December 5, 2011

A Well-Planned Christmas

For several years I have used this 12 week Holiday Planner to plan my time from shortly before Thanksgiving to New Year’s.

I had listened in on a conference call with Marilyn Moll {then of the Urban Homemaker} and two women I had never heard of. The first was Sheri Graham, who had co-authored the 12 Week Planner, and the other was Ann Voskamp, who’s Jesse Tree devotional at the time was being included as a bonus with the Planner. {yes, there WAS a time when Ann Voskamp wasn’t a household name…at least not in my household!}

I decided this was exactly what I needed to stay on track during the holidays, so I purchased it that night and downloaded and printed it off immediately. I took their advice and slipped each page into protective covers inside a notebook (Jesse Tree devotional included) and sailed through the holidays despite the impending birth of our 6th child {a large factor in my needing this planner!}

Now, some people can plan their holidays just fine without a planner. I am not one of those people. And I’m also not someone who can come up with everything I need this time of year on my own, so I am truly grateful for people like Sheri, who put together materials like this!

Now, you might be wondering why you need a “well-planned” Christmas? And what does a well-planned Christmas look like. Well, let’s just say, I got the planner out late this year and it shows! Without planning, your gift giving is haphazard, your meal planning is over budget, and you feel more stress than peace during a season that ought to be full of peace and thanksgiving. I am so glad I remembered to get my planner out, even if it was late in the game…better late than never!

So, if you are looking for order this Christmas (and the next and the next), I highly recommend the 12 Week Holiday Planner! I’m sure there are others out there, but this has worked for me for several years now and I don’t plan on changing.

And if you are looking for peace in the weeks to come (and long after the Christmas decorations are put away), check out my ebook 10 Days to a Peaceful Home. Only $1.99!

November 16, 2011

Bringing the Day to a Close: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

This week we’ve learned how to feel blessed and how to create a haven.

Today we bring our day to a close…peacefully.

This is one thing I have only recently begun to implement in full. I’ve done bits and pieces throughout the years to slow our evenings down, but nothing fully intentional. What changed all that?

Reading the Old Testament.

While working through the Balancing the Sword Bible study, I came across the why behind the Jewish day ending at sundown (Genesis 1:3). For the Jewish people, there is a marking of the end of a day that is very distinct. Sabbath begins in the evening, Feasts begin in the evening, and all begin with a marked slowing of pace; a separation between the preparations of the day and the beginning of the celebrations.

Our family decided that this separation of morning and evening should become a part of our family life as we worked toward creating a God-glorifying peaceful atmosphere in our home.

I will tell you now, I have no solid Scripture to base this on and I would never insinuate that you must separate your day in order to have a functioning home, but I can testify to the beauty and peace it has created in our home.

Here are some ideas for bringing your day to a close:

*Have a set time to put away schoolwork. In the workforce, there is a start and a finish to the work day. When we blur the day into the night, we are often asking more of our children (and of their Mommy) than any person is capable of giving. Of course, there are exceptions, but as a general rule, choose a time to end the day and then end it…no matter what.

*Do a quick Tidy Up. Around 5pm every day, we stop what we are doing and tidy the entire house as fast as we can. It is so nice to relax in a tidy home in the evening!

*Greet Daddy at the door with the distinct purpose of separating his daily grind from his evening at home. I know not all Daddies are home in the evenings, but this applies no matter what time Daddy comes home! I have trained our children to excitedly run for the door when Daddy gets home. How did I train them to do this? By being excited myself! It thrills Daddy’s soul to have his entire household happy he is home.

*Enjoy your evening meal. Read Stop the Meal Time Madness for ideas!

*Spend the evening in slower pursuits. This is the time for dimmer lighting, quieter voices, calmer play. After dinner, we clean up and almost immediately get our baths taken and jammies on. Sometimes we play a game or watch a movie or read books. The little ones will play cars or pretend they are homesteading, but we require that the pace stays as calm as possible. There are the occasional wrestling matches with Daddy, but we try to keep those toward the beginning of the evening and nowhere near bedtime.

*Family Worship Time. I talked about this in yesterday’s post. We do this in the evening and then say bedtime prayers. We do not always send the children to bed right after prayers, but I’ll talk more about that in tomorrow’s post.

Evenings around here are such a blessed time since we’ve begun to purposefully slow our pace. I would love that same blessing for your family too!

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

Come up with a doable time to end your day and be diligent to meet that deadline.
Work on being excited and in turn teaching your children to be excited to have Daddy home.
Come up with a list of “slower pursuits” your family could enjoy in the evenings and post it where your family can see it and make choices from it.

