Organizational Skills

If you know me at all, you know that I am not an organized person.  But I want to be.  Somewhere inside me, there is an organized woman.  She just can't find her way out through all my clutter.  My household needs structure, organization, and my life in general needs less clutter.  It would be easier on all of us.  And I would like that.  So I have had a real brainstorm about meal planning and I thought I would share it.  I love to cook.  Really, I do.  But I hate it when I am scrambling at the last minute trying to throw something together and I am lacking an ingredient or I forgot to defrost the meat.  Also, we are trying to pinch pennies any way we can.  Our church recently had a couponing class and it was awesome.  So I have been collecting coupons and trying to wrap my head around all of that business.  I have an iPhone.  Those are powerful tools in the hands of organized people.  Mine mainly just confuses me.  But I am learning!  I like that little calendar feature.  I mainly use it to keep up with appointments, but my bright idea consisted of using it to streamline my meal planning.  Brad just got paid, which means I get to go grocery shopping.  (Yay!)  I planned out meals for the next two weeks and plugged the meals into my handy-dandy calendar as events.  So if I opened my calendar for September 2nd, it would say "Jambalaya."  Every event you enter has a spot for location, and in that box I put the name of the cookbook that the particular recipe is in.  I even set alerts to go off a couple of days in advance for all of the recipes that require defrosting meat so that I will remember to lay the meat in the refrigerator in time.  Additionally, I used the little note feature in my phone to make my grocery list.  I am forever making really great grocery lists and then leaving them at home, so this is pretty awesome for me.  I always have my phone with me; therefore, I always have my list.  I have my coupons ready to go, and I am ready to tackle the groceries stores tomorrow morning.  I'm hoping this works out well and is a system I can keep up with.  I know it sounds crazy, but I was pretty excited about it.  Anything to help us along.  Actually I was really excited about it.  I called my mom and said "Pick any date between now and September the 16th, and I'll tell you what we're having for supper that night."  "September 7th," she replied.  "Meatloaf!" I proclaimed.  She said "Wow!" like I had just done a really cool magic trick or something.  She was probably humoring me, but it made me feel good.  Also, she is going to help me shop tomorrow, which I really appreciate.  I bribed her with coupons for chocolate and Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  :)

In case anyone is wondering how family devotions are going, we read about Moses' staff turning into a snake tonight.  Both kids got excited and said "Nake, nake."  Hope they don't go looking for one.  Also, they had a short-lived but very lively brawl in the middle of the story and after that, Selah inserted a finger up each one of my nostrils.  But we made it through and afterwards they sat and looked at the Veggie Tales book together, so I think maybe they are getting into it.  Also, when we prayed Korban said "Bless coupons."  He knows about the coupons because he saw my stack of them and tried to scatter them, and I explained to him that I needed them for grocery shopping.  He does like the groceries, so maybe that is why he thought the coupons needed blessing.  Hope it helps me out tomorrow!