Is anyone still there?  I am still healing and rehabbing the ole back, but I am going to try to start writing here again. I have really appreciated the couple of comments and all of the email sending me love.  They meant more to me than you could know. Thank you all so much.

While I have been away, I have let a lot of back end site upgrades accumulate.  The site may be a little wonky this week as I work my way through a few of them. Then we will get back to Getting Organized around the house!

My goal is to do at least a weekly article, but I hope you will all continue to have patience with me if more or less come through.

I have a question for YOU!

Do  you or anyone you know have physical limitations that cause you problems when trying to turn your house into Your Home? Many of you know that I have been working with a disabled parent for years. During the past several months I have had to make adjustments to many of my own routines and methodologies to overcome limitations my back has placed in my movement.

There is never a one size fits all solution for cleaning or organizing. That is even more true when your body does not want to keep up with your motivation.

Please do not throw in the towel. I would love to try to work with you to come up with some alternatives that might help you find a fit for your unique situations.  Use the contact form to send me an e-mail.  Anytime. Really.

I have missed you all.

Sometime early in the month, I think while working in the garden, I herniated a disc in my lower back. When I sit, the disc pinches my sciatic nerves. These are nerves that normally go unnoticed. When irritated they send pain radiating through both cheeks, down through the thighs, the calves, the ankles and even around to the uppers of the feet.

I am more than fine as long as I stay vertical and moving or am laying flat. But sitting hurts within just a couple of minutes and lasts for quite a while afterward. As a result, I have spent very little time on the computer at all over the past few weeks. And you should see me eating meals standing at the kitchen sink!

When something like this occurs my first thought is that I am still way to young to feel this broken. (I am not a very good sick person for many reasons. And maybe a little in denial over my age, too.)

My second thought is to reassess all of my blessings. Not just the big ones. There are a multitude of little things that I get use to daily and start to take for granted. My back is a very painful inconvenience for the time being, but I am that much richer for the experience.

Do you have any blessings that you have not remembered in a while? Will you share s few with me?

P.S. I am going to jump completely off the planned series for a while and will try to put out shorter random things as if all of the basic series were already done or writing little bits of longer posts over several days.  Articles will probably be hitting your in box very sporadically until I heal up a bit.  I hope you will all hang in there with me.  And be careful with your back while doing all of your own seasonal chores.

Large family gatherings are big around this part of the country. It is very common for brothers, sisters, cousins, moms and dads, aunts and uncles, PLUS additional friends to all gather once a week at Granny’s.  Especially on Sunday afternoons. In addition, when I was growing up, our house was where all of the kids always hung out all the way through college.

Living and learning the kitchen in those environments, you tend to always want to cook big. To this day, unless it is simple packages of Ramen Noodles, I do not know how to cook for less than a full house.

There are many advantages that come with cooking extra. You may want to consider trying it yourself on occasion to make some of your meals easier.

Cooking for the Freezer

Cooking Big will make it easier to feed your freezer with full meals. There will be many nights ahead when you are too tired to cook or too scheduled to cook. Instead of resorting to fast food and take out, you can pull prepared meals from your freezer without going to extra trouble. If you can anticipate those nights, thaw in the fridge. But in case of the nights you can not anticipate, use microwave safe containers.

Keep plenty of single serving containers on hand for times when you have a little bit extra left. They will be perfect for saving cash at lunch or for ready to eat options for those always hungry teens. I wish I still had their metabolism!

Cooking for Second Day Meals

Try to have several meals in your flash cards that can be turned into something else. Cooking Big one night will take the work out of another night.

It is very easy to turn on the crock pot and turn leftovers into soups or stews. Just add some stock, some extra spices, and maybe a few sliced veggies (or frozen or canned mixed vegetable mix) and you have turned last night’s dinner into another full meal without the work. When you cook meals with noodles, like spaghetti, store the pasta separately from the rest so you can add them at the last minute to keep them from getting mushy. You can add cooked rice at the last minute or toss in unprepared rice at the beginning. (Just a little or you will end up with a rice casserole instead of soups. If you do end up with casserole do not fret, transfer it to a baking dish, top it with cheese and turn on the broiler to get it all melted and brown as if you intended it all along).

You can also purposely set out to make an interesting dinner casserole from the beginning. For years my Grandmother made what she called goo-laash. (I know there are real goulash recipes, but that is what she called it. And I got the spelling from her cookbook.)  You never really knew what you were going to get, but it was always (well almost always) very good. She would just toss in a can of tomatoes, a bag of stuffing, can of cream of mushroom soup, cheese or some other filler to the whole mess to change it up a little and bake it. Then she would serve it in slabs like lasagna with bread or small salad on the side to balance it out.

Many meats, beans, and rices can be mixed and doctored to become an unusual meatloaf, a twist on chili, or filling for enchiladas/tacos/fajitas.

I sometimes use leftovers to add substance to a plain dinner salad.

