The appliance saga continues around here. Yes, the new oven is working fine, but we also ordered a new refrigerator because our current one has a couple of problems, and we can’t get parts to repair it.

When the new fridge was delivered last week, there was a lot of damage, so we had to send it back. When I got in touch with the store about a replacement, they told me they could deliver one the next day.

The problem was that they didn’t actually have another one to deliver, so I spent an hour on the phone with Lowes and the delivery company on Saturday morning to untangle this mess.

We’re on the schedule for delivery this afternoon, so hopefully this time it will work out.

Because I didn’t want to have to transfer a full fridge and freezer, I’ve been doing minimal grocery shopping so I can use up what I have on hand.

All was going well until a few nights ago when I discovered that I didn’t have any bell peppers (fresh or frozen) for the beanless chili I was making. Since it was too late to make anything else, I had to wing it.

I looked through my frozen vegetable stash to see what else I could substitute.

Green beans? Nah.

Stir fry vegetables? Eh.

Broccoli? Not so much.

Mixed vegetables with squash, carrots, peppers, and onions? Okay, I guess that’ll have to work.

It was probably the most random batch of chili I’ve ever made, but you know what? My family didn’t even seem to notice. All my kids really care about is that I put cheese and sour cream on it and serve it with rolls.

This got me to thinking… sometimes we can get so caught up in things being just right that we put unnecessary stress on ourselves.

Sure, mixed vegetables in chili is a strange dinner, but it filled our tummies. Would I make it again? No. But sometimes you’ve just gotta roll with things.

In fact, this past year has been a year of rolling with things, and it’s more difficult to plan when you’re rolling with things.

But I didn’t want to give up my weekly and daily planning completely because I actually find that having no plan is more stressful than changing my plans. So I started making my plans more flexible.

I’d make a list of meals for the week and get the groceries to make them. But if I needed to switch nights because of a late meeting, my plan was flexible enough to accommodate that.

In the morning, I’d make a list of the things that had to be done that day and block off time to work on them. Work that requires more focus gets the first block of the day when the house is still quiet.

Then in the afternoon, I usually knock out things that require attention shifting, like email and other admin type work tasks.

I’d also set aside a block of time to make progress on long-term projects for work during our afternoon quiet time.

Life can be tricky when you’re mom, teacher, employee, contractor, cook, and home manager. But when you wear all of these hats in the middle of a pandemic, well… that’s why I’ve gotta have a plan… otherwise I’m putting out fires all day.

So what is causing you unnecessary stress these day and is there a way you could roll with it? Hit reply and let me know—I’d love to encourage you.

Keep planning.

Shelley

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P.S. Do you put anything unusual in your chili?

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