My Personal Kryptonite: Making Dinner

Confession time: I HATE cooking dinner.

Hate.

It.

Too bad I can't get him to cook for me.

I know it makes my mom and all my Home Ec cooking teachers sad when I say it, but I do.

For some reason, it's my kryptonite. I literally wake up every morning and the first thing I think is:

  "Dang it, I have to cook tonight." 

Is that a bad attitude for me to have? Absolutely. 

Do I feel bad that I hate it so much? Also yes. 

It's not that I don't like taking care of my husband by cooking for him. It's not that he's picky, or that I'm bad at cooking, or that I lack recipes. It's just that by the time I get to the end of my day, my energy is basically gone, and still I have to open my fridge and figure out what the heck to cook.

Every night I feel like I'm on an episode of Chopped and have 30 mins to make a fabulous, balanced, colorful, fragrant, ascetically pleasing dinner that differs from every other dinner I've ever made or I'm a bad wife. {I'm usually already acting like a bad wife anyways, cause I practically throw Greyson at Jer the second he walks in the door and then take it upon myself to let them know how put-out I feel by banging cupboards and dishes around in the kitchen like some spoiled little brat. It's not pretty.}
And then I feel even worse about myself cause I'm acting like that and I don't want to be the kind of mom making everyone around her miserable.

This has been going on for months now, and I knew it needed to change. I knew I needed to be meal planning and shopping regularly, but for some reason I just wasn't. It's that feeling of:

"If-I-can't-do-it-perfectly-why-bother-trying?" 

{coupled with}

"I-have-to-try-new-and-exciting-things-all-the-time" 

{added to} 

"I-have-to-shop-the-sales-and-clip-coupons-and-drive-to-three-different-stores-to-get-the-best-deals". 

HA. Ain't NOBODY got time for that.

So when a girlfriend of mine suggested once a month meal planning and grocery shopping, I was intrigued. And also a bit intimidated. But after a nice loooooong talk with my mom, (the kind that fixes everything and where she assures you your exhaustion and feelings of failure are normal) I decided that I needed to give it a shot, for my sanity's sake and for my families sake.

The Problems

There were three problems I foresaw with this revelation, however.

Problem 1: It's So Much Work

I don't like to start something if I suspect I won't be able to finish it. And making a monthly meal plan, a giant grocery list, and taking a huge shopping trip seemed a tiny bit in-finishable.

Problem 2: Grocery Store Location

The grocery stores in SCV are the expensive ones: Vons, Ralph's, etc. No way could I foresee being able stomach paying the large amount I suspected I'd be spending. I wanted a Winco real bad. The closest one however is in Lancaster, 40 minutes away. Which is a 1.5 hour round trip PLUS shopping time.

Problem 3: Tiny Freezer, Tiny Cupboards 

I'd love to make a whole bunch of freezer meals cause it's easier, but I have an itty-bitty freezer which is chalk-full of frozen baby-food cubes (another story for another time). I also have tiny, but deeeeeeeeeep cupboards, which do hold a lot but are inconvenient to get into. Meh.

The Solutions

Solution 1: Get Over It

I told myself the work of getting it planned and done would probably far outweigh the work that it takes me every night to get dinner on the table. Also, it presented me with an opportunity to buy a large calendar, get a shopping list made, and create an organization center on that ugly, blank part of my fridge. :)  Doing that made my type-A, organized, doesn't-get-to-come-out-very-often personality very, very happy. 

My new COMMAND station. So. Stinking.Beautiful. 

Solution 2: Just Drive to Winco, It's not THAT Far

Also, my mother-in-law offered to start coming over once a week on Wednesday to watch Greyson while I ran errands, so I figured i'd just do it the first Wed of every month. The thought of being alone in my car for 40 mins each way and then being able to shop ALONE actually sounds so wonderful it cancels out the distance.

Mom couldn't come the first week I tried this, but Grey
was a very good shopping buddy :)

Solution 3: Make Room
I decided that i'd just have to pick easy meals, most of which do not require freezing, (repeating them 2-3 times a month), and go with that till all that baby food is unnecessary. Which will probably not be that long from now, anyways: *tear*. 

My haul. 

