Best Idea Ever: Dinner Swapping

The night off saves me from instant & take-out food!

I really, really love to cook (I don't know if you had noticed...) and I really, really love to share food and recipes with people. But preparing dinner 7 nights a week is a lot of thinking and working and time consumption. Several years ago we had excellent neighbors and we all loved to cook.We concocted the idea of dinner swapping - it's probably not an original idea but we did come up with it on our own. Ultimately we wanted to eat together more often, but it wasn't practical with our situations. So we traded weekly dinners. When they moved, I started trading with a different neighbor. When we moved, eventually I found a new neighbor to trade with. That means I'm on my third set of dinner partners now - always due to moving, never due to the arrangement not working.


Here's how it works...Extremely well. 

Details?

Each of us picks one night of the week that we have relatively free. On my cooking night, it is my responsibility to prepare dinner for my household and my neighbor's household. On their cooking night, I put my feet up, knowing dinner is being prepared (well...I don't actually put my feet up, but I do get to not think about cooking just that one night...tonight I'm writing this blog post when I otherswise would be cooking). We trade dropping off and picking up as it is convenient for each household.

Things to consider:

1) Keep it in your immediate area so that drop-off/pick-up is easy. If your swapping friend is across town, you're giving yourself another errand. Swap with someone in easy walking distance.

2) Make sure you have similar diets - they don't need to be exactly the same, but everyone should enjoy good food. A household that relies on Cayenne as a staple flavor might not pair well with a household that can't stand spice... Likewise very concientious vegetarians might feel uncomfortable with their meal being cooked in a house where meat has touched every pan.

3) Don't tally or keep track too closely. People go out of town, people get ill, life happens. Skip when you need to skip, keep trading, and trust that it will all work out.

4) Write down strong food preferences for the folks who will be cooking for you. Everyone should know if there are any allergies or food sensitivities. Also if there are strong dislikes that will ruin a meal for someone.

5) Find a way to keep track of the other households dishes and containers you receive your meal in - otherwise you will end up with extra random stuff floating around your kitchen without a home. And keep track of your own too - know what you send over so you can get it back.

(Funny side note on that - in my current trade there is a 13x9 baking pan that I'm pretty sure is not mine and she is pretty sure is not hers. What?)

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Some of the benefits I've noticed:

*I can get my kitchen super clean on the other household's cooking night, and not worry about cooking dishes messing it up. I can just enjoy the clean for an evening.

*Cooking for someone else makes me think outside my usual fallbacks because I want to show off a little. I want to challange myself and having an "audience" helps me do that. I cook better these nights!

*A couple of the households I have swapped with had similar tastes in food, but very different diets. My current swap is mostly paleo (for one of the members), so I get to learn about new diets, cooking ideas and methods. This further challanges me to think diferently than my traditional cooking habits and learn new things. I love that!

*Cooking an extra dinner is not really much extra work. I'm cooking anyway and doubling is not hard. In fact, it's more than a trade-off for having a  night off cooking & thinking about feeding my family that doesn't cost me the increasingly expensive price of take-out. Because it's a swap, buying extra ingredients doesn't actually increase my food budget at all, since I pay nothing for the wonderful dinner delivered to my door.

*I love the element of surprise...4 blocks away, something tasty is being cooked for me. And when it shows up it's always exciting to see what we get to eat. I can't remember ever being disappointed.

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I think you should try this out if you can. Find a near-by friend and trade a couple meals. Share recipes, taste test new things, build that neighborly connection, and eat well. See where it goes. How can you improve upon my idea?

A Labeled Pantry

Clearly labeled. All the same size and shape. 

 

We do most of our dry good shopping in bulk. This ends up in an assorted mish-mash of jars and bags that crowd the pantry shelves. It's so hard to find what I need with out dismantling an entire shelf!It gets even more exciting when I unpack and put away a bunch of grains and beans from my Lonesome Whistle CSA.

On my last deep-clean-the-kitchen-day, I started with tackling the pantry. I was in there for hours. I came up with a system for storing and sorting my bulk dry goods that I am just tickled about.

Problem: Inconsistent jars and bags make storing and finding difficult.

Solution: I have lots of canning jars, and all thing considered, canning jars are pretty darn cheap. And things look so much better when they are all standardized.

New Rule: everything in the pantry should live in a canning jar.

I think this is the best use of sheet space...

Problem: I just am not that good at remembering to label things... Now which was the rye flour? Was it this? Or is that buckwheat...

Solution: Laminated card stock inserts for my canning jar done lids. So easy.

