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Browsing Tag: stressed

Children,Family,Life

What Do I Fix For Dinner?

posted on : January 31, 2019 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

Many years ago I struggled to figure out most nights what I was going to fix for dinner. When I waited to think about it until 5:00 not only was I tired but my children were also tired and usually wanting my attention. Crying, crabby children didn’t make it easy to think clearly about planning dinner. In this situation I could usually think of about 3 or 4 things to fix which night after night didn’t go over so well. Often I wouldn’t have all of the ingredients I needed to make the dinner, which added to the stress. It was then hurry to the store or find something else to fix. Life is stressful enough without increasing it with this nightly dance. So I decided I was going to be really organized and plan menus for each week. That way I wouldn’t be trying to figure out dinner in a stressful situation, and I would always have the food available I needed to make dinner. The first time I sat down to write the menu all I could think of was the same 3 or 4 things. That obviously didn’t work so I came up with a plan. I decided to look through cook books that I often used and made a list of main courses, side dishes, salads and desserts. I put the meal option list in a page protector and on a clip board. This gave me a quick reference list for menu planning. I then photocopied all the recipes on the list and put them in a binder so I would have quick access to them when making dinner. I didn’t want to have to take time to find the recipes because sometimes I only had a short time to pull off the nightly feat of meal prep. I also made a shopping list with categories like produce, can goods, breads, meats, dairy and other similar things. That also went on the clip board along with the menu page. When I plan menus I look over the list, figure out the meals for each night, make out the shopping list and then I’m ready to go to the grocery store. Having everything on a clip board made crossing things off while shopping easier.

All of this took some time to organize but when it was done it was well worth it. Not only did it stop the 5:00 scramble to figure out dinner but it saved money by being organized in shopping and reducing wasted food. It also made it easier when cleaning out the fridge to know how long a particular food item had been in it. Some times if I was running late I would call my husband and have him look on the menu to see what was planned and get it started. There were also times when things didn’t work out for what I had planned for a particular night so I would switch nights around. Being flexible with it helped a lot. My kids also liked being to see the menu and know what was for dinner that night. Of course there were still tired, crying kids and one really tired mom on some nights but having what to fix for dinner already figured out really did help relieve a lot of the stress. There are many different ways to do menu planning and maybe some these ideas will spur your own ideas. For me this was a tool that helped life go a little smoother and reduce some stress in our lives.

Life

To Do Lists

posted on : January 11, 2018 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 2 Comments

I am an organized person.  I naturally think in structured ways to accomplish things and I make lists of things to do, and I take great pleasure in crossing things off of my list that I get done.  Sometimes my lists of things to do include so many things to get done that not only would it be impossible to accomplish everything in one day but it would be hard to get the whole list done in a week. On some days with a large family it was often very difficult to even make a list of to do things and then I would beat myself up for not making a list or not getting everything done on my list.  Then one day at bedtime I decided to make a list of the things I did get done that day and I included even little things on the list such as doing the dishes, helping a child with homework, feeding hungry children three meals and snacks, reading with my children as well as  talking with a friend who needed a listening ear,  buying shoes for one of my children and even sweeping the floor. I realized I did do a lot that day and actually felt good about what I had gotten done and told myself to quit imposing impossible standards for myself (a work in progress), and of course with great satisfaction I crossed everything off of that list!

Parenting

Stress in Parenting

posted on : November 17, 2017 posted by : Somethingsihavelearned 4 Comments

You can imagine that with eight children it was often noisy and stressful at our house.  None of my children were quiet, laid back people and they learned to talk louder than the other person in the family talking in hopes that they would be heard above the crowd. Often when I would be dealing with one child I would have 2-4 other children trying to talk to me at the same time.  I did try to explain many times to them the concept of waiting for their turn to talk to me, of how it actually took longer to help their brother of sister because they were talking to me too and so they ended up waiting longer, and just the politeness not talking to others until they were finished with what they were doing.  That being said, my children always thought that what they needed or wanted to talk to me about was more important than what their brother or sister could possibly have wanted to talk about (gratefully they have grown out of that illusion).  Even though it got better when they became adults, we’re still a noisy group.  Often it was very stressful in trying to handle the needs of so many people and some serious problems but I learned a technique that helped me in those situations and in other hard to handle things.  I would stop and ask myself in the midst of the problem if I was doing the best I could.  If the answer was yes then somehow just stopping to take the mental check helped me to de-escalate and I was able to handle the situation much more calmly.  If the answer was no, and I always knew instantly if I was doing the best I could, then I would take a deep breath and think about what I could do differently to regroup and then go forward, and the amazing thing is this only took a few seconds to do.  Sometimes I needed to apologize and sometimes I needed to get rid of the extraneous distractions to focus better on the problem. Sometimes there was no immediate solution but I was able to handle it better because of my little stop/check technique.