- The same amount of effort is necessary to make dinner whether I came up with the idea two days ago or two minutes ago.
- I am still cranky at dinner crunch time even if I'm not making dinner right then.
- It is relaxing to me to make dinner right after lunch. It seems this is a natural time for my kids to be involved in something that holds their interest.
- I love the lingering smell of cooked food during the afternoon.
- I love being free to do other things just before dinner.
- Planning meals makes grocery shopping make more sense.
- Most of my default dinners are not make-ahead foods, so when I fall back onto "normal" meals (say, baked fish) I'll have to adjust accordingly.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Two Days' Worth of Planning
Yesterday and today I made dinner with aforethought. I'm not getting too excited about this yet, because I know I can plan and execute anything for a little while. Here's what I've learned so far:
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4 comments:
Hey, it looks like the self challenge is a success!
I never thought of using post-lunch time to make dinner--what a great idea that is! One of the things that helps in the cranky afternoon-waiting-for-daddy time (and it ain't just the kids who are cranky...) in our home has been to move bath time to that time period, instead of waiting until after dinner. The only problem is, it interferes in making dinner!
Except for the fact that after lunch is also naptime and "power school" time in our house, your idea definitely has potential for making our home life smoother. I'm going to think on this one!
Thanks!
Marie,
I love to cook, and I love to eat, but I don't like constantly making meals for such a ridiculously large crowd. :) I also hate the whole make dinner, eat dinner, clean up ordeal. Here's a few things that have helped me cope:
I try to do the after-lunch thing, too, or get as much of it out of the way as possible earlier in the day. That way I can clean up the lunch mess and most of the dinner pots and pans before dinner. (On a good day, anyway.)
I have the kids set the table as part of the after-school chores.
I dish out most of the meals before calling the hungry mob to the table. (And these days I can have big kids help dish out, too.) This might not be a big deal for you, but dishing out after we say grace seems to take forever, and then before I get a bite of my own food, someone is asking for seconds! :)
After dinner, the kids have their assigned clean up jobs, and I just go in at the end to do the final touchups. (Sounds good on paper, but there's a mess in my kitchen right now, so obviously the system broke down somewhere today.)
Also, I do loosely plan the meals for the week and we do one big shopping on Saturdays. That, and keeping a list of items that ran out during the week has helped me tremendously. It took me about 10 years of marriage to figure these two out, although my hubby had been suggesting it all along.
But no matter how smooth the whole thing is, it's still a cross in my book.
Hey, Marie! It has been a long time since I checked in, and I couldn't resist commenting. It has to be a quick one, though, because I'm getting ready to -- make dinner! Not really, I'm just awash in a mess right now that is calling my name.
Anyway, I have read for a while about your struggle with getting stuff done and rising to the occasion to do what is required when all you really want to do is write and be a free spirit. I can completely relate. Schedules don't work for people like me. But over time, what does work for me is carefully made lists of things that are required every day. There's a morning list, a "before doing something else" list, a bedtime list, and a school night list. What's in the lists are all those things that HAVE to get done and which I would always put off and then get mad at being in a rush and under pressure to do them.
Basically, I don't give myself permission to do anything else, anything extra, until the lists are done. The phrase "what is for lunch/dinner?" is in my "before doing something else" list which I actually go over and over again every day, because they are things that need doing over and over again during the day.
Anyway, making things sequential instead of strictly chronological helps me. It also is good for regulating my propensity to get distracted with other neat things that I would rather be doing.
It doesn't work perfectly, of course, like today where I've got mess up to my eyeballs. But when I'm feeling a little frayed, I make sure to just do the list, and it makes me not so nervous that I've forgotten something.
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