Decluttering Life

The last few months I have been trying to get a handle on life. I'd like to feel, on more days than not, that I am on top of my life rather than struggling to stay afloat. On too many days lately I have described my emotional state as stressed, exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, agitated... Those aren't the words I want inscribe on my tombstone! Instead I would like to be describing my days as joyful, peaceful, fun, rewarding and hey even fruitful (financially speaking). The ol' saying goes "when nothing changes, nothing changes" so what do I need to change to get my life on track?

When Tyler first took a shift in Fort Mac, I started by organizing some neglected spaces in the house. And honestly I really love organizing & re-working spaces. The payoff however, is a short term high unless I also develop some new habits to KEEP things in order, which in the past I have not done or been successful at. ~Organization is not a state but a behavior.~

I've been slowly immersing myself in organizational culture through podcasts, blogs, tv shows, audio books & actual books. And I'm equally slowly putting the pieces together.

Attempted Change #1: I have a really hard time keeping our bedroom clean. The biggest offense to this is my clothes, both clean and dirty, which end up in different laundry baskets, piled on the floor, left in suitcases etc. As this is a reoccurring problem, I'm trying to look at what the source(s) of it are. My first conclusion is that I have too many clothes lol If my room can get that messy & I can ignore it because i still have clothing options then that is part of the problem. Secondly, I believe that I am resistant to hanging clothes. I don't know why but it seems like tedious work. So on Monday I did a tiny clothing purge & cleaned out two dresser drawers so that about 80% of my clothes are in drawers now (I had dresses I rarely wear & books in my drawers before). I'm also going to work on the habit of putting my clothes in the appropriate areas at the end of each day. My portion of the closet is much more appealing to me now, but it's still a work in progress. Ideally I'd love to purchase a new closet organizer as I feel the space is under utilized but it's not really a budget priority right now.

(Pic 1: I have to share with you, embarrassingly, how dirty my bedroom floor was. I've often said that my house isn't "dirty it's just cluttered" but TV has taught me that dirt hides well under clutter.)

Peter Walsh, a well known organizer from Australia, says that when it comes to organizing a space, you should start with an empty room and a vision for the life you want and the type of room you need to accomplish that vision. Then the space & it's contents are built off that vision.

Unfortunately my life's vision doesn't fit into this house, nor honestly does it fit into my LIFE. Which brings me to my next focus: decluttering my calendar

I have a reputation for being late which is often caused from me under estimating how long it takes to accomplish tasks, etc within my day. Effectively, I am trying to squeeze too much into each day, week, month... My first step was to physically write in "relax" on one day a week (Mondays) and try not to book anything major for those days. Ultimately, "relax" is a bit misleading as I have counted on those days for catch up lol - but it a start! I am also going to limit how much I book per day. In the past I looked at each day as having three parts: morning, afternoon and evening, often booking two sometimes all three segments with major events. I have to remember Gretchen Rubin's mantra (from 'The Happiness Project') " I can do ANYthing, I just can't do EVERYthing". And when i do choose to incorporate something into my life, I need to be giving it my 100% focus when allotted.

I'm pretty much in the middle of this part/focus/project of decluttering right now. I am looking at what I really want out of life, what I value/prioritize and how things are going to fall into place. Its an even larger 'tweak' with Tyler away & me taking on some of his roles in his absence. Part of this process is to look at my relationships (friends, family, acquaintances) and evaluate where I am benefiting. The truth of the matter is that I am clinging to quite a few relationships where it is "hard work" to stay in touch (ie it's all me initiating everything, following up, having to re-schedule umpteen times) and that perhaps we have simply outgrown each other in this stage of our lives [which doesn't mean to say our paths won't re intertwine down the road]. Then I have a few relationships where the good doesn't outweigh the bad and the investment of my time, energy & emotions is not worthwhile.

I really feel I am ready to move forward and see what life has in store for me over this next hill :-) Its going to be fabulous!

An interesting, alternative perspective I heard once that stayed with me is, paraphrasing: to grow closer to our authentic selves we need not add to ourselves but in fact strip away/purge/shed unnecessaries. Hmm, that is coming out very clumsily so hopefully you can get the gist of what I'm saying. Right now I have too much excess in my life (in many different forms) and I am ready to shed those "shackles". Stay tuned!

Commuting

First off, I am loving everything I have been able to do with Primerica so far. My biggest complaint is that I don't feel as though I've given it enough of my focused time & effort. Improvement to come on that!

