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Month: April 2021

Meal Planning: How Long Will Food Last in the Freezer

Freezer Times

When you make meals for one, there always seem to be leftovers. Or you shop, and you have to buy enough for a family of four. So what do you do with that extra? Freeze it of course, because no one wants good food to go to waste. But we always end up questioning how long will food last in the freezer. I mean, can we really keep that chicken in there for 9 months and still eat it (cook it first, but sure)? Or should we freeze that salad (no…just no…salads do NOT thaw well, ladies!)?

There is a major food safety issue to consider for us. It’s not just not wanting food going to waste that we want to consider, but will that food be safe for us to consume after a period of time. We want to freeze things, because there’s only so many times you can eat some of that ONE meal throughout the week. And if you’re like me, you don’t know how to make a small batch of chili. It’s just NOT possible.

Wanting to know how long will food last in the freezer is important, but we can’t always keep the list memorized. That’s why I gathered together a handy list below:

Freezer Food List

Food ItemLength of Time
Poultry (raw)12 months
Beef (raw)4-12 months
Raw Fatty Fish (e.g. salmon, perch)2-3 months
Raw Lean Fish (e.g. haddock, sole)6 months
Raw Shellfish3-6 months
Ground Meat (raw)3-4 months
Pork (raw)4-12 months
Tofu3-5 months
Egg whites (yolks can freeze, but not well)12 months
Soups2-3 months
Cooked meat leftover2-6 months
Frozen pizza1-2 months
Cheese (excluding: Cottage cheese, cream cheese, feta, goat, fresh mozzarella, Neufchâtel, Parmesan, processed cheese)6 months
Butter6-9 months
Ice Cream1-2 months
Yogurt1-2 months
Fruit12 months
Avocados3 months
Bananas3 months
Citrus Fruit4-6 months
Fruit Juice8-12 months
Fruit pies (baked)2-3 months
Fruit pies (unbaked)8 months
Breads (yeast-based)6 months
Dough (yeast -based)2 weeks
Cookie Dough2 months
Luncheon Meat1-2 months

How Our Friendships Change as We Age

Women Friendship

One day in either our 30s or 40s we look around at our friend circle and it’s completely different than it was a decade or two prior–and we just don’t know how it happened. Just like us, our careers, and everything else…our friendships change as we age.

Why is does that happen, and should we be concerned that our friendships aren’t the same as they were in our teens and 20s? I would say for the most part it’s a natural thing that friendships evolve, so we shouldn’t be overly concerned that our friendships are a little different than they were before.

Why Friendships Evolve

Let’s look at the reasons friendships evolve. That might help ease some of the fears of how our friendships change as we age:

  • God moves us forward. When God moves us forward, He sometimes has us leave some things behind. Those “things” we leave behind might be friends that aren’t helping us in our relationship with Him. So who we were friends with in our 20s, going clubbing with in college, crashing with on weekends–that might not be the crowd we want in our lives right now.
  • Women get married and pregnant in their mid-20s. Yes, I know, I’m talking to single women. However, I’m not talking about YOU getting pregnant (though some of you may be single moms).  I’m talking about when your friends couple up, have kids, and then they suddenly forget how to include you in their lives. It’s a phenomenon almost every single women over 30 has experienced. It’s also part of the issue with how we experience our singlehood in church, too. Our relationships with our friends change just because of their marital and family status.
  • Priorities change. Priorities are also a big reason why our friendships change as we age. It plays into why our married friends with kids may not see us as often. However, it’s not just on their side. We’re single women building our own lives and our own careers. We’re managers and business owners. We have our own priorities going on, and we need people who will support us. As our priorities change, how we relate to those around us changes.
  • We go through some major stuff. As we age, things start to happen in our lives that are both really really good and amazingly bad. Some of us grow our companies and climb corporate ladders. Others may be raising amazing children on our own. There are single women who may be caring for elderly family. Some may have lost family members, homes, jobs…the list goes on. We go through some big things that we couldn’t imagine in our 20s, because we were both naive and self absorbed at that point. So we surround ourselves with a smaller circle of people we can trust with these major milestones in our lives.
  • You choose better investments. Friendships take time. As we age, time seems to shrink. It goes by so quickly, and we have to invest our time wisely. One thing we do gain as we grow older (hopefully!) is wisdom. We can, and should, use that wisdom to invest in the right people and have our circle of friends be one of support and love. They should encourage us to grow in our lives and in our faith.

Change in Friendships is Encouraging

Looking at the reasons friendships change as we age, it’s actually encouraging. While we may mourn the loss of some of our “fun” friends who made us laugh way back when, we now have a group of people we really need. And honestly ask yourself, could you still do that stuff you did in your 20s? I know I can’t. Last time I pulled an almost all-nighter, I paid the price of it for a week! I love my close group of friends now, who are still fun, still amazing, and maybe a little crazy, too. But I’ll take nights with a little wine, singing Disney songs at the top of our lungs in the living room after some deep philosophical discussion any time! I look on those nights with as much fondness as sorority madness and last-minute road trips to nowhere.

