My Freezer Meal Journey: Month 2

So earlier last year, I decided that I wanted to seriously tackle freezer meals as our main way of doing dinner. I knew hubby being in medical school full-time and me home with 3 kids 3 and younger would require a lot of planning for life to go smooth. Anyways, last month was my first month, which you can read about here. It was a great success and we have liked all the meals I prepared. In fact some of them are new family favorites we will eat a lot more! The only thing I wish I had done was blanch some of the vegetables before I froze them.

This month I did another big batch of cooking and finished 6 meals doubled. I planned for 8, but once I got everything out, I remembered that I hadn't bought 2 important things that would mean the prep for the last 2 meals would have to wait for another day. With some leftover meals from last month, that is all I needed to last the rest of the month.

The meals I prepared were:
Beef Faijitas
Sweet and Tangy Meatballs
Beef Roast
Spaghetti (my moms recipe, so I will put it on the blog soon, but any recipe would work)
Cilantro Lime Chicken with Black Beans and Corn
Taco Soup (my recipe, that I will also put on soon, but again any recipe would work)
Coconut Curry Tofu
Spinach Lasagna Rolls

Some things I did differently or learned this time:

--I labeled each bag and kept them in the same spot close to where I was prepping so they were together, out of the way and easy to grab.

--Instead of chopping all the vegetables and putting them in different bowls, I cut down on steps and mess and put all the chopped food into the labeled bags right away. I think I used 1 bowl the whole time, only because I had to mix some things in it. This made the whole process SO much faster! This time I made more meals, but it only took 2 hours, compared to the many more hours it took last time. So basically cut out the middle man and just put things straight into the bag!

--Instead of working on several meals at once, I actually did one at a time. This only worked this time because there was no cooking I had to do. Once I finished each meal, I put them in a place away from all the chopping and cooking so it didn't take up space.

--I did this last time, but forgot to mention it, but I kept the trash can right next to me so every time there was something to throw away, I put it in the garbage right away to cut down on mess. Doing this and not using extra bowls etc. my kitchen wasn't that messy! It was so nice for cleaning up afterwards!

--If there are meals that have more than 1 bag, tape them together so you dont forget on baking day. I almost forgot to take out a second bag to un-thaw one night which could have been disastrous.

--Take your meals out to freeze in the refrigerator for more than 24 hours, best 36 or 48 hours.

--Put meat into it's own bag. There probably is anything more nasty than having meat juice mixed in with your vegetables in your refrigerator!

--Like I said above, blanch potatoes, carrots or other vegetables before freezing them if you don't want them to be soggy.

--Keep a list of the meals you have in the freezer, when you made them, where they are (I have a normal freezer and a chest freezer in the garage), way to cook them (if it's a crock pot meal, that is important to note), and any thing you need with the meal like noodles for spaghetti. I have this one on our refrigerator all filled out.

Best part?!

All the groceries for the 16 meals cost a whooping $170! There were a few things I had already that I didn't need to buy like onions, canned tomatoes etc. But it wasn't enough to make a huge difference! Thats pretty good for 16 meals!

Next month I am going to look for more meatless/vegetarian and whole food meals. Not that these aren't but that is going to be my goal because that is the way we want to start eating. Hope I can find some good ones!  

And it's over.

I love Brielle's face! She is in a diaper because I was getting her ready to put her swimming suit on.

Just like that, without much warning, our time of "play" is over.
One day I woke up and realized, that phase of our life is entirely over.

And surprisingly, my emotions are different than I thought they would be.
An aching excitement.

Aching: I am so sad to have that time over, at times it can hurt. My heart aches to think about how my kids will miss their daddy, and I ache when I think about doing this alone, almost entirely without my best friend.

Excitement: Because it's finally here. The day we have been preparing, hoping for and dreaming of for years. Because I am ready to do this thing.
The surprising part, is this is the greater emotion of the 2.

Yesterday, Richard started medical school.

For pretend, because this week is orientation, but it is all day and the same hours as his classes (8am-5pm). So we are starting "the" schedule and he is preemptively studying the massive amounts of books that he has during the hours he plans to do homework. 80 hours a week of class and studying. Boom baby.

