Month: January 2016

Time Saving Tips: Family Meals

Here’s one of my favorite time saving tips. I formed this habit when the Chromos were younger. Working a demanding full-time Day Job and raising a family didn’t leave a lot of time to sneak in writing a sentence or two, so anything I could do to streamline “chores” was a help. Even with the Chromos mostly grown and gone, and a less demanding Day Job, I still tend to use this system

I keep a large, dry-erase calendar on which I color coordinate the family’s events, in the kitchen. I am purple, TV Stevie is blue; Y-Chromo is green, X-Chromo is red. I plan our weekly meals around this calendar and post them on a dry-erase board on the refrigerator. I write my grocery shopping list from this menu. Now, when I get home from work, I don’t have to think about what’s for supper, who’s going to be there, etc., because the menu was planned around everyone’s schedule. The only snag is when I forget to take the chicken out of the freezer in the morning.

I also save “major” cooking for the weekends. Week night meals tend to be ready in 30 minutes or less. I also try to make them “dishwasher” friendly. (I don’t put metal pots and pans–what my mom calls “tin dishes”–in the dishwasher.) Every minute I can save is a minute I can write.

Sunday Stewpot

Today is National Sunday Supper Day.

TV Stevie and I have differing views on when to have “the big meal” on Sundays. The home in which he grew up always ate the big meal at night. In my family, Sunday dinner was the big meal–around 1pm. But like parenting, marriage requires you to pick your battles and this was one I wasn’t going to win, so why waste the energy?

Regardless, Sunday Suppers at my house are usually simple. I don’t like making a fuss on the nights before I have to go to work. Homemade soups, chili (winter), or a big salad (summer) is usually on the menu. Once in a while I’ll spiralize a zucchini or two and fix it with chicken and seasonings, but I don’t do anything that takes more than 30 minutes prep. I save those meals for Saturdays.

What’s your favorite Sunday Supper?

 

Writing Props: Color, Light, and Janet Fish

Color and light are very important to me. They always have been. I write better when I’m happy, and color and light delight me.

Many years ago, my husband and I attended an exhibit of modern art at the local art museum. That’s where I ran into Spring Party and an artist named Janet Fish. The way the artist depicted light through colored pressed glass captivated me. Awed me.

A couple of years later, leafing through a catalog from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I discovered a poster of Spring Party was for sale. My budget didn’t allow me to purchase it at the time. But I did cut out the photo from the catalog.  And from the next issue, too. I still have one of those makeshift bookmarks. I keep it on my desk at Day Job.

Ten years later, while my Day Job office was being redecorated, I was told I could pick out any artwork I wanted. I called the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see if they had any Spring Party posters left. I was ten years too late.

My husband purchased a coffee table book of Fish’s paintings for me. I keep it handy in my home office. There is a pullout of Spring Party that I will stare at for hours.

What Janet Fish does with color and light is what I want to accomplish with my words.