I have had a lot less time to be domestic lately. I also have not made it to the gym in forever. I got laid off and started a new job which requires me to be in the office 5 days a week ugh. Along with this huge change my husband has also made a career shift, he has started his own consulting company. There is no lack of stress in the Domestic Goddess' household these days. So here are a few tips on how to cut back on stress.
1. Divide and conquer. With ever-changing work schedules we must adapt to new chores and let some things go.
2. Hire help. The HOA came around and wrote very detailed lists of needed home repairs. This list included pulling out a storm damaged bush replacing it etc and cleaning the gutters. Gutter people were quick and efficient and only cost $40. We went with landscaping the whole front ares $360 for labor and supplies. Not naggin' husband or ending up with a HOA fine Priceless.
3. Go outside. It is impossible to relax when you are surrounded by a mess so just leave. Go outside in the backyard and grill. Eat on the patio and the pile of dishes in the sink will not matter.
4. Eat icecream. There is nothing better after a long hard day than sitting down with a little tub of Ben and Jerry's. Next to your hubby on the couch eating some Carmel Sutra that's the life.
Life is all about the little things the little joys, the little wins, the little endulgences. Keep your chin up we are all works in progress :)
Friday, July 9, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
I hate grocery shopping! It is inefficient!
I hate grocery shopping! I do business process documentation for a living and grocery shopping is so inefficient! You take the food off the shelf you put it in the cart; you take it out off the cart you put it on the belt; you take the bags out of the cart and put them in the car; you take the bags out of the car and carry them into the house; then you take the items out of the bag and put them away. That is a total of five times that you touch the food by the time you get it put away. Let's not mention the times you will handle it to prepare it, cook it, and store the leftovers afterward.
Now this obsession with the inefficiencies of the process of food preparation is why I used to solely use Let's Dish for my meal preparation. I would be able to go into Let's Dish and the food would be all selected and chopped. All I would have to do is measure it out into proper portions, take it home, freeze, then cook, and eat and there were very few leftovers.
Now that I am on the Domestic Goddess journey I am sucking it up and going grocery shopping etc. I write my list as I decide which recipes to eat that week. I take your list and the items are all over the place. I shop at Wegman's because they have everything I could need and if you compare prices they have the best prices on staples (milk bread frozen veg). But that store is huge! It has been designed to make sure you have to walk down every aisle. They sections for meat, dairy, bread, and produce are at the four corners with groceries, retail, bulk food, organic, bakery, specialty cheese, organic, toiletries, all mixed in throughout the center. I went from my half hour at the bloom to pick up toiletries and produce to well over an hour and a half at Wegman's. I am always back tracking to get items in a different department that I have already been through.
Domestic Goddess Solution: This week based on an insert from Rachel Ray Every Day magazine I am putting my grocery list in order according to department in the grocery store. If I have to go to the store I am not going to waste time wandering around. In order to make sure your list doesn't get mixed up with last minute items leave a couple of spaces between departments when you write your list.
TIP: Rewrite your list if you get it too jumbled with last minute items. Two minutes at home can equal 30 in the store.
Or try an iPhone app for list making http://www.macworld.com/appguide/article.html?article=136247
Now this obsession with the inefficiencies of the process of food preparation is why I used to solely use Let's Dish for my meal preparation. I would be able to go into Let's Dish and the food would be all selected and chopped. All I would have to do is measure it out into proper portions, take it home, freeze, then cook, and eat and there were very few leftovers.
Now that I am on the Domestic Goddess journey I am sucking it up and going grocery shopping etc. I write my list as I decide which recipes to eat that week. I take your list and the items are all over the place. I shop at Wegman's because they have everything I could need and if you compare prices they have the best prices on staples (milk bread frozen veg). But that store is huge! It has been designed to make sure you have to walk down every aisle. They sections for meat, dairy, bread, and produce are at the four corners with groceries, retail, bulk food, organic, bakery, specialty cheese, organic, toiletries, all mixed in throughout the center. I went from my half hour at the bloom to pick up toiletries and produce to well over an hour and a half at Wegman's. I am always back tracking to get items in a different department that I have already been through.
Domestic Goddess Solution: This week based on an insert from Rachel Ray Every Day magazine I am putting my grocery list in order according to department in the grocery store. If I have to go to the store I am not going to waste time wandering around. In order to make sure your list doesn't get mixed up with last minute items leave a couple of spaces between departments when you write your list.
TIP: Rewrite your list if you get it too jumbled with last minute items. Two minutes at home can equal 30 in the store.
Or try an iPhone app for list making http://www.macworld.com/appguide/article.html?article=136247
Monday, March 22, 2010
What's Brown and Sticky ?...a Stick
This article is about being a super mom AKA the big mean mommy down the block. I am very concerned about outdoor safety. No I am not going to debate the big issues of people on watch lists, or Lyme diseased ticks, or the UV containing sunlight. My concern is sticks! Well actually 4 year old boys with sticks whether used as guns or to whip his friends. These stick wielding boys make me cringe. (And when my dear, sweet, angel starts to emulate this whipping behavior on her best friend (me) I am not amused.) These sticks are not normal sticks either they are branches. The multitude of blizzards this winter season has left our common area covered small to medium sized branches.
