Keep Clean.
I can’t work or relax if my home is dirty or unorganized. When my home is clean, I make more money. When my home is clean, I worry less. When my home is clean, food tastes better. Cleaning is therapeutic and an act of love. It establishes safety and comfort and stability. It ignites creativity. It inspires. It’s not an obligation, it’s a gift. It’s something you can do right now that will instantly make your life that much better. It’s nice to have that power.
This is a habit I had to form myself. From will, honesty and opened eyes. And a book. A very important book:
Grocery and Menu Organization.
This is my system. It is the only way I’ve found to maintain food order in our Tiny Home. First, we keep a menu and notepad on the fridge. The menu is a reminder and the notepad is to write down items as we run out. Second, we grocery shop twice a week. This allows us to use the freshest ingredients possible and have more freedom in what we eat while still maintaining order. The day before we shop I:
- Check our calendar to see if we’re eating any meals elsewhere.
- Take inventory of what we have and base the menu off of that. It is rare that we ever buy all new ingredients for a meal. Unless it’s a Very Special Meal.
- Take a second inventory of our pantry, fridge and freezer double checking for recipe ingredients. Our place is so tiny that buying even the smallest of unnecessary ingredients can cramp our style.
- Consult the fridge notepad
- Write out our grocery list.
After we grocery shop and everything is put away, I write out our menu on the menu board. It’s a plain white dry erase board that we got for free when we moved in. Waste Not, Want Not. The menu board includes:
- Our meals organized by day and mealtime. Example:
- Monday: L – Chickpea Salad Sandwiches D- Arugula and Sage Pizza
- Tuesday: L- Leftover Pizza D – Out to dinner
- Snacks
- Breakfast options
- Basics I need to make. Example:
After everything is on the menu board, I’m done. Having it written out like this keeps me honest and and organized. I don’t have to worry about remembering the food choices I made days before. It also keeps my husband and me from hungrily staring at the pantry for twenty minutes wondering who stole our food.
- Bread
- Vegetable puree
- Snack mix
- Apple sauce
Laundry Magic: Water and Borax.
This is just one of many water and borax stories. I’ve never met a stain that I couldn’t remove with borax. Not red wine. Not chocolate. Not coffee. Not chocolate and coffee together.
Borax has other laundry uses (like softening fabric!), but it’s stain removing magic is the most impressive.
No comments:
Post a Comment