dearest plans are (literally) washed away. We don’t know exactly what a day will throw at us. After unexpected and stressful situations, there is nothing worse than realizing you have nothing to eat that will not demand an hour’s prepping and cooking time. Not good.

A weekly meal plan is sort of like a menu, but allows for ahead-of-time preparation and flexibility. Assuming you will eat out one night per week, you are left with six nights that demand some sort of meal for yourself and your family. A weekly meal plan could be as simple as this: 1) Pasta, 2) Soup, 3) Chicken, 4) Sandwiches, 5) Fish, 6) Slow Cooker. You can have the same kind of pasta, soup, chicken, etc. every week if you want to, or you can mix it up a little and do a different pasta sauce and a new kind of slow cooker dish. You have six options, however, and you shop for and prepare for the six options each week. Then, whatever the day throws at you, you have food that is planned and somewhat prepared and requires little more time or effort from you. continue reading…

Simple Living: Food Comments Off

Filed under yum food
Written by Annie on 26th Mar -08

Variety is the spice of life, but when it comes to food and sanity, repetition is key to success.

Food can be as complicated or as simple as you allow it to be. Most of us don’t spend much time thinking and planning, so menus and meals become a complex and frustrating burden. The truth is, we eat the same things most of the time. If we would plan for that and learn to shop ahead and prepare ahead just a little more than we usually do, meals can become simple and enjoyable. When you don’ t have to scramble and spend lots of time in the kitchen for every meal, you might find yourself wanting to make something a little extra, like a new dessert or loaf of bread.

Or you might want to read that new magazine. Whatever.

You don’t need to feel bad about feeding your family the same things more often than not. We all like what is familiar; there is something very comfortable about knowing what to expect. Introducing new foods and recipes comes much easier when you are not stressing about every meal. Let simple routines take the place of the frantic look through the refrigerator. Let a well-stocked pantry take the place of last-minute runs to the grocery store. Let easy, fresh side dishes take the place of over-processed mixes. Simplicity in your meals does not mean you only eat bread and water; it means you stick to what you know, plan ahead, and add in new dishes as your time and budget allows.

Go to Simple Living: Weeknight Meals
Go to Simple Living: Breakfast
Go to Simple Living: Lunches

Image courtesy of Darwin Bell on Flickr.

Wrap-Up: Life Without a To Do List Comments Off

Filed under monthly challenges
Written by Annie on 26th Mar -08

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a d**n fool about it. W.C. Fields

Challenge Update: And so, with the advice of eloquent Mr. Fields at my back, I call an official end to the experimental month of Life Without a To Do List. I wouldn’t call it a failure: I didn’t write a to do list for the last 26 days, so I have adhered to the challenge. I wouldn’t call it a success: I can’t see any significant life improvement. A bit more perspective, perhaps, and understanding of how a to do list can either be useful or a method of extending my control-freakish ways. Perhaps that does make it a success.

March was a strange month, anyway. It was probably the best possible month to forego my usual list addiction; from remodeling projects to plumbing problems to sickness to out-of-town guests to flooding, March has been full of things keeping me from routine. If I had been making to do lists this month, they probably would have been untouched at the end of the day, which would have made me feel even more out of control.

That is what I have learned from this challenge: lists make me feel like I’m in control. Especially when I can accomplish what is on the list. But even when I don’t get it all done, it gives me a sense that at least I know what isn’t done. I am aware of what waits for me, what is lacking, what must be tackled. Without that list, I feel like I am floating. I may be missing something important. I may have forgotten to pay a bill. I don’t know.

Are lists good or bad, then? Both. A list can become a lifeline, when what I really need is an afternoon off or a date with my husband or a chat with my best friend. A list can make me dependent on accomplishing and leave me feeling that without a record of my accomplishments (however insignificant they are), I am unimportant, unrecorded, lost, meaningless.

A list can keep me on track, though, when distractions are everywhere. A list can point me back to my priorities and help me focus on the truly important even when those urgent things are screaming at me. A list can help me reach my goals. It lets me see progress. It also lets me see when I am trying to do too much, if I am willing to look.

After (almost) a month without a list, I am willing to look. I am not willing to write a 20-point list and feel guilty at the end of the day when I haven’t accomplished it all. I am not willing to substitute list-making and checking off items for time and conversation and rest. I do want to stay on track, and see progress, and reach goals. So I am stepping back into a life with a to do list, but this time it is a tool and not an end in itself.

Better Life Tip: Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don’t do them to others, ever.
…Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always. Dee Hock

Why Women Worry, Part 2 1

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 25th Mar -08

Even if my qualifications seem best, I may not be right for the job. I may, in fact, be very, very wrong. It’s my job to determine what belongs to me and what doesn’t.

Figuring Out What Belongs to You

How do I know what belongs to me and what does not? How do I get rid of the things that are not truly my responsibility? Let’s start with a simple process of taking inventory. What am I currently taking responsibility for? Look at all the roles you play, then look at all the activities and tasks within each role. For example, I am (in no particular order) a wife, a mother, a sister and daughter, a friend, a Christian, a church member, a writer, a homemaker, a musician, a website manager, a woman, a cook, a gardener, and an entrepreneur. I could probably come up with more if I kept at it a little longer.

Within my role of church member, I have taken on the responsibilities of going to church every Sunday, playing on the worship team each week as well as compiling our worship set, emailing it to the worship team, attending practice each week, participating in ladies’ bible studies, fellowship dinners, and occasional “extra” worship times. Yet I still feel guilty when I walk by the table in the foyer and see the Church Cleaning Sign-up Sheet, because my name is nowhere on it. The only way I can keep myself from compulsively taking on the bathroom cleaning for the entire month is by remembering what my responsibilities as a church member already are. Once I mentally review them, I realize that I can take on no more unless I let something go. It isn’t that I can’t clean bathrooms or am unwilling to; it’s that I have already dedicated my time and effort to other activities in the church, and I don’t have any additional time to give. That’s my line and I dare not cross it.

Get Your Paper and Pen and Get Ready…

Be thorough as you list your roles and your activities within them. Picture yourself walking through your day and jot down everything you take responsibility for. Perhaps you feel guilty about missing dinner with your sister but she didn’t tell you the plans until the day of. Why do you feel guilty? Because you feel responsible. Why do you feel responsible? continue reading…

Why Women Worry, Part 1 Comments Off

Filed under self
Written by Annie on 25th Mar -08

“Worry comes from trying to control anything which I am not equipped nor prepared nor responsible to control: in other words, anything outside of my sphere of responsibility, my “circle of authority.” How often do I step outside this circle and try to drag something back in with me, something that does not fit, something that belongs in someone else’s care?”

The Worry Addiction

We start the moment we wake up in the morning and keep at it until exhaustion finally shuts off our active brain. We continue even in sleep, in our subconscious and our dreams bringing out our worries and tossing them around, sorting them, counting and naming and nurturing them. We must have something to gnaw on, something to worry with, to examine and analyze, to prove or disprove, to criticize or fear or envy. We are compulsive worriers.

Why do we nurture this worry habit? Have you noticed that no matter how quickly one problem is solved we find another one immediately to take its place? We don’t recognize the cycle as a cycle, an addictive cycle, and we honestly believe that “once this mess is taken care of,” everything will be back to normal again. But normal, for most of us, involves perpetual worry because we gain from it a feeling of control. But wouldn’t it be nice to do something besides worry? continue reading…

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