So I am on my own. A thing I haven't had to do since he finished his under-graduate degree last year. It's hard to get used to, but I did it for so long, I have fallen right back in place. The adjustment has come pretty natural, which is a huge tender mercy. 

Classes start on Monday, and the real journey begins.

I feel like I am standing in line for one of the really scary rides at a carnival. It looks exciting, and by the faces of those getting off the ride, it looks totally worth it. In fact, they all come over and tell you it is so worth it. However, it also looks scary, just not scary enough to get out of line. You remind yourself, it will be worth it, and you can do it. 

That's exactly how I feel.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

The story of OUR house.

After being married (almost) 7 1/2 years, living in little apartments that consist of 650 square feet and soon-to-be 3 kids, we will have our own home. Our own starter home. I am still in denial, or shock really.

I feel like for the past 7 1/2 years we have been playing house.
Then the babies came, and it felt more real, but still, just playing.
We left our tiny 650 square foot apartment, the place we had spent the majority of our marriage together and our future was planned.
But now that we are building our first home together, to fill with our own appliances, furniture and keepsakes along with our 3 kids while my hubby becomes a doctor,
I feel like I have legitimately grown-up.

And for those interested, here are some FAQs answered, 

because I am sure there will be many Q's asked by a certain few :)

Why aren't you renting?!

The city where Richard's medical school is located, has some very dangerous non-family-friendly areas. Everyone, including real estate agents, told us to stay away from most of the areas except 2. One of them is a 30 minute drive (one way) from the school and the other area is the one the school is in. It is safe (it has an A+ rating on safety) , very family friendly, protected from the "bad" of the "scary" area by a big highway, and super close to the school. Since time with the family will be very limited because of how busy he will be, we opted to live in the area next to the school so we can spend an extra 1-2 hours a day with Richard (figuring in commuting time and the fact he can come home for lunch). This area doesn't have many rentals and the ones they do have are more than the allotment the school gives you for housing (because they only give enough for a single room apartment since the majority of the students are single men), requiring us to take out more student loans (NO THANKS!!) or not have enough for other expenses. It can be done, and we were going to, but it is definitely not ideal. Considering the only options were very small, with stairs (they are very hard with multiple small children and for that reason I REALLY don't like them) and no backyard and the fact I will have 3 VERY young kids, my time while he will be in medical school would have been awful really really hard. 

Long story short, we found out a couple months ago that my in-laws had sold their house and had a big chunk of money that they wanted to invest in housing for us (they are acting like "bank" and we are going to make monthly payments to them as if they were the "bank"). So we started looking at houses and because the area we need to live in is so nice, there were zero options in that price range. So we decided to look at all the options, including building. We found a perfect lot about a 2 minute drive from the campus for a decent price (and down the street from the brand-new elementary school and church building). And then we found out about a building company that could do everything we needed for the price we could do it in. The whole time we have been very cautious and did a lot of research to make sure it was the right decision. After all our research, we realized it very much is! 

What about the fact you are leaving in 4 years?

With the medical school growing by 30 seats a year and with their plans to open a P.A. school in a few years, we know that there would be a HUGE influx of students and a huge shortage of housing (and this school seeks after students who are LDS with families). So the possibility of renting or selling it when we are ready to leave, is very good. And the price of rentals with it's specs are VERY high, so worse case scenario and we can't sell it, we would make a lot by renting it. And like I said, there is a big market for that with the school growing so much. Plus, worst worst case scenario, and we can't sell it OR rent it out, we could stay there for 3-4 more years after medical school and Richard could very possibly do his residency there (and staying in our brand-new home we built in a very nice area wouldn't be a problem...hehe).
BUT even with all that considered, Business Insider predicts that Yakima will be one of the top markets to grow in the next 4 years (it should grow almost 8%) and it was named one of 15 of the best in the nation for housing markets because of that! And the neat thing, is we will be ready to sell in about 2017 when it is predicted to be at it's peak! HUGE BLESSING. 

