Today, the day I am writing this, is the first Friday that is also a full grocery day since I sat down during my vacation to figure out how to better align my weeks to reduce the burnout effects of working the long hours I do at the pace I do. I, unfortunately, did not come up with any miracle solutions, but I did have a few ideas that would hopefully reduce the stress I was feeling from week to week before my vacation WITHOUT getting takeout or delivery multiple times a week. And, hopefully, without eating garbage frozen food all the time. Or, in some cases, eating a mix of garbage frozen food and well-prepared good food. For example, I’m making myself some delicious pasta sauce this weekend but, instead of doing all the work of making chicken parmesan, I’m just buying some frozen breaded chicken patties to toss in the oven with some sauce and cheese on top. And buying ravioli and tortellini so I can have some fun variety in my meals while still only really needing to do laborious cooking once (boiling water for noodles is only slightly more difficult than making a frozen pizza). This is the goal, after all: to produce a variety of tasty and at least moderately healthy meals for less money than it would take to eat out frequently but more money than my bare-bones frozen food, pizza, and boxed meals diet that I usually turn to when I need to avoid takeout. In a different living situation (aka, with one or more roommates or a partner), it would be less difficult to make sure I got enough variety in my diet to avoid getting takeout just for a change, but I live alone and modern life isn’t made for single people to maintain a household on their own, so I’m stuck trying to make do with the time and energy I’ve got during these increasingly busy months.