Blog? What blog?!?
ok, I'm clearly not cut out to be a professional blogger because I haven't been publishing. Not that I want to be a professional blogger (what the heck to I have to say that enough other people want to read that would make any money?), but the point of this blog is that it's supposed to be one 'prong' of my multi-prong approach to getting back to my perfect weight.
well, I haven't been blogging. Nor have I lost any weight. hmmmm.... I think I see a pattern!
However, I have been up to stuff. I might as well talk about it here to help establish a habit of posting.
A) I read a book on habits. Sounds like a self-help book, but it's not. and it's FASCINATING!
B) Started a Bullet Journal. The weight may not be falling off me, but I am organizing myself and creating habits and systems in my life. While that might not be a size 8 pair of Lucky Jeans, it feels mighty good!
C) Meal planning. Did you know that a regular mouth mason jar will fit on a regular blender cap/yoke thing? That means instead of using the glass blender jar, I can prep smoothies ahead of time and freeze them, and if assembled correctly (funny story), I can take them out from the freezer, add some almond milk, change the mason jar lid for blender yoke with blades, and whir whir, in 45 seconds have a delicious smoothie with only the blades to clean up! That's meal planning, right?!
oh Joy! What a organizing miracle! This will be my salvation! I went out an immediately bought a case of pint mason jars plus some accompanying lids for straws!
Then made smoothies like 3 times and stopped.
D) Meal planning. I'm *sure* you have to aware of the Mason jar Salad craze that's out there! Did you know you can make salads by layering the ingredients in the proper order in a mason jar and that sucker will stay fresh and delicious in your fridge for 5 days or more? This means instead of making lunch for myself and/or Marty everyday, I can plan a little bit in advance, prep on Sunday, and ensure a delicious, healthy meal for us that travels easily? That's meal planning, right?!
oh Joy! What a organizing miracle! This will be my salvation! I went out an immediately bought a case of quart quart mason jars!
Then made like 4 salads and stopped.
E) Meal planning. Holy cow! Did you know with a pressure cooker, you can not only cook the same meals you make in a slow cooker, but much faster, retaining more nutrients, AAANNNNDDDD with the *right* pressure Cooker, you can program the cooker to do what you want, when you want, making cooking a breeze!
oh Joy! What a organizing miracle! This will be my salvation! I went out an immediately bought an awesome Instant Pot (and one for my dad, too)!
Then made like a lot of pulled pork and some chili then stopped.
(ok, yes, I see a pattern here, but in my defense on this one, I *did* use the IP (Instant Pot Pressure cooker) a lot, but it seemed like a winter time tool. And again, if you don't have the ingredients on hand (i.e. "planning") then you can't use the cooker.)
F) Meal planning. This is hard. I've never (successfully) done this before on any scale larger than a week. I seriously need to figure out what the problems is here. Clearly, I get these awesome ideas then don't follow through. One reason is because I'm not a naturally organized person and am easily distracted. Secondly, I'm a "what's in the fridge that we can throw in a pot?" type of cook. I don't follow recipes and I don't make grocery lists. When I go to the store I just buy what looks good and then figure out what to do with it later. This has always worked out fine for me, but doesn't encourage the habit of meal planning. I literally will think, "hmmmm.... Look what time it is. No wonder I'm getting hungry. I guess I should see what's in the fridge". But I haven't thought ahead to pull something out of the freezer or anything. This doesn't bother me... if there's not much at hand, a bowl of steamed broccoli with butter and salt is a super dinner for me (read "bowl of steamed brocolli" as "bag of chips and salsa". sigh), but for some reason that I can't figure out it's not Marty's preferred meal time routine!
So, I tried to just plan in the am for that evening's meal (and by "plan" I really mean "remember to pull something out of the freezer so it's defrosted in time") but that didn't work out so well. As a reformed vegetarian, not having a protein doesn't phase me, but Marty prefers to have a more balance/varied meal and that means I either have to have proteins ready in the fridge, or get them out of the freezer in advance.
We have friends who have been married 30 years. They sit down on Saturdays to plan what they want for the week and then shop on Sunday. So I thought we should try that and we did, but I literally just stared at a blank sheet of paper for 10 minutes then fired up Netflix to deal with the anxiety.
So with the new Bullet Journal euphoria I'm currently experiencing, I decided to see what other 'Bojo' lovers were doing. Long story short, nothing really helped.
However... I decided to sit down and look at this situation as though I was back at work tackling a project that is stalling.
And I came up with something! **
ok, this is a lot of blogging for me. So I'm going to actually create a new post just on my meal planning plan.
Plus, while the BuJo community may not have come through for me on the whole meal planning issue, my bullet journal *has* made me more organized and I'm getting more accomplished. All while having an opportunity to exercise some creativity. I'll post about bullet journals separately as well.
That's all for now. I need to get crackin'!
love,
Amanda
** (Side note: I might be on to something with this whole "do things in my own life the way I would do them if someone was paying me" thing. Yesterday, Marty and I decided it was high time to organize the little landing area near the stairs that is basically an eyesore consisting of a built in cabinet/desk that is piled high with old mail, magazines, receipts and Jimmy Hoffa's body.
I asked:
and voila! with some hanging file folders, Some KUPOL stackable drawer thingies from IKEA that was collecting dust in my office, and a label maker... we have a working solution!)
well, I haven't been blogging. Nor have I lost any weight. hmmmm.... I think I see a pattern!