How is it a good idea with property taxes, utilities, insurance etc?

Part of our research we did before making the final decision was to find out exactly how much that would be. The school gives you a utility and insurance allowance which is a little bit higher than what we will need to spend. And when we figured in the property taxes plus all the utilities etc. in the monthly payment, it is still much cheaper than renting.

What is the status?
The building permits have been approved, we have paid for the lot and closed on it, we paid the first deposit to the builder/contractor, temporary power pole is up and they are staking out the house on the property tomorrow so they can start excavating this next week!!

Will it be done by the time school starts?
The reason we choose the company that we did is because they are under contract to be completely finished with the project in 4 1/2 months. School doesn't start for another 5 months so we know it will definitely be finished in time. Their contract says 4 1/2 months, but they have been finishing houses in 85-90 days consistently and the main contractor is one of Richards relative and very old family friends, so we know we are in great hands. He knows our deadline and says he will definitely make it, with a good buffer.

What are the specs of the house?

almost 1500 square feet

3 bedrooms

2 full bathrooms

2 car garage

Walk-in closet in master bedroom (YAY!)

Kitchen bar

Covered front porch

Soaker tub and normal shower in master bathroom

Oil rubbed bronze fixtures (all lights and door handles)

Recessed lighting in the kitchen and covered porch 

Thick craftsman style trim throughout the house

Rounded corners on all walls and windows

Cheyenne doors throughout the house

Staggered cabinets in the kitchen

ETC

...perfect starter home!!!

(and I can't wait to put pictures of all the things we picked for the inside!!!)

So it is happening. 

I still can't believe it! The way this has come together is absolutely amazing. I really feel like things have been "guided" and really full of so many blessings. I know it sounds weird, but I have felt that way several times in this process. Like for example: as soon as we realized buying a house in that area was too expensive, I started looking at property and found the one we bought. We looked at other options and did our research trying to keep an open mind, but the whole time I felt a real sense of urgency. I quietly felt a little frantic. But I wasn't sure why because they hadn't had any offers on it since it hit the market almost a year before. Well we sped things through, put an offer on which they accepted and paid our earnest money. Almost as soon as we did that, the Realtor said they had multiple people put offers on it as back-ups and a lot of people very interested in it. She said that we did it at the perfect time. Now I see why I felt the urgency! If we would have waited much longer, we probably wouldn't have gotten it because they went $6,000 under their asking price and I am sure someone would have offered a full price offer! PHEW. 

Richard and I have had so much fun through this process! We are always talking about how we want to decorate the house, how we want to put a huge garden in the side yard and set-up our backyard asap (the yard is going to be HUGE!!! I am so excited). Richard is so excited to make some of the furniture we need  (like this kitchen table) and I am filling my Pinterest boards with ideas for our house. We had so much fun picking out all the things for the house (like carpets, cabinets, doors, flooring, windows, trim, fixtures etc) and we agreed on all of it!! We kept laughing the whole time because we would choose the same exact thing every time! We really are 1 mind and soul mates. We have had so much fun daydreaming constantly, making plans and getting randomly giddy when we think about it!

And lastly, we are SO INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL to my in-laws who have chosen to invest in this project so that our lives in medical school will be much easier! I feel so grateful to be a part of such a wonderful, supportive and selfless family!

Can't wait for our house to be finished so we can begin to fill it with fun memories!

2012, its been great.

4 hours and 2012 will officially be history. It leaves me stunned that this year has gone SO incredibly fast. But tonight I am celebrating all the wonderful things that have happened for us this year, and so excited for all the BIG things that will happen this year, like having baby #3 (I am still in shock we will have 3), moving to a new city we with call home for 2-4 years, hubby starting MEDICAL school and my little's growing up even more.

Here are all the things I am celebrating, in the typical (read: corny) Christmas/end of the year newsletter format: 

Dear family and friends,
Looking back at the past year, 2012 has proved to be one of the most momentous and exciting years we have had for our little family. It has been full of big life changes, wonderful blessings and memories.

