Category Archives: working mom

Here we go!

Last night I finished filling out my paperwork. I made sure the coffee pot was ready to go. I ironed my slacks and even though the dress code is pretty casual I felt weird wearing jeans on my first day, I made sure to choose a shirt that wasn’t too dressy, but didn’t look dumb with slacks. For the first time in ten…eleven…maybe 12 days? I’m not sure, I’ve actually lost count, I set my alarm.

I left right on time this morning. I made it here in great time. I’ve got my hot cup of coffee, my lunch, my paperwork and my notebook all ready to go.

So here we go!

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The end of a chapter

I wasn’t really sure if there would be tears or not. I’ve been fine all day…through our office lunch, while I read their card, through the goodbye hugs. But there is something about sitting here, in a quiet office, wrapping up outstanding projects at my half-packed desk that is leaving me on the brink of losing it.

It’s very surreal to think that next week I won’t be sitting in this office. At this spot I’ve made my own. With these people I consider my extended family. After 7 years with the majority of them, it’s hard not to think of them like that. They’ve been through my two pregnancies and child births, loss of family members, the purchase of my property and so many other milestones in my adult life.

They were my first bosses in the corporate world. I’ve been through 4 different companies with them. Worked late nights and weekends just to get the job done. Traveled the country with them.  We’ve done amazing things together. Accomplished so many things.

They’ve pushed me to my limits. They’ve helped me grow. They’ve taught me more than they will ever know.

I’m proud of myself for making this move, but that doesn’t mean it’s been easy.

Where one door closes, another opens. Where one chapter ends, another one starts.

Here’s to the end of one of the best chapters of my life.

Zero.

I wake up to my alarm…it’s been going off for 5 minutes at least. Holy shit, did I even sleep at all? As badly as I want to hit the snooze button I get up. {minus 3}

Time to make lunch…let’s see…half PB&J, string cheese, chips, water…she needs some fruit. Banana. Check. {minus 2}

Reesie, you need to come sit down while you eat that cereal. Stop running around please. I don’t want you to choke.” {minus 5}

Rylee get up and get dressed. You cannot miss the bus.” {minus 5}

Reese stop standing on the chair…you need to sit on your bum.” {minus 2}

Dante’s food bowl needs to be filled up. Can’t forget his treat. {minus 1}

Today is the last day of school before Christmas…Can’t forget to take the teacher gifts. {minus 5}

Oh, Ry, your Christmas program is tonight…do you want me to pack you a dress to wear?” {minus 2}

As I put Rylee’s new dress, pink leggings and fancy shoes in the bag on the floor my hair brushes against my face. I tuck it behind my ear and look down…my hair is a hot mess and I’m wearing a puffy vest, a hooded sweatshirt, jeans and an old pair of shoes. Hmm…maybe I should change real quick.

I reach into my reserves…empty.

Zero.

No fucks left to give.

I shrug my shoulders and walk out the door.

Short Work Weeks

I swear every time there is a short work week due to a holiday is the slowest, yet busiest week ever. Like, I’ve packed so much work crap into these last three days I feel like it should be Friday.

I’m literally the last person left in the office. And I’m the one quitting in a month.

Does.Not.Compute.

Not to mention I didn’t even get everything done that I needed to so I’ll be working on a few projects from home on Friday. Stupid deadlines and stupid work ethic.

So much for my long weekend. Womp.

Any other working women out there feel the same way about short work weeks?

I however, am fully planning on enjoying my day tomorrow. We’re not going anywhere. We aren’t even eating until 5:30 at night. It should be a pretty quiet, leisurely day home with my little family and I cannot wait.

I’ll be back tomorrow because NaBloPoMo and dammit I’ve made it this far, I’m not about to quit now!

How I do Meal Planning

I’ve noticed a lot of chatter online these last couple of weeks about meal planning and the dreaded question of “what’s for dinner?”. It got me to thinking about my meal planning…it’s something I’ve been doing for quite a while and while I’ve posted about it before in various areas, I thought I’d pull all my thoughts together in one place.

This week for dinner I have oven fajitas, pork chops & rice, crock pot mongolian beef, pesto italian paninis and more on my menu plan. We rarely eat out. All in all it’s not that big of a deal. If you ask me, it’s just as quick and easy as going out to a restaurant, going out to bring something home or waiting for dinner to be delivered. Of course, my biased could also come from us not really having the luxury of option thanks to budgets.

