Just a little fun...

I don't have much to add to this journey today... other than this small bit of encouragement... It gets better. We cleaned the house (all but 2 bedrooms) in under 35min. I did bathrooms, swept, vacuumed, and dusted... but since its not ever THAT messy, it doesn't take long to clean...
So I leave you with these.

Just so happened, I DID get dressed in real clothes AND do something to my hair today! So my hubby got double the "good"!

Family Planner to have or not to have?

I've been reading about the family planners that everyone raves about. The bloggers who are pushing them say they are they key to being organized and productive... I see it as one more thing to do. So I may go ahead and create one tomorrow, put it into practice, and see how it goes for the rest of my 21 days!
The writers over at Parenting with Miss Poppins have put this darling one together.
http://professorpoppins.blogspot.com/2011/03/family-planner.html
It does look so very organized!
I have a TON of pocket protectors, and binders... I'm just wondering if it will feel like MORE work to fill out paperwork on my everyday life. But, I do so love lists...
Here's a few more...
Over at I Heart Organizing
http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-challenge-project-household_9757.html
they have a pretty organized (and full) binder as well.
 These lists look very tempting. And I do feel like they would help...
And her binder is so adorable...

So I'll either do it starting tomorrow... or maybe I"ll make February a 28days to my family binder! haha
Oh, and if its totally illegal and wrong with me copying these pictures, I do so appologize! I did provide the links above, So... let me know if I've broken any rules... I think these are fabulous!
tomorrow, I'll give you an update... and I need to start working on some household chores for everyone, me doing it all just isn't cutting it! Still praying about that. Stay tuned!

Monday's are the worst...

I figured if I could make it from Monday to Monday, I'd be good! I've gotten into rythms before that seems to work, but by the weekend, no one chips in, and I'm tired and think, "I can take one day off, I've worked to hard!" But then by Monday the house is a wreck and I start my week out on a sour note.
This weekend I pushed through. I had a birthday party for my daughter and father-in-law, so we had 15guests. I couldn't really take a break. And what I thought would take me 30 min, took me 1.5hours. So I was bummed. My goal is to have the house guest ready in less than 30 min... but it was really just the first week, huh!?
Today I dragged on though. But I pressed through anyway. I even went to the gym for an hour!

In my attempts to stay productive, I want to organize tasks that when unorganized take longer... So I made my January Meal Calendar. I went ahead and planned out the rest of the month's meals. I HATE coming up with meals. Last week I just bought stuff and then realized I bought stuff that didn't create meals... Wasting time... and money.
I even made little tear off lists so I could quickly sit down and make a list. before heading to the store. To make it easier, I went to pintrest.com and put "dinner" in the search.

 I decided Mondays would be soup, Tuesdays something mexican (Taco salad, Taco, nachos, enchilada) Wednesdays needed to be easier, Sundays we are never in the mood to cook... stuff like that.
And tonight, I'm planning on getting to bed earlier! Maybe not 10p, I still need to feed my baby (and its 2 min til, anyway)... but earlier than midnight for sure!
If your following, thanks a lot! I appreciate your support. But I mainly keep a log for myself, I share in case anyone else is following the same path... if you have tips to share, I'll take em!

Don't just let it be!

I didn't read any article today... I just didn't know what to read...
However, I had my moment... I sat exhausted from the fussy baby's afternoon. I decided to take a nap, only to be awakened 10 min later by the baby fussing somemore! So by 4pm I thought to myself "The house looks fine. I'm going to skip the afternoon clean up"... but then I remembered what happens when I fall into the trap of "Just let it be"... So I was a good little girl and I stuck to routine. I did the clean sweep. I had the kids do theirs, and I even cleaned up the dinner dishes even though I didn't want to! Its going to be SO worth it when tomorrow comes and we start to prepare for 15+ guests to come over on Sunday for another birthday party, and we will only have to spend about 30 min to have the house party ready! (I'll need to clean bathrooms, and sweep and mop!) Its going to be SO worth it!
I feel like we are having more fun all around here! The kids are happier because there isn't so much mommy stress... I am happier... not sure Dave has noticed that much, maybe he has noticed that I'm not as cranky... not sure! haha. But I guess he will when I politely ask him to grab the bottle and dirty diaper he left by the chair... but maybe he'll remember ;).
Off to bed... NOT anywhere near my new bedtime... oh well! Maybe someday that will work!

You've got to be kidding me... and I love schedules!