Okay, so with any career path, it is highly encouraged to work on your self development: increase your confidence, skills, knowledge, etc. I originally resisted any personal development through the traditional means of reading non-fiction books because generally I never complete them and I also REALLY enjoy reading fiction books so my personal time is dedicated to that. However, fellow Mompreneur, Sonja pointed out that I could do some audio listening for personal development. This actually works perfect for me because I have to do some commuting for my twice weekly meetings among other things, so now I can utilize this wasted time perfectly :-) I was SO excited to have this epiphany because I like to be what is called "coachable" in our business and by not working on improving myself, I was not being coachable. I love having my iphone because itunes has lots of really awesome podcasts that I have been listening to.  Here are some of my recommendations:

Everyday is Saturday with Sam Crowley

Organization Station with Monica Ricci

The Home Office Podcast

I also used to love Pregtastic, which is not business related so much, but great to listen to as someone who is, was or wants to be pregnant :-)

Other resources for audio I've used are my library (both virtually and the bricks and mortar place), amazon to buy audio books, and youtube.

Net Time vs Gross Time

I made an impromptu road trip to Grimshaw this weekend and on the way back I listened to a few fantastic podcasts. One of them, Organization Station with Monica Ricci, talked about the concept of "Net Time" which I found fascinating. I've have often quoted one of my favorite movies, Empire Records, and said "There are 24 usable hours in every day!". However, with some very logical reconsideration, is there really 24 hours?

Research has shown that after factoring in sleep, eating, bathroom breaks, life, etc, each of us only really has 4 - 7 hours of each day that can be used to be productive. Taking this into consideration, most of us are attempting to jam far too much into each day, which gets carried over to the next jam packed day resulting in us feeling completely unproductive & yet totally stressed out. Boy can I relate to that! 

A few of the other time concepts she touched on were "Tiny Time" and "Buffer Time":

Tiny Time is those little moments of time where things can be done as you register them, but if left undone, cumulate to become overwhelming. Examples could include things like putting your jacket away, getting your kids to put one toy away before using another (or group of toys), mail, and lately for me texts & emails! [Right now I have nearly 70 unread emails on my phone plus countless read but unanswered email , despite my new years resolution to not do that.]

Buffer Time, is just like it sounds, its building buffer time into your schedule. For example, if it normally takes you 30 minutes to drive somewhere, consider actually leaving with an extra ten minutes to account for traffic or unexpected delays (like needing fuel). Or, if your kids need to be ready for a ride at 3pm, start them getting ready in advance so they'll actually be ready for 2:50. The amount of buffer time would differ depending on the tasks. Its really a simple idea, but I admit I am uber guilty for not utilizing this and in fact doing the opposite by thinking I can jam an extra errand or task in the five "extra" minutes I think I have.

An example of something I've been continuously guilty for lately is with my sitters. I tell them I'll be home at say 9:00pm, but instead of leaving at 8:45 and thus packing up at 8:30, I tend to leave the place i'm at around 9:05 or 9:15. Very bad. It's not how I would want to be treated, so I need to make adjustments accordingly.

I'm really looking forward to making some improvements with this knowledge and listening to more podcasts from Monica.

Freezer Meals, an update

I believe I have sampled all the freezer meals I had made. All were delicious, but I have a few tweaks for the next batch I do:
-try pizza spaghetti with pizza sauce
-for Rachel's casserole I will cook the pasta less (more al dente), add more green peppers, and make bigger portions or maybe just more meat to pasta ratio
-for the stirfry, I dont think I'll precook the veggies. They came out a little too soggy for my liking. However, I think I would package my veggies separately, in fry order.

That all I can think of right now.

Party Favours

My mommy group had our 5th Anniversary so we threw a party. I wanted to "get my craft on" so u made these favors. The crayon packs for the kids & tea bag satchels for the mommies. So cute & so fun ;-)

Mourning the Loss of My HouseHusband (Again!)

Emotionally, I have been spoiled to have Tyler home 24/7 since the last week of July. When he's home & not working I have a super flexible schedule with almost total freedom. Tyler prefers to do the laundry (as he has a system he likes), he often ends up doing the dishes (though I still cook most of the time), he's here to watch Dexter so I can run all errands sans child, and I can do my Mommy Mingle stuff and Moms' Night Out without worrying about a sitter.

