The Little Things...

It is so true that sometimes it is just the little things that make a big difference.

Last night, and this morning, were good examples of that for me. A reminder of something I already knew, but ya know, sometimes I forget. I have forgotten this before and I will (probably) forget again. It is nice to remind myself, and maybe others, that the little things can sometimes make a big difference.

For me, I am talking about a little bit of preparation.

Sunday Chris and I made a "toss-it-all-in-there" kind of stew in the crockpot. We had some pretty freezer burned beef steaks that we dug out of the bottom of the freezer in our inventory session; we had a bag of kidney beans that we are pretty sure we owned at hour house in Beaverton (for those keeping track that was 3 houses ago and over 10 years). Yah. I don't actually know if dried kidney beans ever go bad, but hey, they looked fine. We also had some potatoes frozen from last years garden that we wanted to use up (also found in the bottom of the freezer in our inventory session). We added to that some broth, celery, onions, garlic, some of the frozen smoked peppers and tomatoes from the garden, and some seasonings and let it cook allllllday Sunday. We didn't have it for dinner until Monday night, which is great because this little bit of prep work on Sunday made my Monday much better!

Monday I get home late from school, and it's football season! Having dinner pre-made and ready (I put the crockpot back on low before I left) was so great! It alleviated a ton of the "what's for dinner" stress.

I did start to watch the game last night (Lions/Bears) but seriously, OMG. 17 plays, 7 penalties. And by the time I had typed that out as my Facebook status update, they had another 3 penalties! It was terrible. The game was just really poorly played. After dinner and watching the first half I decided my time could be more wisely spent on a few other things. Here is why:

I wanted to workout this morning. I have early classs on Tuesday. I don't like to get up early. If I would have waited until this morning to do the few little things I did last night (and had plenty of time to do last night) I a) wouldn't have worked out and b) would have been rushing around like a mad woman!

Instead, I turned off the horrible football game, cleaned up my kitchen, pre-packed lunches for both Chris and I for today, got the coffee all ready for this morning, took care of a few misc. other things and then I had plenty of time to read a chapter for homework!

Those LITTLE things meant that this morning I was able to get up at 7:40, push start on the coffee pot, throw our lunches in our lunch bags, change into my workout clothes and get 25 minutes of yoga/pilates done before breakfast, shower and then head out the door for class.

I was not late. I was not rushed. I have a healthy lunch. Chris has a healthy lunch. I was able to exercise. These LITTLE actions made a huge difference in my day today.

Incidentally: Breakfast was coffee, KashiCrunch with applemash and rice milk with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Lunch was half a turkey and cheese sandwich, some cottage cheese with sliced tomato and half a cucumber (you know the tomato and cucumber are from my garden, right?). I also had a slice of string cheese and I have two small pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for my "dessert". These are the last of the cookies, thank goodness! This is why I don't make cookies. I love them. I have no self control.

Not sure exactly what is on tap for dinner tonight, but if nothing else we have leftover stuffed peppers and leftover stew, so we can eat that. We aren't going to starve that is for sure!

So, the little things add up to big things. Pre-prepping things like lunch, a crock pot dinner, getting the coffee ready, and a few other little things like that are BIG in my life when I get busy and life is on a time frame.

I need to remember this more often!

What do you think? Pre-prep? What little things add up to big things for you?