I laminated 8 pages of white card stock and cut out lots of narrow mouth and wide mouth sized circles. One goes in the top of each jar. They get labeled with a wet-erase marker. When I wash the jar or fill it with something else, I can wipe off the label and re-use it.

New Rule: All jars must be labeled. Taking the moment to create a label when I put groceries away will save me a world of searching later.

As always, I was amazed at how much space my pantry actually has when I use standard containers and organize the heck out of the space. Already I am excited to put away my next batch of beans and grains from my CSA - they look so pretty and tidy in their labeled jars!

Mindful Monday: Fifteen Minutes Again!

Last week's Mindful Monday post was such a success! I got a lot done in my art room, and restricting myself to the 15 minutes made me really want to get back into it the next day. I got a lot done, but there is still more.

I also tempered my work time by getting to a couple of easy, niggling craft tasks as I came across them. This had a double benefit - it broke up the time nicely, giving me small reminders of why I so badly want this space functional and getting a couple of things done meant having a couple less things to find a home for as I organize.

For this week - I'm having anoutehr go-round of this task, to see how much more I can get done! 

Look! You can almost see the work table!

Who: Me
What: Fifteen minutes of cleaning everyday in my art room.
Why: To get 'er done.
How: First thing after Sister-Bug goes down for her nap, bust in to the space for fifteen minutes no more, no less. Last week I focused on clearing space for the future work of sorting and storing. That meant a lot of just picking messes up and boxing it for later organizing. This week, I want to focus on clearing out some of those boxes of chaos. I also want to make the "work box" drawers that I have for the kids accessible and functional. I think if they are,  I can have a little more time in my room...

I'm gonna get this done, I swear. I probably will have it all nice so I can mess it up well and good in Holiday preparations.

Housekeeping Week - Friday

After the craziness that is any week input home, I'm ready to slow down and have a not-so-essential chore on Friday. One that I can comfortably miss if we are out of town or there has been too much going on and we need a down day.

Friday is Clean the Bedroom Day.

We use the bedroom for sleeping, movies, and getting dressed, so it doesn't get very messy over the course of a week, but of I don't put it on the schedule it gets pretty darn messy before I prioritize it. And I feel that we all sleep better if we are sleeping in clean space.


To get this room good enough I
*clear the surfaces.
*put the clean laundry away, and the dirty laundry in the laundry room.
*pick up the random stuff.

Ultimately I try to
*dust.
*vacuum.
*wash the sheets.




Because its such a light set of tasks, Friday is also the day I clean the hall.

Like the bedroom, it doesn't need much. I feel it's good enough if I
*do a quick tidy up on our family desk.
*sweep.

Ultimately I try to
*dust the desk and photos hanging in the hall.
*organize the random piles that grow on the desk.
*wash the floor.

Mostly I can get through both these tasks with ease, leaving the rest of the day free for a quick living room pick up.

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Housekeeping schedule benefit! I don't have to worry about messes (smallish, non-sticky messes anyway) when I see them. I know that it will be less than a week - and usually less than four days - until I clean it up. I don't have to do it now, or think about those dust bunnies because I know when I will be thinking about them. My mind is free to pursue more interesting things.

Housekeeping Week - Thursday

Paradoxically, Thursday is also my favorite, and for the opposite reason of Wednesday.

Thursday is Bathroom Day.

Unlike the day-long cleaning evolution that is Wednesday, the bathroom is an easy chore that I get done first thing in the morning. I scrub the tub, pop the kids in their bath, and keep an eye on them while they play and I clean the rest of the bathroom.

I start the day with my chore already done, which is good since Thursday is also when I run errands.

If I am doing a 'good enough' clean I
*scrub the tub.
*clean the toilet.
*wipe down the sink.
*sweep.
*take dirty laundry out.

If the kids are both happily splashing, I ultimately try to
*wash the floor.
*clean the mirror.
*wipe out any storage bins that need it.
*deep clean behind the sink, toilet, etc.

This is really only a twenty minute chore, so that leaves me plenty of time to prep dinner, make the shopping list, and otherwise prepare for errands.

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Housekeeping schedule benefit! Because each room gets cleaned on such a regular schedule, it means that the ultimate things aren't always so pressing. Odds are all of them get done within a couple of weeks, and the basics are always covered.

Housekeeping Week - Wednesday

Wednesday has become a favorite. It is the Kitchen Day.

My habit has become to start first thing in the morning and slowly work through it over the course of the day. This chore has, by far, the longest 'good enough' and 'ultimate' lists.

