I walked in the house at my normal time, 5pm and dropped my purse and briefcase off before I went back in the garage to get Nova out of the Jeep. I brought her in the house and asked her to take her coat, hat and shoes off and put them away while I got Knox.
Knox yelled “Dada” every five seconds because, that is just what he does, and I couldn’t hear what Nova was trying to say to me.
Just a second honey! I can’t hear you.
I got him into the house and put his clothes away as he trampled off to find Nova, whom was still yelling. She was in the living room, so I came around the corner and she asked to watch a movie. I turned on Super Why, and they both immediately zoned out.
As I stared at their faces, as they stared at the TV, I laughed thinking that is exactly what I want to do at the end of the day, why shouldn’t they be able to?
I walked back into the kitchen and took a deep breath. Exhausted from another long day at work, now onto “Mom Duty”.
…ok…next task…what should we have for supper?
Our fridge menu started me in the face making my job easy.
I stopped for a second to appreciate the fact that we put together a menu that week, like we do every week. I did not have the the brain power nor the patience to stand in front of the fridge and decide what to make. It made me so happy to just throw supper in the oven and move on.
When you are in the stage of life that we are, with two full time jobs, two young kids and our own personal hobbies you implement ways to make your life easier.
We eliminate unnecessary choices.
It makes our life so much easier if we save our brain power for the more important decisions in life. Our minimalist journey encompasses eliminating distractions and focusing on what matters. Time.
Planning and shopping for our menu every week enables me to spend more quality time with my family. Whatever supports that, I am in favor of.
Along with planning our menu we shop online and pick it up which accomplishes two of our goals!
We stay on budget and we get to spend more quality time together. Yes, there are some frustrations that come with shopping online; like when they don’t replace what I want with what I would’ve replaced it with, but come on now. Perspective. I can roll with it.
The key to our menu planning is having a list of our family’s favorite meals as a reference.
We pull that list out and choose from it. Knowing that we typically gravitate toward the same meals, this list also helps us change it up more often. We tend to designate the weekend meals as the more time consuming ones, due to us having more time to prepare them.
Once we have our menu planned, I order our groceries on my local grocery store app. They make it so easy for me because they save my past products and prompt me to add it and also notify me if they are on sale.
It takes me maybe 15 minutes to grocery shop on the app and then I choose when to pick it up. Nap time is the ideal time for us to run errands, so we pick up at that time.
Applying the concept of eliminating choices to every area of your life, reduces stress immensely. Less “stuff”, less “choices” leaves room in your brain and time for what truly matters to you.
We say “No” to people
We are two of the most social people. We love being with our friends and we love spending time with family. Our kids are similar as they love having people around.
However, we live near a lot of family and if you allow them, they can expect a lot out of you. While we would love to be at most events, we choose not to be for many reasons.
We each work a minimum of 40 hours a week, Eric coaches & plays basketball and I attend yoga classes & workout at home. Add in our friend dates, marriage dates, kid activities and there isn’t a lot of time left.
Our kids are young and their schedules are a huge priority. Their naps are important, their healthy meals are important and our time together as a family is of the utmost importance to us. These years go by too fast and we don’t want them to be spent running around attending things just because we are expected to.
So, we beat to our own drum, we say no, and we spend many days by ourselves making precious family memories.
Our kids aren’t in “everything”
Mind you…our kids are 18 months and almost 4, so take this as you will.
As parents who work full time jobs and who covet their weekends we have decided our kids will not be involved in any and everything they desire. So, we set priorities on what we want them to be involved in and hope to empower them to make choices.
The guidelines we set:
- 1 team activity
- 1 individual activity
- 1 musical and/or creative activity
- 1 physical activity
One activity may hit two guidelines such as a team/individual activity and physical activity. Currently, Nova is involved in gymnastics. She tried it last year and was more drawn to ballet. She tried ballet after and did not like it. So, she chose gymnastics again this year. Though she is only 3 she knew after her 3 classes of ballet that she didn’t want to do it anymore, and I love that she was able to recognize and say that!
These guidelines may change with time, but it is how we have tried to foster creativity and are trying to teach them priorities.
We go on one date a month
It is a common thing for people to say you need to go on one date a week. I don’t disagree with that, especially if you do not get much time together outside of that weekly date. Luckily, for most years of our marriage we have never had an issue spending time together on a daily basis as our work schedules typically align for us to eat dinner together every night.
Daily, we are able to put our kids to bed and then spend about an hour together before I go to sleep. Last year though we realized we need to dedicate a specific time for us to get out of the house and away from the kids to just be together.
We went on one date a month every month in 2018 and loved it. Sometimes those dates were with friends, sometimes it was alone but setting that goal of one a month was fun! Eric decided to plan one month and he barely squeaked by setting it for the last day of the month…and if you knew my husband, you’d know this is his typical style. He loves to keep you on the edge of your seat #lovehim
Priorities look different to each family. It is much too easy to allow other people’s opinions or expectations to rule your time. Time is one thing you can never get back and you do not owe anyone an explanation of your choices.
XO,
