I saw some bananas sitting on my counter and it inspired me to do some freezer cooking last week. I’ve gotten out of the habit of regular freezer cooking in recent months and oh how I’ve missed it!
I’m not even sure why I got out of the habit… I can give a long list of excuses reasons, but I think it just boils down to me not making it a priority. And by not making it a priority, I’ve realized just how much freezer cooking benefits our family and makes life easier.
So it’s good to be back into it again.
I made two loaves of our favorite Banana Bread. (Recipe link is here.)
I enjoyed listening to Kat Lee’s Inspired to Action podcast while cooking. I’ve listened through quite a few episodes over the last few weeks and have truly been inspired to action.
I added chocolate chips to the top of one of the loaves… because, of course. 
Apparently, it takes a lot of bowls to make banana bread.
This bread is so, so yummy and freezes so well!
While the banana bread was baking, I pulled out the bacon and started getting it ready to stick in the oven. This was a total experiment idea. We love bacon at our house, but I don’t love the process of making it.
Jesse devised this bacon-cooking plan that works really well — put the strips of bacon on a cooling rack on a foil-lined pan and bake at 425 degrees for 17 to 20 minutes.
I wanted to see if I could make a bulk batch and freeze. It froze well, but when I reheated it in the microwave, it was fairly limp instead of crispy. I want to try one more time and bake it until it’s really, really crispy and see if that makes a difference in how it freezes.
It may not work well to freeze, in the end, but we’ll still suffer through eating it to experiment. 
Has anyone had success in freezing and reheating bacon?
I also boiled a pot of eggs. Not for the freezer, but just to have on hand for quick snacks for our kids.
And then I made a batch of Trim Healthy Mama Pancakes.
I was excited to try using the new package of Sweet Blend that I recently got.
Unfortunately, I didn’t love the pancakes as much as usual with the Sweet Blend instead of Xylitol (that we usually use). I think it’s just because I still can’t get over the taste of Stevia, try as I might.
While I was finishing up in the kitchen, I made myself a pot of this Tranquility Tea. It’s so calming and refreshing — perfect to drink with some cream before bed.
I cleaned up the kitchen and surveyed the fruits of my efforts. It might seem like just a little bit, but for a small amount of work, I now have some snacks and breakfasts in the freezer at the ready. And little things like that can be such a sanity-saver!
Note: I had this all written up earlier this afternoon and I posted it and then — poof!– half of it completely disappeared. And I have no idea where it went to! Oh well, such is blogging sometimes!
How was your day yesterday? My day didn’t start so well, but it ended well — and I’m grateful!
I slept in to recover from a full weekend and then started my day feeling really behind and off-kilter. I wanted to get the house back in order after hosting two different families for dinner + our Community Group over the weekend, I had a few pressing business projects, I was hoping to be able to go through the kid’s clothes, and there was just the normal life stuff like homeschooling and laundry and blogging.
So after Bible, blogging, and breakfast, the kids started in on their Daily Lists and I worked on cleaning up the house. I was shocked that the floors weren’t dirtier than this! We had 13 children at our house on Sunday alone (ages 3-12) plus parents/adults and there were snacks and drinks and dinner… so it’s pretty impressive that that’s all that I had to show for my kitchen/dining room dirt pile after sweeping!
Our bedroom needed a little help, too! 
We’ve slowly been working on decorating our bedroom — thanks to the help of a friend. I love how it’s coming together. Next up for decor: hanging some curtains and hanging some things above our bed.
Yes, we may have a bit of a laundry situation going on here.
I posted this picture on Instagram and said:
She offered to fold the laundry for me today. Um, I’m not sure if she quite knew what she was getting herself into!
5 things you should know about this picture:
1) I have laundry issues. Always have and maybe always will. It’s one area of homemaking that I’m rarely on top of.
2) Yes, I have tried all the surefire and “proven” methods shared in the blogosphere and in books. Some of them work for a time, but usually I revert back to this in a few weeks. I may be a hopeless cause.
3) I AM really good at washing and drying laundry… And I’m holding out hope that someone is going to invent a folder and put-er-awayer someday.
4) In the mean time, maybe we should look into becoming nudists?!?
5) In all honesty, I’ve been reminding myself that recently, my unfolded laundry pile is the result of intentionally choosing something that’s a greater priority. For instance, I’d planned to tackle this last night, but instead, we invited a family we just met over for dinner at the last minute. They moved here recently and are struggling to get plugged in and find friends. Spending time investing people trumps laundry every day in my book.
While Kathrynne was doing the laundry, Kaitlynn and I tackled her closet. As she’s our resident fashionista, she probably has more clothes than Kathrynne and Silas combined.
I was so happy that we were able to get rid of a number of items — either things she no longer wears, things that are worn out, things that are the wrong season, or things that no longer fit.
We created a system for better organizing her dresser: accessories in one drawer, socks/underwear/swimsuits in another drawer, tops in one drawer, bottoms in one drawer, and ice skating outfits/clothes in the last drawer. I think this will make things much simpler for her — and I’m hoping it will keep her closet/dresser a lot more organized. We’ll see!
After we were finished sorting through Kaitlynn’s clothes, I realized I was running out of time, so I decided to go through Kathrynne and Silas’ clothes later this week and instead called everyone to the kitchen table for snacks and Morning Time.
After Morning Time, I finally headed to the garage to run on the treadmill and then to wash my hair while Jesse took over with the homeschooling and then headed to take Kaitlynn to her trampoline lesson (she just started doing off-ice jump training with a coach to work on some of her technique figure skating jumps and spins) and then take Kathrynne to her swim lesson (she’s doing private lessons with her swim team coach this summer to work on her strokes and endurance).
Once I was ready, I headed to our office space to have a meeting with my assistant and then to get some business/blogging work done. Before I knew it, it was 5 p.m.!
Jesse met me at Publix and then we rode together to a get-together at our friends’ house.
Remember when we went shopping with Tam on Saturday? Well, Tam and I begged Angie if she’d give us a makeup and hair tutorial on Monday night. So she kindly obliged… and wow! It was SO helpful and I learned a LOT.
Angie is a makeup pro and really needs to have her own YouTube channel. We’re working on that.
As you can tell, we didn’t have any fun at all.
How was YOUR Monday (or Tuesday)? And since I fessed up about my laundry, what would you consider to be your “homemaking issue” or “time management issue”? I’d love to hear — it’s good to remember that we all have our own strengths and weaknesses.
