I've never been an overwhelmingly organized person in my personal life. I've generally flown by the seat of my pants: I cleaned when things were dirty, I ate when I was hungry,
Then, I became a mom.
When motherhood came, it hit me like a ton of bricks, and when I went back to work things got even crazier.
Fitting in time to take care of my son, be fully present at work, keep a house clean, and a relationship intact felt like an Olympic feat at first. The first thing to suffer? Cooking dinner.
Now my husband will totally pitch in where he can, but that man could burn water, so dinner falls on me if it is coming from our oven.
Ordering out ended up sucking our wallets dry and messing with our bodies immensely.
I tried to brainstorm ways to get back to cooking and came up short. I could meal prep, but let's be real, I'm half dead on the weekends by the time my kid goes to sleep, and just couldn't see myself at the stove for actual hours on end. I could do all one pot meals, but I know we'd get sick of that fast.
Clicking around on Amazon as I am prone to do, I came across a simple chalkboard and had an ah-ha moment.
I quickly ordered it, and some chalk pens, and made a plan … literally. I might not have the constitution to do a week's worth of meals in a single night, but I did have enough energy to plan out meals.
In 20 minutes I hung it up and wrote out the days of the week.
I took a peek in my fridge and made a rough plan. The night before each day, I'd check the board and take out what I needed to defrost, and the next day set about making my intended meal. After two weeks of doing this consistently, it became a lifelong habit. There are times I switch out what I'm making and what I'm not, but overall, we're ordering out less, we're feeling better, and are getting our son to try more foods outside of chicken nuggets.
Admittedly we're still really working on that last bit. Sometimes just taking a minute to write it down can help, and if you're in the middle of mom chaos, I highly recommend giving this a shot.
Psst: If you purchase an item from this post, CafeMom may receive a small cut. Each item and price is up to date at the time of publication; however, an item may be sold out or the price may be different at a later date.
