Prioritizing for 2011

Happy Thanksgiving Eve (and Happy Birthday to me)! Sure enough, we are in full-tilt holiday season and will be going, going, going until sometime in mid-January.

But for today I am reflecting on Thanksgiving and all the people and things that are dear to me. I am also wondering what it means to enter my fourth decade of life. (Wow, did I really say it that way? It makes me sound even older!)

All this thinking reminded me of dear old Dad and his frequent refrain that, "To Fail to Plan is to Plan to Fail." Dad's ideas aren't as corny as they once seemed. Raising my son has made me think a lot about what things I want to do intentionally with him. I have also thought about how, if left to ramble through each day, we might just eat, sleep, play, and then wonder where the time went.

It's good to have a plan. To-do lists are helpful (and can even be fun!) but a plan allows for more direction and includes long-range goals. If I don't prioritize and make plans for vacations, trips to the zoo, art classes and dates to the bakery, life will go on and we'll miss making special memories. And I certainly don't want to wind up in a nursing home filled with regrets and "shoulda, coulda, woulda's."

As you navigate the holiday season and 2011, may I encourage you to be more intentional about defining your priorities and putting them on your calendar first? For me, in addition to the zoo type stuff, that will include planning a few free days that I can enjoy being with the people I love. You know, things like spending the day in my pajamas, baking, playing music and dancing around with my son, and taking time to be thankful for it all.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Motherhood and an Organized Home

Yesterday, my darling son decided he wanted to wake up at 2:30am.

He went back to sleep at 5:00 but by then, I had far too many projects in my mind that needed doing. Many were work projects. I also had to make soup for dinner with friends, but since I needed ingredients from the store, that had to wait until later in the day. (So much for my buying ahead/meal planning every week). Once I had all the ingredients and he was down for a nap, I raced to make the soup. I desperately hoped to squeeze in a nap for me after the soup was done. Sure enough, my boy only napped a little over an hour.

Room by Room: Pantry

The pantry is a natural extension of keeping your kitchen organized. It holds non-perishable canned or packaged goods that you want to keep on hand for common recipes.

Not everyone has the luxury of a pantry closet or extra cabinet space. You might have to create a space: shelves in the basement or on the stairway to the basement, a rack in a somewhat climate controlled garage, or even in part of a hutch or other piece of furniture in your dining room. We converted part of a hallway coat closet by adding shelving, and then hung a coat rack in our foyer for coats.

Here's a snapshot of what my pantry looked like after a quick organizing and before I went to the store to replenish stuff that was low or used up. (In other words, it looks better here than on the average day.)

The top shelf holds a real mishmash of items. Some are too big for other shelves, but there is no real rhyme or reason. The next shelf down has baking supplies. Then we move down to kid food and soups. Then pasta and tomatoes, then sauces, beans and other miscellaneous staples. The bottom shelf has PB&J supplies and at this point in time was a temporary storage place for another container. (One of the things I realized when I organized the pantry was that I had five jars of jam! Another good reason to keep things grouped by type.)

There is no magical way to organize your pantry, except for two basic principles: (1) keep similar items together so that they are easier to find, and (2) practice first in, first out rotation. In other words, use up the oldest stuff in the pantry before you open the newer packages. Refer to the "best by" or "use by" dates on most items if you aren't sure what's oldest.

A few other ideas to make sure that you have a well-stocked but not oversupplied pantry:

1. If you aren't sure how often you will need to replenish an item (baking soda, for instance) write the date on the bottom of the box in Sharpie marker when you open it. If you find you use only one box a year or less, don't bother purchasing another box until the current one is empty. On the other hand, if you find you are going through something often, stock up when there is a sale.
2. Refer to the cool grocery checklist that I pictured in a previous post. Going through this list jogged my memory about some things (beans, broth) I would need for fall/winter cooking.
3. Don't be afraid to buy a large quantity of something if it's offered at a good price. I had a coupon for my favorite cereal in addition to it being on sale. So I bought five boxes. When I need to, I use the floor of the pantry or rearrange other shelves so the purchases fit.
4. If you have more items than you will realistically use before they pass their date, set them aside for upcoming holiday food drives. I always put out a really interesting combination of things, though I am sure to include some of the suggested items on the list!