Recipe choosing, from our many cookbooks, is new thing we’ve started doing, that kind of extended from something late last year - we stay in on sundays for most weeks. Kids play and do arts and crafts, read, play music and generally mooch and reset for the week. It really makes a huge difference. We might go to the cinema early or for a quick walk, but the main chunk of Sunday is indoors. If they want to, the kids can go in the garden. We started that last year and love it. We started that late autumn and now we’ve added a new thing onto it, which is the meal planning on a Sunday night. I have a repeat delivery slot on Monday before school, so on sunday nights we’ve started hauling out all of our many recipe books, along with a few loose recipes, looking through them and adding the correct ingredients to the normal order. So it’s like Gousto or Hello Fresh, but much cheaper! Plus there’s significantly less packaging. Another reason it’s much better is that you get your nice interesting meal ingredients, but don’t need to then do a separate shop for milk and fruit and wot not. It’s soooo enjoyable and counts as a bit of relaxing time that me and my husband actually chat and join in with the same objective, rather than our usual roles of happy parenting/dividing jobs/swapping going out/being knackered.
I also only do laundry once a week. Everyone definitively has enough stuff for at least 10 days+ so now on a Sunday I do all the washing (about x8 loads) and then it’s all away by Sunday night. As there’s enough clothing for everyone, I can move the day forward or backwards if need be. I don’t iron EVER. I fold hot from the dryer, and in spring/summer I hang outside to dry and fold before it goes crisp.
Audible and podcasts are sanity savers to me, the library also have audio books. I do read books, but don’t always have time, or just feel like my eyes are closing. Instead of reading a book in the bath, I turn on my audio book and actually close my eyes while someone else reads to me
I’m always surprised when people don’t have a year’s planner/Family calendar somewhere in the house. I know they’re not beautiful, but the planner on the kitchen wall is something that would drive me mad not to have. We don’t need to tell each other everything, just check the calendar. We can then equally take charge of kids play dates, passport renewals, docs appointments etc as it’s all there to see for months ahead. When my children first started school my husband was constantly checking days and dates with me, “do they do anything on a Wednesday? What day is swimming again?” which was really annoying. I was probably also annoying with “what day are you working late again? You need to be in by X time as I have a meeting”. Now we both just say “have a (bloody)look!”. Makes life much easier and about once a week or so I take a picture of it, so I can remember term dates, or important things coming up.
I freeze smoothie mixes in bags, so the kids have a tonne of fruit before school every day. Get up earlier than them for coffee, and lay out their clothes the night before.
Another thing that makes me feel happy is that when they get up and start eating breakfast, I go around and open all the bedroom windows - even in winter. They’ve pulled their covers back themselves and they always tidy up before bed. Then just before we leave the house, I run round and close them all again, it really freshens the place up!
Love your freezer! Any leftovers, any veg, bread, milk, fruit - most stuff can be frozen. It’s much easier to whack an already made lasagne in the oven than to even do something easy like egg chips n beans! Less mess, less thinking, just chuck in. When I make something from scratch I try and make x2 as I’m going through the effort anyway. One for the freezer.