However, I have been up to stuff. I might as well talk about it here to help establish a habit of posting.
A) I read a book on habits. Sounds like a self-help book, but it's not. and it's FASCINATING!
B) Started a Bullet Journal. The weight may not be falling off me, but I am organizing myself and creating habits and systems in my life. While that might not be a size 8 pair of Lucky Jeans, it feels mighty good!
C) Meal planning. Did you know that a regular mouth mason jar will fit on a regular blender cap/yoke thing? That means instead of using the glass blender jar, I can prep smoothies ahead of time and freeze them, and if assembled correctly (funny story), I can take them out from the freezer, add some almond milk, change the mason jar lid for blender yoke with blades, and whir whir, in 45 seconds have a delicious smoothie with only the blades to clean up! That's meal planning, right?!
oh Joy! What a organizing miracle! This will be my salvation! I went out an immediately bought a case of pint mason jars plus some accompanying lids for straws!
Then made smoothies like 3 times and stopped.
D) Meal planning. I'm *sure* you have to aware of the Mason jar Salad craze that's out there! Did you know you can make salads by layering the ingredients in the proper order in a mason jar and that sucker will stay fresh and delicious in your fridge for 5 days or more? This means instead of making lunch for myself and/or Marty everyday, I can plan a little bit in advance, prep on Sunday, and ensure a delicious, healthy meal for us that travels easily? That's meal planning, right?!
oh Joy! What a organizing miracle! This will be my salvation! I went out an immediately bought a case of quart quart mason jars!
Then made like 4 salads and stopped.
E) Meal planning. Holy cow! Did you know with a pressure cooker, you can not only cook the same meals you make in a slow cooker, but much faster, retaining more nutrients, AAANNNNDDDD with the *right* pressure Cooker, you can program the cooker to do what you want, when you want, making cooking a breeze!
oh Joy! What a organizing miracle! This will be my salvation! I went out an immediately bought an awesome Instant Pot (and one for my dad, too)!
Then made like a lot of pulled pork and some chili then stopped.
(ok, yes, I see a pattern here, but in my defense on this one, I *did* use the IP (Instant Pot Pressure cooker) a lot, but it seemed like a winter time tool. And again, if you don't have the ingredients on hand (i.e. "planning") then you can't use the cooker.)
F) Meal planning. This is hard. I've never (successfully) done this before on any scale larger than a week. I seriously need to figure out what the problems is here. Clearly, I get these awesome ideas then don't follow through. One reason is because I'm not a naturally organized person and am easily distracted. Secondly, I'm a "what's in the fridge that we can throw in a pot?" type of cook. I don't follow recipes and I don't make grocery lists. When I go to the store I just buy what looks good and then figure out what to do with it later. This has always worked out fine for me, but doesn't encourage the habit of meal planning. I literally will think, "hmmmm.... Look what time it is. No wonder I'm getting hungry. I guess I should see what's in the fridge". But I haven't thought ahead to pull something out of the freezer or anything. This doesn't bother me... if there's not much at hand, a bowl of steamed broccoli with butter and salt is a super dinner for me (read "bowl of steamed brocolli" as "bag of chips and salsa". sigh), but for some reason that I can't figure out it's not Marty's preferred meal time routine!
So, I tried to just plan in the am for that evening's meal (and by "plan" I really mean "remember to pull something out of the freezer so it's defrosted in time") but that didn't work out so well. As a reformed vegetarian, not having a protein doesn't phase me, but Marty prefers to have a more balance/varied meal and that means I either have to have proteins ready in the fridge, or get them out of the freezer in advance.
We have friends who have been married 30 years. They sit down on Saturdays to plan what they want for the week and then shop on Sunday. So I thought we should try that and we did, but I literally just stared at a blank sheet of paper for 10 minutes then fired up Netflix to deal with the anxiety.
So with the new Bullet Journal euphoria I'm currently experiencing, I decided to see what other 'Bojo' lovers were doing. Long story short, nothing really helped.
However... I decided to sit down and look at this situation as though I was back at work tackling a project that is stalling.
- What is the goal of the project?
- What are obstacles making the goal difficult to achieve?
- What are some ways to increase efficiency while achieving this goal?
And I came up with something! **
ok, this is a lot of blogging for me. So I'm going to actually create a new post just on my meal planning plan.
Plus, while the BuJo community may not have come through for me on the whole meal planning issue, my bullet journal *has* made me more organized and I'm getting more accomplished. All while having an opportunity to exercise some creativity. I'll post about bullet journals separately as well.
That's all for now. I need to get crackin'!
love,
Amanda
** (Side note: I might be on to something with this whole "do things in my own life the way I would do them if someone was paying me" thing. Yesterday, Marty and I decided it was high time to organize the little landing area near the stairs that is basically an eyesore consisting of a built in cabinet/desk that is piled high with old mail, magazines, receipts and Jimmy Hoffa's body.
I asked:
- What is the purpose of this space?
- What types of things need to happen at this space (except I worded it "what are the use cases")?
- What would the work flow be?
and voila! with some hanging file folders, Some KUPOL stackable drawer thingies from IKEA that was collecting dust in my office, and a label maker... we have a working solution!)
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