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January 14, 2009

Desperately trying to figure out a schedule!

hello you!

I’m on my second week back to work. Things have been a bit hectic…our eating habits have definitely changed. I don’t have the luxury to make fancy meals as much as I used to. We are actually just eating to maintain! We are also watching our weight…so I can’t go hog wild on puff pastry based meals….sigh…

So eating isn’t as much of a hobby/treat anymore! I hope to change that soon, as I am reorganizing my life and de-cluttering my house so I can streamline things a bit. You won’t believe how much I have to bring with me in order to go to work! It’s insane. Oh! and the amount of time I spent cleaning bottles! Jeez….

I do enjoy a nice healthy breakfast every morning though.
My current fave is nonfat yogurt with honey, blueberries & ground flax seeds:

breakfast

Speaking of streamlining- check this out:

My foodie/momma friend- Lana, recently posted on her blog about Meal Planning

I know that with the new year of being a mom and working, a schedule like this could do my family some good! I need to have more structure in my life as it’s becoming impossible to go grocery shopping at a moment’s notice like I used to. It has become quite a process now! Do I bring the stroller? The carseat? The baby carrier? yikes!

Anyone out there have any good tips on being a working mother who cannot bare to abandon the kitchen?

I have a bunch of recipes to try…they will come soon as soon as this week is over. Once I figure out this whole schedule thing, I am sure I’ll get back on track!

  • Lana

    We shopped with the car seat this weekend and survived! I was so scared it was going to be a crying nightmare. He slept the whole time until we got back to the quiet car. Babies.

  • flo

    I don’t know if this is helpful for time management, but as a money saver, I have started recording EVERYTHING we buy at the groery store and keeping a notebook with the prices in it.
    I took a little notebook to Trader Joes, Costco, everywhere we go, and (by myself one day) perused the aisles and wrote stuff down.

    The night before I go grocery shopping (SANS kiddos-usually Sunday) I make a meal plan for ONE week (more than that and I jsut start buying too much stuff and running out of other stuff too early) and I write down all the ingredients I need, and other weekly staples. Then, still in the comfort of home, I just get out my notebook, and “go grocery shopping”.
    Since everything I ever buy is written in there, it helps remind me of things I forgot to put on my list, etc.

    I add everything up and by the time I hit the store the next day, I know exactly what I am getting, exactly how much it will cost, and exactly what our meals for the week will be.

    It sounds like a lot of work, but it has gotten to be so fun, and it has saved me tears and confusion (over what to get) at the grocery store!

  • stacey

    so the grocery store… the baby sling works like a charm!

  • Amanda

    I was wondering how your re-entry to the workplace was going. Sounds like it’s a bit busy but it will cool down. Yogurt and blueberries and honey is the perfect way to get your day started…

    • Tracy

      yes! baby sling is awesome- but the car puts Cooper to sleep so I hate to walk him to put him in a sling!

      thank you flo! that helps a lot. The bottom line is that I just need to map out the week’s worth of food! My problem is that I sometimes feel so exhausted to cook…or I JUST cleaned my kitchen and don’t feel like making it dirty again!

      lol Lana. Go Figure!

  • Colleen

    Its so hard but it does get better. I FINALLY figured out that the best thing for us was to make a big batch-o-somethin’ on Sunday and we could eat it during the week. I used to make lovely dinners every day so was in a little grief/denial phase about that going away and was really pressuring myself to find a way to keep up that old routine. Which of course doesn’t work anymore and only ended up making me upset/sad/frustrated/disappointed. Once I let go its been 10,000 times better and we actually have *a meal* instead of grazing on all sorts of junk waiting for the baby to go sleep and then cooking. Or not because by then we’d eaten so many chips that it was just pathetic.

  • howtoeatacupcake

    Ever since my trip to Greece two years ago, I’ve been HOOKED on yogurt and honey! I like mine with some muesli!

  • Terry

    When the kids were younger (they are 17 and 19 now), we used to grill lots of different things on Sunday – chicken, beef, italian sausages, spuds, and then would turn the precooked meals into something during the week – I could never get dinner together in half an hour, but in under an hour was manageable. cleaned all the veggies on the weekend, and bagged them. I made lunch for myself with leftovers (cooked rice, grilled meat of some sort, and a small shake from a bag of frozen vegetables from Trader joes.) I’d put prepackaged lunches for me in the freezer, and could just grab one on the way out of the house. I would put together little baggies of carrots and celery for the boys, and bought small throwaway containers (like you would put salsa in at a taco takeout) and would add ranch dressing for their lunches. I made cookies (well, mostly I bought them, but I intended to make them) and pre-wrapped two in wax paper, and stuck them in the freezer. when morning came, I could grab veggies, dip, and cookies for the boys, plus a frozen juice box out of the freezer) and all I had to do was make a sandwich for each of them. It will get better, really. I also finally leaned on my husband to pitch in ~ which he did. Boy, was he glad when we were finished with diapers and bottles.

  • Tracy

    thank you soo much for the ideas!

    it is ALL about planning ahead. Which I am pretty good at- it’s just that sometimes I don’t FEEL like eating leftovers…sometimes I feel soo tired that microwaving it’s daunting. How stupid is that???

    i am sure it will get better. It’s already getting easier to know what I need to bring and when. Practice makes perfect!

    šŸ˜‰

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