{"id":1291,"date":"2010-07-21T19:43:36","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T02:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=1291"},"modified":"2025-11-03T09:48:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T16:48:25","slug":"efficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/?p=1291","title":{"rendered":"Efficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t have the time nor the money to live like I may want to.\u00a0 Lets face it, MOST of us don’t.\u00a0 So\u00a0 I’ve learned to find a compromise between my expectations and reality. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I can’t afford a maid, nor do I have the time to keep my house as immaculate as I’d like.\u00a0 Compromise… teach the boys how to do the basic cleaning (vacuuming, toilets, sinks), keep the house as uncluttered as\u00a0 possible (I got 10 under the bed drawers for the boys’ crap) and I do one extra cleaning chore a week (dust, floors, walls, etc.)\u00a0 In two hours, on the weekend, my house is clean.\u00a0 (For about 2 hours!) <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The furniture is mis-matched crap and there is no decorating coordination, but I still got 3 boys under 13 doing damage!\u00a0 Someday I hope to at least coordinate the furniture in each room!\u00a0 And repaint!\u00a0 Ugh, I so want to repaint.
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When it comes to cooking, that’s where I’ve found my best efficiency.\u00a0 I love a supreme pizza but I need the cheap pricing of Costco bulk sales and the best pizza they sell there is plain pepperoni.\u00a0 Solution, add my own veggies and sliced frozen breakfast sausage to the pizza.\u00a0 Oh and pineapple!\u00a0 Viola, my favorite pizza.\u00a0 The kids pick off what they don’t like, complaining for hours.\u00a0 I don’t care, they aren’t buying and cooking it. (yet!)
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Chicken legs are an amazingly delicious quick meal if I’ve got them defrosted.\u00a0 You can throw them in the oven with almost any sauce and if the kids don’t like it, cover it in BBQ sauce.\u00a0 Of course, most people do BBQ them, but my grill is broken.\u00a0 (Actually, it caught fire, but that’s another blog.)\u00a0 Whenever I can’t decide what to cook, I throw in chicken legs.
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Salad is so convenient when its pre-packaged, but there is no reason you can’t pre-package it yourself!\u00a0 I have a very large Tupperware veggie container I use for salad.\u00a0 I chop up a red\/yellow\/orange pepper, radishes, maybe mushroom and throw in several types of lettuce.\u00a0 Add lots of grape tomatoes and you have instant salad whenever you need it.\u00a0 Just portion out what you’re going to eat, dress it and let them serve themselves.
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Rice is my favorite permanent dinner carb.\u00a0 I can cook a HUGE batch and it’ll keep for almost 2 weeks.\u00a0 Put it in a nice Tupperware microwave container and just zap it a few minutes before dinner is ready.\u00a0 My kids LOVE it because I cook it with salt and powdered garlic.\u00a0 They eat it plain or with soy sauce.\u00a0 I enjoy it with my homemade salad dressing.
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I think one of the reasons I’m so efficient is I get soooo tired making decisions all day.\u00a0 It’s easier to roughly plan a meat, always have a carb and salad ready and just wing any extras when I get home. \u00a0 I think, it’s because everyone is tired after a day at work, and preparing a large meal is\u00a0 MORE work, it’s just easier to go do fast food!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But I’m cheap!\u00a0 Ha ha, and so I’ve found a way to make half the dinner decisions thoughtless.\u00a0 So I can have more “me” time.\u00a0 And it’s worked.\u00a0 Now I’m starting to even turn that chore over to the kids.\u00a0 I told my middle one today, “Go see if there’s anything in the fridge or freezer you want to cook for dinner.”\u00a0 He came back with, “Um, I can microwave those tamales?”\u00a0 I told him, “Great!\u00a0 Do it for everyone!”\u00a0 And off he went.\u00a0 Decision made!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Now, if only I could get them ALL to coordinate that EVERY night!
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I don’t have the time nor the money to live like I may want to.\u00a0 Lets face it, MOST of us don’t.\u00a0 So\u00a0 I’ve learned to find a compromise between my expectations and reality. I can’t afford a maid, nor … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-narcissist-secrets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3286,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions\/3286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heatherbarton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}