However, the down side is of course not having an income. We had what I thought was a healthy chunk of savings set aside but with a few major ticket items coming up (fixing a hand me down truck, annual property taxes), we burnt through it fairly quickly. We've been able to supplement our income and stay current on bills by using a Line of Credit and Tyler's "measly" EI cheques. I say measly because although they are appreciated, it's only 55% of income and it gets maxed out. We got the max which boils down to $1800/month, no where near our base expenses. So we were slowly going in the hole each month he wasn't working.

We were holding out as long as we could financially, in the hopes that a union job around Edmonton would come up. There were about 40 positions that came up for a job in Nisku (a very short commute) but unfortunately Tyler's 'out of work number' wasn't high enough to get the job. We are pretty close to the end of our comfort level for debt on our line of credit right now and Tyler's EI ran out about 3 weeks ago so we decided that the next possible job that came up he would take, even if it meant him going out of town like in Fort Mac. He has done the out of town thing before, so I am not a virgin to the experience, but for the quality of our family life we were hoping to avoid it. However, being homeless isn't an option so back to work it is! LOL

There were two types of out of town job sites we were expecting to come up, Kearl Lake (which operates on a 2 weeks gone, 1 week home schedule) and Suncor Fort Mac (which operates on 10 days gone 4 days home schedule) both near each other. On a positive note, both sites now offer fly in/fly out options which means way less travel time for Tyler and more home time. It also means increased safety for him as the Fort Mac highway is known for being accident prone. On Friday, he put in for a job at Suncor with a company he hasn't worked with before but is excited to work with: Chemco. They have a few perks that may or may not pan out. He'll be in camp and they have camp food too so there isn't any additional expenses for him being there.

While it will be an adjustment for both of us, we are actually a bit excited about it. Tyler's looking forward to working again (as not working really effects a person's self esteem) and I'm looking forward to getting back on track with our finances. Generally speaking, when he is working we can sock away quite a bit of money as his income is a lot higher than our base expenses...so long as we don't make too many silly purchases or committments.  I also re-evaluated our RRSP contributions and for where we are now & where we want to be, we need to bump up the amount we put away each month (which also means some commission for me too).

Since he'll be working, we'll have some wiggle room in our budget for me to get some child care if/when I need it. I still plan on being able to do my Primerica fairly consistently so I'm thinking about looking for a day home for maybe one afternoon a week starting in April, where I can have a solid chuck of time to do any prep and paper work I may have. I have some montly evening committments that I would like to keep on my schedule (2 book club evenings a month, 1 scrapbook project night & possibly 1 craft night coming up). My mother in law may be up for some babysitting here and there when it doesn't conflict with her own life and work schedule. She's going on a three week trip to the states in April though so no luck there! However, my mom has started a business where she works from home so she'll be able to come help me out here and there. She's planning on coming on Saturday (one week from today) so I'm looking forward to that as I had a busy week scheduled.

As one of our financial goals this year, I am planning a trip for us to go on for Couples Only to Vegas in October. My parents have decided they would like to go with us and Mary is willing to watch Dexter. Goal is for a 4 day trip. My parents told me that as a 30th birthday present (which is allegedly my "final" birthday present lol) they will pay for my flight to Vegas. In addition to that, since they go to Vegas so often, there's a really good chance they will get their hotel rooms for free and that we may as well! Which means we would need to pay for our experiences, shopping, food, and possibly Tyler's flight (I'm not sure if their offer was for my flight or both of ours'). My friend Melody & her girlfriend are coming for sure and then we have some other couples that are aiming to go but aren't 100% sure. [If you're reading this & are interested in coming too, just email me for details!]

Hmm, well the day is getting away from me, time to unplug & get moving!

My First Day of Making Freezer Meals

Most people know that I am super in love with Pinterest right now (if you haven't checked it out, you should!). There were a few links on there with once-a-month-cooking and it inspired me. I wasn't up for an entire month's worth of cooking, but I thought I'd pick a few complimentary recipes and try it out. I'm not completely foreign to the make-ahead-meals concept as I participated in "Your Supper Solutions" in Red Deer a few times, but I've never done it from home and with all my own research, shopping, etc.

 

Researching for meal ideas and shopping was a bit time consuming, but I was kind of in slow mo mode too. After about 4 hours of prepping and cooking the above depicts my results:

-3 containers of Rachel's Casserole,*

-3 containers of Alphine Meatballs with Rice,*

-2 containers of Pizza Spaghetti Casserole,*

-1 large ziplock container of Sausage Pasta Sauce,

-1 large ziplock container of Sausage Stirfry Mix,

-1 meal sized container of Taco Beef mixing,

as well as 1 meals worth of Taco Beef mixing which I made into Taco Salad that night.

