How have you simplified your routines/meals/schooling/life, etc.?

[melissel]

Outside of massive decluttering, of course. That's already underway. I spent the last two nights going through the girls' toys, throwing out the junk and packing the good stuff into totes for toy rotation.

 

I guess I'm looking for ideas with regard to simplifying meals, schooling routines, housekeeping, etc. What are your favorite shortcuts? I have a hard time making and sticking to meal plans. Instead, I've found that winging it with simple, basic meals and always keeping those items on hand works better for me. For example, I make sure I always have whole chickens and ground beef available for roasted chickens and hamburgers, and I throw a frozen veggie on the side. But I'd love to hear others' simple meal ideas. I don't want to burn us out on chicken and burgers!

 

And things like the dang mail. I feel like we're always drowning in mail, with piles all over the dining room. The shredder is down in the office, but we don't go down there often, so the mail makes its way upstairs and congregates in clumps until our twice yearly shredding and mass filing session. Is everyone else about to be smothered under the weight of collapsing stacks of flyers and bills? What's your system for dealing with it?

 

Any other ideas are welcome. We're trying to save for me to quit my job, but DH is in real estate, so heaven only knows how that will play out for the next year or so (or longer!). We've reached a point where I can't just relax about school any longer, so I have to find a way to make it work and for school to actually get done. I've just come through a long bad patch at work because we're merging with another firm, and I allowed us to completely take off school until January 1. But now it's "do or die" time, and I have to prove to myself that I can do this, or else we're looking at public school for second grade :(

 

TIA for all your ideas!

[GWOB]

I don't have any specific advice for you, as I am the world's most disorganized person, but I have found a wonderful website with lots of neat tips. It's the Hillbilly Housewife site. She has great simple meal ideas and simplifying tips. Just google "Hillbilly Housewife" and it should come up.

[melissel]

I don't have any specific advice for you, as I am the world's most disorganized person, but I have found a wonderful website with lots of neat tips. It's the Hillbilly Housewife site. She has great simple meal ideas and simplifying tips. Just google "Hillbilly Housewife" and it should come up.

 

I'm sorry, you'll have to fight me for that title :boxing_smiley:

 

Thanks for that! I haven't been to her site in quite awhile. Once it changed hands, they made all these weird improvements and I couldn't get in anymore! I'll try it again right now. My favorite oatmeal pancake recipe is from there.

[MrsMe]

For a while, I made a month's worth of recipes then just numbered them 1-7 rotating them every month. On the bottom of the page I added a list of other food items, just in case. That helped alot.

 

So I'd have

1. recipe

2. recipe

3. recipe

4. recipe

5. recipe

6. recipe

7. recipe

 

8. recipe

9. recipe......etc. 4 sets for a months worth. At the beginning of the month, I started w/number 1 again. You can do this on a weekly or bi-monthly basis; however it works for you. And most of mine were simple. From brats, to crockpot items to casseroles, nothing that required a big deal w/grocery shopping. The biggest thing was to make this list. But I've always used it, even if I didn't always abide by it.

 

I keep needed cleaners in every room. Each bathroom has their own cleaners, kitchen has it's own set, so does the laundry room, so I don't haul anything. If I have time, I can do a quick clean without going and dragging cleaners from one room to the next.

 

I used to put shred mail or for us, we can also burn as we have a burn barrel into a paper bag and I put it in the pantry. I have a basket that is in the LR, but next to my kitchen and right away all the unread magazines go in there. I have another basket for ones I read, but keep. (This last part is the part that I need work on.) I just need to toss them.:tongue_smilie:

 

I have a hamper in the bathroom my dd uses and when she brings me her dirty laundry, she brings that and the one from her room.

 

I have a over the door shoe holder and store all my extra's in there like pencils, pens, tape, post-its, school junk in those little plastic cubbies. Their great because I can see through them.

 

In the last few years I've slowly gotten rid of most of my Christmas stuff. I want REAL which I thought was a hassle, but now, I just like the lack of storage that requires. Besides, real pine smells better and then I can toss it all. I use candy canes, peppermint candies, cinammon sticks to toss around candle "plates". I have a big wooden bowl that I put natural or foodish things in around the candle. It's natural and by the time Christmas is done, the candy is gone or can be eaten and it's decorative. Burn those candles than toss. They're so cheap.

 

In the last year, I've gotten a laptop and this year a wireless printer. I can now house my office area in a tiny space and the printer can go almost anywhere.