It was actually kinda fun to drive all the way to Lancaster, it's kinda pretty back in those desert hills. I had a HUGE list, and it was only an issue at the end, when we were in line and Grey decided he had had enough. The amount of money I saved going there, though, made that little melt down totally worth it. Some of the meals I got ingredients for were:

1. Tacos (ground turkey, tortillas, chips, salsa) - gonna have those once a week
2. 6 Freezer meals: 2 Stews, 2 Peppers and Sausage, 2 Beef Fajitas 
3. Chicken breasts for Smothered and Baked Chicken - SO easy, SO delicious
4. 2 Keilbassa's for freezing and pulling out for quick dinners with potatoes 

I also bought lunch meat, cheese, bread, produce, cereal, juice, frozen veggies, eggs....I tried to get enough for a month so all i'd have to get before my next trip is milk and produce. My total was somewhere around $270, but for the amount of food I got, that seemed amazing. As I go into the next month, I will have a better idea of how much of things I need to buy, and can hopefully get that amount down. I'm shooting for a grand total of $250 a month (big trip and little trips altogether) but that might be wishful thinking, especially as food prices continue to rise.

The Freezer, after the "freezer meal cooking"

How It's Been

So far, it's been FAB.U.LOUS. Not having to do any guess work, and only having to run to the store once a week for milk and produce, has been a huge weight off my shoulders. It's also allowed me to have dinner ready when Jer gets home, so we all eat together, and then Jer give Grey a bath while I clean up, so once Grey is down I don't have to be in the kitchen for 2 more hours and we can have "grown-up time". We've changed the meals around some nights, and had a couple of "leftover" nights I wasn't planning on, so as we go forward I think i'll be able to plan for less meals and thus save some money. :)

And as daunting as it seemed, it wasn't that bad. I'd encourage you to think about doing something similar if you are feeling overwhelmed and behind when it comes to meals. :) Good luck!

With love,

10 Minuted Infinity Scarf {Tutorial}

Take 2 and...ACTION

So an hour and a half ago I sat down to write this little post on making a 10 Minute Infinity Scarf, cause Jeremy is home today and is playing with Greyson, and so I felt like I could have a little quite time to "create" a blog post. I made sure to be hitting "save" every so often so as not to loose my work, and guess what? The stupid thing didn't save!

I'm seriously so mad right now. 

I don't have the kind of extra time that allows me to type and re-type things just for the fun of it, cause Blogger didn't bother to SAVE MY DRAFT. 

I want to do this blog, really badly, I just don't want to waste my already limited time on it. 

So here follows a slightly less intense version of said 10 Minute Scarf, mostly cause I'm mad, and also cause I don't have another hour and a half to write the stupid thing all over again. 

Just keepin it real over here. 

Why This Little Scarf?

I love to create things. It calms me down, inspires me. But when I try to get too crazy and my unfinished projects take over my "craft corner" (aka the pile of papers and projects on my desk on the left side of my living room) and my kitchen table, I get overwhelmed and frustrated. So I needed something that could be made in the duration of one nap time to get my crafting wiggles out. 

Fabric from JoAnns: love me a pile of possibilities!!!!

So last week, JoAnnes was having a sale on their Simplicity Patterns: $2 a piece! Talk about a score! So of course I had to go, and I ended up bringing home some a pile of fabric as well. Since my husband isn't made of money, and I have yet to get a money tree growing on the patio (or anything growing on the patio, actually) I have decided to try my hand at making some of my own clothing for the fall, starting with some animal print infinity scarves. According to People Style, adding animal print in accessories, shoes, and bags is "in" and we all know I'm just a trend follower! (<--- Please note the sarcasm).

In case you didn't believe me: [People Style Fall 2013]

I don't have the money for all kinds of new shoes and bags, but for scarf material, I could swing it. I bought a 1/4 yard each of the cheetah and giraffe print fake-silk stuff, and it was like, $3.50 total. Below is a little tutorial on making the infinity scarf with the giraffe fabric, which from selvage to selvage was not long enough to wrap around my neck twice with just one seam, so I had to cut it in half lenghth-wise and sew both ends together into one long circle. That'll make more sense when you see the pictures.

10 Minute Infinity Scarf

Like I said above, I started by laying out the giraffe print and cutting it in half length-wise. I neither measured nor tried to make it a perfect half, I just eye-balled it and hopped it turned out decently. I did this for two reasons: 1. It is impossible to cut this material straight. In fact, the lady at the fabric store couldn't even do it, the edges were already kinda wonk-y. 2. I'm not taking the time to finish the edges on this project cause not only do I like it like that, I don't have the time to spend/i'm too lazy to do it :)

After I cut it in two, I pinned the selvage edges together, right sides touching. Note how the selvage edges are neither the same width, nor do the cut edges match ;)

I then sewed up both edges with a 1 inch seam. It's important to note the 1 inch seam, as it is necessary for the next step. Also, the seam doesn't have to be perfect, which is why this material is so great for these scarfs, cause it'll never be perfect no matter how hard you try.