Domestic Goddess Solution:
This weekend when our little family went out to play (and no one else was on the playground) I made game out of picking up the sticks and putting them in a big pile. This was fun for Sary because she got to play with a bunch of sticks while we cleaned up. Then my hubby Jake carried the debris to the curb while I pushed Sary on the swing. I feel a little guilty for ruining their fun but that is why I left all the kid appropriate sticks laying around, worm-digging sized not whipping sized.
TIP:
If you choose to clean up branches don't forget the gloves. (or you will end up with a a splinter, like the huge one I had in the palm of my hand)
Domestic Goddess Solution:
This weekend when our little family went out to play (and no one else was on the playground) I made game out of picking up the sticks and putting them in a big pile. This was fun for Sary because she got to play with a bunch of sticks while we cleaned up. Then my hubby Jake carried the debris to the curb while I pushed Sary on the swing. I feel a little guilty for ruining their fun but that is why I left all the kid appropriate sticks laying around, worm-digging sized not whipping sized.
TIP:
If you choose to clean up branches don't forget the gloves. (or you will end up with a a splinter, like the huge one I had in the palm of my hand)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
A Weekly Menu How Quaint
This seems obvious to me now...meal planning is where it is at. I decided in January that as part of my domestic goddess journey I would begin cooking home-cooked meals not just Lets Dish. (Not to knock Lets Dish, cause I love it) We had started eating out all the time and hadn't been very good at even thawing out our Let's Dish meals. I went grocery shopping every two weeks or so and bought just lunch and snacks. (We don't do breakfast and Let's Dish covered dinner.) Even though we had Let's Dish meals in the freezer we hadn't planned when we were going to eat them.
Domestic Goddess Solution:
STEP ONE
Sometime in the second weekend in January I sat down with my husband Jake and had him look through my Rachel Ray cookbook I got for Christmas. Jake picked out a dinner for the three days that we needed dinner that week. I wrote on my little "Mom's Weekly Planner" the menu for the week Monday "Lets Dish" Tuesday "Carbonara" Wednesday "Outside in Burgers" and Thursday "Hobby Night" Friday "Lemon Veal". (The links are to someone's blog that did 365 of Rachel Ray)
STEP TWO
I created a shopping list from the cook book ingredients lists. Then I added a few items for lunch and snacks. I went to Wegman's to ensure I could find everything. Now this first week I spent a little extra on EVOO and other Ra Ray staples. But by doing meal planning I wasn't buying a bunch of stuff that was going to rot in the produce drawer. I was only buying what we were planning to eat.
STEP THREE
Then I had to COOK. It wasn't really as hard as it sounds. The meals came out pretty well learning to use and cut fresh ingredients was the biggest challenge. 30 minute Rachel Ray meals aren't much harder than preparing a "Let's Dish" meal and it is much cheaper. I surprised myself with how good the Carbonara was using egg and wine to make a sauce was an intermediate level cooking challenge.
The best part was fighting over leftovers with Jake and sometimes even having some to freeze.
We have been planning meals every Sunday for the last two months and I can't imagine how we ever lived before. I love knowing what we are eating every day of the week and not throwing food away. And true to Rachel Ray's philosophy it makes every day special.
TIP:
Involve you family in meal planning and they will never complain about what you feed them.
Domestic Goddess Solution:
STEP ONE
Sometime in the second weekend in January I sat down with my husband Jake and had him look through my Rachel Ray cookbook I got for Christmas. Jake picked out a dinner for the three days that we needed dinner that week. I wrote on my little "Mom's Weekly Planner" the menu for the week Monday "Lets Dish" Tuesday "Carbonara" Wednesday "Outside in Burgers" and Thursday "Hobby Night" Friday "Lemon Veal". (The links are to someone's blog that did 365 of Rachel Ray)
STEP TWO
I created a shopping list from the cook book ingredients lists. Then I added a few items for lunch and snacks. I went to Wegman's to ensure I could find everything. Now this first week I spent a little extra on EVOO and other Ra Ray staples. But by doing meal planning I wasn't buying a bunch of stuff that was going to rot in the produce drawer. I was only buying what we were planning to eat.
STEP THREE
Then I had to COOK. It wasn't really as hard as it sounds. The meals came out pretty well learning to use and cut fresh ingredients was the biggest challenge. 30 minute Rachel Ray meals aren't much harder than preparing a "Let's Dish" meal and it is much cheaper. I surprised myself with how good the Carbonara was using egg and wine to make a sauce was an intermediate level cooking challenge.
The best part was fighting over leftovers with Jake and sometimes even having some to freeze.
We have been planning meals every Sunday for the last two months and I can't imagine how we ever lived before. I love knowing what we are eating every day of the week and not throwing food away. And true to Rachel Ray's philosophy it makes every day special.
