Got an email question from a favorite, faithful, long-time reader. I’ve decided to give the long answer in a series that I have broken up into several posts.
Hi Jen,
I was wondering if you could fill me in on how you structure your day and your children’s day. With all the scratch cooking you do I’m wondering how you find time for schooling and other things. I need to find some balance in my own schedule. Thanks!
Cyndi from Modern Christian Homestead
Hi Cyndi,
I’m more than happy to give you a peek into how I do what I do and how I find time for so much. But ya need to remember, I haven’t always had so much free time. All these big kids who help out with so much around the house used to be a bunch of babies, toddlers and preschoolers. I had zero time for taking an extra breath between activities back then.
During that time I held onto the vision of the easier days I knew would eventually come, the days I am now enjoying, and I faithfully and carefully taught and trained my kiddoes, all the while working my fingers to the bone. It was very hard work, it took all my time, sometimes it was hard to keep my eyes on the prize.
You mentioned having a hard time maintaining balance. I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but, it certainly helps when you realize that the laundry, cooking, cleaning, training kids, teaching kids, that is the object of your life. the goal of all your efforts is in those kids. It gets kinda tedious and hard to see beyond the mountain of laundry and the endless stream of meals and dishes, and I totally acknowledge that it is harder without several big helpers. But if you are faithful with the teaching and training, eventually you will work yourself out of a job.
And during all those intense years of hard labor for your family, you gain a ton of experience and skill. You can’t help but get better at what you do, so long as you keep on doing it. I don’t claim to be great at all aspects of homemaking and mothering, I’m horrible at some of it. But I am great at several aspects of it, but only because I have worked at it.
One of the bits I would like to be better at is being able to see the easier, simpler way to do things. I’m not, but I can learn. When I see someone else using brilliant shortcuts, I adopt them as my own. I’m always keeping my eyes open for time-savers.
Cooking - I totally rely on my crockpot. Dinner needs to be a crockpot affair Monday thru Friday. For us, right now, that means we are eating rice and beans and cornbread frequently. I know that sounds weird to some, but the nutrition is fabulous, it’s super cheap, and the whole family loves it. So, I put the beans on right after Hubs leaves for work. I have my phone set to remind me when it’s time to make the cornbread. After the cornbread is in the oven I start a pot of rice.
I’m working on creating a list of dinners that fit the Feingold plan and are easy to make. You can find some of them already posted here in my Vittles category, and I’ll post more as I add them.
If I cook it and care about it enough to post the recipe it’s either VERY special or it’s simple and easy and delicious!
Many of the pasta dishes we like only take half an hour or so to cook. Most of the non crockpot meals I make take less than an hour. My schedule is fairly free before dinner, as you’ll see on Friday when I post my schedule. But many of the meals we eat are actually cooked by the Cowboys.
Sometimes we have baked potatoes for lunch (again, high in nutrients) but the rest of the time it’s usually just sandwiches and fruit. If you prefer more variety Kim B has a whole weekly
lunch plan here.On the weekends I cook a wider variety of foods. But still, I seek out the easy stuff, easy and delicious and that way I don’t feel guilty about not slaving away.
On Fridays I cook some bulk sausage, 2 lbs. Drain it and put it in the fridge. Saturday morning I make
biscuits and sausage gravy for brunch using one pound of the sausage I cooked on Friday. Great stuff! Then later in the day I make a nice meat and potatoes kind of dinner. This week it’s
lemon chicken. For Sunday’s fellowship meal this week I’m making
beef stew, but I’ll make it on Saturday along with some boiled eggs and brownies. Sunday morning breakfast is
breakfast casserole using the other pound of sausage cooked on Friday. If we eat a third meal on Sunday it’s usually something like nachos.
The plan for the bread is that I should bake either on Monday and Thursday, or M,W,F. Just depending on how many tortillas are in the house. This is the project that can really eat up my day. I had been doing it in the mornings, the thinking being that if I get into the kitchen and start baking by 10 or 10:30 we could have fresh, warm bread with our lunch. But that gets right in the middle of school. I got really hung up on that one. I sometimes wonder if crying over stuff like that actually helps the thought process, maybe it just rinses out my dusty brain. But I finally realized that I should bake in the afternoons, after the bulk of that day’s school work (my part of it) is under our belts. Then I can go into the kitchen and bake guilt free, and if I don’t get back to any more school work it’s not the end of the world.
We seem to get the most out of our week if we (Hubs and I) do our grocery shopping on a week night. After supper, while the big 3 are doing dishes and the little 3 are getting ready for bed, Hubs and I head out. Usually just 2 stops, $ store and grocery. This keeps me out of many places where I would spend more money, and it gets the errands done without cutting into my Saturday. I plan the menu for the week (very simple) and make my list accordingly. I sit at the table with my list and have the kids run around the house checking on different items that I think we might need. This makes the project go much more quickly, because if I do it, not only would it take longer for me to go check on items, but I would invariably get distracted and then the list making is at a stand still, and I’ll be doing good if I remember to finish.
Tomorrow’s post: Schoolwork
Linked to:
Related posts:
- The Plan – part 5 -The Schedule
- The Plan – part 4 – Housecleaning and Philosophy
- Menu Plan Monday 2-1-10
- Homemade Breakfast Sausage
- Menu Plan Monday 2-8-10
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