Decluttering Help

My friend, Renée, is posting one decluttering tip per day. I'm not sure how long she's planning on doing this, but I've been finding her tips quite helpful! Check out her blog: Add More Chocolate!

SDG!

Master Lunch List

And here's the lunch list:

chicken tenders

spaghetti

leftovers

soup

deli sandwiches

peanut butter and jelly

tuna sandwiches (with homemade mayo)

fish sticks or fillets

bologna sandwiches (The mayo even makes these taste good!)

frozen pizzas (when they're a loss-leader)

hummus & pitas

fresh veggies and dip

burritos, tacos, quesadillas

grilled cheese

mac & cheese (from scratch)

chicken salad sandwiches (also from scratch - that mayo is amazing!)

Again, I'd love your additions to this list!

SDG!

Breakfast List, Redux

Wow! What a response to yesterday's post! Cool!!

Regarding how I use the list: well, Patricia, you're more organized than I am. Right now, I never know how much energy I'll have when I get up (still tweaking meds), so I put the master list on the fridge door and then star the things we have ingredients for (almost everything). Then we decide what we'll have when we get up; often the kids decide. I have one son who loves baked oatmeal, and I've told him that, if he wants to make it the night before and put it into the fridge overnight, he's more than welcome to. He hasn't done so yet.

My kids pretty much cook their own breakfast (unless I have the energy to make pancakes or something like that). My little girls fry eggs, the older girls keep the granola in stock, the boys are good at scrounging.

And I have the hardest time with leftovers. If we have them, they usually end up as lunch, but we don't often have them. For example, I made two large crockpots of stew Tuesday evening and there was none left when we were done. When I was younger, I used to eat cold pizza for breakfast, but we never have leftovers anymore, especially when we make it ourselves.

I forgot to add to the list farina (like whole wheat cream of wheat) and crustless quiche (which, I guess could count as egg casserole). I have some corn grits, but they're pretty old and stale and tasted pretty bad the last time I tried them. The kids scramble eggs and wrap them in a tortilla.

I can't believe I forgot waffles! I think because I'm trying to cut down on purchasing pre-made food, but we have a couple of waffle irons and can make a double batch to pop into the freezer for another day.

I have a great breakfast book: Breakfasts & Brunches from the CIA (the link is below). Some of the recipes are a bit involved, but they're pretty good and offer lots of creative tweaks. I'm getting hungry sitting here looking through it!

I love the egg muffin idea, only I'm a bigger fan of bacon egg biscuit sandwiches (Drew stocked up on canned biscuits the last time they were on sale, and when they're gone, there's an easy cream biscuit recipe on Cook's Illustrated's website).

Here are the recipes I'd love to have:

breakfast tacos and egg casserole (unless it's like quiche, in which case, I'm covered) from Renee
oven pancakes and toad in the hole from Patricia
wheat berries (proportions of berries to water?) and muesli (what's the difference between muesli and granola?) from Carolyn

Link:
Breakfasts & Brunches

Master Breakfast List

As promised, here's my master breakfast list:

bacon

eggs

toast

hash-browned potatoes (we purchase dried hash-browns at Costco)

oatmeal, Coach's or Irish

yogurt

granola

pancakes

French toast

coffee cake

banana bread

biscuits & gravy

fruit, canned or fresh

baked oatmeal

English muffins

non-English muffins

bagels

If you have any ideas to add to this, I'd love to hear them!

SDG!

Menu Planning

My friend Peggy just started a blog. She wanted to join in on Organizing Junkie's 'Menu Plan Monday'. I told Peggy I'd wait to link to her blog until she had a bit more experience and was more confident about her writing. And no, I'm not going to commit to a weekly post about our menus, but I though it might be interesting to give a snapshot of our next couple of weeks.

We shop big every other Friday and Saturday (after payday). We go to the store every three or four days through the rest of the two weeks for fresh produce, milk, eggs, and bread. I have a master breakfast list and a master lunch list. Each two weeks, I put a star by the meals we have the ingredients for and then we can flex depending on what's going on, who is cooking, and how much time we have.

