Housewifery at its best.

Hello friends!
   It's been a fairly successful week of getting settled into the new life as a wife and living with my husband. It's going to be a fun ride, folks.

  But I'm not so naive to think that it will always be sunshine and rainbows. Virtually every married person I know has told us as such and I've witnessed it first hand...marriage is just ongoing work. BUT.. I'm enjoying the playing house part of it for now.

So, in my last entry, I expressed a desire to get organized...it WILL happen and my little apartment home will be cozy, efficient and homey. For the wedding we got mostly items for our kitchen. We're appreciative, but now the trick is putting it all somewhere. We are blessed with a large pantry space (honestly, that's what sold me on the apartment!) but with that much space, I don't want things to get lost. I was to be able to see everything!

I've been trolling Pinterest for ideas on organization tips... I'm open to any ideas. These are the tactics I utilized so far:

1. Use baskets/tubs for smaller things. We don't keep a lot of junk food in the house, so we have a little tub for all of that so it's all in one central location. Jello/pudding is all in one. You get the idea.

2. Stair-step shelving for canned items. This allows us to see what's in there.

3. Healthier items at eye-level. -- because we're trying to be awesome. The same tactic was used in the refrigerator, so you are more inclined to grab fresh fruit than something unhealthy.

Here's (one side of) the pantry thus far:

Also, I'm making progress on the meal planning part of my goal. Months ago, my sister told me about www.emeals.com. On that website, you can choose your family size and the diet you'd like to follow (meal planning AND healthy eating in one blow? Yes, please!) The meal plans include, Paleo, vegetarian, classic, low carb, etc. I opted for Clean Eating. Then you download a week's worth of dinners and/or lunches. Main dishes, side dishes AND a grocery list, friends. This does cost to do this, but not that much! Plus my sister sent me a groupon! Woop! http://www.groupon.com/deals/e-meals-1-raleigh-durham

My first adventure with this plan was Mustard-Glazed Salmon with tomato-watermelon salad. It was SO great, and we had most of the ingredients already in our house. The glaze was a little much for me... I would have probably only put on half of what I did on my piece of salmon, but it was delicious. Even Randy complimented it several times, so you know it's good!

Last night was Randy's first night back at work. I went to mom's to get some stuff to take back to the apartment, ate dinner there and then got back to the apartment about 8:30.

From there, magic happened. My friend Amanda told me that Thursdays are her cleaning night. I think this is brilliant. That way, everything is clean and done and you can enjoy the weekend rather than spending 2 days getting things done around the house. I was inspired.

So, when I got home, I unpacked all the things I brough from my mom's house... clothes, toiletry items... nothing crazy. I plan to enlist the help of my nephews to help when they visit this weekend. Then, I put in a load of laundry and folded the pile of Chinese laundry-style laundry (see previous post). This included sheets and I think I have strangely mastered the art of folding a fitted sheet. I kinda rock at it.

Then I put on my heels and apron Randy's gym shorts and a t-shirt and mopped the kitchen floor. Vacuumed. Put away laundry. Made the spare bedroom bed.

Peach Cobbler. Bam.

Then I remembered Randy suggested we make spaghetti so he can eat on it this weekend during his weird work hours. So, I got busy browning the turkey. I felt like it would be easy since we had a jar of sauce in the pantry. Wrong. We had tomato soup and tomato paste. So, with those things, I created a sauce, which was amazing. I kept snitching it.

I was on a roll, and in our refrigerator we had some farmer's market peaches that were a few days from being gross, so I made a peach cobbler. That turned out pretty well also! I put a little oatmeal in it, just to try that, and it was great, but just a BIT dry... so I'll need more milk or water next time.

By the time Randy got home, I felt so accomplished. I was just laying around watching Friends like I had been lazy all night. While Randy watched Sports Center and ate spaghetti to detox from his "day" at work, I fell asleep.

Again, realize it won't always be like this, but it will be fun for awhile!