Is it just me or is there is never enough time on the weekends? Weekends are filled with music lessons, play dates, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, meal planning, laundry (oh the laundry), organizing for the upcoming week and trying to get in some ‘rest’ time, which for me it’s an hour of watching Gilmore Girls and eating popcorn in my bed.
Although I probably work harder at home on weekends, if it wasn’t for all of the prep work to set me up, there is no way I’d be able to survive the week. Here is a list of some of the things I do to ensure I set myself up for success throughout the week
Wash and prepare your produce. My daughter is on a carrot and celery kick lately so I am all over keeping these snack-ready in the fridge. I also wash, cut up and store lettuce, bell-peppers, and cucumbers. Having these on hand makes making dinner so much simpler- hello having a salad ready to eat in two minutes 🙂
On Sunday, lay out children’s clothes for the week. Sounds crazy, I know, but this has been an awesome time saver. Match shirts with pants and have socks, undershirts or whatever is needed ready to go.
Use your crockpot as much as you can. My crockpot is my most utilized kitchen appliance, besides maybe the coffee maker. We cook EVERYTHING in there. Besides the usual soups and chili, we often cook roasts, chicken breasts, pork chops and even meatloaf in our crockpot. I throw in the frozen meat in the morning before I leave for work and by the time we get home, we have a hot meal waiting for us. The meat does tend to end up quite tender and can sometimes break when taking it out but I’ll take the hot, cooked, tender meat versus getting home late and trying to figure out what to make.
Write it out. Trying to keep track of meetings, doctor appointments, birthdays etc. can be chaotic. No matter how much I’ve tried to become apart of the technology world with my scheduling, nothing beats writing out where everyone has to be and at what time on one, good, old-fashioned calendar.
Do your grocery shopping once a week. For years I would run to the grocery store 3 or 4 times a week to get ingredients for dinner. With a two-year-old, that just can’t happen anymore. Either myself or my partner are running late or the little one is exhausted and if we stop or don’t follow the exact route home there is going to be some serious two-year-old hell to pay. We don’t meal plan exactly every meal to a T but we know what we like and what we need to make it.
Lastly, when weekends seem to be scheduled to the max, we have been using Walmart’s grocery pick up service. It takes ten minutes to place the order and the next day I can just pick up what I ordered. For $3 someone shops for me, bags it and loads it into my car. AMAZING!
These are just some suggestions on what I do to try to make life a little easier throughout the week. Everyone has their own groove so please share what hacks you have to survive life during the work week.
Until next time friends
xo
Edna Mae's Homemades 