Almost any time I cook meats, I cook double. Take just about any meat, add mushrooms and onions maybe some peppers and cook them all up. Put aside half before finishing the rest of the meal. You could put the extra in freezer bags or containers. They make a great base for numerous later meals that are just as quick and easy as any Hamburger Helper.

Add a Place At The Table

If you cook big, there is often plenty of food to go around. There is always enough to invite someone to stay for dinner without any extra trouble.

If you have active older kids, foster a way for your home to be the local gathering place. Teenagers are always up for food. Sometimes meal times will be the only chance you will get to stay in touch with the independent creatures they are becoming. If you need to add a place or two to encourage them to sit down more often, it is truly worth it. They will gather somewhere. Why not start early making it be in your home?

Perfectionism Again – or Trying To Turn Shortcomings Into Strengths

There is something else about Cooking Big that I have the urge to share with you. Since it is how I learned to cook, I had a really hard time for quite a while. When I first started trying to cook for two, I genuinely did not seem to know how. Regardless of the ways I tried to scale back, I always seemed to have a lot extra left over. About the time I would start getting closer to correct portions, we would have someone come to stay for the weekend or host  a big gathering which would reset my inclination for Big Cooking again.

I had not figured out what to do with the leftovers yet, so we either had a lot of food waste or ate the same thing several meals in a row. Yuck.

It was just a little thing, but since it happened every time I cooked, it came up often in my head along with the negative self talk commentary over it. I really beat myself up for several years. Before I figured it out, this little fault took more of a toll on my self confidence than I would like to admit.

You can take one small frequently occurring weakness and over time convince yourself you are a failure. Whether it be as a wife, a homemaker, or something completely unrelated.

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, there are some things you need to know.

First, you are NOT a failure.  It is just a little thing. Remind yourself of all the other little things you do extremely well without thought and praise yourself for them when you catch yourself thinking negatively.

Second, for some reason women are wired to find the faults in themselves much more than men. Some of the most optimistic women I know dwell on negative thoughts of themselves. Maybe it is related to the worry side of nurturing; the need to envision the possible negative outcomes for our children and try to steer them to the best path.  Sometimes knowing a reason for these thoughts and feelings can be enough to be able to short circuit them even for a little while.

Third, you are not perfect, can not be perfect, and never will be perfect. Maybe you can find a way to work with the it like the example in this article to turn your weakness into a unique strength. If you can not, embrace your quirks as a testament of your humanity. We all have our crosses big and small to bear even though we may not ever learn the reason for them. And I believe there is always a reason.

I recently saw a good quote on perfection:

“I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.” – Michael J. Fox

Several years later, I realize this ‘fault’ has well prepared me for our lives with expanded family, friends, and drop in visitors. Yes, I am that mom that is always trying to feed everyone. But it is now one of the things others know and count on from me. It is now one of my strengths. There is just something about food that makes everyone feel Welcome.

Before you move to this second step, make sure you have a starter set of meal cards made.  At least enough for a week or two.

Grocery shopping is a part of meal planning.  For most people it is more time consuming than anything else done.  I bet you could sit down and make two or three months of meal cards in the time it normally takes you to make your way through the grocery store once.

About four years ago, I really changed the way I shopped.  At the time I was beginning a continuous ‘hurry up and wait’ mode that I knew would last for several years.  One of my parents had become severely physically disabled with daily doctors, rehabs and errands. I had a teenager in the house with school activities and carpools. And I was telecommuting from work.  I was always running people somewhere and waiting to pick people up or running for quick stops at work. I was always on the go, but not getting anywhere.

My poor little guy was almost always in tow. After spending more than half of the day in the car, he was miserable, I was miserable, and it would be time to go get groceries.  If you are a Mom, you know what it is like trying to get through the store with a tired baby. {Whaaaahhhhh…. } And I was not the only one of us feeling fussy and crying.

I came up with a way to eliminate the long store trip while working my grocery shopping into the ridiculous hurry up and wait 10 minutes here and there schedule I was bound. It may not work for everyone, but it may be a big help to anyone working full time doing their shopping on the way home, or to anyone else always on the run with errands. I will write a list at the end of the article for many individual things anyone could try to shave a little time or stress from their grocery shopping.

Quick Stop Shopping

I had my starter grocery lists for shopping for spares.  I had the menus and grocery items from the dinner flash cards.  I would roughly plan out meals far enough in advance to fill up the rest of a whole sheet of the little spiral notebook I keep on the edge of my kitchen counter to list the spares.  The list was usually two weeks worth of groceries and a week or so away from needing any of them.

I kept the full list in the car with me at all times. Any time in my crazy running I had 10 minutes and happened to be near a grocery store, I would make a quick stop. Before I went in, I scanned my list from top to bottom and tried to identify and mark items in the same aisle or section of the particular grocery store with a little dot in front of the item.  I would run in and hit that one section of the store as quickly as possible then check out. I marked items off my list as they were scanned.

I would only get the melty quick perishables when I was passing the store on the way home. But I kept a six pack cooler in the car for things that could make it just a bit longer.

