In Relentless Pursuit of Organization

Everyone---I don't care WHO they are or what they say......EVERYONE loves organization.  Even people like me who seem to find it as elusive as the White Stag in Chronicles of Narnia, love love LOVE organization!  Perhaps, dare I say, people like me love it the most because when we finally achieve it (alas even if only for a short time) we absolutely revel in it.  We love it so much.....we stand a little taller....carrying with us the vow that we will never let things get out of control again.  We have won the battle.....conquered the clutter.......

No, unfortunately this is NOT a picture of my kitchen drawers.  In fact, we are going to leave my drawers out of this altogether.  I just had to post this picture because it makes me happy to see organization.  It motivates me to pursue it relentlessly.

I am currently chasing down a workable daily schedule that allows time for Bible reading and prayer, exercise, school, chores, errands, practices, games, work........oh....there's that white stag again!

This pursuit is still very much a work in progress, but I want to share some things that I've found so far that have proven to be helpful to me.  I figure if I can share resources and help others in their pursuits it might keep me on "the hunt" until I've "bagged the beast" of disorder and chaos!

One thing that I've found is a time and money saver is weekly meal planning.  This seems a simple enough concept, but I know that many people (myself included until recently) just don't do it.  We get so busy with our lives that we don't give much thought to dinner until the time is upon us.  That is how many of us end up at the drive thru (budget and belly buster).  I found a great website called The Project Girl.  There are a lot of cool ideas, but the ones that caught my eye are the great meal planning worksheets:

You might prefer this one if you want to plan all three meals.  I typically only plan dinners.  It's sort of "every man for himself" at breakfast and lunch.

Another tip:  Make a master list of all the meals that you ever make for dinner.  Then evaluate it----are they healthy?  Do many of them take too long to prepare?  This is what causes many people to get into a "frozen fish stick or microwaveable meal" rut.  If your list is too short or has other problems, then get some new recipes.   The best way to do it is to just google what you want.  If you prefer a pretty cookbook (mine always end up collecting dust in the basket at the top of my frig) there are plenty to be found.

Once you have your master list of at least 10-14 recipes, then you can start to rotate them and switch them around a bit so that you aren't cooking the same things every week. 

Another tip:  Substitute ground turkey for ground beef.  I love the Deceptively Delicious cookbook which contains "sneaky" ways to get some healthy ingredients in popular dishes..  Be creative, and have fun!

Another huge tip with busy schedules comes from Tosca Reno and her Eat Clean Diet book.  She suggests that everything hinges on planning ahead.  She says that a cooler is your best friend when it comes to eating real food with a busy schedule which includes being on the go more often than you would like..

So < BABY STEPS> this week I'm focusing on meal planning and reintroducing a healthy/clean eating lifestyle (we have gotten WAY off track recently). 

My kitchen drawers can wait until another week!