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

10 days of Kid-friendly Food | Planner Perfect
10 Days of Language Arts Lesson Planning | Jimmie’s Collage
10 Days of Learning Apps | Daze of Adventure
10 Days of a Mason Jar Christmas | Cajun Joie de Vivre
10 Days of More JESUS in Christmas | Preschoolers and Peace
10 Days to a Peaceful Home | Raising Arrows
10 Days of Raising a Life-Long-Learner | Bright Ideas Press
10 days of Science with Math | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of Teaching Values | Our Journey Westward
10 days of Winning your Child’s Heart | I Take Joy

November 9, 2011

Well-Ordered Wiggle Room: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

We’ve checked our hearts, we’ve greeted the day with goals, but what happens when the day just doesn’t seem to be going as planned?

We remember that peace can still be found when we allow ourselves “wiggle room.”

If you’ve read my series on Creating a Daily Routine, you already know that I am not fond of sectioning off a day by 15-30 minute time slots. I don’t do well in that kind of environment because it feels too boxed in. I much prefer a routine that is loosely based on times of day and order of activities. The times listed on my daily schedule are suggestions and guidelines rather than rules.

I know, if need be, I can adjust.

THAT is wiggle room.

But, why is this post entitled “Well-Ordered Wiggle Room?”

Because despite the fact I wholeheartedly believe you need flexibility, I also wholeheartedly believe you need order for peace to flow throughout your home.

Living life willy-nilly however you may please may seem free-spirited and wonderfully peaceful on the surface, but underneath all of that footloose and fancy-freeness, there is often found randomness that stems from an aimless life searching for contentment and peace.

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Proverbs 29:18

God is a God of order, not chaos. He gives mankind guidelines and parameters to work within because He loves us. Ordering our day glorifies Him and shows our love for those in our household. Allowing wiggle room amongst the order of the day allows room for God to work and our family to act on those Works!

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

Begin creating a family schedule/routine that factors in wiggle room.
Practice your reactions to things not going as you planned.
Try your newly created schedule/routine for a few days and tweak as needed.

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

10 days of Character Studies | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of Christmas Countdown Ideas | Milk & Cookies
10 days of Creative Writing | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of Crockpot Meals | The Happy Housewife
10 Days to a Godly Marriage | Women Living Well
10 Days of Growing Leaders | Mom’s Mustard Seeds
10 Days of Homeschooling High School | Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
10 days of I Wish I Had Known | Fruit in Season
10 days of Keeping Your Marbles | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of Kid-friendly Food | Planner Perfect
10 Days of Language Arts Lesson Planning | Jimmie’s Collage
10 Days of Learning Apps | Daze of Adventure
10 Days of a Mason Jar Christmas | Cajun Joie de Vivre
10 Days of More JESUS in Christmas | Preschoolers and Peace
10 Days to a Peaceful Home | Raising Arrows
10 Days of Raising a Life-Long-Learner | Bright Ideas Press
10 days of Science with Math | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of Teaching Values | Our Journey Westward
10 days of Winning your Child’s Heart | I Take Joy

November 8, 2011

Greet the Morning: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

Now that you have taken a hard look at your own heart, it is time to focus on the pieces and parts of your day that are an expression (or not) of that peace.

Starting with your morning.

Mornings have never been easy for me. I am naturally a night person. However, even as a certified night owl, I have realized that in order to have peace in my home, I have to greet the morning with more than a grunt.

There are, of course, seasons in a woman’s life when mornings are more difficult to greet, but the principle remains the same despite the circumstances. Let’s take our cues from the Proverbs 31 woman:

She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.
~Proverbs 31:15

This verse is less about what time she gets up and more about why she gets up. She greets the morning with productivity rather than laziness.

Now, I can hear a few of you screaming for your early morning coffee on the veranda, but let me challenge you…

Greet your morning with coffee AND plans and provisions for the day. You will find such peace in spending time with the Lord and setting goals for the day in the quiet of the morning.

From there, get up, get dressed, and get going!

Take the goals you have prayed over and start working through them, fully conscious of the peace you gain from knowing where you are going!

You won’t always {or ever} be able to meet every single goal you set in the morning, but having a plan will give you the focus you need to create an environment that is peaceful. It is the kind of peace that comes from knowing you began your day with purpose and praise.

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

Print off my FREE Greet the Morning Checklist, grab your Bible and a cup of coffee and make some goals for your day!
Don’t overdo your goal list! Be reasonable about what you can accomplish.
Make sure you are planning in some family activities that promote peace in your home.

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

August 31, 2011

How You Spend Your Time Matters

Yesterday, I told you how I keep a clean home and homeschool at the same time, but I realize not all my readers are homeschoolers. Because of this, I want to say something that goes beyond the boundaries of the homeschool mom world…

How you spend your time matters.

The notion that what we do with “our time” is our own business simply isn’t true because everything, and I mean everything, we do affects someone else in some way.

I was thinking about my friend Nony who no longer has children at home during the day. She’s had to revamp her entire schedule because her life has changed. Yet, she’s still not free to do whatever she wants. There are limitations and boundaries that if crossed, will create chaos.

