Remember my very first post and how I admitted to being a blog stalker? One of the reasons I’m addicted to blogs is because I feel like I learn something about the way someone else… does life. Some of the blogs I follow are stay at home moms, some aren’t married, some live in big cities, some are full-time bloggers… {you get the idea}. And it’s just so interesting to me to learn about someone else’s day-to-day life and pick up inspiration along the way.
So, I started thinking about the things that I do all the time in an attempt to style my life in a very simple way. These are all things I’ve grown into and learned over the last five years or so. I’ll share my list if you’ll share some of your tips… deal?
1. Do laundry on sunday. My usual Sunday routine is church / lunch / nap. And it’s not very often that I veer from that schedule. It’s a really easy schedule to throw laundry in the mix of everything else. I usually do two loads of clothes and one load of towels. {I realize I’m only washing for the two of us and some of you mom’s with little kids are hating me right now.} I really like starting the week off with an empty hamper. It also helps to have our towels on a “schedule.” I never have to stop and think about when they need to be washed, when they were last washed, blah blah blah.
2. Start laundry before leaving. This one is a recent discovery. I don’t mind doing laundry but sometimes when you get home late from work and forget to start a load immediately, you find yourself staying up waiting for the dryer to buzz. Not my favorite thing. So, I’ve learned that I can put the clothes in the wash, transfer them to the dryer and then leave. As long as I restart it for about 10 minutes before I fold it, they’re wrinkle free.
3. Keep Dinner ingredients on hand. If I have to go to the grocery store after work just for a dinner ingredient for that night, it probably isn’t happening. I’d just rather not eat than hit up the grocery store every night after work and before even beginning dinner. It exhausts me just thinking about it. Although I talk smack about myself for having a small dinner rotation, part of that is by design. It’s a lot easier to keep ingredients stocked for dinner {without worrying about them going bad} if you only cook a few options. It’s pretty much a guarantee that I have spaghetti ingredients on hand at all times.
4. Use Cozi. I’ve used the Cozi app on my phone for a couple of years and I downloaded it because I’d heard that it was great for keeping families’ schedules at your fingertips. Well, David’s not exactly a planner. So it’s taken him years to get on board. But I finally convinced him to download it on his phone and he’s actually been using it. {I know it’s shocking when my ideas actually work.} I was adding something to the calendar a few weeks ago and noticed his events in there. I almost fell out of my chair.
If you’re not familiar with Cozi, it’s a calendar {along with other features like grocery lists} that allows your whole family to have an access to the same account to see everyone’s appointments in the same place. You can color code it so each person’s schedule has a different look. If you want to read more about Cozi, click here.
5. Relax together. I love to have the time to just be together and relax. But with busy lives, that’s not always easy. One way I try to make that happen is by working when he works. I don’t actually mean his job {although I am fortunate that our work schedules match up pretty closely}. I mean, when he mows the grass, I’ll clean. When he pays bills, I’ll make dinner. When he’s in class, I blog. I find that if I’m productive when he is, I’m more likely to have lazy time when he does. I don’t stick to this 100% of the time but it’s something that’s a good rule of thumb.
6. Use Aluminum foil on baking sheets. Now this is one that’s straight up ridiculous… but it makes life simpler. Anytime I can use aluminum foil on a baking sheet, I do. If it takes 2 minutes off dinner clean up time, that’s gonna add up to a big chunk of time over the course of a week…month…year…lifetime. Plus, it’s not that expensive. My friend Amber is the crockpot queen. {I told her she has to do a feature post with one of her recipes at some point.} Yesterday she gave me a box of crockpot liners. I had used them a while back and then kind of forgotten about them. This is the same kind of idea… makes cleanup so much quicker {and I’m all about that!}.
7. Do the Dishes together. When we first got married, I wasn’t really used to cooking every night. I had cooked some in college and then when I lived by myself, I cooked some. But other nights I would eat a salad or something that didn’t require much prep. But throw David into the mix… let me just tell you that there will be no salads as a meal in this house. He’ll eat a salad as part of his meal but it is not a meal. Neither is cereal. Or any other lazy meal. So, I was learning how to manage this whole cooking for two people thing. And I was kind of… stressed about it. But it wasn’t just the cooking, it was that he takes forever {and I really mean foreverrrrr} to eat dinner and then we had to do the dishes after and I swear it was like a two hour process from start to finish. And then one night we went to his parents for dinner and they had this routine down pat. After dinner, the dishes took like 3 minutes. From table to dishwasher loaded was seriously 3 minutes. I told him we had to get in that groove. And we might not be down to 3 minutes but we’ve got a routine and it doesn’t take long to do the dishes now.
8. Grill chicken on Sunday nights. This is also a recent addition to our routine. {I’m not even sure it can be called a routine yet… we’ve done it maybe two or three times.} David loves to grill and he’s always learning new secrets and trying new things. Sometimes he works late(ish) and some nights he has class, so grilling isn’t always an option during the week. Grilled chicken seems to go so well with so many different meals. I love putting it on top of a salad for lunch too! Here’s to hoping he continues this one because I really can’t take any credit.
9. Have a place for everything. I lose everything. Like, it’s unreal how much stuff mysteriously grows legs and walks away around here. Not lose like gone-forever lost, but like can’t-find-it-when-I need-it, lost. Something I’ve really worked at in our house is having a specific place where everything goes. I don’t know if this is really one of those things that you ever truly achieve but I feel pretty good about where we are right now. Some examples are: hooks for the keys right inside the door, a shelf for my purse, a bench for his briefcase, the wi-fi password in the same spot on the side of the fridge… that kinda thing.
10. Shower at night. This has freed up my mornings so much. When I first started showering at night, I used it as an extra excuse to sleep in longer because it didn’t take me as long to get ready. My goal since the school year has started, was to get up with David. {You can read about my September goals here.} So now I get tons {ok, maybe not tons but some} stuff done and then get ready for work. I usually wash my hair every other night. {You can read my post about the miracle of dry shampoo here because without that, it wouldn’t be possible.}
Ok, I there was my list… now it’s your turn. Comment below and share one or two things you do that make life a little easier. Come on, it’s only fair. I want to learn some new things I can be doing…
You can catch up with this series by reading the busy girl’s guide to the manicured life here.
