When people find out that I have four kids, their eyes widen. When people find out that I have worked a paying job for most of those kids’ lives, their eyebrows shoot up to the skies. When they find out that no one’s in jail and I haven’t done time in an asylum…well, then they’re really curious.

I’ve covered this in columns before…back in 2004, we had the seminal piece on the topic (click Read More at the bottom to read it).

What I have figured out to be the quickest, best way to do things with minimum pain and threat of injury are now called hacks. And the biggest Hack Category I have is around food: planning, procurement, and distribution.

I had limitations on what I’d tolerate: I can’t live in a world where I’m slogging home from work and trying to decide what to have for dinner and then have to make it. Some of you aren’t Morning People? I’m not an Afternoon Person. I’m hangry and tired and the thought of making all those decisions and then actually laboring after I’ve worked all day and driven an hour to get home is right out. So I plan a week ahead. I may not know that we’re having meatloaf on Tuesday, but I know that this week, we’re having meatloaf at some point.

I can’t do my weekly grocery shopping in a store. I covered this a while back, too (is there any part of my life you guys don’t know about?) with my ode to Safeway. Before that, I would send Dad, Interrupted to the store armed with a list generated from all that planning. And not just any list: nerd that I am, I made a database. Using Microsoft Access, I was able to create a list that printed out in the order that Dad, Interrupted would walk through the store. It was pretty nifty.

So with those ground rules in place, we get to

Planning: What I really wanted out of life was a recipe software program or now an app that would take all my recipes and their ingredients and put them in a table. My dream was that I’d select the recipes for the week, and then the program/app would generate a grocery list, because I hate finding each recipe and transferring ingredients, etc.

I still haven’t found one that I like. So I have improvised.

I have five weeks of recipes (no repeats!) that I have developed. Each week is curated to not go overboard on any type of cuisine, or one type of protein (no way we’ll wind up with a week of meals featuring nothing but chicken, for example). I like making all these recipes, and the recipes have been tested with the Interrupted Focus Group (my intensive methods boil down to asking, “so, this is a keeper?” after the meal). Each week includes:

– one day of something we’d normally drive through to get (tacos, or pizza, or hamburgers), except we’re making them at home.

– two meals that can take a while to prepare (weekend meals)

I used Microsoft Word to make a calendar. Each recipe goes into a day, along with the link to the recipe or reference about where it’s stored. In each square goes the sides that are necessary for the meal.

Like I said, I have five weeks of these. No repeats.

Then I added another convenience: I took each week and slogged through each day, making up a master grocery list for that week. I saved it, and now I don’t have to do it again. I’m cooking for Week Four? Find the Master Grocery List for Week Four, and check to see what you need ingredient-wise.

Add that to the Safeway grocery list, and then a nice young man brings me the food and unloads it on my kitchen table.

And that, my friends, is How I Do That.

Next week: A Word About Procurement

***

At least once a day the staff at Mom, Interrupted is forced to explain the facts of life to somebody.

The most important fact of life being that we can’t bake two cakes after work for the Cub Scout cake auction, which happens to be tomorrow, because the staff, which is pretty much yours truly, has four kids and three jobs and ran out of time three weeks ago. The term “after work” is fairly meaningless around here.

And then, after the look of shock and awe has crawled off the listener’s face, the question becomes: “How do you do it?” This question is usually asked in the tone reserved for asking the park ranger how he can stand to clean out the outhouses. Please note that we always answer with the same face the ranger uses after he’s done cleaning ’em all out.

How DO we do it?

Before we answer the question, we must first define the elusive element “it.”

If you’re talking about the snickering teenager definition of the term “it,” I can assure you that after the fourth child was born, we finally figured out that too much “it” resulted in too many of “them” and so we put a right quick stop to “that.”

If by “it” you mean: “How do you keep your house in order and organized and free from chaos?” Well, that’s easy. Clearly, you’ve never been to my house and if you do, enter only if your shots are up to date and for the love of Pete don’t open any closets.

Sometimes “it” is shorthand for: “How do you get everyone out the door on time in the morning with all their homework and lunches and uniforms without using cattle prods?”

And to that we say, “We hadn’t considered cattle prods. Thanks for the handy tip!”

And if by “it” you really mean to say: “Why aren’t you up on the roof with an AK-47?” Then we must point out that all of our quality roof time is spent hauling little boys off of it. Besides, I see no point in threatening anyone who won’t feel obligated to clean one of my toilets.

Even though we can’t define “it” very strictly, like good art, we know “it” when we see “it.” Doing “it” includes finishing 17 loads of laundry a week, working the volleyball snack bar and racking up five hours in the car every day whether we need it or not. (Next month’s column: “How the Car Does “It.”)

And when people find out that the Cub Scout leader who asked me to bake two cakes the night before the cake auction is my husband, who really should have noticed the part about the three jobs and definitely should have been up to speed on the four kids, then the question becomes: “How did you keep from killing him?”

The answer to that is: I don’t have to kill him. He’s just gonna kiss “it” goodbye.

© E. Stocking Evans 2004

© E. Stocking Evans 2015