Meal Planning Reset

Published on by Kim

Ever get in a rut with meals? Where you eat the same thing over and over every week? Sometimes that is necessary…and helpful. Ruts keep us on the road. But sometimes a little creativity goes a long way. If you have the time (20-30 minutes) and the desire, a meal planning reset can easily jump you out of the ruts and spice up your diet.

Today is that day for me. Here’s how it worked:

Gather tools. I still use and love the mini sticky note meal plan on the refrigerator door method. So I needed those and a pen. Then I grabbed a new cookbook I’m excited about and my two go-to recipe binders. The new cookbook was tabbed with the recipes I was most eager to try. The binders are either tried-and-true recipes (rated by how much we enjoyed them) or new ones I’ve printed and want to try.

Browse and choose. First I went through the new cookbook (because…exciting!). I choose a few meals and wrote them on sticky notes. Then I paged through the binders. There were a bunch of new recipes to try there, so I wrote those down. I considered using a couple of old ones we hadn’t had for a while, but ended up having plenty of new options to try.

Add to grocery list. As I went through the recipes, I checked the ingredient lists to see if I would need anything that isn’t usually (or already) in my pantry/freezer. If so, I added the items to my grocery list as I went.

Clean up. The notes went on the refrigerator door. The books went back on the shelf. The grocery order was placed. Good to go!

This worked for me. What works for you?

Refresh: Organized Shelves

Published on by Kim1 Comment

May I introduce you to my home? It contains a lot of stuff. A LOT. OF STUFF. I suspect I am not the only one. If you choose not to be minimalist (or minimalist in spirit but not practice), you end up having to find a place for all that stuff. Once closets are full, or if there aren’t many closets, we often end up looking at cabinets or shelves for the rest. That is a good option for items we use often, like shelf-stable food or cookie sheets or toiletries. But the option will fail if it’s not sufficiently organized.

It helps to be able to find what you need AND minimize visual clutter in the process. Shelving is great because it is easy to access. It can be a problem, though, if it’s just more layers of unknown piles stacking to the ceiling. If what you need is buried, you can’t get it and you are oppressing your brain in the process!

Sort. Sort. Sort. Put like items together. Make it easy to see where things are in a split-second glance. Consider also which items are often used together. Mixing bowls can be in the section next to the brownie mix. Plastic food storage containers can be in the section next to the plastic bags for post-dinner clean-up.

Do your best to fit the items to the shelf size. Big shelf, big stuff. Push the little things to the smaller shelves. The less you have stacked, the easier it is to put your hand on it when needed. This also goes for bookshelves. Keep the big, tall books on the taller shelves and the short paperbacks on the more narrow shelves. It will fill the space better and look neat.

Put what you use most where it is easiest to reach. The heavier, less frequently used stuff can go on the very bottom shelf. The lighter items can go on the top shelf. You will see and reach for the middle shelves the most, so save yourself a few inches.

IMG_4225Hide what you can in plain sight. We’ve already discussed closets, but this is also for shelving out in a room. Using baskets or bins or banker’s boxes covered in contact paper will help cut down on the clutter in the room. It is there, but you don’t have to look at it until you need it. Using a neutral color for the bins or paper cover will make the shapes blend into the background. Or you can take the opportunity to add a pop of color to the room.

Mix up your shelving. You can use the same set of shelves for books, a few boxes, a vase with flowers, a few picture frames, and toy storage. Bonus: it looks decorative, just like in catalogs! This will also help relieve some of the pressure to fill the shelf with whatever you had earmarked for it. Keep what you need and is meaningful. If you only need enough books, toys and pictures to fill one shelving unit — excellent. If it eventually expands to two, no problem, but resist the urge to force the expansion just to fill space. Note: you will still need to sort into separate areas. For instance, one shelf is books, one shelf is half books and half pictures, and the bottom shelf is toys.