Do you ever feel like you are doing it all? I mean EVERYTHING! From work, to scheduling appointments, to house work, to meal planning, to cooking, to cleaning, to organizing… The list goes on, believe me. And then something happens that sets up back a bit. You take time for yourself, a break in life, and you watch everything slowly fall apart.
It sucks… How do you get your household to the point where it can survive without your constant input? How many times do I ask someone to do the laundry or switch the dishwasher before it happens and I don’t need to ask anymore? How long before I organize enough meals that one can be chosen and thrown into the oven without an hour long discussion on what we have in the house to eat?
These are answers that I don’t know. I quit my full time job when my oldest was 7 months old and I was pregnant with my second. We couldn’t afford childcare, my work was being terrible about scheduling and breaks to be able to pump for the baby, and we said screw it, we’ll make it work. That’s when I attempted to become a Domestic Goddess. Sixteen years later, a few more kids, extracurricular activities, and a few part time jobs, and we are finally to a semi stable lifestyle, but it still has it’s gaps, and we’ve all had failings at making things work out.
I absolutely suck at meal planning. Even ordering groceries online, so I can sit down and figure out ingredients instead of randomly throwing things in a cart doesn’t seem to help. The prices of everything have gone up so much, and it’s hard to put a little variety into the week.
Part time work is exhausting for me, and it doesn’t leave me much energy to stand in the kitchen to cook a meal.
The pandemic has added unknown amounts of anxiety and stress that are taking it’s toll both mentally and physically.
The house is still in the renovation stages in some areas, and with work being extremely busy for Luke, there is barely free time to do anything, and when there is, he’s too exhausted.
The list goes on… as usual. If I had the money, I’d definitely hire someone to do some basic house cleaning on a weekly basis. I think I’d also subscribe to a meal plan service, so at least a few meals each week are delivered with all the ingredients sorted out. No thinking required.
What I am hoping to accomplish, is to get back into some freezer meals. I’ve started doubling lasagna and freezing a pan, so we have it in a pinch. I need to get better at doing that with other meals as well, because it’s easy to tell someone in the house to just toss this in the oven. No standing in the kitchen long term. I’ll be on Pinterest looking up one pan meals that can be frozen.
One day we may get better, but life is a constant learning process, and we are still in the infant stages of figuring some of this out it seems…