31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Seventeen : Meal Planning, Part Three

I thought since I'm a meal-planner-in-training, I'd offer up some great resources from seasoned planners to encourage your own menu-planning efforts. Even if you are already great at planning your meals, you might find a new printable planning sheet or tip to make things run even more smoothly.

Simple Mom

You might not want to hear this, but the holidays are literally around the corner. This post from Tsh at Simple Mom is specific to December and details not only their menu plan for the month, but the batch cooking she plans for busy times.

Keeper of the Home
Not only is Stephanie really on top of meal planning, but she also focuses on feeding her family "real foods" and avoiding processed foods. This post (written by one of her contributors) is about getting back on the meal planning wagon and gives her actual menu for two weeks. The entire blog is chock full of great menu planning tips and strategies, but this post is a great starting point.

Faithful Provisions
I sort of stumbled upon this blog and while I'm not a couponer (funny that we use that as a word now) I really enjoyed all her resources for menu planning. She has a lot of printables to help keep you organized.

5 Dinners-in-1hr
If you want to be a real go-getter, then this one's for you! You can buy a subscription and receive monthly plans with grocery lists that train you to prep five dinners in an hour that can be easily reheated during the course of the week. If you aren't into the whole advanced meal prep idea, Michelle still has awesome recipes on her site and lots of great tips for making delicious meals for a family.

I hope you find some of these awesome blogs/posts helpful! Do you have a favorite meal-planning resource??

Check out the previous days of the series here!

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Sixteen : Meal Planning, Part Two

Yesterday I admitted that I am horrible at meal planning and that it's one area where I would really like to improve. Whenever I read about someone who plans meals a month at a time (or actually cooks for a month at a time) I feel like such a slacker and so envious of their mama skills. I can at least make the effort to start out a week at a time.

I'm not the most able graphic designer and I don't really have the time to design my own meal planning sheet. And seriously why kill myself doing this when so many talented folks have already done this and provide free printables?!

Thankfulness Thursdays/ Week Twelve

Week twelve of Thankfulness Thursdays and Thanksgiving itself is not too far away! Inspired by Ashley of Domestic Fashionista, each Thursday I post about something for which I am thankful. If you're feeling grateful this week too, jot it down and hop over to Domestic Fashionista to link up!

Today I'm thankful for our network of support.

Last weekend we celebrated the baptism of our son and it was beautiful to see all those who joined in the festivities. We are blessed with wonderful godparents, who I know will treasure their duty and play a significant role in the life of my baby boy. Many of the same people who have celebrated with us at times of triumph and rallied around us in times of strife were there to yet again surround our family as we welcomed our son into the community of God.

I'm thankful for a group that will celebrate this momentous occasion with us regardless of personal beliefs. For those who don't lay a claim to the gift of grace, I pray that our ceremony would impact them in some small way. I'm grateful of course for our little guy and pray for a lifetime of blessings upon him. How fortunate we are to have so much love with which to surround him.

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Fifteen : Meal Planning, Part One

Confession: I am awful at meal planning. It's one of the areas that I know would really help me, but I'm inconsistent at best when it comes to planning our meals in advance. I'd really like to improve on this so the next few days will be about taking some steps towards consistent menu planning.

To start off, I wanted to have some back-up meals in the freezer that can be thrown in the crock pot when I know it's going to be a hectic day. Even this takes some planning because the meals have to thaw beforehand. I think I can handle looking ahead at the week and seeing that Thursday is going to be busy so I better thaw a freezer meal Wednesday to make dinner easier the next night. Are you following me?

I did some research on good old Pinterest for freezer meals and found myself a brand new blog to read. It's the mecca of meals, crafts, DIY and it's called Six Sisters' Stuff. You might have heard of it; they have like ten zillion followers. The post that I found on Pinterest was this one about making 8 slow cooker freezer meals in one hour. Yahtzee!

I chose three of the eight meals to start: Black Bean Taco Soup, Hearty Beef Stew, and Cilantro Lime Chicken. I made a shopping list and took my little guy to the store to stock up.

I labeled gallon ziploc bags with each meal, today's date and the time each needs in the slow cooker. Then I just followed the instructions on Six Sisters and dumped everything in. I browned the ground turkey for the black bean taco soup first and let it cool while I put together the other two meals.

Now I have three ready-made meals that just need heating up to make dinner a snap!

Join me tomorrow for more adventures in meal planning and check out the previous days in the series here.

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Fourteen : Much-needed Inspiration

The longer I write this series, the more I respect bloggers who post daily or almost daily. It takes a lot of work to come up with a quality post for each day. Today instead of taking a break, I'm sharing some of the organization blogs and sites that I find most inspiring and motivating. Get ready to see some serious organization skills!

I Heart Organizing
From DIY to creative storage to printables to keep you organized, this gal does it all! Jen is a home management guru and clearly works hard to make her home not only orderly, but beautiful.

A Bowl Full of Lemons

Toni takes the cake when it comes to organization. Her blog is full of fabulous ideas and tutorials to help you get control of your own home.

Organizing Made Fun

Becky has a zillion ideas for organizing on a budget. Her blog is a great reminder that you don't have to blow the budget or have endless space in order to be organized.

I hope this gives you some good motivation to tackle some organizational projects! I'll be back tomorrow with more ways I'm getting life in order.

Check out the whole 31 day series here!

Leibster Award Nomination

I'm really excited to share that I was nominated for the Leibster Award by Mary at Cherry Blossom Love! I've been reading Mary's blog since the beginning of October and it's great. She's a new mom, talented with graphic design and all around awesome so you should check out her blog!

The Leibster Award is geared towards building up recognition of smaller blogs (less than 200 followers). Each nominee selects other small blogs to nominate as a way to spread the blog love! Here are the rules...

31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Thirteen : Vacation Recovery

We just got back from a four day trip to the LA area for some great time with family and friends. I'm sorry that I had to skip two days of posting, but I promise to fulfill the 31 days anyway. At the last minute, the hubs was able to take some extra time and we extended our trip, which was awesome, but also meant packing in a hurry and not enough time to get posts ready for our absence. Boo (but yay for our trip)!

Now we're back and I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about how I "recover" our family and home from an out of town trip. Here's what happened when we came home and unloaded the car...

And that's not even all of it! So what do I do??