Don’t You Know How Busy and Important Am?

“Don’t you know how busy and important I am, I’ve got so much to do? Ask me out to dinner on a Friday night, I can’t go, I’ve got too much to do” Don’t You Know How Busy and Important I am?  –Tom Rosenthal

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Today, I am going to continue down the path of sharing methods of organization that takes a little of the stress off my life. This one is something that I have done for quite a while. Calendaring and meal planning. I have fallen off the wagon of meal planning in the past and it is noticeable how much more often we eat out when I don’t do it. I have been very consistent with it over the past year or so and it helps me feel like that one extra component of our life is taken care of. Now, as you take a look at this month’s calendar, you will notice we are just starting to add actual ‘events’ back into it.

Our family has been pretty diligent about quarantining and we are very slowly adding activities back into our lives. I’m going to take a few minutes to have a side conversation about that subject.

Over this past 6 months, we have felt a shift. At first I couldn’t tell if it was positive or negative in nature, but as the hubs and I have been discussing, it has been very clear to us that we need to take a look at how we are planning our lives and spending our time. A huge pet peeve of mine is when overly scheduled, busy families use this as an indicator of status or a competition to show who is doing more. We are going to attempt to be cognizant of this going forward, to be intentional with our time and not just fill the calendar to keep ourselves busy.  We want to spend more time investing in building relationships, rather than just being busy without there being purpose behind it. Keeping the kids active and engaged is fun and important but looking at the time we have together now, we have to ask, was it worth it running ourselves ragged to be at baseball, soccer, fencing, basketball, ice skating, music lessons, church events, school events and so on and on and on. With a 13-year-old in the house it’s clear those 18 years go by fast. When we look back, we need to ask was it worth it, did it matter? We want it to matter. We will be continuing to pray and decide where we truly need to be spending time and what other opportunities God may have for us in and outside of the church. God has blessed our family with talents and the desire to serve others and I’m positive things will start coming to light soon.

Now that I got that out of the way, back to calendaring and meal planning. Due to the nature of our jobs, and both of us travelling so much, keeping a calendar and planning meals  far in advance was extremely helpful to whomever was flying solo that week, so my kids have grown up with this method, and again I don’t know if it is a positive or negative thing for them now. They are so driven by structure, that sometimes to veer from the plan is quite jarring for them. They are not always ‘go-with-the-flow’ kids. They like to know what is happening, when and where and what time. They like to see what is for dinner for the next week. I often hear their discussions, about being excited for the 15th, because, ‘Looks what’s for dinner!’ Another advantage that I have found with the meal planning, and this is somewhat new, I started a few months before we were told to quarantine, so it was just a continued amenity for us. I began using services like Instacart and Shipt. Not only was it a convenience for me, I mean, HELLO, select your groceries at night after the kids are in bed, schedule to pick up the next day AND someone brings said groceries to my car for free! This would have been a game changer when I couldn’t find grocery carts that had enough seating for three littles! How could this be a bad thing? Only one time has this caused an internal struggle for me, it was a day that I happened to be exceptionally excited to not have to get out in the ice cold rain, and go in. As I was sitting there, an elderly lady, who must have been assigned to delivery duty, and had to bring out my groceries- this triggered instant crappy feels and I wanted to crawl under my car seat and die, as the lazy mom sat in her car listening to her hoopla book, while someone’s nanna loaded my car in an ice storm. I have tried to block that moment out of my mind and still feel that this is the best invention ever. These services are convenient AND I am not spending the extra money on those spontaneous buys that I don’t need.  If you feel you are overspending on groceries and you are not meal planning, I urge you to try it, it may just help you save a few of your dollars.

I want to point out, as I continue to discuss things on my blog that work to help keep my family organized and mostly happy, always keep in mind, your family looks and operates completely different from mine. Feel free to take bits and pieces from some of my ideas, I mean, most of what I do was inspired by others as well. I’m always happy to answer questions or provide helpful tips if you want them. As an example, don’t feel you need to make your calendar some piece of art work, this just happens to be something I enjoy doing, it is a stress reliever for me and having my meals planned for the month, is also a stress reliever for me. Do I allow myself to stray from the plan? Of course! We all have had days where you have just had too much and the last thing you want to do is cook, and you decide to pick up pizza. Please for goodness sake, give yourself a break and Order. The. Pizza. It’s all about figuring out what works for your family and adjusting where you need to.