*Recipes were found on other websites, links at end of blog entry.

I'll list the recipes I used first with basic directions, and then I'll list my methods of madness from that day (tips, etc).

A) Taco Beef Mixing (I made 2 batches):

• 1 package of Extra Lean Ground Beef
• 1 package of Taco Seasoning
• 3/4 cup of water
• 1 small container of tomato paste
• 1 cup of salsa (I used Tostitos Mild)

Directions:

• Brown hamburger.
• Pour seasoning package over mixture and add water.
• Continue cooking until water evaporates.
• Add tomato paste & salsa.
• Store in freezable ziplock bag. Probably only need a medium size for one batch.

Future uses:

• add to lettuce, shredded cheese, fresh veggies (cucumber, green & red peppers, red onion) and cheesy doritos for a taco salad.
• use with taco shells & fixings for tacos.
• make the 'dorito bake casserole': which uses pillsbury cresent dough for the base, Beef Taco Mix, sour cream layer and then cheese and crushed cheesy doritos on top. Bake at 350F until browned.
• make 'tortilla bake casserole': alternate tortillas (I prefer cheese ones) and Beef Taco Mix. Have one sour cream layer in the middle and cheese on top. Could also have refried bean layer if desired. Bake at 350F until browned.

 B) Alphine Meatballs (Equalled three lasagna sized containers plus left over rice):

• 1 Box Premade frozen meatballs (I bought the blue menu italian meatballs from No Frills/Superstore)
• 4 Cups Rice
• 1/2 Cup of Parmesan
• 1 small pkg of Swiss Cheese (270g), grated
• 1 1/2 Cups Milk
• 2 cans Condensed Mushroom Soup
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp all spice
• 3 tsp chopped garlic or 3 cloves

Directions:

• Cook rice.
• Put a layer of meatballs on the bottom of your dish.
• In a seperate bowl, mix rice with all ingredients except meatballs.
• Pour rice mixture over meatball layer.
• Future Use: Bake at 350F for 30-45 minutes when thawed.

C) Turkey Sausage Pasta Sauce (made one large ziplock bag):

• 1 pkg of Turkey Sausage (bought mine at walmart)
• Fresh Veggies (Green Peppers, Red Peppers, Yellow Onions, Broccol, Carrots Medallions, Fresh Mushrooms)
• 1 Large Can of Spaghetti Sauce or Tomato Sauce

Directions:

• Bake turkey sausages at 350F for 30-45 minutes. Make sure they are no longer pink inside. Slice into bite sized pieces. Let cool to room temperature.
• Chop fresh veggies as needed into large pieces. I ended up with about 4 cups of fresh veggies.
• Put all ingredients into large freezable ziplock container.
• Future Use: Cook in slow cooker until desired tenderness. Serve over freshly cooked pasta. For leftovers, keep pasta seperate from pasta sauce.

 D) Turkey Sausage Stirfry (made one batch):

• 1 package of Turkey Sausages (I bought mine at walmart)
• Fresh Broccoli
• Carrot Medallions
• Yellow Onions, sliced
• Green & Red Peppers, sliced
• Fresh Mushrooms, sliced
• Sauce: ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, soya sauce. Mix together to taste. Use only about a tsp of soya sauce and a lot of ketchup to start.

Directions:

• Bake sausages in oven at 350F for 30-45 minutes. Make sure they are no longer pink inside. Slice into bite sized pieces. Let cool to room temperature.
• You can either keep veggies raw to fry later or fry them now depending how ready you want this meal to be.
• If veggies are cooked, you can store with the sauce. I chose to wait until I use this mix to freshly make sauce and rice.
• Future Use: serve warmed on rice with sauce.

E) Pizza Spaghetti Bake (made 3 lasagna sized containers):

• 1 package of ground meat (I used chicken to have a variety of meats in my recipes)
• Veggies (I used red peppers, green peppers, yellow onions)
• 1 Can of Mushrooms
• 1/2 Package of Spaghettini (or pasta of your choice)
• 1 Large Can of Pasta Sauce, or Tomato Sauce (ALT: maybe even pizza sauce)
• 24 pizza pepperoni slices
• 1 Cup Cheddar Cheese, grated
• 1 Cup Mont Jack Cheese, grated

Directions:

• Brown ground meat.
• Dice veggies. Fry along with mushrooms.
• Boil spaghettinni to desired tenderness. Drain.
• Mix all three of above together along with pasta sauce and let cool to room temperature.[Next time I am going to try it with pizza sauce. When I do, I will refrain from mixing it in, but rather do it as a layer of my casserole]
• Once cool, layer in bottom of dish.
• Sprinkle grated cheese on top.
• Place pepperoni on top of cheese.
• Future Use: Bake at 350F for 30-40 minutes if thawed, 40 - 50 minutes if frozen.

