It's that time of year again. The kids are back in school and it's time to once again start packing lunches. This is actually a good thing for me, as it gets me back into the habit of packing a lunch for myself every day -- I tend to backslide on this during the summer, and end up spending more than I should to eat out. The problem is that mornings around here can be pretty crazy, and lunch-packing just adds to the craziness. So, in order to keep things running as smoothly as possible, we've had to come up with creative ways of streamlining our morning routine. Probably the simplest of these steps has to do with sandwich making.

Rather than breaking out the PB&J every single morning, I've gotten into the habit of spending a bit of time on Saturday or Sunday afternoon making (and freezing) all of the sandwiches for the upcoming week. As it turns out, PB&J sandwiches freeze (and thaw) really well, and making a pile all at once is far more efficient than doing it piecemeal. As of this year, I'm making a grand total of seventeen sandwiches at a time (five each for myself and two full-time school kids, plus a twice-a-week preschooler). This works out especially well for us, as I like PB&J as much as the kids do, and the resulting modularity of the morning lunch-packing routine (i.e., grab a sandwich from the freezer, throw in a yogurt and some fruit and I'm done) makes it all the more likely that I'll actually bring a lunch to work. And to think that sandwich-making is enough of a burden on society to support the creation of a entire frozen PB&J sandwich industry! Then again, they do come with their crusts already cut off.

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