Originally posted on Liberating Working Moms, here are some of my favorite tips & tricks I’ve learned over the years…

  1. Plan Ahead. I feel like this is kind of the glaringly obvious one, but needs to be said anyway. Each Friday night after the kiddo is in bed, or even Saturday morning durning breakfast, I’ll sit down to make out a meal plan for the week. I only plan out a week at a time, but I know people that will do an entire month at once…that’s a little too ambitious for me. I’ll look at the week coming up…anything special going on that I need to plan around? Hubby planning on working longer than normal any nights? Once I know what’s going on, I’ll see what’s on sale this week, see what we’ve already got on hand, make out my meal plan day by day, then make a grocery list accordingly. I created my own meal planning sheet that I use literally every week. 
  2. Stock Up & Save! This isn’t just some clever grocery store marketing. For example: I can’t stand eating chicken off the bone, so I only buy the boneless, skinless chicken breast. If I see it on sale for $1.88 per lb I will buy about 10 pounds, bring it home and vacuum seal them in 2-packs. It’s a great way to always have meat on hand and save some moola. We also buy a HALF of a beef at a time and it lasts us just over a year…deep freeze recommended for this one, folks.
  3. It doesn’t always have to be fancy! For real you guys…not every night needs to be some gourmet meal…in fact most nights are not. We have tacos every single Tuesday…my kids LOVE Taco Tuesday! And? Confession: we eat pasta-roni as a side dish every once in a while too.
  4. Be resourceful with your leftovers. When I roast a whole chicken, we always have a ton of leftovers. I also have a husband who is super picky when it comes to eating said leftovers. So, instead of tossing what we don’t eat, I’ll debone the chicken and use it within the next couple of nights and make something like homemade fettuccine  alfredo, tortilla soup or chicken curry.
  5. Pre-Make when possible. On a Sunday evening, it’s not uncommon that I pre-prep a pan of enchiladas or lasagna or something else that otherwise takes too long to prep on a typical weeknight to eat later on in the week. It makes the evening rush after work so much smoother. For that same reason, I also love prepping freezer meals. {more on this later}
  6. Repeat after me: The Internet is your friend! Sure, I have some favorite cookbooks, but I have found some of our favorite go-to recipes on the interwebs. It also serves as a great place to find some new ones for spicing things up a bit. Obviously Pinterest is a good one, but I also really like Kraft Foods for easy, weeknight meal idea. Bonus: Kraft Foods has a search feature that let’s you put in ingredients you have on hand and gives you recipes to fit!
  7. Always have an easy back-up. Sometimes, I plain forget to take meat out of the freezer in enough time for it to defrost, so that grilled steak kabobs I may have had planned? Not really going to work. In our house, our go-to back up dinner is grilled cheese & soup. Nothing has to defrost and dinner can be ready in about 15 minutes.
  8. Save the in-depth stuff for the weekends. I typically don’t cook anything during the week that’s going to take longer than 45 minutes to get on the table, or about 30 minutes if the whole thing is hands-on. I don’t normally try a new recipe during a weeknight either. I also only do my crock-pot cooking on the weekends…but then again, I hate my crock-pot, remember?
  9. Keep your staples stocked. For us, our staples are cheese, bread, tortillas, yogurt and black beans. We also always have a few boxes of pasta-roni and cans of vegetables in the pantry ready to go as sides in a pinch.
  10. When in doubt…invite someone over that never cooks and be prepared to be worshiped. I’m mostly kidding, but I remember one time we had some friends/Andy’s coworkers over for an impromptu dinner that had never been over before…Taco Tuesday even, so nothing fancy. Anyway, as I was making dinner, she was looking at my calendar where I write out our dinners and she.was.amazed. She called into the living room to our other friend and was reading off some of the dishes…Stuffed Manicotti…Elk Stir Fry…Halibut…Turkey Burgers. Then next week at work? I guess she was STILL talking about it. What’s funny, is the week before, I was really feeling like we were getting into a food rut.

So those are some of my tips! One thing I’m super excited to incorporate into some of my meal planning tricks is Trader Joe’s meals…my new office will be just down the road from one!

Do you meal prep? What’s your favorite go-to weeknight meal?