In January, Richard took the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), even though he had not taken Organic Chemistry or Physics yet which comprise 2/3rds of the test, and he was only able to study for less than 2 weeks (most people study for 6-8 straight months). He was very blessed, did amazingly well and got a very high score. Richard also finished his bachelor’s degree in Psychology with minors in pre-medical classes and Marriage & Family Studies, in July. As soon as he finished we packed up our little family, leaving our home of the last 4 years, and moved back to WA. Both kids did amazing with our big move (they had never moved, so we weren’t sure how it would go), impressing us so much! Shortly after moving, all of his hard work paid off and Richard was one of the first students accepted to Pacific Northwest University of Health Science’s class of 2017, our top medical school choice, which also happened to be his first medical school interview! He will start school August 2013 and is so incredibly excited to begin the road towards his lifelong dream of being a doctor. For now, we are all enjoying the year-long break he has from school and have been so spoiled by having him around so much, with no homework!!

The week before our move from Idaho, we found out that we are expecting our third sweet baby (surprise, surprise)! I am due at the end of March 2013 and we recently learned we are having another darling, active, healthy little GIRL! She will be born a couple weeks after Liam’s third birthday, and while having 3 kids in 3 years will be challenging, we are so grateful for the timing of our sweet girl joining our family. It will be so nice to have another baby during the year-long break Richard has from school, with live-in babysitters until she is 4 months old (we are blessed to be able to live next to my family during this break)! Other than taking care of our 2 young kids as a stay-at-home mom and being pregnant, I have really enjoyed keeping up on our family blog (http://richennaclan.blogspot.com), photography, writing for the parenting website “The Power of Moms”, spending time with my family & friends, exercising everyday (except Sunday), and cooking (yes, it’s a huge hobby).

Liam turned 2 in February and is such an amazingly sweet little boy! He is so gracious and polite it is mind-blowing and also extremely loving, randomly telling us how much he loves us multiple times a day while giving us hugs. He is such a good talker, so mature, smart and big for his age that people mistake him for a 4 year old almost constantly. When he was 2 ½ we started the potty training process and he was trained in 2 days (he is convinced that he owns a “potty train” somewhere). He loves friends, nursery, dreaming of going to school/growing up, animals, wrestling with Daddy, drawing, reading books, eating, playing with anything he can make a toy, playing in the dirt, collecting bugs/reptiles and cuddling. Liam is totally in love with “his” Brielle and very excited for his new baby sister to be born!

Brielle turned 1 in August and is our darling little blonde-haired, blue-eyed firecracker! She is the sweetest, funniest, flirtest, most friendly, outgoing little bundle of beauty! She is such a girly girl and is always running around covered in jewelry, skirts, bows and drama! She brings so much joy into our lives, it is overwhelming! She loves being around people, playing with friends, animals, dancing, babbling (which is quickly turning into words and sentences of her own “words”), copying people, singing, playing dress-up, to be tickled, playing with Dad, squealing, any kind of music and being held/cuddled by mommy. But her most favorite thing to do is wrapping everyone around her finger with her cuteness and pretending to be a puppy.

Richard and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary (time flies!!), and had a BLAST! We went away for a 2 ½ day trip just the two of us, which were the best days of 2012! It was so much fun celebrating the best 7 years of our lives married to our best friend. It has been such an amazing blessing to have our love, adoration and friendship exponentially increase every year. This year we have also continued to go on a weekly date, enjoying the time as star-crossed lovers.

2012 has proved to be yet another amazing year, and we are so incredibly grateful for the blessings that have come to us this year. We are so grateful for our Savior and the wonderful family, friends and memories we have enjoyed this year! May you feel the love of your Savior at this Christmas season and throughout the upcoming year!

Love Richard, McKenna, Liam, Brielle and baby girl

So there is the summary of 2012 and the awesome, monumentous year it was. I am so glad it was such a great year leaving so many big memories. But I am so excited for all the big things 2013 will bring!

P.S. I have been thinking of my motto for this year, more on that later...

