7 Day Goals

12/30 - 1/5 Goals

Family / Wife / Friends

• Discuss my 2014 theme with Hubby and request his support
• Enjoy New Years with Family - focusing only on them.
• Purchase birthday cards for everyone.  Sign and prep for sending.
• Send January birthday cards

Feed my Soul

• Ply Paul's hat yarn
• Attend first Saturday spinning group

Homesteading / Sunday Yumday

• Grate and dehydrate veggies for meal prep
• Prep a freezer meal - to be determined

Dehydrating for meal prep

I found this great recipe from Weelicious.  She is amazing and when my mom bought me her Lunches book for Christmas and it completely opened my eyes to how I can be feeding my family.  I know it's geared more towards kids but I felt so much of the info was relevant to the whole family. 

As you can imagine I got all excited about this recipe for Crock Pot Vegetable Ziti and was going to make it for dinner tonight which for me means putting everything in the pot the night before and storing it in the fridge.  But, by the time I got to the prep part, my daughter was in bed and there was no way I was going to rev up the food processor, so no ziti tonight. 

My solution for this problem is to take some Sunday Yumday time and grate bunches of carrots, zucchini, and squash and dehydrate them.  I will also dehydrate some chopped onions and bell peppers.  I could either store everything in mason jars separately or make little prepackaged dealies with all the ingredients together.  I'll try both and see which one I like the best.  I have in the past dehydrated veggies to smuggle into my families food so this recipe will be a nice addition to my veggie smuggling adventures.  Not to say that I want to smuggle all their veggies, I want them to grow up knowing what they are eating, but the occasional smuggling isn't a bad thing. 

So, what am I taking away from last night's fail?  I'm going to gather some recipes that call for grated veggies, throw the veggies in the food processor and then dehydrate them for future use. 

almost time...

It's coming up on the New Year and the pressure is on.  This is where things would fail for me.  It's like that guy that spins all the plates, I'm that guy but you know a girl.  But unlike that guy, I won't do very good with keeping them going.  I have all these great plans and great ideas that I've complied and decide to put into action and then crash, all the plates hit the ground.  I'm sure that it's all in the planning and then following through with the plan. 

45 minutes...

Note:  This post was writen last week and I forgot to post it.  Oops.  Who cares right

This morning I got up at the butt-crack-of-dawn and decided to fix my lunch.  It bears noting that this was not on purpose but since I was up I decided to pack a bento lunch.  Thankfully I was up early as it took me an unbelievable amount of time to prepare.  45 minutes to be exact.  45 MINUTES!!!  That is not acceptable and clearly a good place to start trimming the fat, and by “fat” I mean Time.

Problem #1: I cooked everything from scratch.  Today’s lunch consisted of shredded hoisin chicken with roasted bell peppers, cooked broccoli and carrots, sliced cucumber, and rice with furikake.  The only thing that was prepped was the shredded chicken. 

I have pinpointed 2 major flaws in my prepping process.  1.  Not enough pre-prepped items.  2.  Poorly organized supplies. 

So my initial idea for today’s lunch was to boil some ramen noodles, but in the mist of prep I found that I was out…what…how can I be out of ramen noodles?  Who’s been eating my ramen noodles?  Anyway, I had to come up with something else, but I didn’t have many options so I settled on sushi rice.  Don’t feel too sorry for me, I love plain ol’ sushi rice.  Although an easy task to rinse and cook, it does take some time.  I’ve come up with on time suck so now for the solution: check the panty before planning or starting and make sure you have what is needed for the meal.  This could also mean prepping the rice the night before to save time in the morning.  I just rinse the rice and fill with proper amount of water and allow to soak overnight.  I have seen people make large batches of rice and freeze it for easy prep, but in my experience I haven’t enjoyed the texture that resulted from the freezing.  Overnight prep of rice is my preferred method. 

Next time suck: mise en place, actually the lack of mise en place.  Granted I did mise en place this morning but a better solution would be to have some bento staples already chopped, sliced, or steamed.  Here is also where a freezer stash would have been handy (good info and more good info on freezing bento staples).  So for this bento I could have used some individually wrapped steamed broccoli florets and roasted bell peppers.  Some may like the roasted bells from a jar which would have worked but I don’t like the taste.  Guess I’m kind of a picky eater.  It would also have benefited me to have the cucumbers and carrots already sliced and ready. 

Problem #2: lack of organization.  This is an easy one to describe…I need one place for all my bento supplies.  Even if it means having duplicates of some gadgets and tools to ensure they are available and not in the dishwasher or put in the wrong place.   I would also like to have pre-portioned items on hand to toss in as needed (kinda like this but an adult version).  This will be more helpful when I’m packing Scooter Bug’s lunches but could also be a benefit for my bentos.    

Ok, I think I'll better success in bento making and lunch packing if I can incorporate theses things into my routine or process. I'll update with my progress. 

My wish

Time...

My theme for next year is Time Management.  Below are the reasons I need better time management for myself at home. 

I want time to relax with the family.   Who doesn’t want this? 

I want to get dinner on the table before 6.  Seems easy enough but doesn’t seem to happen as often as I would like.

I want time to create.  Whether it’s time for spinning, sewing, knitting, or whatever my creative heart’s desire; I need time to do these things.

I want time to pack lunches.  My lunch, and in the fall I will be packing Scooter Bug’s lunch for school, I will not only want to do this but need to do it.  For the record, I love packing bentos.  Just sayin’.  I’ll probably be posting pics of those Bento’s on this blog. 

time management to keep mommy sane

This mommy needs more time or better time management.  Officially staring Jan 1st my theme for 2014 will revolve around better home/life/work time management.  I'm gathering ideas now and will share as a find them and update this blog with my wins and fails. 

I'm currently on the search for ways to streamline dinner. 

I found a way to streamline cleaning the house by creating a chore list for everyday.  My hope is that it will allow more time for the weekend for more fun things.  I'm also not that into tackling cleaning the entire house all at once.  I get bored.  I get overwhelmed.  I get discouraged.  My hope is that breaking it up will keep the house tidy while keeping the mommy sane.  We will see if that works.