TIP:
Involve you family in meal planning and they will never complain about what you feed them.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Baking Around Corners
I have a two year old daughter named Sary she has egg and peanut allergies. This adds to the to do list for this Domestic Goddess because I have to be ever vigilant about what she eats. Being a mom of a baby keeping her away from these things wasn't that hard. The biggest challenge was to keep people who ate peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast from kissing her. (Yes! She is that sensitive.)
As she became a toddler it increased in difficulty because eggs are in all baked goods and peanuts contaminate almost all chocolate. My little girl loves baked goods like her daddy and chocolate like her mommy. It is easy enough to bake with Ener G Egg Repalcer on the rare occasion I baked something. But once she turned two and started to go to cake and ice cream laden birthday parties the real challenge began after a while I realized that snack sized Hershey bars were not going to cut it and I realized that I had to bake and freeze some cupcakes. But then Birthday season seemed to pass and we were in the clear. So I thought.
Then one day when I picked Sary up at day care her teacher looked at me with a concerned look in her eye. then the teacher asks me "Can you bring in cupcakes for the freezer?"
Me : Yeah I guess...
Teacher: Well uh yeah she (motioning to my little girl wrapped around my leg) cries a lot when we have birthdays. And umm could you make her some pancakes. She cries every time the other kids have pancakes.
PLOW! WAM-O! BOOM! Super Woman is down for the count. It is the Working Mom Guilt Hammer right on her head.
Me: [In a little tiny voice]: Umm is there anything else that they have in the morning that she wants to eat? I could um try to make some.
Teacher: Oh no just the pancakes she can have them when we have waffles or french toast too.
I shuffle home feeling sad about my poor little girl who has been forced to eat cereal every time there is something with eggs in it served for breakfast. Imagining the emotional damage I have done to this poor little girl who has a mommy that doesn't even think about how she feels when other kids get to have syrup-y yummy pancakes.
I go home sit her up to the table and give her a Hershey snack sized chocolate and a cup of tea in her flowery little espresso cup turned child's tea cup.
Domestic Goddess Solution:
That weekend I search the aisles of Wegman's for Organic Vegetarian Egg Free Pancake mix. I find Nature's Path Buttermilk Pancake Mix. Check. And when I made the pancakes just to be extra domestic goddess-y I put little chocolate jimmies in half the pancakes.
I also procured Funfetti Cake mix and pink Funfetti icing. This little princess will have the most festive frozen cupcakes ever. Go! Domestic Goddess.
Tip:
When preparing cupcakes for freezing. Buy the aluminum tins at the store to bake them in, use the cupcake paper, but leave the cupcakes in the tin. After frosting and decorating the cupcakes freeze for 5-10 minutes before covering the tops first with wax paper them aluminum foil. This allows the frosting to harden a little. Don't forget to write your child's name on the foil before putting it over the cupcakes.
As she became a toddler it increased in difficulty because eggs are in all baked goods and peanuts contaminate almost all chocolate. My little girl loves baked goods like her daddy and chocolate like her mommy. It is easy enough to bake with Ener G Egg Repalcer on the rare occasion I baked something. But once she turned two and started to go to cake and ice cream laden birthday parties the real challenge began after a while I realized that snack sized Hershey bars were not going to cut it and I realized that I had to bake and freeze some cupcakes. But then Birthday season seemed to pass and we were in the clear. So I thought.
Then one day when I picked Sary up at day care her teacher looked at me with a concerned look in her eye. then the teacher asks me "Can you bring in cupcakes for the freezer?"
Me : Yeah I guess...
Teacher: Well uh yeah she (motioning to my little girl wrapped around my leg) cries a lot when we have birthdays. And umm could you make her some pancakes. She cries every time the other kids have pancakes.
PLOW! WAM-O! BOOM! Super Woman is down for the count. It is the Working Mom Guilt Hammer right on her head.
Me: [In a little tiny voice]: Umm is there anything else that they have in the morning that she wants to eat? I could um try to make some.
Teacher: Oh no just the pancakes she can have them when we have waffles or french toast too.
I shuffle home feeling sad about my poor little girl who has been forced to eat cereal every time there is something with eggs in it served for breakfast. Imagining the emotional damage I have done to this poor little girl who has a mommy that doesn't even think about how she feels when other kids get to have syrup-y yummy pancakes.
I go home sit her up to the table and give her a Hershey snack sized chocolate and a cup of tea in her flowery little espresso cup turned child's tea cup.
Domestic Goddess Solution:
That weekend I search the aisles of Wegman's for Organic Vegetarian Egg Free Pancake mix. I find Nature's Path Buttermilk Pancake Mix. Check. And when I made the pancakes just to be extra domestic goddess-y I put little chocolate jimmies in half the pancakes.
I also procured Funfetti Cake mix and pink Funfetti icing. This little princess will have the most festive frozen cupcakes ever. Go! Domestic Goddess.
Tip:
When preparing cupcakes for freezing. Buy the aluminum tins at the store to bake them in, use the cupcake paper, but leave the cupcakes in the tin. After frosting and decorating the cupcakes freeze for 5-10 minutes before covering the tops first with wax paper them aluminum foil. This allows the frosting to harden a little. Don't forget to write your child's name on the foil before putting it over the cupcakes.
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