As I shared in my last post, I recently accepted a new full-time position. As such, I would no longer be home during the days to make sure an amazing meal was ready for my husband when he got home from work. Because, clearly, that’s what a wife agrees to do when she gets married. “I vow to ensure a hot meal is ready for each meal that will taste great…”
Anyway, thanks to Pinterest, I didn’t worry long about what I would do. A few weeks ago, the new Pinterest theme was frozen meals, which many of the people I follow were pinning.
After a bit of research, and a lot of recipe tweaking (I’m a really picky eater), I had about a dozen recipes I was ready to try.
Photo from Ginnerobot, Creative Commons
Skipping all of cooking details, here is what I learned.
Planning is Essential.
I had a list of recipes, all which had the amounts of ingredients needed. But what I didn’t do was combine them recipes to create a list by ingredients, which would have saved time at the grocery store.
Additionally, when I got home, I took the suggestion made by many bloggers that said to get all the prep work out of the way first. Well, I didn’t really know how much of everything I would need in the end, so what turned into a possible 4 hour adventure ended up taking 2 days.
If I would have simply spent another hour planning and figuring out a system, I could have accomplished my results in a more efficient way.
Patience is Essential.
The downside to Pinterest is the excitement it stirs. All of the fun things I saw on the different sites I wanted to do right away. As such, I didn’t shop around much for products.
I usually only frequent one grocery store chain in town, as they are local, friendly, and a great community supporter. However, I probably should have checked prices, looked for sales, and went with things that were in season.
If I would have simply waited until I could gather all the items, I could have accomplished my results in a more cost-effective way.
Crying Over Spilled Milk is Not Essential.
First of all, I don’t have a lot of counter space. We have a lot of gadgets that we use and take up space on our counters. Going back to planning, I should have just cleared everything (except for the TV that was encouragingly playing Food Network) to offer more workspace.
As the dishes piled up, the cooling foods covered my table, and cooling racks could stack no higher, I started to lose it. How did these people do it? When my husband got home the first day, I was so discouraged. But he reminded me that there is no reason to be upset – so moved on and focused on what I could do right.
The next day was better, and I ended up going back to the grocery store to tackle more meals.
When life throws obstacles in the way, it is easy to have a melt-down. But it is just as easy to stand up, brush off the dirt, and move on.
Learn from failures, but don’t let them haunt you.
My initial failure only provided me with the motivation to be efficient like those perfect bloggers. And I definitely will be doing another batch of freezer meals when time allows.
How do you handle life’s little stresses? Leave a comment below!
*Photo from Ginnerobot, Creative Commons