For a good enough kitchen I need to
*clear and wipe all the counters (including under the counter appliances).
*empty the dish drainer.
*clear out old food & leftovers from the fridge.
*pick up the laundry room (which is small and attached to the kitchen).
*sweep and wash the floors.

Looks like a lot, but ultimately I also try to
*scrub the sink.
*clean the toaster & microwave.
*wipe out the fridge.
*clean the stove and/or oven.
*sort the odd socks in the laundry room.
*wipe down the cupboards.

This happens on Wednesday for a couple of strategical reasons. First, Papa-Bug has the car most Wednesdays, so I can assume I will be at home to work on the kitchen all day. Second, since I get home late on Tuesday, we don't usually get our after dinner kitchen clean up done and the dishes are just piled up after dinner. Lastly, I run errands on Thursday, so cleaning the kitchen the day before means I have a clear fridge to put the new food in, as well as a good idea of what we need at the grocery store. Additionally, having the kitchen sparkling as we head into the last part of the week feels good - up and over the hump.

I find, as I work through the day that other kitchen tasks make their way into my chore - like sorting bones and starting a batch of broth, making fruit leather out of some fruit that must be used, and so on. It's relaxing to be tied to this essential room for the day.

Today I opted not to wash the floor - we are carving pumpkins tomorrow evening and I know it will need a wash after that mess. I ended up with time today to start re-claiming the windowsill, taking off some old hardware that was making it look unkempt. I hope to make a little kitchen altar there in the near future - something to look at while I do the never ending dishes. 

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Housekeeping schedule benefit! Because I know I will have this extended time in the kitchen, I don't stress too much throughout the rest of the week - I just try to keep the mess to a minimal pile. The big things I will tackle today. This has opened up a lot of time the rest of the week for Brother-Bug's school time, my time, folding laundry, and whatnot.

Housekeeping Week - Tuesday

On Tuesday I have to be at our food co-op for my volunteer shift by 4:30. I also have to get dinner in the slow-cooker so Papa-Bug and the kids can eat dinner easily while I'm gone. I get home right before bedtime, just enough time to feed myself and hear how the evening was. So I need the Tuesday chore to be pretty simple and one that won't be really noticed if I miss it.

Tuesday is the day we clean the Playroom.

To get it just good enough, we
*pick up the toys off the floor.
*make the bed.
*put the laundry away.

If we are all feeling cooperative (and it wasn't too big a mess to start with!) we also, ultimately, can
*sweep and wash the floor.
*get the toys put in their proper homes.
*wash the sheets (since the kids sleep with us, I don't worry about that so much).



Also on Tuesday I water the houseplants. It's not a big deal, so I easily forget to do it - unless it is on the schedule.

Having the playroom clean on Tuesday means that Papa-Bug has a nice play space for his evening with the kids. And, like I opened with, Tuesday can get a little crazy, so this is a pretty mellow thing to get done.

Another aspect of the kids room that I recently added is the style of their toy storage. I found that a local ice cream parlor gives the sugar cone boxes away. These make for cheerful, standardized storage. The lid is perfect for writing what belongs in the box - and even if the contents are a jumble, the outside looks tidy.

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Housekeeping schedule benefit! Having a small thing, like watering the plants, gives me something I can do first thing and feel accomplished right away in the morning.

Housekeeping Week - Monday

I have been writing so enthusiastically about the functionality of my housekeeping schedule that I thought I would go through it day by day this week, detailing the how and why of each day's chore.

Monday is the Living Room Day.

On this day I do a through clean-up of our living/dining area. Each chore has a list of 'good enough' tasks and 'ultimate' tasks. Good enough is what I need to get done to feel comfortable in the room.

For the living room, that is
*picking up everything on the floor.
*sweeping.
*clearing surfaces.
*tidying the shoes.

If I have a busy day (like two weeks ago when a friend and I made 7 gallons if applesauce on a Monday) I know that all I must get done are those four simple tasks.

If I have a little extra time, I can tackle any of the items of the ultimate list;
*dusting.
*wash the floors.
*clean the mirror.
*excavate under the couch.

I set this chore on Monday, because after a busy weekend (in which we probably didn't pick up much) the Living Room really needs some attention. Also, as the primary room we use (no family room or den in this house), getting it clean first thing in the week sets the tone for the next several days.

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Housekeeping schedule benefit! Since Brother-Bug has gotten used to the cleaning schedule he is easier to cajole into helping and understands which chores I will be involved in and so interrupts less while I get them done.

Mindful Monday: Fifteen Minutes A Day In My Room

I have a room of my own in this house - its for my art supplies, herbal products, sewing work, and the kids school supplies. But regardless, it is mine and it has a door. The only thing is that I don't use it. In the way of many things in life with small children, my room was the lowest on the list to unpack when we moved. And it still lingers in a state of semi-unpacked, catastrophic mess.

