Loving that Man - Incident with Chicken

Welcome to Loving that Man, a series of posts with musings, tips, and tricks to loving that special man in your life.

I woke up early to get my day started with the following plan:

1.   Watch “The Originals” on my DVR. (I have a bit of a bad vampire TV show obsession)

2. Get showered and dressed

3. Wake up Ryan.

4. Make our Lunches

5. Start our Dinner in a crock pot

It was a great plan!!

I was on track, checking each of my boxes until I pulled the chicken out of the freezer.

After unwrapping said chicken I noticed that the yellow spongy meat plate was not budging from the frozen chicken breasts. As I struggled, begged, and rinsed the meat to release the packaging, the chicken slipped out of my hands into the sink splashing all sorts of dirty soapy water around. It then jettisoned out of the sink and across the kitchen floor landing right in front of our dogs that were in audience.   

Needless to say there were three chicken breasts unfreezing in our trash can as I raced off to the office.

Note to everyone, buy chicken breasts in individually packed bags, or freeze chicken in bags.

Proverbs 31:15 - She gets up while it is still night; She provides food for her family 

The mornings come quickly at our house these days. For the last few months our schedules have been packed so full of fun, house refreshing (painting and what not), and work that my days seem to run together. It’s hard to find the discipline to stop and take care of the little mundane things. However, if I don’t I end up running from the Organized Chaos Death Squad, known as the OCDS. You know that squad of little gremlins that creates waist high piles of laundry, the one who whispers that it is perfectly reasonable to drive thru the nearest fast food restaurant for dinner because the meat is still in the freezer, or my personal favorite that moment when you realize that every bowl, spoon, and cup is either in the sink or laying around the house and you mysteriously feel okay about it. When I am seduced by this chaos, my world begins to fall apart.

Ryan has three pet peeves around our home: no clean clothes, dirty dishes and wasted food. Who can blame him? They are my pet peeves as well.  To avoid these things from happening I've made some changes to my routine that I wanted to share in hopes of helping other women avoid the OCDS and increase the happy man quotient!!!

1.   Laundry – Do a load a Night/Day. If I keep our laundry caught up this way, we don’t get into the “wash what we need” cycle. That cycle is costly to my wallet, water, and Ryan’s sanity.  This is a new routine for me, and I sometimes fail at it. I find that if I do a load at night and get in the dryer before bed, I can fold it the following morning. (For Transparency - Putting away clean laundry is a whole different story. I just hate that part, luckily Ryan doesn't mind it too much)

2. Dirty Dishes – When I am cooking dinner I am trying my best to:

a. Wash as you go – If you have a pot/pan/dish that you are done with wash it up when you have a free moment and put it in the dish washer.

b. Clean up ingredients as you are done with them. I try to put extra ingredients away as I am cooking so they aren't out on the counters when the meal is over.

c.  Fill up one side of the sink – for dishes that need to soak. As Ryan pointed out to me it’s better to fill up the side without the garbage disposal. You might need it!

d.Do the dishes after every meal. We get into a “Rinse so they don’t stink” cycle at times. Then you end up with multiple loads of dishes and nobody wants to do that!

3. Dinner – Meal Planning and Daily scheduling. On Saturday or Sunday I sit down and review our week. I note the evenings when we have plans and will need to eat out, and then plan dinners accordingly.  Freezing my meats for the meals is helpful on not wasting food, as long as I remember to defrost the meat in a timely fashion. I am really successful with this when I review my weekly calendar before bed so that I am prepared for the next day! I love my Erin Condren Life Planner right now for keeping our calendar and plans in sync.

Any suggestions to share on ways of maintaining a happy home that directly impact your special man, I’d love to hear them!