Tag Archives: works for me

Eating

Getting out of the culinary comfort zone

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I love to bake, but I try not to do it just anytime the urge strikes. That way I don’t make (and eat) cookies every single day. I figured that by joining the Daring Bakers, I could get that urge to back out of the way every month. And I might make some new and exciting stuff along the way.

Since October, I’ve made pizza dough (fantastic); caramel cake (oh my stars so good); a Buche de Noel (definitely a once-a-year undertaking); Tuile cookies; a flourless chocolate cake; and the most delicious cheesecake ever. I can’t reveal to you what this month’s challenge is, but I can tell you that (a) I haven’t made it yet and (b) I’m a little afraid to try. Next Wednesday is the Big Reveal Day, so you should pop back over then if you’re curious.

Last month the Daring Kitchen expanded its purview. I tend to get into cooking ruts, so I’m very excited about the Daring Cooks challenges. I say that even though I never got around to doing the first challenge, Ricotta Gnocchi. This month’s challenge is particularly exciting. Again, I can’t reveal what it is yet. Check back on June 14 for that one.

All of this is to say: The Daring Kitchen’s challenges work for me. They help inspire and challenge me in the kitchen, and that’s a great thing when you start to feel a bit blah about slapping together the food for your family.

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Family matters

Poppy’s first chores

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Poppy has developed a bit of a “Cars” obsession. She likes the movie, but even more than that she likes the Matchbox cars. She has four or five of them now, but she’s set her sights on more. They aren’t the most expensive toys on the planet — they’re $3 or $4 a car — but it does add up. So last week when she said she wanted to get “The Fabulous Hudson Hornet,” I told her she’d have to save up her money to get it. This lead to a conversation about how she could earn money. Which lead to this week’s Works for Me tip: Chores!

We sat down and thought of a few things Pi would do every day:

  • Make her bed. She’s needed prompting on this every morning. But it’ll sink in eventually. Right?
  • Sweep the kitchen. It’s more like “push things around the kitchen floor” at this point, but it’s a start.
  • Unload the silverware from the dishwasher. We don’t run the dishwasher every day, so she does this roughly every other day.
  • Pick up toys and books before bed. She’s supposed to do this in the living room and in her bedroom. I have had to remind her most nights, but she’s done a pretty good job with it after the reminder.

    • If she does her chores consistently, she’ll get $2 at the end of the week. The results aren’t always perfect, but I’m hoping it will give her a little sense of responsibility and an idea about how money works.

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    Domestic Blitz

    Prioritizing

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    Today’s tip is one I picked up from Simple Mom (which is a really great place for the picking up of tips, by the way). I put together my version of one of her Daily Dockets a while back, and it did wonders for me in terms of getting my stuff together. Then I thought it would be terrific to have my pages laminated and spiral-bound, so I could use them over and over again. That was a few months ago, when a work thing had Rockford stopping by Kinkos pretty much every morning. So I gave the pages to him, he took them to Kinkos, and … no one ever picked them up. I’m guessing Kinkos has tossed them by now.

    But that wasn’t the point I was trying to make here.

    The most helpful part of the Daily Docket for me is the making of the Most Important Tasks list. As the name suggests, you pick the day’s top priorities and give them their own special place on your to-do list. And then you do them.

    There was a special place for those three-to-five items on my Daily Docket pages. Fortunately, though, I can write down a few important things on a non-specialized piece of paper. Yesterday I only managed to do three of the five. But on a day when I don’t write ’em down? I might’ve accomplished one of the five.

    One of these days I’ll put “Reprint the Daily Docket” on my Most Important Tasks lists. Until then, though, jotting those MITs down on a scrap of paper will have to work for me.

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