Just keepin' it real: this is what my sewing station looks like "outside the crop". Delightful, isn't it?

Next, lay your scarf across an ironing board. (See how it makes one huge circle when it's sewn together?).

Here I still have the fabric wrong side up with the seam sticking straight up. Normally one would iron this seam open, but we don't want to do that here.

Instead, your going to take both pieces  of the seam and fold it in half so the edge touches the line of stitches you made ( kinda like making a rolled hem)....

And then you fold it down and pin it through all the layers of fabric so when you sew it the ends of the seam end up folded inside the new seam and are hidden. Clear as mud? Ok cool.

Hope this picture helps if the above explanation didn't make sense. I tend to use 100 words when 10 will do. Now sew along the edge of that fold. You can just put your pressure foot down on the edge or move your needle all the way to the right like I did.

When your done with both seams it's gonna look like this. A lot messy, but somewhat finished off :)

Snip those little threads that appear at the edges of your stitching lines, and press those babies down!

Since this is synthetic "silk" your gonna want your iron it on a really low setting so your fabric won't melt. You should prob also use a pressing cloth (a piece of old cotton you put between the iron and synthetic material which reduces the chance of your fabric melting) but I'm a rebel and don't usually use  one.

Aaaaaaand you're done! Lucky for you (and for me) I was wearing a shirt that actually kinda matched it ;) I wrapped it three times, and it's nice and loose but still looks full! 

The three scarves I made for the fall, the left one is cotton-y linen and really soft,
the other two are synthetic silk.

And there we have it, a little project you can have done in the corse of one nap-time! Plus, you'll feel infinitely more mommy-stylish with a little fall print going on in your next outfit :) 

With love,

Finally Time To Begin

At the park last weekend, Grey wouldn't get in the frame :)

About 3 weeks ago I truly thought I would never be able to get this blog off the ground. I could barely make it through the 8-ish hours a day I was home alone with Greyson without falling apart the second Jeremy walked in. I was EXHAUSTED. ALL THE TIME. I was napping every second Grey was (the falling-dead-asleep-the-second-my-head-hit-the-pillow kind of nap); trying to drink gallons of water and coffee and eating every energy-producing food I could think of; going to bed early, laying down for an hour between dinner and baby bed time, sitting on the couch trying to rest while Grey played. I felt nauseous at night, stressed out/panic-attack-y all day, and whenever Grey cried i'd get so angry/frustrated i'd want to throw things at the wall (which made me even more frustrated and angry: what kind of response is that to my CHILD?!?!). I felt like a failure, and every level, all day long. No matter how much Jeremy loved on me and tried to encourage me I just felt horrible.

Upon sharing some of these things with a mommy friend in Oregon she asked me if I thought I had Postpartum Depression (PPD). Since I thought that was only something that happened right after babies were born, I hadn't even thought of that. So I looked it up, and sure enough, there were the symptoms:
-Exhaustion and fatigue
-Anger
-Lose of interest in activities you usually enjoy
-Irritability and hypersensitivity
-Anxiety
-Stomach and muscle pains/cramps

Now i've had depression symptoms before, but it's funny how when you're in the middle of it you don't realize that's the issue. I didn't feel like it was bad enough to go to the doctor though (and I hate going to the doctor anyways, and I don't have one yet either way). So I called an older mom I know from when I used to babysit for her (she's also a nurse) and told her how I was feeling and what I was going through. She was able to ask me some more specific things than I could have asked myself, and when I told her Greyson was starting to wean himself and wasn't nursing nearly as much as he used to, she told me that was probably the issue: all my hormones were shifting and re-setting yet again from lowered milk production.

She also told me that the things I was feeling were normal, and that they would go away eventually. I was supposed to take care of myself, give myself grace, and just do what I could each day to get things done and not worry about stuff that didn't get done. And so I did...and it DID pass.

Labor Day weekend at Hume Lake

By the time we got home from Labor Day weekend at Hume Lake, I felt so insanely much better, it was crazy. The last week and a half has been ordinary, normal, and FAB-U-LOUS cause I didn't feel like crawling into corner and dying. I got up every morning feeling awake, didn't nap even once during his nap time, got things cleaned up as I went, was able to have a quiet time for the first time in months, and got dinner made every night (more on how that happened in a few days).

And so it is finally time to get this thing going. (See the Why I Blog tab for a more in-depth explanation). Look for a tutorial on a 10 Minute Infinity scarf coming up soon!

With Love,