The Zen of Chores

I think that nobody likes chores, but since they need doing, how do you make them manageable? Well I have worked at changing my perspective towards chores, it’s almost a Zen thing, or perhaps like prayer or quiet time. In fact years ago I wrote about it and called it ‘the Zen of taking out the garbage’ which now I would call,’ the zen of chores’. It sounds odd, I know, but consider this, at home we are in a job of service, and accepting that without resistance will allow the parts of that job to go smoother and not need to be qualified as either ‘fun’ or ‘unpleasant’. They just are what they are we are just doing them as a service to ourselves and the people that we care about, our family. From another perspective, don’t we say ‘cleanliness is next to Godliness’, So for me, I actually enjoy vacuuming, cleaning and folding the laundry, even doing the dishes (we are dishwasherless here). These are the activities when I can work on automatic pilot and use the time for thinking, and at the end I have a sense of accomplishment pride. All this is easy to write about and it works for me for most things... I have to admit though, that I’m still working on tranforming the way that I feel about the cleaning of the Bathroom...

The best French Fries ever

Honkin’ good homemade french fries are easier to make than we think. I learned this trick in Quebec. There is no deep frying or hot pot of oil that you have to deal with later. And this is so easy... you simply need;

6-8 med potatoes
3 table spoons of real Mayonaise
1 tea spoon of our garlic mix(if you wish)

..and that’s all. Start by preheating the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, then peel and cut the potatoes into french fry strips. put them in a big bowl and mix in the mayo and garlic, being sure to completely coat the potatoe strips. put them like pickup sticks onto a cookie sheet, we use a pizza tray, and bake them at 375 for about 35-45 minutes until they get golden brown and crispy. After about 20 minutes stir to flip them over a bit.
Of course this gives you about 30 minuted to prepare the homemade Hamburgers that will go so well with the fries. You even have time to cut all the toppings, pickles, onions, tomatoes... Quick and easy homemade 'takout' supper and, the kids will love you for it...

Ends and Crumbs

All in the name of saving in the grocery budget we do food ‘repurposing’ too... one thing this family loves is Nacho’s and salsa, we get them when they’re on special so that they are on hand most of the time for good, wholesome snacking. What is a shame though is the crumbly half cup worth of nachos that are way too tiny to even consider dipping, that are left at the bottom of the bag. What I do is save them in a Jar in the pantry(remember the usefull jar posting). I also do this with the dried out bread loaf ends to make bread crumbs later with the blender or moulinex... these crumbs get used for things like pork chops, kentucky style baked chicken or Mexican Lasagna...All three of these are easy and delicious recipes which I will poste in the next few days...

Double tasking

Double tasking at the best of times is not easy for a fellow, but, I have discovered that there are ways of double tasking that are very manageable. One way is by taking advantage of stuff that does itself, for example, a laundry cycle takes about one hour the same as baking a casserole or a chicken for dinner so if you fill and set up the machine and prepare the casserole and get them both started early then they will be busy doing themselves giving you an hour to do a third thing that requires more hands on like tidying up a bit or passing the vacuum. Now after an hour with three things completed, you can put laundry in the dryer (another ‘does itself’ hour)while you make some lunch for yourself and the kids (if they come home for lunch). Then after lunch you are free to fold the laundry while watching a show... oh one last thought , put on the oven timer for the supper, I do this because I get so involved that I forget the stuff that’s baking...like anything we do, we get better at it the more we do it...

Family Bulletin Board

Voluntary simplicity is an idea that few people payed much heed to, but now in this time of economic challenges it makes alot of sense. Basicaly it is all about consuming less, wasting less and the best part, spending less. Keeping the gang occupied and ad finding no cost or low cost activities is one way to cut the budget way down. You can check out the local community events calendar or the community center, YMCA, Church Groups or even the local Lions club or Optimists for good family events year round... Keeping all this organized is important, so fellas go out there and get a calendar and a bulletin board to tack it onto. We keep ours in the kitchen and it is large enough to pin on mail, grocery coupons, kids school notices, bus tickets, postage stamps... it functions well and helps keep things running smoother...

If you don't already have this, you can turn it into a family event, setting up your information central together...

Good luck have fun with this :0)

Growing pains

Transitions are seldom easy, they pften require us having to learn alot of stuff really fast and sometimes that means circuitry overload and that could be a challenge for the people around us...not just ourselves. So what do we do? Well a wise friend of mine, Brian, pointed out to me that since I had stopped working I have been trying to be super man and super mom (tough for one guy to do)... and his wise suggestion was simply, 'don't take on too much'. Simple, wise... He also reminded me to start by staying focused on the necessities and priorities...Which is exactly how we need to think while caring for and managing the homefront...
This week I figured out how I can post here more regularly and effectively, I got a good lesson in organizing myself also...so remember,
be patient with and kind to yourself within the process,
bye for now...