What the challenge looks like...

I've been hoping and waiting for a weekend day when I can really absorb into the room and do some crazy unpacking, but... Well, I've been waiting for six months. It's become a looming, awful task, a mess beyond belief, and I've been just keeping the door closed.

No more!

Who: Me
What: Taking a page (not literally) out of Gretchen Rubin's blog about tackling difficult tasks, I commit to spending fifteen minutes each day, organizing and clearing my space. In seven days that is almost 2 hours, so I should be able to get something accomplished.
Why: Above and beyond what I stated previously, the holidays are coming. I don't have a mountain of crafting to accomplish, but it sure would be nice to have a space in which to work on the little I do need to get done. And, space to work aside, I'm just bloody sick of the mess! The rest of the house is so consistently tidy that my room haunts me.
How: For fifteen minutes - hopefully during Sister-Bug's nap - I will delve into my art room, set a fifteen minute timer and clean till it beeps. No more, no less.

Here's to success and a clear work table!

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Additional notes: The laundry design is going well, and I plan on posting more about that soon. It's working its way into my weekly housekeeping schedule, which will be for the best.

I missed the Mindful Monday last week - I had it mostly written. It was about holding normalcy and rhythm in a week of chaos. But the day, the week, was just too busy to post at all last week. I was more focused on getting the kids through a crazy week, with some of their routines intact to do much writing.

Organizing My Chores

Running a house is incredibly complicated, with myriad details to constantly track. Add the kids, the homeschooling, and personal/family/commnity pursuits to that and it's a wonder my head doesn't blow off.

One thing I found very effective in our last home was to organize my chores by day. I got the idea from Laura Ingalls Wilder, who washed on Monday, ironed on Tuesday, and so on. The first time I tested it out, it really worked. The system was derailed occasionally, but whenever I could pull it together, knowing what I had to get done each day really helped me get it done so that I could do other stuff.

Here's how I make a Housekeeping Schedule:

Step One - Walk around the house, thinking about each room, each chore, what you like about cleaning and what you dislike. How clean do you need each room to be to feel comfortable versus how clean would you love to have it be, if you had all the time in the world? Make lists.

Step Two - Pull out your weekly schedule. Note which days are busier than others and which days you will not be at home as much. Note when you usually go grocery shopping, when dinner runs late, or any other weekly details that rock your world.


Step Three - Start assigning chores to days. I break mine down room by room, tackling one room each day. This works for me because my house is small, and in a couple of places I combine rooms (bedroom & hall, etc.).Move the chores around the week, envisioning when in the day you will do the chore, who will help you - if anyone, what it looks like if the chore gets missed that day, what might get in the way of completing that chore, and so on.


Step Four - Find a way to display your new schedule for yourself. Write it on a white board, put it in your calendar or phone, put it somewhere that you can refer to easily.

I added some new steps this time around, to make it more sustainable. I divided my chore list per room into two different headings - the bare minimum of what I need to get done to keep the room livable and what I would ultimately like to get accomplished. For example, I need to at least clean the old food out of the refrigerator each week, but I would really like to wipe it clean if I have time. I can choose to do the minimum, do one thing from the ultimate list, or go for the gold and really do it all, depending on the day.

The other thing I did differently was how I formatted it. Usually I just note it up on the white board - which room, which day - and try to keep track of it. This time, since I had put the time in to figure out what was "good enough" and how much more I would ultimately like to do, I decided to make it a little more formal. I typed up the list for each room and printed them out. Then I covered them in clear tape and put magnets on the back. Each day is its own magnet, so I can rearrange them when necessary. They stick to my white board, so I can make notes around them if I need to.




I can add specifics for the day ("Order flea stuff") and check in with the dinner menu which I write above .



What I find when I do this is that I can let a lot more go each day because I know when I'm going to do the chore. Laundry all over the kids room? It will get picked up on Tuesday, so I don't have to sweat it on Friday. If I miss a week, I know I have missed only one week - I don't have to search my mind for the last time I think I cleaned the bathroom or washed the kitchen floor. If I don't dust this week, I can prioritize it the following week.

I add extra chores (like frequent living room pick ups or watering the plants) in bold at the bottom of the list. I try to keep the Kitchen Day on the day before we grocery shop, so I can have a cleaned out fridge to put the groceries into when I get home, as well as knowing what is in the fridge when I am at the grocery store. I don't have the daily chores (laundry, cleaning the kitchen, parenting tasks, etc.) on the schedule. I try to keep this specifically for general house upkeep. The other tasks find their time on other "To Do" lists.