I plan our dinners more carefully, assigning at least a main dish to each evening (sometimes sides too, if I think it matters that night), trying to take into account the ebb and flow of our week.  For example: we try to make Thursdays an easy meal since it's getting toward the end of the week and we're all running low on energy by then.  We also take into account different activities (fortunately, none are weekly; most are bi-weekly or monthly).  All this is in a Pages document that I print out and post on the fridge, with another to go into my calendar.

Sat: pizza (homemade)

Sun: we girls had our tea party and the boys were out at other parties, so we didn't plan anything

Mon: beef stew and biscuits (except that we've got the flu making the rounds, so we're making a run for the Border instead and we'll bump this to tomorrow since the meat was already defrosted (it's cooking now) - something else on this list will get bumped to next pay period.)

Tues: chili, cornbread, salad

Wed: French dip, carrot sticks (I'm going to try to make this from scratch instead of buying deli beef.)

Thurs: flat iron steak pitas (kind of a pita/fajita tweak, more Greek than Mexican)

Fri: croques monsieur (Drew and I may be out on a date night and this is pretty easy for the kids to make.)

Sat: pizza (homemade, natch!)

Sun: turkey, stuffing, asparagus (The turkey was free at Thanksgiving and tucked into the freezer; I'll use leftovers later in the week and the rest of the meat will be used as lunch or dinner next pay period for one of our favorite easy meals that my Mémère Bert used to make, chicken sauce (pronounced the French way: the au has a long o sound), and I'll boil up the carcass for more turkey broth for the freezer)

Mon: stir fry chicken (or turkey) w/veggies and homemade teriyaki sauce

Tues: acorn squash soup & blt's

Wed: turkey pot pie (made from turkey leftovers)

Thurs: omelets

Fri: spaghetti

We actually eat pretty well.  Last year, I came down with Epstein-Barr, which, in combination with severe adrenal fatigue, hypothyroid, and extremely low iron reserves, pretty much knocked me out.  My wonderful husband took over the meal planning and shopping, but we ate a lot of boxed mixes.  

I've been under a naturopath's care and am feeling much better.  Since I've got more energy, I'm up for more cooking and we're eating better (both taste-wise and health-wise).  The best part is that, as I make more and more from scratch, we're saving lots of money.

I consider myself a bit of a gourmet.  I'm also pretty picky about what I put into my mouth (certain ingredients and dishes are forever banned from my kitchen).   We purchase the best ingredients (when it matters, butter: yes; flour: not so much), but we're spending much, much less.  My goal isn't to drive our grocery budget down as low as it can go (we aren't planning on eating beans everyday for two weeks to cut the budget), but to purchase the best quality ingredients at the best price.  We're also keeping our nicer meals for Sunday and eating more simply during the week (also helpful for the budget!).

Later this week, I'll post my master breakfast list and my master lunch list.  They really aren't anything special, but having them written out is quite helpful.

SDG!

The Mother and Her Reading, II

Most of CJ's focus was on spiritual growth, developing an affection for the Saviour; as we read, so we think and as we think, so we feel.  In order to develop passion for the gospel, we must be reading books about it, books that will help us look at it freshly and to see new aspects of it.  We must strive never to grow familiar with the gospel.

So the first category of our reading must be books that care for our souls. Scripture is a no-brainer, but also we should be reading books that challenge us spiritually to examine our hearts, books that remind us freshly of the gospel, books that help us get a firm grasp on solid theology. Not all at once, but they should be part of the plan.