God Puts Us Where He Wants Us

We need to keep in mind that God will move us to where we need to be in our lives. He puts us in the right place at the right time, and he will push us to move on. In Exodus, He pushed the Israelites to keep moving forward.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. – Exodus 14:15

It might not always be as obvious to us that we’re moving forward. Sometimes we’ll just look around and say, “What happened?” However, God just has His hand in there, pushing, moving, acting in our lives. He moves our friends around, and so do we. It’s natural and ever evolving. So hold your friends close today, and remember that the real friends, the ones who will support you always, will be with you because God placed them in your life. Appreciate the time your have with those you love.

7 Ways Good Managers Can Lift Up Other Women for Success

Lifting Up Other Women in the Workplace

You worked hard to climb that corporate ladder, smashing a few of your own glass ceilings along the way. Congratulations! We should be proud of what we’ve become. Our foremothers fought hard for us to be able to smash those ceilings and become entrepreneurs, managers and CEOs. So how can we lift up other women for success in the workplace, like we’ve been lifted up? Jesus tells us to help our fellow brothers and sisters, and this is one of the most powerful things we can do as a manager–create other successful and good women managers.

Successful Doesn’t Equal Good Managers

Before we get into the ways we can lift other women up in the workplace, let’s make sure we clarify that success doesn’t always equal good in the world of management. Just because someone is climbing the corporate ladder doesn’t mean they make a good manager or mentor. A lot of the time they learn bad lessons in how to get to the top, and they are clawing their way up there.

Not exactly the way we think would make God really happy, right?

So don’t put too much stock in those men and women sitting in those fancy chairs with those fancy name plates outside their corner offices. It’s their actions that matter more than anything else. I’ve met some CEOs that come around on a daily basis to check in on everyone, know people’s names, and are genuinely concerned about their employees. I also know Vice-Presidents that can barely spell their job titles, that only got their because they stole every idea they had from those they worked with, and their only skill is the art of the theft. I wouldn’t turn my back on them ever, because I’d only find a knife in it later.

We all have both of these types of stories, right? And we all know we’d prefer to work for the CEO that comes around and knows everyone’s names. They make you feel better about the work you’re doing, you respond better to feedback, and they make you want to work for them and the organization. They may not even know they’re modeling Godly methods for management, but they are.

So let’s get into the ways YOU can model these methods, because not all just about knowing names and being nice to people (though that helps):

7 Ways Good Managers Lift Up Other Women for Success

  1. Be the example. The number one things you can do to lift up other women in the workplace is to be the example of a good woman manager. Eyes are on you, so make sure they are seeing a manager doing the right things, the Godly things, from that managerial desk.
  2. Look out for your employees. Looking out for your employees doesn’t mean giving into your employees every demand. It means ensuring your employees are getting what they need to do the job at hand. Have they received the best training available? Do they have the right pay at the right pay scale? Are there enough staff to do the job? Are they being treated fairly?
  3. Listen to women. Yes, I said women and not all employees for a reason. Of course you should listen to all your employees. That’s just a given. Everyone comes up with great ideas. However, women are often talked over or dismissed at rates higher than men are. Even women managers are more likely to take men’s ideas more seriously. Give women a chance to speak and not be mansplained.
  4. Be a mentor. Women need other women to show them the way. We aren’t children who need mansplaining or childlike pats on the head. We need strong women to teach us how to be strong women. My favorite books of the Bible are Ruth and Esther. Two women who just set out on their own way and defied the rules. I love Deborah who was a judge and Jael who just took matters into her own hands, because she killed the enemy when no one else could. I learned from these other strong women of the Bible. There were other strong women in my life who took me under their wings and taught me to be a strong manager and mentor so I could lift up other women for success.
  5. Give constructive criticism. You didn’t get where you are without hearing some tough feedback. In fact, some of it was probably harsher than you wanted, right? I know I’ve been there. I’ve sat in offices and held back tears (and sometime harsh words back) when I’ve been told I’d done something wrong. However, we do need to hear proper criticism, because we need to learn from our mistakes. However, give the feedback in a way women can learn from going forward. Give women a way to take steps to improve, and help them through those steps in the way you wish someone had guided you.
  6. Be honest about your mistakes. We all want people to see us as the shiny managers and CEOs. After all, we worked hard to get to the top, right? We earned that corner office and that pretty nameplate on the door, so why should anyone have to know about all the missteps we made along the way? Well, if we want to help lift up women in the workplace, they have to know they can get there, too. If they see us as too shiny, and the office too unattainable, then they give up. By being honest about the three steps forward and two steps back we took along the way, they can see that they, too, can get there.
  7. Let your women fly. Eventually the time will come when the women you mentor will outgrow you. When it happens, you will be both happy and sad about it. Some of them will even become–gasp–more successful than you. Be proud of it. It was time for them to fly on their own. You were part of that. You were part of their growth. Let them go be managers of their own and help lift up other women in the workplace. As you pay it forward, so will they. And as Beyonce says…”who run the world??” One day, ladies…it won’t just be a song, it will be us.

Are you a manager? Share your secrets to lift up other women for success in the corporate world on our Facebook page!

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