[Investigator Asks] My Lifehack Inappropriate for LDS

[applepansy]

Congrats JAG!!!

Jessie, just do your best. I was glad to hear you're going back to cooking. To really eat a healthy well balanced diet you have to have variety and that means cooking sometimes.

I grew up without a dishwasher.... well we had several dishwashers :) Names the kids! I realize you have a toddler so that doesn't work.

As I skimmed through the posts I didn't see the link to Provident Living. Maybe it will be helpful.

The site will explain the churches position on food storage and the whys.

Now... there are days when the dishes just don't get done at my house. I want a sign by the front door that says "My house was clean yesterday... Sorry you missed it! )

The gospel isn't about clean dishes. Its about Christ, His Atonement for our sins, Repentance, Returning to live with our Heavenly Father and FAMILIES. Provident Living is about making our families self sufficient and less likely to crash when something happens like losing a job, etc.

[pam]

You can do it Jessie. Just baby steps at a time.

[Blackmarch]

Hi LDS.net members! I have kind of an odd question for you, but I am hoping for your advice to guide me as I venture forth...I'm an investigator, but I want to be baptized as soon as possible. I am trying to purge my life of ungodly things (already been deleting all of my erotica off my Kindle and removing immodest clothes from my wardrobe).

Very highly commendable, that takes a lot of will and guts to do. Glad to hear that you are trying to come closer to God :) keep up the good work. This is the most important.

Now, I am self-employed, and my husband works extremely difficult shifts leading to an odd schedule...add in that we have a toddler, and basically our house is an utter wreck (working so hard to get it clean before missionaries get here).

Because our dishwasher broke in the middle of an intensive 7 day, 17 hour workweek for my husband, many dishes got disgustingly rotten, we threw them out, and we had little left. We got rid of those, too, and I did some creative budgeting and discovered we could eat healthier and spend about the same, maybe a little less or more, if we ate out and never cooked (we eat salads, wraps, burritos and used canned goods like tuna and beans). This eliminated a huge, burden of a chore in cleaning and a time-suck of cooking, enabling our family to spend more time together.

I used to be a huge proponent of our food stockpile pantry. After no matter what I tried I couldn't afford the right things to keep rats and roaches out of our pantry, whatever we hadn't used was mostly ruined.

So now, I'm wondering, do I need to reacquire dishes and go back to cooking? Am I required to have a food stockpile? Am I doing something wrong?

Sorry if this sounds silly! Thanks for reading my rambling post!

Please offer me some advice on this, I'm so confused...I don't want to be doing something wrong according to how God wants us to live.

Out of the daily maintenance;

well my first impression is that you might be trying to take on too much at once.

No you don't have to necessarily go back to cooking.. i'd say do things one or two things at a time.

Foodwise i tend to not have a lot of time to cook, so i usually have a stockpile of stuff in the fridge or freezer that are premade so that all you really have to do is throw them in the frying pan, pot, oven, or microwave. I also have some fruit on hand because they generally don't need preparation beyond rinsing them off.

whatever you decide tho, the trick here is to clean up soon as youre done eating (altho my dad cleans stuff while he cooks, so there is hardly any mess when were done eating. No idea how he does that and cook at the same time without taking forever:D).

For dishes I'd say have 1 to two of each thing you need for each person in the house. plus one or two for guests. (this will force you to clean them, before the piles get really huge and overimposing). Also if you need to get new dishes check out the 1 dollar stores.

Cleaning: if you take care of things you use immediately after youre done using them you will find it will be a lot easier to keep things clean. (for manually washing dishes i find i really like those soap wands- a scrubber that has a a hollow handle for dish detergent taht dribbles down to the scrubber).

Also set a schedule for doing certain chores (ie vacuum, laundry, bathrooms.. and htey don't all have to be on the same day)

Food storage: if critters have been ruining your past attempts you may have to stick with items that will not as likely to attract them and are more critter resistant, right now the only thing i can think of is canned goods.

Another thing that may be worth looking into when the both of you get the time and money is have some sort of pest control pros check it out and go from there.

And rememeber you don't have to do these all at once. Out of all of these chore types, personally, i'd think the having the place clean would be my first priority if i was in your shoes.

Anyways just a couple suggestions.

....

2) My wife has been on bed rest for the past two months (just gave birth Wednesday, finally). I cannot endorse the use of paper plates, cups, and silverware strongly enough. They make cleaning the pots, pans, and cooking utensils manageable.

wow Grats!!

And i also second JAG here on disposable dishes.

Edited April 24, 2012 by Blackmarch