This applies to every believer. Yet it applies to moms at home because it affects our children as well as ourselves.  In a very real sense, we are pastoring and discipling our children as we raise them. Their souls must be a focus of our efforts. However, we cannot give them something we don't have. If Mom isn't experiencing a deepening faith and relationship with Christ, she can't pass that onto her kidlings, nor will she be quick to walk in dependence on the Lord. (Yes, Dad is the head of the family and ultimately responsible before the Lord for child-rearing efforts, but most moms spend more time with their children than dads do; we must be working along with our husbands, following their leadership, submitting to their goals; but often the time, effort, and day-to-dayness of raising children falls on our shoulders, not as a burden, but as a privilege.)

CJ also, rightly placed a specific emphasis on books about our specific callings. For those of us whose calling is to keep house and raise our children, this would include books about being a godly wife, a joyful mother, a skillful teacher. 

Books to help and encourage us in our home making activities: cooking, gardening, household organization, home crafts (sewing, knitting, crocheting, tatting, things that make a home and a life beautiful), the theology and philosophy of keeping house (there are many voices telling us that we are wasting our lives by devoting it to drudgery - we must remind ourselves of the truth of the high calling to which we aspire so that we don't grow weary in well-doing), leadership, bargain hunting, hospitality, cleaning tips, caring for the sick and elderly. The list goes on and on.

Homeschooling moms would also benefit from reading books about educational philosophy and practice as well as literature, history, biographies, logic, science, even some math books. Part of this is to equip us to help our children learn, but this type of reading also keeps our minds sharp. We may not remember everything we read, but we'll be much better able to point our children to books that will benefit them and we'll be able to discuss them together.   It is also an excellent example to our children of the joy of a lifetime of learning.

My intent isn't to overwhelm anyone by these lists of possible topics for us to read about.  I point them out so that we can be intentional in our reading choices.  I certainly don't read all these types of books at one time.  I have certain areas in which I lack skill or motivation and  I need to be reading books about those topics (my current focus in school is books about writing and teaching writing).  There are also certain areas of particular gifting or topics that appeal more to me than others; those are books I want to read.  These lists are more suggestions to get you thinking about your reading.  It's better to start anywhere and read one at a time than to feel so overwhelmed that one never starts.  I hope these lists lend themselves to a lifetime of reading.

Teddy Roosevelt said that those who read will be those who lead.  We live in a post-literate society.  It's not that people don't know how to read (although they may not have been taught how do it well), but that they don't see the importance of reading; they choose not to read.  We may feel that we're at home, not out leading in our culture, however, cultural change happens the way yeast works in bread.   'A little leaven leavens the whole lump,' is how Christ described the church.  Chesterton said that there is nothing more powerful than an average man and his average wife and their average children living their average lives to the glory of God.  Reading can help us do so, and do so well.

Next time, I'll list specific books that I've found helpful and that I think are worth reading and re-reading.

SDG!

Reading Plan

I listened to 'The Pastor and His Reading', a recent episode of the Sovereign Grace Ministries podcast featuring an interview with C.J. Mahaney and Jeff Purswell by Josh Harris.  It was highly recommended by my friend Debra, (she's been pushing me - in a nice, this is good for me sort of way - to listen to the whole series) and I finally got started this week.  Even though it sounds as if it would be specifically for pastors, there is much there that applies to any Christian and especially any Christian homeschooling mom.  (Debra said the whole series thus far is quite apropos.)

Along with Scripture, I've been reading C.J.'s Humility, True Greatness, Jerry Bridges' The Discipline of Grace, and Thomas Watson's The Godly Man's Picture - all personally challenging.  But C.J. mentioned in the interview that we should be spreading our reading around.  He said that, in addition to these types of books, we should be reading technical commentaries as we study a book of Scripture, biographies (which I read occasionally), and the Christian classics (I try to fit the classics into our study of Christendom every four  years, but I may need to change my approach as I don't usually get through them - I can't count how many times I've started  Confessions and never finished it!).

