Me doing the editing and layout for the Schlock book changes things. My summer is suddenly not so empty. I expect that the work will come in clumps. I’ll work like crazy for a few days, then I’ll have to wait while Howard and the layout guy do their bits. But I have to plan ahead for the days where I work like crazy. I think I’m going to have Taylercorp buy some frozen meals that I can use on the days when I’m exhausted by book work and can’t find the energy to make dinner. The thing is that this book work is not going to go away for quite awhile. As soon as the layout is done for this one I’ll be starting layout for the next one and ramping up to do shipping. Then shipping time is always crazy. Oh and at some point the kids will be starting school and I will not give up writing entirely.
I’ve got to pace myself. I can not always work as hard as I did the past two days. I need to allot each of my important things spaces in my day. It is probably time to dust off my planner that has been languishing since school got out. I need a place to collect all of the tasks and make sure everything gets done.
Weirdly, being busy exhilarates me. After a long stretch of it, I long for empty days, but I’ve just finished a 7 week stretch of empty days. I’m ready to have stuff to do.
One other thing you can do for those days when you’re too busy to cook is have something prepared from the days when you’re not busy. Get suggestions from the kids and husband on what they would like (My daughter would happily eat nothing but my spaghetti for days on end if it were available) that can be made in large batches.
Of course with kids it can be hard to make enough of something so that you have enough to set aside for another day.
Slow Cookers are also good for low-effort meals. All you have to do is throw in the right ingredients in the morning and have something ready for the evening.
The petulant voice in my mind whines that it doesn’t wanna think about cooking. It just wants to solve problems with applications of money.
The reasonable voice thinks this is an excellent idea and I should do it because money is a finite resource.
I totally get the desire to simply solve a problem by throwing money at it- I forget to bring a lunch to work far too often and find myself buying lunch.
There is no reason you can’t do a little of both. Buy some frozen meals and make some frozen meals. Besides, if you’re just making twice as much of something as you normally do it’s less than the effort of making the same thing twice.
And tell your Inner Child (a.k.a petulant voice) that saving money by cooking and freezing means you’ll have more money to do fun things with.