So I am working on a schedule for our days. I have done this many times, it ALWAYS works, but then it gets too easy and we fall out of sorts, and we find ourselves stressed, disorganized, and frustrated that the days aren't going as they used to. So I have noticed that Nate is almost on a schedule all by himself (all my kids have done this, how blessed could I be, right!?). So I worked mainly around his day, and tweaked it just a tad. Today he wasn't too happy with my tweaking and was VERY tired by 6pm! Poor guy!
I've been getting up around 6:30a (not this morning, though, I needed a tad extra sleep!), hoping to nurse Nate and do some devotions before my early rising girlies wake up.
I get Zech up at 7:15ish so he can have breakfast and he and I can start school at 8. I was noticing that it was getting too hard to teach both kids at the same time. So I if I stagger their times a tad, they can overlap where necessary, but have their own time as well... hopefully by the time the next two get into school, the older two will be more independent. K and 1st are pretty dependent on a teacher!
Anyway, So Zech and I get started around 8, by 9, Zech does seatwork for Language Arts and Math (two things that he needs little instruction on). 9, I nurse Nate and work on getting him to nap by 9:30. Then I can work with Lily. By 10, she is ready for seatwork, Zech can have a break, and Ruby and I can have some play time... which also is time to play some "clean up" games. She loves getting to go downstairs for the 10 min it may take for me to switch laundry around.
11a, school is done, Nate is awakened. He doesn't LOVE this yet, maybe I'll change it. I was just hoping to get everyone to nap by 1pm, if he wakes at 11, he's ready for a good nap at 1.
11 is a good time to do what we are calling a "CLEAN SWEEP" where each kid cleans up what they were doing that morning. Zech stacks his school books, puts crayons, pencils, or whatever else he used for seatwork/lessons away. Lily cleans up what she played with that morning during her play time and Ruby learns to clean up. I either check laundry, or do one of the daily chores (bathrooms, dust, my bedroom, vacuum). Lunch at 12, nap at 1... then I can do the dishes, mop the floor, and still have from 1:30-3 to nap, read, watch MONK... whatever I need to do (get on Facebook!) and if Nate wakes by 3, I can nurse him again... however, if he continues to sleep, I let him go until 4. My goal is to have his last feeding at 10pm. So the evening is trying to stretch him to get to that 10pm mark (feeding a few min late at 3, 5, and 8ish). We do a "Clean Sweep" at 3, and again at 7:30. Kids in bed at 8, Nate down by 7ish... I want to be in bed by 10... it is now 10:15! (this is the hardest part!)
*** I only write this boring part for my own good. So I can come back and look at what I did when I fall off the wagon and find myself in a rut! Its working right now... maybe it will work then too!
Today I read:
http://kathrynvercillo.hubpages.com/hub/Managing-Your-Household-Tips-for-Stay-at-Home-Moms
Totally worthless... Sorry if the author is reading this... but I did gain this nugget.

•  Many moms get it in their heads that they can get to the laundry, the dishes, the lunches, the dinners, the errands ... all later. Having no structure makes you put everything off until the last minute which creates stress
• I just need to remind myself of this... keep on the schedule! Don't stray, stay on track!!!

But then just when I thought, "Right! Good point!" it says this "You've got to be kidding"
statement(s).

• Don't forget those spa days. No, you're not one of those mythical women who gets to spend all day at boutiques and day spas. But you should act like one every now and then. The best way to effectively manage your home is to make sure that you're in tip top form and that means occasionally spoiling yourself. Get the spouse to take one day off per month to stay with the kids or hire a bi-weekly nanny to come in so you can go out. Don't feel guilty; good management starts with a good home manager.,
• I TOTALLY agree that getting some time away does a momma good! No one wants to be at their job 24/7/365! And as a SAHM(that stands for Stay at Home Mom... just in case), we are around our kids and home ALL THE TIME. So its nice to have a date, or if we can't find a sitter, to go out with the girls once in a while. I try to do it once a month for a few hours, even if I just go get groceries alone. BUT, does the writer of the article realize that sahms
• Ok, rant over!

So I read this article too... This was a good one!

http://www.babytobee.com/organizing-your-day.html

• Design a cleaning schedule that works for you. You may plan to complete a specific task each day. For example, maybe you will mop on Mondays, clean bathrooms on Tuesdays, and dust on Wednesdays. This way your house gets clean, but you don't spend your entire weekend cleaning it. If this approach doesn't work for you, try to find one that does
• This does work for me... I have been doing this for awhile... I highly suggest it!

I have to say 5 days into this, I am loving it! Today I had a 1p appt. I worked my morning so we would eat sooner, and be walking out the door at 12:30. However, I did take the time to pick up so that when we returned home with Dave, and our groceries, the house would be clean. It took me 3 min! THREE min to clean my house! Then we had dinner, had the dinner mess, and Dave was out the door to practice. Nate was fussy (too tired, and wanted to be sleeping)... but I jostled him while I cleaned up dinner... it wasn't too hard, but worth having a clean house to sit and chill in for the night. The kids gladly picked up at 7:30 since it wasn't too many toys (since we already did our 2 other cleanups!)... its going very smoothly!
(Man, this one was long! Sorry, readers!)

