Home Life

It’s live!  Finally!  I’ve gotten around to creating a resource website on the things my family and I do to ‘work with the land’ and save money.  It’s no where near done - I have a ton of articles I am still working on but felt I had enough content to put the site up.

http://www.motherhoodnaturally.com/homestead/home.htm is the link.  Bookmark it and check back often.  As I go through my day I keep getting reminded of things that might be helpful to add to there, so I add it to my list and when I have a few minutes to write it up, I will!

Let me know what you think!

If you’re interested in storing your recipes on the computer, creating shopping lists, and finding the nutritional value of your meals consider downloading one of the many programs made available at www.downloads.com

Run a search on their website for “recipes” or “cookbook” or “shopping lists” and you’ll come up with many options - download a free trial to see if you like the program.

Do you have a favorite?  Care to share?

A household notebook can be a great way to keep you organized.  A household notebook is a central location for phone numbers, calendars, business cards, to-do lists, chore lists, inspiration/motivation, cleaning lists, schedules, odds and ends, shopping lists, plans, and much more.  This isn’t the typical binder you’d buy in a store!  This is something every “keeper of the home” must create and personalize according to her family

Check out this fantastic link for a full “course” in creating a household notebook, plus a tour through her own.  On the left column you’ll find a long list of others who have created household notebooks and have them displayed on their website.  Excellent inspiration and ideas for creating your own!!

We just had a baby (see details in the “birth and babies” blog) and I’m coming to rely on the same lifesaver I’ve used with my other children: a baby sling.  My personal favorite for newborns is a Maya wrap, and then a Mei Tai as the kids get older.  The maya wrap is, I think, better than typical front carriers because the baby can lay down (and still nurse while you’re moving around), be safely contained in 5 different positions, it keeps the baby snug against your body (particularly helpful for newborns who crave the closeness), can sheild the baby from sun and other weather elements (when they lay down, the sling acts as a shell and the baby acts like a pea!  Just kind of swallows the baby and keeps them protected).  You can adjust the maya wrap style slings to make the sling deep or shallow, and adjust the side rails.  If your baby is in an upright position, the tail of the sling can also act as a cover.  The baby is completely supported in a sling, so you are free to move around without having to always hold your baby (however your baby is feeling like s/he’s still being held snug and close).

Some babies don’t take to the sling right away, especially if a sling is introduced later in their lives.  However, once a baby comes to experience the movement of being in a sling while mom or dad goes about cleaning house or whatever needs to get done, they (usually) quickly take to it and enjoy it.

You can easily make slings if you’re handy with a sewing machine.  Or you can buy them already made.  My favorite brand is the maya sling.  They are durable, safe, attractive and are eesy to use.  And, they include a free instructional DVD/VHS about how to use them.

When you learn the art of meal planning, you may very well notice your money is better spent, you spend less, you throw away less food, have less stress over what to cook, and don’t have to make multiple trips to the store during the week to get ingredients for a meal you want to make.

So how is it done?  In a variety of ways!

You can try “once a month cooking” where you spend a day or a weekend cooking a months worth of meals, then freezing them.  This works well if you have a lot of freezer space and the time to actually cook so many meals.  This cuts out the need to cook, and takes care of using all of your fresh produce within days of purchasing.  You can also do smaller batches - cooking for a week or two weeks, or just spending a day cooking whatever you can fit in, throw food in the freezer and have it available for a night that you can’t cook (just heat the food up and eat).

Another option is actually planning every meal (some people plan every breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for a week, two weeks or an entire month. Then go shopping, store food as needed to make it last as long as it’s needed, and not have to worry about the question most of us wake up with “whats for dinner?”

My personal plan works like this (and feel free to share your own!).  I keep a master list of the meals my family likes.  On thsi master list is the name of the dish, the book/pg number I found it from, and the ingredients needed.  I typically plan two weeks of meals in advance, in synch with my husbands paychecks.  I am slowly working on re-writing all of these recipes into my personal cookbook so I don’t need to dig out cookbooks for recipes, I’d just turn to my own cookbook filled with the recipes my family knows and enjoys.

Generally, I pick 14 dinner ideas and about 7 lunch ideas.  I do not plan meals for each day, but pick what sounds best for that day, or go by what ingredients need to be used first before they go bad.  Usually, leftovers are eaten for lunch the next day so I don’t usually plan a lot of lunches.  Breakfasts are pretty simple - oven pancakes made with whatever fruit I buy, oatmeal, a mix of fruit and toast, or whatever we have on hand to make a healthy breakfast.  I don’t plan these, but I do typically buy the same fruits, when in season, so I know what will last and what is used best in breakfasts.  I will also usually get some lunchmeat of some sort so we can eat a sandwich if needed, and I always pick up salad fixings.  There are certain things I don’t plan into meal planning, but I know we’ll eat and they wont’ be a waste of money.  Now, if I try a new recipe, obviously that DOES get planned so I make sure I have the ingredients on hand and I make note of what meal if might compliment best, if it’s a side dish or something. Certain staples, such as bread that I make at home, I find myself checking ingredients before I shop, and if I dont’ have two weeks worth of ingredients on hand I will buy more. 

