Where Does The Day Go?

Frequently I look up at the clock from working all day only to find that it is 5 o'clock already and I haven't even thought of starting dinner.  Well no more!  When we were trying to sell our house last year I had a great system.  As soon as I got home from grocery shopping I would prep everything, dicing meat, washing and cutting vegetables, preparing marinades.  All I would have to do when dinner time rolled around would be to grab the things I needed and dinner would be ready in a flash with very few dishes to do.  It was so easy.  One day of hard work for a weeks worth of easy meals.  That was a much simpler time in our lives.  Weird to say that now.  It seemed so hectic at the time, but I didn't have a two year old toddling around the kitchen opening up every cabinet door and taking out every item in the cabinets.  I've needed to find that kind of efficiency again.  I'm trying.  I traded a ten minute commute to preschool in for a 25 minute commute.  It was easy to run back home and prep things for the day.  I would the baby down for a nap and get almost everything done, including cleaning the house done while my oldest was at preschool.  Those days are gone, well at least until Kindergarten starts.  I've been trying to find my way back to this efficient life I used to lead and here's what I've come up with so far.

1. I have to start getting up earlier.  Monday I was up early and was able to accomplish more by nine o'clock (partly because we didn't have to drive to preschool) than I was able to all day today.  Plus, my oldest starts school a whole hour earlier next year and we will walk to school.

2.  I have to start prepping food when the baby (who's not such a baby anymore) is sleeping.  I did this yesterday and by the time it was time to cook dinner all I had to do was dump ingredients.  I miss the simplicity of this.  This is what I did yesterday:

Don't mind my clutter in the background

It cut down cooking time, but it created more dishes.  I'll have to think about this one a little more, there must be a way to simplify even more.

3.  Meat must be marinated starting the evening before.  Not only will I not forget, but it has such better flavor the longer it marinates.

4.  I have to start saying no and stop taking on extra tasks that I know will only hinder me getting the things done that I need to get done during the day.  This one is the hardest for me.  I try to be superwoman, but I only end up setting myself up for failure when I do this.  Then I get terribly down on myself and don't get anything accomplished.  It becomes a vicious cycle.

The goal here is not to have more time to do more things, it is to have more time to spend with my boys.  More time so we can create better memories instead of memories of me always being in the kitchen, cleaning and running errands.  More time so they can learn from me and I from them.  I'm hoping by writing these things down I will work harder at accomplishing these goals.