 

I have a neighbor lady that cleans my house every other week. This leaves me to clean blinds and other oddities and stay on top of things. My towels are clean and so are my sheets on a regular basis. Every other week is cheaper than every week. I used to feel like a failure, but now I feel like I can keep up.

 

Hope these help.

[Ottakee]

keep up with the dejunking. That really helps.

 

For meals, I LOVE my crockpot. Fix It and Forget It has several cookbooks out there with lots of easy, basic recipes. I use my crock pot 5-6 days a week for supper as it is easy to put stuff in there in the morning, clean up the kitchen and have supper ready when we get back from caring for our horses.

[Harriet Vane]

And things like the dang mail. I feel like we're always drowning in mail, with piles all over the dining room. The shredder is down in the office, but we don't go down there often, so the mail makes its way upstairs and congregates in clumps until our twice yearly shredding and mass filing session. Is everyone else about to be smothered under the weight of collapsing stacks of flyers and bills? What's your system for dealing with it?

 

 

Put the tools you need where you will actually use them. Don't try to force yourself to conform to the space--make the space conform to YOU.

 

If your shredder isn't getting used because it is located out of the way, you need a different system. Two thoughts occur to me: one would be to require one of your kids to shred the mail the instant you are done looking at it. At our house we don't have a shredder, but we do have a recycling bin. The instant I have looked at the mail and sorted it, I give what we are discarding to one of my kids and they recycle it. My other thought is to move the shredder or even reconfigure your home so that the office is where you enjoy working on those tasks. For example, do you find yourself paying bills and looking through the mail in the kitchen? Then set up the kitchen to accommodate those activities. You get the picture.

[Tabrett]

For mail, I go from my mail box straight to the trash can. The trash can is where is where I open my mail. I don't shred, just rip up all cc offers and trash everything I don't want to keep. You can alway tell when dh gets the mail. There is always a nice pile of junk for me to sort.:glare:

After I trash all the mail I don't want, I then take my bills straight to the notebook I keep them in until I am ready to pay. I pay bills once a month. After I pay bills I immediately file.

[lmrich]

A lady I was a nanny for used this and I do (sometimes)

 

Monday - Pasta dish - add chicken, beef, or not

Tuesday - crockpot

Wednesday - Mexican something - quesadellias, tacos, burritos

Thursday - leftovers or soup and sandwiches

Friday - fish - we love the breaded tilipia from costco and shrimp, I have the hardest time with this, as I don't cook shrimp

Saturday - pizza, hamburgers, fast American type food

Sunday - your nice meal, like a roast

 

I always keep frozen veggies and apples and grapes on hand the kids always gobble them up.

 

You can really vary the above the a lot and I followed while the kids were young and didn't have time to think about meal planning.

 

Linda

[kalanamak]

Outside of massive decluttering, of course. That's already underway.

 

TIA for all your ideas!

 

I cook a lot on Sunday afternoons., a thingy of brown rice, a soup, a pasta sauce. Pasta (and fresh veggies) can be boiled ahead, slightly al dente, given a light coating of olive oil and put in large Ziplocks. Drop in boiling water or nuke hot. There are whole websites dedicated to freeze ahead meals. This way, I make the kitchen really grubby only one or two days a week. The rest is making a salad or steaming a side veggie while the main dish bakes or nukes. Romaine holds up well if you cut into 1 inch lengths with a nice SHARP knife. I wash it, spin it dry, and pack in big baggies with a paper towel. It won't last all week, but it will last 3-4 days. In really tight days, I warm up a veggie burger, put on a WW bun (I freeze them individually) with a big salad, and it is fast but doesn't taste like "fast food". The trick to making soup really last is to COOL it quickly. I use an ice bath. Same with sauces, etc. I have done side-by-side and the quickly cooled and put in fridge stuff really does last longer.

 

Mail: the junk and fliers go in recycling before I get past the foyer.

Bills go in another spot, and I do them THE moment I can sit down and they go in an outmail spot. I have a small filing box with general dividers and stuff things in there, including a TO be Filed section at the front. When I have a moment, like I'm finished eating but I'm sitting with kiddo (we are currently doing a tomato-stake on table manners), I'll chat with him while I go through the box. Twice a year, I go down and put the stuff I really want to keep in the big file. I love my "current issues" folder. Everything unresolved goes right there and I can find it all.

 

Cleaning. I have been converted to Speed Cleaning. You can get the book cheap from Amazon, used. I wear the stupid little apron and hang bottles off the hooks and I go once around a room. It is hard to break myself of the habit of going to the trash for every little trashpeice I find, but I'm getting faster. Prior to going around with the apron, scrubby, spray bottles and napkin, I make a pass through the house with a couple of baskets: his stuff, kids stuff, my stuff. I never thought life would be so improved by having a scraper in an apron, but dang, it works.

