(Somewhat) extreme measures

I’ve about had it with putting off a growing list of small things around the house that I need to put my foot down and do. So, I’m taking some (somewhat) extreme measures.

I should explain that I am not bitter about the environmental factors in my life that have made my to-do list grow. All of them are wonderful–just time-consuming–things.

First of all, since May, we’ve been out of town almost more weekends than we’ve been home. The weekends are when we generally catch up with things, but we are always driving out of town on Friday as soon as the workday is over, so it’s the rush of the week and then the rush of the weekend and back to it all over again on Monday. At least our out-of-town schedule is lightening soon. 🙂

Another part of my problem is that I am a working mom. Not that I’m under the illusion that Stay At Home Moms have enough time to do everything they need and want to; it’s just that in my particular situation, I don’t have a lot of time or energy at the end of the day to get house things done. I work from home for Pennino and Partners about 13 hours per week, but the nature of my job necessitates that I only work when he is sleeping. Monday through Friday, I simply just get as much of my job projects done as I’m able to between 9am and 4pm. On most days, after 4pm, I run any errands I need to (baby in tow) and then come home, cook dinner, bathe the baby, put the baby to bed, eat dinner, clean up from dinner, and have about an hour and a half before I’m ready to curl up in bed. Not every day is that extreme, of course, and Michael is a huge help with everything. The fact remains, however, that I’m not sitting around wasting time every night, and things still aren’t getting done.

Another thing: I’ve been enjoying the heck out of my beautiful new kitchen, but I’ve been going perhaps a bit overboard with cooking from-scratch meals almost every single day. For example, a typical meal might be homemade spaghetti and meatballs with from-scratch biscuits and fresh salad with tomatoes, veggies and homemade dressing. While absolutely delicious, it takes me over two hours to prep, cook and do dishes–while watching Gabriel to some degree. I don’t cook that elaborately every night, but most nights I do prepare a large, labor-intensive meal.

Well, not this week. I decided today that it’s time for somewhat extreme measures.

I went to the grocery store today and bought nothing but heat n’ serve breakfasts and dinners, plus some emergency boxed meals for when we don’t have enough leftovers for lunch for the both of us. Not the healthiest, but it’s just for the week. 🙂 So, for the next few days I’m doing frozen meals and spending the evenings catching up on that list of to-do items!

In the long run, I would like to have maybe three easy, from-the-freezer dinners per week, and have “emergency” meals on hand at all times to handle extra dinner guests or extra-hungry kids :). If all I have to do is defrost something, boil some pasta or throw a salad together, I’ll be happy. Of course, I should explain that I do plan on building up a nice store of various home-cooked meals in my freezer. I’ve seen and talked to a lot of people about how beautifully that works. On that note, be impressed: I actually finished making an enormous batch of spaghetti and meatballs tonight that will serve as one or two of our freezer dinners in the next week!

Healthy cook-and-freeze meal ideas and links are greatly appreciated! 🙂