When I make my shopping list, I have all of the ingredients i”ll need for a particular meal on the master list.  I combine all of these ingredients into a shopping list.  On my list are usual items I have to buy over and over again - milk, butter, eggs.  I keep a checklist of ingredients to check on - do I have enough sugar, flours and other pantry items to last through my meal planning and snacks?

Then, it’s time to go shopping.  I gather the kids and myself (and if I’m lucky, my husband too) and we hit 3-5 stores depending upon store deals, if I use coupons (rarely, considering most of my purchases are for produce or meats), and what I normally find at the best price.  I also like hitting the farmers markets most for locally grown produce, for whatever isn’t growing in my garden.

Then when I get home, I store everything as needed.  If I’ve bought grapes or strawberries, I wash them and store them in a container.  I like to cut up a certain amount of veggies to have as snacks.  I’ll usually go raid my garden now too, figuring I might as well while i’m packaging food. 

This year and next I expect to do a lot of experimenting with new foods, as my husband will be hunting rabbit, duck, goose and deer.  I’m also hoping to buy a side of organic beef to have on hand.  I’d love to stock my deep freezer with meat to last an entire year and just cut that expense right off our grocery bill.  We still have some venison steaks and ground venison and a few ducks in my freezer that I am going to get some recipes for.  But I’m hoping my husband will get lucky enough this year to fill our deep freezer with a decent amount of meat.

I borrowed a book from the library called “Fix it and forget it” which is stuffed full of recipes for slow cookers.  I plan to buy this book as it features tons of recipes I plan to try.  In fact, for the next two weeks (I just made a two week meal plan and went shopping according to it) will be mostly crockpot meals trying these recipes out.  I’m interested mainly in the main courses, which features recipes for venison, rabbit, beef, chicken, turkey, pork, etc.  All of which I have in my deep freeze waiting to be eaten.  I made a meatloaf and veggie dish today and will be doing a chicken and veggie meal tomorrow.  

I love slow cookers because it allows me to fix a meal in the morning, which can be accomplished when my kids are eating breakfast.  Then I can forget about it until the evening, and when I’d normally be dancing around the kitchen preparing dinner, I can sit and relax.  One of my biggest stresses of the day is “what is going to be for dinner?”  To help reduce this stress, I make meal plans (or, I come up with 14 dinner ideas that can be made large enough for leftovers and possibly freezing, and about 7 lunch ideas for the days when I have no leftovers, and whatever sounds good for the day is what we go with.  Generally I will decide the evening before, and prepare my meals in whatever way I can beforehand).

My crockpot is convienient for more than one reason. Obviously, there is no chaos in the evening as I fix dinner for a hungry family.  But it prepares a delicious and healthy meal without heating my kitchen or using a ton of electricity. 

I have tried to find recipes and ideas for cooking in the crockpot, and a lot of what I find online is put together with processed foods, soups and other additives.  This book actually has a ton of healthy, wholesome meal recipes.  And when it calls for a canned soup or additive, I know I can easily create that on my own at home before hand.  Typically I make my soups in bulk and freeze them in single serving sizes, then thaw when the time comes to use them.

So check this book out - from your library or see if our local bookstore has it.  I know I want to buy it after looking at the recipes and basing the next two weeks worth of meals from it (and there are still many recipes I want to try, but will be returning the book before then). 

What do you do to save time?  I know we can all use some new ideas!

For us, I home cook a lot of meals then freeze them (or I prepare raw dishes to thaw and cook).  This helps a lot during the evening rush to get dinner prepared, cooked, eaten and the mess cleaned up before bathtime and bedtime routines.

Also, the BEST advice I think I’ve ever gotten was to PLAN THE NIGHT BEFORE.  Seriously.  Running errands early the next morning (the best time I’ve found to run errands is right after breakfast)?  Make a list of where you want to go (I always try to plan my errands up one end of town and down the other to conserve gas so I’m not zig-zagging around town), get your purse, diaper bag and other things you’ll need ready to go out the door (if you feel comfortable, load it all into your vehicle the night before, too).  Try to plan your day mentally so you can know what is coming next throughout the day and plan accordingly.

To Do lists are also very helpful.  So is a household notebook.

I try to accomplish my business work and other things where I need more than half of my brain at once, when the kids are asleep.  This way I can concentrate and am much more effective at DOING things.

Keep your home clean and organized.  Spotless is probably too much to ask for most of our busy households these days and really is unnecessary.  We live in our homes, they don’t need to be pristine or you’ll spend every waking second trying to keep them that way.  But a certain level of “clean”  and organization should be maintained so you aren’t always cleaning up after someone, making more messes to find things, constantly trying to get a handle on clutter and can think more clearly.  I really believe that when your home is organized and clean, you are in a much better frame of mind emotionally and mentally.

What do you do to save time?