Floral Designer or Restaurateur?

Despite the horrible humidity and high temperatures here, I am really enjoying the look of autumn in the craft stores. Especially the 50% reductions! Now is the time I get other tasks done quickly so that I can have fun with my purchases. Last year at the after-season clearance sales (wowowow 90%), I was able to collect many nice items to add to these new ones. Here are my creations from last week:

I usually work in the craft set-up area in my garage, but the heat forced me into the house. My kitchen is the easiest place inside to protect with drop clothes and for clean-up. What happens when I need to cook? Luckily with the cooking plan that I have been sharing with my daughters, I do not cook often. [See "Home Cooking" and "Order in the House" for my menu planning and cooking methods.]

Now 25 days have passed, and all our meals are eaten - so out goes the floral shop and in comes the restaurant prep. I enjoy my process (shopping one day and cooking the next); however, the shopping and putting-away, along with prep and clean-up are time-consuming and tedious for my personality. Want to know my short-cut methods so that I can enjoy the creative process of cooking? FIRST, here are meals:

RECIPE LINKS: Summer Vegetable Bake, Salisbury Steak with Caramelized Onion Gravy,  Best Ever Roast Chicken, Lasagna Rolls, Butter Bean Soup with Cabbage and Ham (With extras such as asparagus, small golden potatoes, carrots, celery, peppers, eggs. cheese, salad fixings = $28 total from each of us independent ladies)

MY MENU SHORTCUTS:

1. Plan meals in a way that suits you. I am very visual (My magnetic refrigerator "Pinterest" display).

2. Shop to save money and time. I shop on "senior day" if I can, purchase "buy-one-get-one-free" items, select sales and reliable store brands, and occasionally use coupons. Since I will be cooking that afternoon or the next day, I help separate items at check-out so that once home I do not put things in the pantry - just the appropriate bags in the refrigerator. I will be using all the items anyway during the next hours.

3. Plan the most efficient cooking order for prep, in-between clean-up, crockpot cooking, stovetop cooking, oven cooking, and final clean-up. My entire cooking process has never been more than four hours (every 20 or so days). I think that is "pretty good" since I have only one heating unit working on my old stovetop. I need to replace the entire stovetop, but it has not made the top five of the major repair list yet!

4. Enjoy your free time! Bye for now...I am off to pursue another creative project.

Order in the House!

Steps so far to bringing order to "my house"

1. Working on my home organization steadily, I continue to find balance for a new life. Somewhat following this blog, I plod on daily. The difference, I believe, is that I have occupied this structure probably as long as this competent blogger has lived. She has great ideas, so I have adapted her ideas to my home. The big difference? I have taken fourteen months compared to the fourteen week challenge. I enjoy a process!

2. My friend Sammy introduced me to Fitbit Flex, a wireless activity and sleep band. The Flex tracks my activity and sleep, as well as syncs my stats wirelessly (number of steps toward a daily goal of 10,000, calorie intake from my food log, calories burned, and sleep patterns). I like that the Flex provides real-time progress with graphs and charts, while allowing feedback from fitness partners. My biggest challenge has been to put it back on when I have my hands in water (Flex is waterproof, but I do not want to test it). Thanks, Sammy! I needed to be accountable to someone concerning a creative way to get back to healthy lifestyle habits.

"I will reward myself with new colors when I reach certain goals."

3. Want to revisit my family cooking project? After about two weeks, I needed to cook again. I shopped on senior day at Publix (Wednesday), got the crock pots going for overnight (being thrifty by considering Peak Hour Energy times), and then spent about four hours on Thursday morning preparing and cooking our meals to divide.

[Recipe links are at the end of this post.]

I had spent the weeks since last cooking by putting together a method for my visually learning brain to plan menus. I created a personalized magnetic "Pinterest" board of my recipes. My daughters had a chance to choose what they liked, and I created a "balanced" plan for the month. (I guess that I missed creating my back-to-school teaching tools. Yes, I do have my own crafting laminating machine. Is that too strange?)

"So as not to be really tacky, I will remove these once the month to six weeks is planned."

This was the plan for this week.

[Salad, Soup, Veggie Meal, Chicken Meal, Beef Meal]

"We will divide the $81.68 three ways - DELICIOUS and THRIFTY!"

"I saved $36.68 for my red wine purchases this month."

Simplify, Simplify. Simplify. Well, now I feel like a modern Thoreau, but he would probably frown on my dependence on technology.

RECIPE LINKS: Savory Tomato Cobbler, Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole, Chicken Tortilla Soup, Slow Cooker Java Brisket (I used Top Sirloin Steak), Cobb Pasta Salad