F) Rachel's Casserole (made 3 lasagna cointainers):

• 1/2 Box of Pasta (I used Scooby Doo Spirals, she recommends egg noodles)
• 1 package of ground meat
• 2 tbsp flour
• Tomato Sauce or Pasta Sauce
• 1/2 Cup of Black Olives, Sliced
• 1/2 Cup of Green Peppers, Chopped
• 1/2 Cup of Green Onions, Chopped (I forgot to buy these)
• 1 Cup of Sour Cream
• 2 Cups of Cottage Cheese
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper

Directions:

• Cook pasta.
• Brown burger. Once cooked, add tomato sauce and flour and simmer for 10 minutes.
• In a seperate bowl, mix sour cream, cottage cheese, veggies and salt and pepper.
• Once pasta and burger is cool, put it in the bottom of the dish. Pour veggie mixture over pasta. Pour beef mixture over veggie mixture.
• Future Use: Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

Methods of Madness/Tips
First Things...

• I wanted everything in disposable, freezable things. For things I was going to bake, I wanted freezable & bakeable so I bought tinfoil lasagna sized containers with lids (if they had larger ones with lids I likely would have bought those) as well as Large Ziplock Freezer bags. Both these things I got at No Frills for a decent price, but I noticed the dollar stores carry them too so you may want to shop around for the best price.
• I chose recipes with similar ingredients so that I could multi-task chopping of veggies, re-use pans, etc.
• I did one big shop of all the ingredients (well two because I went to No Frills & Walmart).
• I pre-planned my recipe attack.
• Have lots of bowls and counterspace so that you can keep things seperated but do multi-tasking work, and you'll have to allow everything to cool before completing your freezer process.
• I pulled everything out that I would need that day & set it in one area on my counter.
• I added lots of veggies to my meals to bulk up the recipe size and get my daily dose of veggies in.

Pre-plan (learned from my days in the kitchen of KFC):

• I set up my rice cooker with the rice for Alphine Meatballs, once cooked I put in a big bowl to cool &/or be ready for mixing whenever I had a break in the other meals' prep,
• I put all the turkey sausages in the oven to bake while I used the stove top for other things.
• I started with the Beef Taco mix so that I could fry it up while chopping my veggies for the other recipes.
• I chopped all my veggies at the same time and seperated them into bowls or ziplocks for each recipe, then fried or kept fresh as each recipe needed.
• When frying veggies such broccoli & carrots, I precook them in the microwave to get them tender, then fry them for crispiness.
• Once meat was ready for taco mix, I put it in a bowl to cool while I started browning meat for spaghetti bake. I also put pasta on to bowl and started frying veggies.
• Once spaghetti bake layer one was mixed & cooling, I started browning my meat for rachel's casserole and cooking the pasta. I also started frying the veggies for my stir fry.
• Then I mixed the cottage cheese stuff.
• When I had in between moments I cut up the turkey sausage, assembled the turkey pasta sauce, assembled anything that was cool enough and mixed up the rice mixture for the alphine meatballs.
• I saved all the cheese grating for last.
• We also had a taco salad for supper about 3 hours into my assembly so I had a bit of a break for everything to cool and before I grated cheese.

That's it I think! Everything went well and I'm anxious to try the new dishes. I'm also looking forward to doing a few more meals. Send me any ideas you have! On my list:
Ham & Asparagus Strata
Meatloaf (my recipe using Knorr Veggie Mix)
Premade Sloppy Joe Mixture
Premade Shepard's Pie Mixture
Perogy Lasagna
Lazy Potsticker Casserole (my new idea, using potsticker pork recipe and pasta)
Pigs in a Blanket
Bisquits

*Rachel's Casserole:
http://www.oneshetwoshe.com/2010/01/rachels-casserole.html
*Alphine Meatballs:
http://busycooks.about.com/od/precookedmeatballrecipes/r/alpinemeatballs.-8tU.htm
*Pizza Spaghetti Casserole
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/pizza-spaghetti-casserole-10000001589396/