"Just play"

A couple weeks ago, I went with Richard and the kids to tour the medical school that he wants to attend. Richard had been before, and coupled with the fact that the head admissions counselor over the school that Richard has become close with wanted to meet the family and that Richard wanted me to see the school, convinced me us to make the trip. I will say it was worth it, even though the trip down was the sickest I have ever been in this pregnancy...let's just say that I didn't keep anything down until dinner. Anyways, it was a great tour, the kids were great and I love the school!

While we were there, he introduced us to a second year medical school student who was LDS, had 3 kids and has been successful. We picked his brain on his schedule, how they are making it (the first 2 years of medical school are supposedly horrendously busy) and finally, what advice he had. His biggest piece of advice was this: "you have a year before school starts, don't worry about pre-emptively studying or studying past things you learned (which is exactly what Richard was planning on doing), just play." He explained that the first 2 years of medical school we will hardly see him, so we need to just spend this whole year building up a "reserve" and just relax before the storm.

Since then, we have taken his advice whole heartedly.

Every second we have that Richard isn't working or we aren't doing something necessary, 

we just play.

And let me tell you, I AM IN HEAVEN.

It has been a crazy past 3 years, so we have deserved this.

Busy playing legos

I LOVE this picture of Brielle :)

 Liams favorite pastime: swinging!

So like I said, we have whole heartedly taken the advice

and we are either at the park, berry picking, at the beach, feeding the ducks, playing legos/blocks etc or doing something fun,

whenever we can.

This has become our new life motto.

Our final final destination.

I have been meaning to write this post for the last 2 1/2 weeks. But I couldn't find the words to write this post in the way I wanted. But I think it's time. If you read the whole thing, I will give you a treat. Really.
Just read it.

***

"Following the whisperings"

"Chasing his dream"

"Found his calling"

"Learning to be a supportive wife"

"Medical school: our future"

...

These are all the titles that I almost used for this post. It's been difficult to decide which one to use. Why? Because this is a life changing post. I have hesitated writing this for the last 2 1/2 weeks. I am afraid we will get crap, eye-rolling and the like. But still, it's our life and this is the journal of our life and I wanted to record all the details of this final final destination. So it's going to be a long journey through all our roads leading to this final destination so sit tight. Grab a snack and maybe some water too.

Road #1: Richard has always wanted a future in helping people, counseling with people and having relationships with people. So he pursed a degree in Psychology thinking it would lead to a career as a counselor. He finished his degree, but half-way into it realized that the daily stress of working with people with mental disorders was something that he didn't want to do for the rest of his life.

Road #2: As he was finishing his Psychology degree, he heard of the joint MBA/JD degree and decided that was what he wanted to do. With an amazing talent and natural gift in both business and debating, we thought this was his future. But then we realized that while there were some aspects that were appealing, there were other aspects that were very very unappealing. 

Road #3: Still while pursing his Psychology degree, he stumbled across the program that trains Seminary teachers for the LDS church. He went through the first several levels of the training and the people who hire Seminary teachers liked him so much they said he was definitely hired and exactly what they were looking for. A week later the church had a huge hiring freeze (instead of opening positions they were closing positions down) and we were told that the only thing that could have stopped him from becoming a Seminary teacher, had just happened. He continued through the process, was one of 12 (with 1000+ people applying for it) selected to be a Student teacher (which he did for a year while going to school), and one of 6 people (with 1000+ people applying) to get into the hiring pool (basically all the people they want to hire). Because of the freeze put on hiring, they had no openings. 

Here is his explanation of the instant relief we felt when we found out he wasn't hired:

"As soon as the job as a seminary teacher was no longer an option, I felt a great relief. Although I had a million reasons why being a seminary teacher would have been fantastic-- it hadn't felt right, like i was wearing a tight pair of pants, and now I could breath that I had the choice to pick a better fitting pair."

Road #4: Literally as soon as we heard that wasn't his future, he was drawn VERY STRONGLY towards a career in medicine/medical field. I could spend an entire post talking about how a career in the medical field is THE PERFECT fit for him, but I will just say that it fulfills all of his dreams and uses all of his talents/natural abilities. It's perfect. Within that we have had a lot of different paths. 