That's what it looks like - my schedule of the week. And speaking of the schedule, I think it is time to go clean the living room and mop the floor!

Mindful Monday: Double Duty

I have two Mindful Monday Intentions this week. This was not the original plan, but I also hadn't planned to go get Daisy from The Greenhill Humane Society yesterday, either.

The short version of Daisy's arrival in our home goes like this: Through work, Papa-Bug had a Pekingese dog that needed a new home. He liked it and thought we might give it a shot. Biscuit arrived at our house a couple of weeks ago, suspicious and growling. It took him a couple of days to warm up to anyone. Everything seemed fine. Then on Saturday night, Biscuit bit Sister-Bug on the face (she's fine - just a small bruise). We won't keep a dog that bites - it's a one way ticket to the gulag. Currently Biscuit is residing in the shop outside. ((If you are in Eugene, don't have kids, and want a very sweet Pekingese, let me know!)) Papa-Bug and I talked about dogs and our family. Brother-Bug has been afraid of dogs for ages. With Biscuit, I had notieced him getting over his fear, and being way more socially interacting and physcally active than I have seen in a while. Seemed like a good thing. Additionally (to my surprise) I liked having a dog around. Papa-Bug liked having a dog around. We were bummed about Biscuit. So we changed our Sunday agenda and headed to the humane society where we got Daisy.

She's a nice doggy kind of a dog.

That brings us up to Mindful Monday Number One:

Integrating Daisy into Our Home & Rhythm 

Who: The Whole Family
What: Assessing how we fit Daisy into our home and family routines, giving jobs and responsibilities some thought. Re-framing our home as a "dog home".
Why: Well, we just got Daisy. It needs to be done.
How: Have a family meeting about Daisy and what her daily tasks are. Decide who does what, when they do it, etc. Talk about different ways we can help Daisy feel at home. Consider who cares for Daisy when we go out of town, where Daisy hangs out when we aren't home, etc. Put the immediate parts of our plan into action.

Onto Mindful Monday Number Two!!

Last week my intention was to create a Housekeeping Schedule. I did that, and started following the schedule somewhat. I really enjoyed the sense of organization that appeared in my days!

Following The New Schedule

Who: Me (and the kids where applicable)
What: Making the New Schedule into the regular routine.
Why: Because I want to have a better sense of what needs to be done, when I last did it, and how much there is to do.
How: Make an effort to follow the new schedule exactly, to find out how it works and where it needs to be tweaked to better fit with the groove of our average week. There are a few odd things on the schedule this week, but mostly it is a very average week - perfect for testing out the new organization.

That's it. It feels like a lot, but there it is!

What a Difference a Label Makes

You know the way a fridge looks when it's full. You can't find the cheese, you have to move six things out of the way to get at the cream for your coffee... and what the hell is in that old tupperware?? Yuck!! Oig. Close the fridge. Clean it. Put everything away logically. Two weeks later the logic has failed and the cream is again buried.

At least, that is my experience.

Or WAS my experience. It is no longer so.

Enter my Label Maker.

It wasn't an intentional organization project. Brother-Bug loves to label things and it is great spelling and reading practice. So, one day while we were cleaning the fridge we decided to label what goes on what shelf.

((Side note: a sorting project like that is great early math!! Homeschooling rocks.))

To my surprise, the labeling stuck. That was a pun.

All of a sudden, you could always find what you are looking for in my fridge. Leftovers were a breeze to clean out. Making the shopping list was a joy because I could easily see what was missing.
Papa-Bug and I both put things back where they belonged. Brother-Bug is able to easily find the snacks that we get for his enjoyment. When the system gets messed up it is obvious, as well as being quick and easy to fix.

It's amazing, the power that a label has.

When we moved into a new house a couple of weeks ago, the fridge got loaded in a rush. No time to put things away neatly, just get them put away and move on to a more pressing issue. But over the course of two weeks, I watched every family member struggle with the disorganization of the fridge. Where were the carrots? The string cheese? What happened to the leftovers we were planning on eating? Why on earth is the Hoisin sauce always in the way?

I got out my label maker.

Things are calm in the fridge again. The salad dressings and hot sauces have their shelf. The Hoisin sauce is where it belongs. Lettuce is no longer mingling with yogurts. The organization makes the fridge feel more spacious. I did the freezer and pantry too.

Contented sigh.

I just put this week's groceries away. It took half the time that it took last week, because there is a place for everything and now everything is in it's place.