 

I work full time, too, BTW.

 

Other things to consider: don't pick up the phone, get out of time wastes (people or events), cancel your mag subscriptions, throw one big party a year to take care of your social commitments.

[kalanamak]

Put the tools you need where you will actually use them. Don't try to force yourself to conform to the space--make the space conform to YOU.

 

If your shredder isn't getting used because it is located out of the way, you need a different system.

 

:iagree: This is very important!!

[Oak Knoll Mom]

A lady I was a nanny for used this and I do (sometimes)

 

Monday - Pasta dish - add chicken, beef, or not

Tuesday - crockpot

Wednesday - Mexican something - quesadellias, tacos, burritos

Thursday - leftovers or soup and sandwiches

Friday - fish - we love the breaded tilipia from costco and shrimp, I have the hardest time with this, as I don't cook shrimp

Saturday - pizza, hamburgers, fast American type food

Sunday - your nice meal, like a roast

 

I always keep frozen veggies and apples and grapes on hand the kids always gobble them up.

 

You can really vary the above the a lot and I followed while the kids were young and didn't have time to think about meal planning.

 

Linda

 

I do something similar. I plan a type of meal for a particular day of the week, but vary the recipes from week to week.

[Laura Corin]

I sort the mail as it comes in. Junk mail goes straight into the recycling bin (in the kitchen). Other mail goes into a small basket. When the basket gets full, I know I need to do something with it.

 

Laura

[Jen in PA]

I have definitely relaxed my dinner routine. I used to feel that leftovers only worked if I completely retooled them -- now my philosophy is that if it's good enough to eat Monday, it's just as tasty Tuesday. My kids are little, so if I get them to make a good attempt on a food they don't love one night, they can have something else when I serve it again -- and grilled cheese or English muffin pizzas are so little work that I feel like I had an easy night of it, and they think they got a big treat. I make big batches of pancakes and quick breads on days that are light, then I have homemade breakfasts on hand (although ds and I really want eggs every morning just to complicate things).

 

I have also relaxed some of my former housekeeping rules. I have learned that no one notices but me if I skip vacuuming one day here or there, and that I really can get away with just using the dustbuster in a pinch. There are definitely days when the playroom door gets closed instead of the playroom getting organized:001_smile:

 

The mail used to be a bigger hurdle here, because I could never deal with a simple toss or keep system -- I have a distinct third category that always tripped me up. I noticed that for me, the "keep temporarily" pile of things like store circulars and coupons was the real problem, so I gave them their own drawer in the kitchen. Now my store circulars are with my coupons, so I can sort them out together once a week, when time allows. Invitations and notices about upcoming events get clipped directly to the calendar. If DH didn't buy me a 2009 calendar, I'm going to make a snazzy one a gift to myself this year.

[bumbledeb]

Magazines and stuff I want to get around to reading but keep putting off, I pop into a drawer in the bathroom. That way I do get around to it. Also, other people will read them too. I keep all my New Scientist magazines in there and toss in a couple of gardening ones too. They will get well read.;)

[mellifera]

This year I got a weekly schedule book and wrote out a schedule for which housework jobs should get done on what day. I picked one day to plan out dinners for the week and would write that down and when to start making it on the appropriate day. (Most of what we make is simple but time consuming.) I also made sure that time for school was on the schedule. Then I gave myself the freedom to completely ignore it when necessary with the promise that I would come back to it afterward. So far it has worked great. (Although at the moment we're ignoring it until January.);)

[Peela]

And things like the dang mail. I feel like we're always drowning in mail, with piles all over the dining room. The shredder is down in the office, but we don't go down there often, so the mail makes its way upstairs and congregates in clumps until our twice yearly shredding and mass filing session. Is everyone else about to be smothered under the weight of collapsing stacks of flyers and bills? What's your system for dealing with it?

 

 

Sure, we get lots of mail, most of it junk. I walk from the mail box to the outside bin and dump most of it in there on the may back inside. What gets into the house (my family love to read advertising brochures and sneak them past my eagle eyes!) is dumped as soon as I notice it. Mail is opened immediately and bills are pinned to a cork board above my desk, things I need or want to read are put on my desk, my husband's mail is left in a small pile on the table for him to deal with- but really we are lucky to get one relevant thing any given day, and several junky things that need to be binned immediately. I think that's the key- sort it out daily, as you walk in the door with it. Just like many things- the Do It Now principle.