Unintentional Science Experiment

If you have ever wondered what cookies are like when you forget the baking soda, now you know.

A Lesson Regarding Cooking

I love to cook and I love to eat good food.  When we were first married I taught high school English.  The school I worked at was three minutes away from our apartment so I could easily be home by 3:30 or so every day.  My husband worked in a job with consistent hours so he was always home by 5:00. The way that I would relax when I got home was I would leisurely make a nice dinner and have it ready, with the table set, by the time he walked in the door.  I loved the peace and quiet and the enjoyment that came from making things nice and comfortable for my husband when he walked in the door.  Now, nine years later, things are a bit different.  We have three children, his work hours are erratic, and cooking has become more of a chore than a pleasure. I still love good food and I still love to eat it, but I have come to realize that, for my current time in life, there are some things that I need to compromise on, and this area is one of them.  Does that mean that I am willing to eat microwavable food or five ingredient meals or meat that has become mush in the crockpot because it just had a can of soup dumped over it? No. My compromise is that I make more casseroles than I use to and, upon occasion, we might have to eat a soup that is made of a bunch of canned goods dumped together rather than with all fresh ingredients. (More on this at another time, I hope.) All this being said, here is something connected with cooking that I have learned over the years.
 
Lesson: Don't be a messy cook. I grew up with a small kitchen and I have continued to have small kitchens throughout my married life.  I dream of someday having a huge kitchen with lots of counter space and a giant walk-in pantry, but it probably won't ever happen.  But, there is a lot to be said for small kitchens.  One great things is that it teaches you to be a tidy cook.  When your kitchen is small you have to learn to clean a bit as you cook, and if you have a small kitchen and don't do this, I would strongly recommend making an attempt to start this practice.  This isn't something that helps you enjoy the cooking process more, it helps you not go crazy over the clean-up.  I am tired by the time that I start doing the dishes (as my husband his helping get the kids ready for bed, this is my time to be alone) and the last thing I want is to be in the kitchen for an hour as I try to clean up the mess.  If you clean as you go, then you should primarily be washing the dishes that you at off of, putting food away, and cleaning the pots that the food actually cooked in.  This is a much easier process than when you add in the mess from dinner prep as well.
  Also, learn to make some good casseroles.  Casseroles are great because you make dinner, stick it in the oven, and while it bakes, you can clean the kitchen.

I Don't Fit Anywhere

As is my want at the beginning of a new year, I am reinvigorated to live my life well.  I am re-motivated to be healthy, to exercise (to lose some weight), to be organized, keep the house clean, say my prayers each day and read the bible, to do an excellent job homeschooling, get to bed early, rise early, stick to my budget, meal plan, and the list could go on.  Basically, I once again want to  strive to be perfect, or at least, as perfect as I possibly can be. The result of this said desire, I spend too much time looking at home organization, cooking, homemaking, and budgeting blogs.  What have I learned from all of my research? I don't fit into any category.  It actually makes me a feel a bit like I am alone, like there is no one else like me.  This is a silly thought, of course, as I know that I am not completely unique when it comes to homemaking, but I sometimes feel alone.
   I can't follow people's ideas on organization.  If you look at the Better Homes and Gardens magazine you will often see articles on "25 Ways to Organize Your Home", or something like that.  I like to look at these articles but they actually don't help me at all because I run into the problem that, I don't have a spare closet to convert into a beautiful office space, I don't have a laundry room where I can build lots of shelves and hanging racks and tables for folding, and I just cannot afford to build lots of shelves and drawers into my bedroom closet.  As much as I like to look at these things, they just aren't practical for my lifestyle.  I don't have the money or the room to make my house look the way I would like to make it look.
   I also have one thing that these people don't seem to have, a 15 month old child who will grab the cute storage boxes off of the tables or just use them as stepping stools to reach another level of items that she is not supposed to have. This child (and her 3 1/2 year old sister and 7 year old brother) are also the reasons why I can't exercise at the same time each morning, or go for a run in the afternoon, or basically do anything that I want to do exactly when I want to because life happens and things come up and children misbehave or they don't obey, or they spill that milk (AGAIN), or they cry because they have to do school today (just like they do every day, so I don't know why it is a surprise that I am, once again, telling them to do their math.). 
  Why can't I find another woman out there who has young kids, homeschools, lives in a small house, doesn't work outside the home, is on a tight budget, LOVES food, enjoys cooking (even if she doesn't have tons of time for it), is trying to keep a clean house but is constantly battling those around her, has a husband who works all the time so, as much as he would like to help, he can't do too much around the house, and who just gets tired of doing it all so she sometimes fails because there are days where she is lazy.  Wait, I do know people like that, WE ARE ALL JUST TOO BUSY TO BLOG ABOUT IT.  (Says the woman writing on a blog, but notice, there are reasons that I usually have five months between blog entries.)
    The point of all of this rambling is to say that I am going to share the lessons I have learned about homemaking in the real world and what I do to keep my head afloat.  It may be a lesson today and another in three months when I finally get around to it, but I'm going to share what I learn. Even if it is for no other reason than to have something that I can look back on in three months (when I no longer feel like keeping house etc.) and remind myself that these are the things I need to do in order to make a nice home for my family.

Lesson # 1:  Do Dinner Prep While Making Breakfast.

I'm reading a wonderful book on home organization (hopefully I will have a moment to share more about it when I get the chance.) But in this book, it made the suggestion that rather than cleaning up twice, do some of the dinner prep at breakfast time since I am already cleaning the kitchen.  This is especially helpful when making soup because I can chop the onions, carrots, and celery, and then store them in the refrigerator until dinnertime.  I also like this as 5:00 is the witching hour and kids tend to go a bit insane at this time, especially the baby.  Therefore, it is always nice to have some of the dinner prep done so as to save time.    It is also good to take a moment to think about dinner in the morning, so that I can take anything out of the freezer that I will need in the evening.