Success in the Kitchen!

In the last few weeks, I have greatly improved my kitchen practices! My successes so far:

First, I have been making a weekly meal plan and grocery list. I list enough meals for the whole week, but don't bother assigning them to days. This way, Matt and I still have some flexibility to decide what we're in the mood to eat. From there, I make the grocery list and we're all set. We used to eat out a lot because I didn't have the time/energy/supplies on hand to get dinner together every night, but now we're down to about one dinner and one lunch out each week. Next step: memorize the grocery store aisles so I can make the grocery list in order like my parents do.

As I started getting into the meal planning, I realized I didn't have a single go-to source for meal ideas. I had a few cookbooks whose titles reveal my level of expertise: The Everything Kids Cookbook, The Kids Cookbook (Williams-Sonoma), and Clueless in the Kitchen. I have a few favorites in each, but it took a while to go through them to get the ingredient lists for the grocery list and all. I realized that I need a recipe book like my mom's, one where I can write recipes on index cards and just stick them in. Surprisingly, those are hard to find. Levenger Circa notebooks to the rescue! I made my own recipe book by punching regular index cards with the Circa punch. Next step: find and try one new recipe each week. If Matt and I like it, then I add it to the recipe book. Last week's tunaburgers are in, the turkey-stuffed peppers from the week before are not.


Next, a small but yummy success: I made my own hot chocolate mix. Matt and I like real hot chocolate, made with cocoa powder, sugar, and real milk. I usually just make it one mug at a time, but yesterday I got a glass jar from Target and made the mix on a larger scale. So now it's three tablespoons of mix, about 10 oz. of milk, and a dash of vanilla extract. Oh, and the labels on my canisters and the glass jar? I used one of those Vis-a-Vis overhead projector transparency pens. I don't like the commitment of pre-labeled canisters, and this ink wipes off with a wet napkin.

And finally, I busted out my Crock-Pot and used it for the first time to make beef stew. I'm embarrassed to admit that I've had the thing for... um.... maybe two years? Something like that. The problem I ran into is that I bought a 2-quart Crock-Pot because the box said it was good for making meals for one or two people. However, most people have much larger slow-cookers and most of the recipes I found for a small one like mine are for dips. Matt is out of town for a few days, so it seemed like a good time to suck it up and try a beef stew recipe I found-- if things went badly he wouldn't have to know. It went really well, though, and now I have some confidence to try more. Next step: work on adapting some slow-cooker recipes for my smaller unit.


I wouldn't call myself a domestic diva yet, maybe something more like a domestic disciple. But I feel like I'm making good progress!

Why Boot Camp?

Why am I calling this blog Domestic Boot Camp? First of all, accidentalhousewife.blogspot.com was already taken. By someone who then calls her blog "Accidental Poet", but oh well.

Well then, on to other reasons for the name. One is that the Army is part of how I got here-- my husband is an Army civilian, which led to our relocation to Memphis, which was a factor in getting to my current housewife status. Also, boot camp is supposed to be a dedicated time when people undergo a transformation from single individual to part of a unit.

This is what I think I missed in the first year of marriage-- we had the wedding and then just went right back to life as it was before. In some ways that was good; neither of us expected the wedding to magically change our lives. But I don't think I took the time to really make the full adjustment. In the first 12 months of our marriage, we spent about 8 of them apart. During that time I mostly focused on me, and getting through that time. And then when we were finally together I was still focusing on me, trying to adjust to a new town and a new job, but completely taking my husband for granted. I was exhausted and unhappy and realized I was being a horrible wife.

So am I going to be yelling at myself and running endless drills? Not remotely. But I want to use the boot camp spirit of transformation and becoming part of something bigger than myself. And I do want to practice the "basics" enough that they become habit, so that when I am under stress I will be able to manage better.

I've known for a long time that I am not cut out for military service... I always said, "The day our country has to rely on me like that is the day we're in big trouble." But I hope I can get to the point where my husband (and later our kids) can rely on me, and I'll be able to be the person they need me to be.

The Accidental Housewife

Well, hi! The last year or so has been fraught with major life changes, and I think somewhere I forgot to make adjustments for them. Instead I just kept plugging along, but finally I just got so worn out that I realized I needed to re-prioritize. So, due to a perfect storm of circumstances, I have become a housewife for now. More like housewife/grad student, but it is still not where I expected to be at this point in my life.

And because I didn't anticipate this, I have a few worries. I worry that because I won't be bringing any money into the household, I'll become a drain on my husband and our resources. I also worry about the possibility of becoming stagnant and not making any kind of contribution to my (small) family.

So I'm going to try to use this time for focused renewal. I'm not sure how long this phase of my life is going to last, but I did set a few goals:

• Make progress in my graduate program.
• Improve my practice of the "domestic arts".
• Boost my (and my husband's) health and wellness.

Are these SMART goals? Heck, no. They are vague as all get-out. I do have some more specific subgoals, just not an organized list of them yet.

My overarching goal/hope is that I can get all this stuff figured out now so the next time things get crazy, most of this "life maintenance" stuff will be habit and I'll be able to take on the new things better than I did this time.