I am not a naturally tidy or organized individual. However, I LOVE for things to be clean and organized and I am married to someone who absolutely HATES mess. What does this mean? It means I need to have a clean house or my husband gets stressed out and uncomfortable (I, also, tend to get cranky because I don't like mess either). The question then arises, how does a rather untidy and unorganized person keep a clean house without spending All of their time cleaning? Because we all know that we really Can't spend All of our time cleaning. You spend time thinking about how to be more organized than you are and what to do to make yourself better at what you do. I do this a lot.
What people often forget is that organization and tidying up after oneself actually gives you more time to do other things. When I walk in the door I can either hang up my purse, put away my keys, put my shoes in my closet, and hang up my coat (and also teach the kids to do the same things), or I can stack everything on the dining room table to be put away at a later date. Then, when I actually need to dust or vacuum, I first have to spend at least 30 minutes tidying up all of the mess around the house, this is time lost. It took me a long time to recognize the truth of this extremely reasonable idea, but I have finally gotten there. Does this mean that I always put things away immediately? Of course not, I am struggling against my natural tendencies as a dining-room-table-stacker, but I recognize that there is a better way to live.
I have, therefore, been devoting some of my thoughts about organization to the horrid task of grocery shopping. I really hate grocery shopping. We only have one car so in order to go grocery shopping I have to do the following: (if I want to stay on budget and not have to make more than one grocery shopping trip) menu plan, take Patrick to work, go to two or three different stores with my kids, get home, feed the kids (as it is lunch time by now), clean out the fridge in order to fit in the new groceries (throw out all of the food that has gone bad), and put away the new groceries. Spend the afternoon recovering (I wish) and then later, pick Patrick up from work, drive through rush-hour traffic to arrive home and make dinner. Like I said, I hate it. So, I was thinking that there had to be a better way without my resorting to grocery shopping on Saturday or Sunday. Then, during a recent conversation with a friend of mine she mentioned some things that she does when preparing to grocery shop and so I decided to come up with a Grocery Shopping Plan. Here is the plan.
Grocery Shopping Plan
Wednesday: The day before the actual shopping.
1. Menu Plan: Make sure that I do it when I am slightly hungry so that it is easier to pick meals. (I have tips for menu planning, but I won't get into those now.) Menu planning means that I am also making my grocery list at the same time. Make sure to plan a, make-ahead-meal, for the actual grocery shopping day, either soup or a casserole.
2. Clean out the refrigerator. (This tip is from my friend and I thought it was genius.) This way, when I get home I can just plop the groceries in and save tons of time.
Thursday: Grocery Shopping Day
1. Eat a good breakfast. Never go shopping when hungry or thirsty or you will find yourself buying all kinds of things that you do not need and aren't on your list.
2. Make sure that the kitchen is clean before leaving the house. The last thing that you want is return home and have no where to set the dishes down.
3. Shop.
4. During the afternoon, make dinner so that when I return home with Patrick in the evening, dinner is ready.
This is the plan. The goal is to make this plan a habit so that I always naturally follow it, and make my life less stressful. You will notice that the amount of work that I have to do has not changed, just the manner and order that I do it.
As you may have gathered by now, I think that homemaking is extremely important. But, I am by no means a perfect homemaker. I do, however, think that part of being a good homemaker is constantly striving to be better. I very often fail, but the important thing for me to do is recognize my faults and not accept them as inevitable.
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