I am at my heart a planner. I like to be as prepared as possible for big changes and busy life seasons. My Januarys and Februarys for the last eleven years are my busiest months at work. Before I went to a reduced schedule, it was anticipated that at a very minimum, you would work from 8 in the morning until at least 7/8 at night. But most of the time, it was much later than that. Saturday work days at the office were the norm. Sundays spending at least a few hours working were typical. Now, with my reduced workload, I have less of those hours expectations, but it’s still busier than normal. Clients have immovable deadlines, and something, invariably, always goes wrong at some point during those months.

When I was living the single life, while still truly a difficult season, it was manageable. After all, I wasn’t coming home to anyone at night. Nobody was expecting the fridge to be stocked with food or laundry to be done at a regular interval. But now, well, there are more people around this house that like to eat on regular basis aside from a box of Cheez-its and a glass of wine for dinner.

I’m sharing today how I prepare for the months that I know are truly going to be a bit harder for our family to get through than the others.

-1- I use the month of December to make extras. I make double batches of meatballs, double batches of soups, double batches of marinara, and lots of green smoothies for breakfast. And then I freeze it all. I try to go into the two months knowing that at least once a week, I can pull a meal out of the freezer that will last us at least a couple of dinners.

-2- I depend a lot on crockpot meals. At least once a week, I dump all of the ingredients for a dinner into the crockpot in the morning before work, and it covers us for at least two nights of meals. My favorite crockpot meals are things like pulled pork, carne asada tacos, or pot roast.

-3- I use Target pick-up and grocery delivery/pick-up WAY more frequently. Quite frankly, I use Target pick-up regularly anyways. As we go through the week and run out of things: lotion, diaper rash cream, boogie wipes, deodorant, I add them to my cart on the Target app, and at the end of the week, I check out and pick it all up at Target without ever leaving my car. Or even better, Nathan sometimes even goes to do our pick up. Same for groceries, when we REALLY get busy and our weekends get packed, I spend the $5 to get my groceries delivered or pick them up using InstaCart at the store.

When it comes to where I want to spend my time on the weekends, I’m going to opt for hanging with my family versus grocery shopping if I can only choose one and do it well.

-4- I haven’t figured out a magical way to get laundry done. People keep wearing clothes. And in the case of Harrison, he keeps spilling food on himself. I really have to shift my mindset a bit about laundry, and know that I’m going to be doing laundry most of the weekend, as opposed to being able to get it knocked out on Friday, say, while I’m home with Harrison.

-5- I try to plan fun things for our family during the months that are really busy! As I said in some earlier posts, we have LOADS of winter birthdays. My birthday, Evie’s birthday, Nathan, and my mom’s birthdays are all in the months of January and February. Plus there’s Valentine’s day in there as well, and we have a little tradition in our family that I love and always look forward to each year. I’ll share that in a later post!

Between celebrating birthdays, we’ve added in Gymboree classes for Harrison to get him an outlet for his energy, and lots of trips to hang out with his cousin or his aunts and uncles to burn off energy!

-6- I try to give myself at least an hour mental break from work every night. It used to be watching an episode of something I loved on TV. With Harrison now, though, that hour is usually spent having dinner with the family and then playing with him: hide and seek, soccer, kitchen, or blocks. Going into a day knowing that you are going to allow yourself a break to do something that doesn’t involve work or stress allows you to adjust your perspective during the day, and at the very least, gives you something to look forward to in the evening!

Busy times at work are never an exact science. After eleven years, though, Nathan and I have learned a few things. And it honestly helps immensely that Nathan understands the demands of my work, having worked in the same profession for several years. But we get better year after year. And we look forward to March with even more fervor. 🙂