Even if you are like me and run on a routine, rather than a minute-by-minute schedule, you still must keep some sort of order to your day or you end up aimless. Your order may be more a framework type of schedule like Rachel’s at Finding Joy or it may be a schedule based on a routine you already have in place like mine. You may have toddlers who throw a wrench in your schedule like Maureen or perhaps like Cindy, you have a love/hate relationship with schedules and need to make peace with it. No matter what kind of schedule you are working towards, keep this verse in mind…

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5:15-16

Can you give an account of how you spend your time?

Are your days a never-ending string of chaos or is peace the norm and chaos the exception?

Do you have some sort of meal plan like my friend Jimmie or are you scrambling to find nourishing food every single day?

Are you spending quality time with your family? How about your husband? {Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers knows the importance of scheduling in couple time.}

Do you have Weekly Chores for your household that ensure a clean home? Are your children pitching in? {You can see Cheryl’s chore list for teens or you can check out my Chores by Age list for ideas.}

Do you have heaps of creative projects you’d like to finish, but the urgent always gets in the way?

Is your family thriving?

Or are you run ragged with nothing to show for it?

It might be time to take a hard look at the hours of your day.

“Everything we do, no matter how noble the cause, if it isn’t to please God, is done to please ourselves.”
~The Organized Homeschooler by Vicki Caruana

Ouch.

That hurt.

No matter how noble the things we spend our time on are, if it is wrecking our home or causing us to lose sight of God’s true purpose for us as wives and mothers, then we are not spending our time wisely and God will not be pleased.

Order you day in a way that honors God.

period.

Do you have a post on Well-Ordered Days? Then link up below!

And then visit my well-ordered friends…

Jimmie – Meal Planning for Well Ordered Days
Maureen – Do Toddlers and Well Ordered Days Mix?
Kris – Scheduling Time with Your Husband
Lacy - Creating a Schedule Your Family Can Thrive On
Nony – Creating a Schedule for the New Normal
Cheryl – Chores ‘Round Here – The Teen Schedule
Angie – Finding Time for Creative Endeavors
Rachel – The Flexible Schedule. It’s Possible.
Cindy – How I Stopped Dithering and Learned to Love the Schedule

February 21, 2011

Laundry By the Room – New House, New System!

Once upon a time, my laundry room was in my kitchen. I hated it. That is, until I moved and my laundry room was in my basement. I had a terrible time keeping up with the laundry because out of sight-out of mind truly does exist!

This house has the laundry tucked away behind doors in the hallway. Something I always thought would drive me crazy…after all, where in the world would I pile all my loads of laundry???

I knew I would need to totally revamp my old laundry system in order to accommodate my new laundry “room.” Here’s what I came up with:

*Each room has a laundry basket. There is a small one in the girls’ room, a medium one in the boys’ room, and a large one in mommy and daddy’s room. Three total. All placed where I can quickly walk by the room and tell, at a glance, if that room needs laundry done up.

*Laundry is washed by room “as needed.” Originally, I thought I would have a schedule that went something like this:

Monday = Mom & Dad
Tuesday = Boys
Wednesday = Girls
Thursday = Sheets/Towels
Friday = Any extras

However, I quickly realized there was no way this was going to work. It worked much better to do the laundry “as needed.” I also love this system because I know I only have to do the amount of laundry in that particular basket. It is NEVER over 3 loads. I cannot even remember the last time I ONLY had to do 3 loads (confession: even though I had more than 3 loads to do, I rarely got more than 2 loads done in a single day…again, out of sight, out of mind)

*The same laundry basket is used for dirty and for clean. Yes, I know I just grossed a few of you out, but here’s why I can get by with this…I keep anti-bacterial spray and paper towels on the laundry room shelf! Once I’ve sorted the laundry out of the basket and onto the hallway floor, I give the basket a quick spray and wipe it out. It’s ready to go once the first load comes out of the dryer!

*The dryer buzzer is my friend. When the laundry was in the basement, I could not hear the dryer buzzer. Now I can! What a difference that makes! Clothes are taken out immediately, folded (or hung up because all the closets are nearby), and put into the basket and into the right room.

*The children put away their own clothes. Blake (age 12) is in charge of the boys’ clothes and Megan (age 10) is in charge of the girls’. The younger siblings help, but ultimately the putting away of the laundry is their responsibility. Micah (age 2) has his hanging clothes in my walk-in closet, and Garin (age 5 months) has all his clothes in my closet. Blake is responsible for putting these away as well.

And the process starts all over again…

This is very different from my shelf and basket system, but the more we settle into this house, the more acutely aware I am of how very different homes can be and how you must adjust accordingly. And honestly, it has been kind of fun to revamp our lives!

{And since we are talking laundry, let me point you in the direction of an awesome blog for all things laundry from a dear friend of mine…Lauren at Mama’s Laundry Talk. She has a post on different methods of sorting laundry, and also WHY you should organize your laundry room – just in case you needed some motivation! I know I’ve mentioned Mama’s Laundry Talk before, but it deserved being mentioned again because the laundry and the laundry room itself are often difficult for us moms, and Lauren’s posts are just the kind of energy shot we need to stay on top of Mount Washmore! }