Road #4A: At first he considered being a CNRA or a Nurse Anesthetist. We liked the pay, the flexibility etc. but it sounded way too boring to him and didn't have enough client interaction. Plus he wanted to own his own business/practice. He doesn't want a boss.

Road #4B: Then with all of those things considering, we switched to him being a Dentist because it had the pay and flexibility of the CNRA, but it gave him more client interaction and he could own his own business. This was his path for about 1 1/2 years. He was president of the Dental society on campus, he went on a huge service trip to Honduras to beef up his application etc. He was all set and ready. And then we heard several scary things about that field that scared us away from it. Plus he realized he wanted more of a relationship with his clients that he wouldn't have as a Dentist and he wanted to do more surgery.

Road #4C: Then he heard about Podiatry and that it gave him all that Dental did, plus more interaction with  his clients AND the ability to do surgery, which he wanted. He switched in December of 2011 and signed up to take the MCAT, applied to schools, went to interviews at all of our top choices for schools, and got accepted to all of them. We had even chose the school we were going to go to already. And the apartment we were going to live in. When he took the MCAT and did WAY better than he thought he would (he had only taken 2 weeks of the first of 2 class of Physics and Organic Chemistry which is 1/3 of the test AND only studied for 2 weeks when most people study for months 8+ hours a day). The whole time he really wanted to be a family practice doctor, but didn't think that was an option. When his MCAT score came back he started really considering it.

FINAL DESTINATION: Randomly one day, 2 1/2 weeks ago, being a doctor came up for probably the millionth time. All through out this journey, ever since we were married really, he has talked about how much he wanted to be a doctor. It has been his dream since he was a kid. And anyone who knows him, knows this is a perfect fit. And it is everything we want and more.
Higher pay than all the other options (which is not why we are doing it, but definitely a perk)
More flexibility
Be his own boss (his plan is to start up his own practice)
Higher need/job growth
Great job security
Gets the most client interaction/relationship
Gets to work with kids
Can use his Psychology degree and counseling skills
Gets to teach people about health
ETC.
We kept having these whisperings that he should pursue this path. But medical school scared me too much. I was the only thing holding him back from his dream. Well it came up  again 2 1/2 weeks ago and it felt so right. The perfect fit. Our final destination. On a random Wednesday night, we made our decision. 4 months away from starting Podiatry school, we decided to follow our gut, his dream and the whisperings we had been having for so long.

"I was excited to begin podiatry school in only 4 months time. But I still had that desire to be an actual medical doctor-- Podiatry didn't satisfy that longing. As more and more time passed, it became more and more unbearable for me to not be a medical doctor. Finally, after spending thousands of dollars towards podiatry... I did it. I DID IT-- I SWITCHED TO THE PATH OF A MEDICAL DOCTOR! It would take longer, but already it is more rewarding for me personally. Being a counselor, seminary teaching, dentistry, and podiatry are all fantastic careers. But they are fantastic careers for someone other than me. I AM SO HAPPY with my new choice. It is the pinnacle of what I am striving for. It will be hard. It will take a long time, but already it is worth it."

So there it is. Our final destination. 

--June 1st he will apply to medical school which will start August 2013.

--End of July he will finish pre-requisties for medical school.

--August 2012-June 2013 we will live in our hometown in WA minutes away from my family while he works allowing us to save up a lot of money for medical school

--August 2013 we will move where ever we decide to go to medical school and start a whole new challenging, exciting, scary chapter of our lives. 

It's been a long path, but we are finally at the point where we are supposed to be. Every day he gets more and more excited about his future. There are so many ways that I can talk about how all the paths we have taken have been perfect in leading us to where we are supposed to be. And there are so many ways that this is the outrageously perfect fit for our family. We truly feel that his path has been directed and designed just for us. 

This quote I found sums up our journey to our final destination perfectly.

pin

...if you have made it to the end, you are a trooper and deserve a treat. Give me a holla (aka comment) and I will somehow give you a treat...

p.s. what a cool way to spend my 100th post!