If I had one of the teenage carpools with me and passed a store, I would stop, assign items to each person and send everyone scattering across the store to their own little section for two or three items each. (They were rewarded by a cold drink from the cooler at checkout.)

The chance to take a quick walk was a good break in the sitting pattern for me and the little guy. I was also able to keep up with all of the chauffeuring without anyone waiting. But there were many benefits I wasn’t expecting that keep me shopping this way even though I am no longer running everyone around all of the time.

• It is much easier to carry in and put away one or two bags of groceries than it is for ten.
• I discovered I did not mind the quick stops nearly as much as the long trip.
• Little Man seemed to like them much better, too. When you hit only one aisle, they just do not have time to be bored and if they are already fussy, you are out of there before it gets really out of hand.
• I learned that each grocery store was different in their best offerings. One had the best meats, one the nicest selection of fruits and veggies, one the best store brand comparable products in the canned section, etc.. I would never have taken the time to travel across town to some of the other stores before to find out and I would still not shop at them if they were not already on my way to somewhere else.
• I also started including bulk shopping from two sources I frequently passed meaning I could go longer between purchases of some items. I would not shop them before because they were across town, I was used to getting all of my groceries at once and I did not have the room to store all of our groceries in bulk.
• When I was getting close to needing the most perishable items but had not had a chance to get them, Hubby minded stopping for me less since they were all in the same section of the store.
• We started going to the local farmers’ market. Before it just seemed easier to buy off the shelf during my normal stop instead of making a special trip. (Besides, I had been doing my regular shopping on Wednesday afternoon and Saturday mornings. The exact days the farmers’ market was open. They did not have the meats and things I needed, but the regular grocery store had the fruits and veggies. The regular grocery just seemed more convenient.)
• I started looking for and using other specialized stores. There is an Amish store, a natural store and a restaurant supply I still frequently shop. Stopping in once whenever I pass one, gives me an idea of what they have available. We are opening our culinary options wider than by stopping just at the big chains.

But the biggest differences were in our food waste and the adjustment in our overall grocery bill. I thought I had been doing really well on both before. We were now buying the perishables off the list last, so they stayed fresh just that little bit longer. By going in with such focus, I did not have time to impulse shop or explore the shelves for interesting things to figure out how to try.  There were less things to catch the kids eyes, too. You just do not realize how quickly an item here or there will add to the budget over time. I was really shocked when I realized just how much we saved.

Not Quite Quick Stop Shopping

Even if you do not try the quick stop shopping all at once, there are several individual things you could do to make your shopping a bit easier. If I list the process in individual pieces, you can pick and choose a few things to try or build up to quick stop shopping in smaller steps.

• Shop for spares.
• Plan your menus and have a grocery list ahead of when you need it.
• Carry your grocery list with you so you could get a few items on your way to or from other places when it is convenient. (Coupons, too if you use them.)
• Carry a little cooler in the car to extend the amount of time before you have to be home so you can fit in another errand when you need, too.
• Divide and conquer when possible by sending the family (or carpool) to their own section of the store.
• Buy and carry fewer items at a time to make the hauling and chore of putting everything away a bit easier
• Keep the trip as short and fast as possible.
• If you have a fussy child, instead of enduring it through the whole store, buy what you already have and make another trip on a better day.
• Have your list sectioned by aisle.
• Find out where the bests are and shop for those items at those stores instead of doing a whole spree.
• Buy often used items that can be stored long term in bulk when possible.
• Ask your husband, driving teenager, or other family to get pick up certain things on a set day of the week.
• Look for a local farmers’ market to buy the freshest produce while supporting local individuals.
• Look for and check out other specialized shops you would not normally notice.
• Try to reduce your food waste where you can.
• Really watch your impulse buys.

And if you have any tips to share with me, I would love to try them!

image credit: top image and feature/teaser thumbnail: Metro Grocery III by appaloosa

Thank you all for participating! I told you her shop was great! Everything is SO yummy! Including those darling cottages! After all was said and done, there were 135 entries to win.

BONUS DEAL!!! It seems like everyone had too many favorites to pick just one! Visit the Pigment of Your Imagination Shop between now and April 30th for a buy 3 get one free! super deal to get all of your favorites! Thank you, Catherine from all of us!

Add any three prints to your cart. Pick out a fourth and in the Message to Seller box type in “Laurel Plum” and leave the name/listing number of the print you would like to have for free! (And Catherine reminds us – You need to make sure to only purchase 3 prints, not four. If you add all four to your cart, you will be charged through Etsy for all four.)

{Drum Roll} And the winner is…..

Congratulations, Paige! I am sending you an e-mail to get your information.

For everyone else, If for some reason I can not get a response from Paige by the middle of the week, I will run the numbers again to select another winner.

Before you leave, make sure the Pigment of Your Imagination shop is added to Your Etsy Favorites and do not forget the discount code!

This has been a very busy, but enormously fun couple of weeks! We will be doing more giveaways in the future. Maybe not a full week for a while, but there are so many wonderful things out there to discover that I would like to make this a more regular occurrence. Let me know if there is anything in particular you suggest!