Birthday Day

Whew, what a day! I stayed up last night until 3:30a decorating and getting the last minute touches on Ruby's birthday party. I just kept repeating in my head, "its past my bedtime!". I look forward to getting into bed at 10p reading until 10:30, and sleeping all night... except, I have yet to keep to that! Its supposed to be my new schedule, but day 1, we stayed up and rearranged furniture and organized the living room. day 2, I was still running around at 10:30, then couldn't stop reading until 11:30, and, well, last night was a joke! But tonight, I'm going to go early!
I love the feeling of having it all together... I look forward to when this lifestyle is a given, and not something I have to try so hard at!
I'll be implementing a daily schedule (loosely, since I still have an infant not completely on a schedule). I sure do like schedules!
But today... today was fun day, can't you see all the fun we had (7 mommies and 12 kiddos, plus 3 babies!)


Today I read
http://www.wikihow.com/Schedule-Your-Day
Mainly only because I want to use this time to learn as well as practice... but man, I'm just so tired, I just wanted to go to bed... but I did take these things away from the article.

• Scheduling helps you establish a set rhythm to tasks helping you complete tasks, eventually you don't need to schedule them on paper and will do it internally judging time down to the minute for this reason is important. Our body clocks are very accurate.
• This has always been so true in my life... I just need to get back to it!
• Leave time to relax; schedule it if you have to.
• Oh yea! Scheduled down time is a must!
• DON'T procrastinate. It only leaves you extremely stressed, unorganized, and just plain irritable.
• This is what I'm trying to get away from... a major rule I need to follow. Instead of saying "I'm too tired, I'll clean this mess after I nap." I went ahead and took the 20 minutes it required and just cleaned, vacuumed, and organized... then I could take a nap and not worry about waking up in a bad mood because the house was a mess... i think my husband was thankful, too!

Now... time to go nurse this baby and maybe get AHEAD of schedule by going to bed at 9 instead of 10!

Busy vs. Productive

bus·y/ˈbizē/

Adjective:	Having a great deal to do.
Verb:	Keep occupied: "she busied herself with her new home".
Synonyms:	adjective. occupied - engaged - active verb. occupy     pro·duc·tive/prəˈdəktiv/ Adjective: Producing or able to produce large amounts of goods, crops, or other commodities. Relating to or engaged in the production of goods, crops, or other commodities. Synonyms: fruitful - fecund - fertile - prolific - generative

Here I thought I was going to make a point about how my aim in these next 28 days was not to stay busy, but to get things done But the definitions really bother me! My desire is not to fill my day with meaningless tasks just to say "I was so busy today", but to go to bed each day knowing I had a productive day. That I got done what needed to be done. And if that means I spent time comforting crying children, playing with a two year old who needed a little extra attention, or lounging around listening to my first grader read; I did things that NEEDED to be done. Granted, I'd like to be able to say I did all those things and still went to bed with dishes done, floors swept and vacuumed, and a good conversation had with my man. But I"m not trying to just stay "busy".
Dave and I used to live in a tiny town out in the middle of nowhere (it took 3 hours just to get to a walmart!). Shops closed down by 5 each night... some were "modern" and would stay open on the weekends all the way until 7pm! We were bored out of our gourdes! We had Zech, who was only a year old. But we were bored. The house stayed clean (I only had ONE child then!), Dave worked, came home and we sat around. We took walks, but the town was very small. We'd seen it all. But somehow, everyone in the town spoke about how "busy" they were. They were always stating how they wished there were more hours in a day, they were always too busy to get things done. Dave and I didn't understand. WHAT WERE THEY DOING!!!??? And could they share some with us bored folk! Maybe it was that we came from a big city to a small town. Maybe it was because we came from a larger church with more programs, maybe it was that we had gone from being just the two of us, to having a newborn, to then living in a small town with a pretty independent one year old. But we felt these people were just busybodies (Good people, just good busy body people!). I don't want the "busy" life, I want the productive life...
However, the definitions do me no good! I don't want "a great deal to do".. I mean, I already have that!
I don't want to just "occupy" my time... but then again, I don't think I want to "produce large amounts of goods, crops, or other commodities." either! So I shall adopt my own definition from the synonyms given for each...
Fruitful. I want to be fruitful. I want to teach my children, I want their knowledge to multiply, their joy to increase.
Engaged: I want to be engaged in life. Not just stressing about having a clean house!
Fertile: NO! I've been too fertile, hence the craziness in my home! HAHA! Just kidding. But I DO want this to be a home that is fertile for spiritual growth.

Today I read:
http://stress.about.com/od/stressmanagementtools/a/organized.htm

• A cluttered home can subtly drain you of energy
• It’s important to notice and eliminate patterns of stressors so that your stress response isn’t constantly triggered.

These two nuggets that I gained from the article go hand in hand... a messy cluttered home is my major source of stress! A messy kitchen will stick in my mind even when I'm away from home! So I will be working on a cleaning routine to keep this from creeping up... then I can keep my way open to being Fruitful, Engaged, and Fertile (but not THAT kind of fertile... PLEASE, GOD!)