Dinners

Since I previously made public my New Year's resolution, I am holding myself responsible for updating on it. The recap is that I resolved to reduce clutter in my life. The clutter includes physical items, emotional clutter, financial clutter (debt), and items that are cluttering my time. I made this resolution in memory of Ryan, for what he taught me about what is important in my life.

The first thing I have addressed is things that are cluttering my time. I am awful at mealtimes - from planning meals, grocery shopping, preparing meals - all parts. I tend to forget to take things out of the freezer in a timely manner to be ready when needed for a meal. I also have a wonderful habit of not having ingredients or not preparing the meal before the ingredients spoil. We also throw away a lot of food. With all of these together, we were eating out often and when eating at home, I would be stressed while preparing and eating dinner. All of that has been causing emotional and financial clutter. Enter Dream Dinners.

After Ryan's death, a group of our close friends provided us with a gift card to Dream Dinners. The day before I returned to work, I visited Dream Dinners for the first time. I was there for about an hour and a half and left with around 12 meals to go in my freezer. While this may not seem monumental to most, it has truly impacted my home life.

When I returned to work, I didn't have to think about dinners. I didn't wonder if I had ingredients at home for a meal. It was truly as simple as picking a few meals on the weekend for the week ahead and placing them in the fridge. The stress was gone from preparing dinner. I now longer felt like we were wasting food or ingredients. The three serving meals provided dinner for Scott and I, and I would get a lunch out of it! We were even able to work on portion control (something both of us are not very good at!). Then at the end of dinner, cleanup was even easier.

In a week, I will go back for my fourth month at Dream Dinners. It has become part of routine and has helped me organize our other meals for the month. I don't think our friends knew how that simple gift card would truly impact our family!


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