With that in mind, I'm going to adjust my reading diet.  I'll cut The Godly Man's Picture down to a few times each week (Debra and I are discussing our way through it over coffee or tea or lunch each week, but we're moving slowly enough that I can more than stay ahead with that schedule).  I'll probably gulp down Humility pretty quickly, with the intention to re-read more slowly it at some point in the future.  I'd like to add in David McCullough's biography of Truman or Marsden's biography of  Jonathan Edwards and either my abridged Calvin's Institutes or a commentary on Philippians, which our pastor is currently preaching through (I'll ask for a recommendation if our church bookstore doesn't carry one).

C.J. and Jeff recommended reading at least an hour a day.  I love this idea and already come close during my quiet time, but I'm inconsistent.  I'm going to work on that in my life and I'm beginning to insist on that for the kids.  I also want to add in a re-read of Shopping for Time, by Carolyn Mahaney and will work on a tighter routine this week which I'll institute next week when we start school again.

SDG!

Morning Time

Morning Time went well this week. The kids seemed to enjoy it and we had some great discussions. It's so kind of the Lord to reinforce what we're reading. As we read the chapter assigned by our pastor and then a small section of The Gospel Primer, often there was much overlap between them.

Here's this week's list:

'God Moves in a Mysterious Way', alternating with 'O, Wondrous Love' to begin learning the former and reinforce the latter

continue:
reading II Corinthians according to Rich's blog
reading The Gospel Primer
memorizing the Old Testament books
memorizing 'Casey at the Bat'
reading Northanger Abbey

This only takes about 45 minutes to an hour each morning, depending on how much of the book we read. The will continue to develop and change through the next few weeks and months. I've got a huge list brainstormed, so I won't run out of ideas.

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This week, I reinstituted some organizing strategies from The Organized Student, but with one final change (recommended by a friend) that seems to have been the key to make this work better for us.

Even though this book is about helping a student in an institutional school, but it has lots of good ideas that work in a homeschool setting. I highly recommend it!

SDG!

Gadgets, Gadgets Everywhere

…but nary a tool to use! I've been developing a more sane philosophy of kitchen gadgets than I had before. Well, actually, I can't say I really had one (and that was the problem), but I think I do now!

Since 80% of the work is done by 20% of the tools, part of my new philosophy is to limit my gadgets to things that perform more than one task. I'm not completely sure that this proportion is written in stone or absolutely accurate, but common sense says that a tool that does more than one task will be more useful than a single-use gadget.

So, for example, I got rid of my apple peeler/corer/slicer. By the time it's oiled and set up, the apples have been run through it, the little pieces of remaining core have been cut out of the slices, I've mopped up the gallon of juice that's dribbled all over the counter and the floor, cleaned up all the nooks and crannies of the machinery, and put the thing back in its box, I've spent more time and effort than it would have taken to simply peel the apples with a veggie peeler over a paper towel and then sliced them with a paring knife. (Besides, it's more fun to try to peel an apple without breaking the peel (which I can do most of the time) than to wind the ap/c/s - the kids have contests to see who can manage the longest unbroken peel.)

Instead of replacing our toasters, both of which were recently tossed out because of fraying cords, we're looking for a toaster oven, maybe one with a convection setting. We'll be able to toast as well as broil, bake, and roast (handy for lunches and won't heat up the kitchen as much in the summer). And the toaster ovens we're looking at can handle six pieces of bread, so we'll only need one. We had two four-slice toasters because of the size of our family.

Now, I'm not taking this too far. I am keeping a few single-use gadgets. For example, my Trini-tea automatic tea brewer. We use this every morning when we get up for our quiet time; I set it up the night before and simply push a button for a perfect pot of tea. It may only have one use, but it's used daily, unlike the apple p/c/s which was only used every six or twelve months - and not at all the last few years as I have many veggie peelers and many children.

As explained above, the ap/c/s really isn't that easy to use. The set-up, maintenance, and clean-up it requires cause more work than it saves. I have a few other gadgets that are also difficult to use because of awkward design, or they don't do, or don't do well, what they claim to do. They haven't lived up to the hype! If I have to fight to use something, it will sit in the cupboard taking up space and never be used, no matter how 'handy' the advertisements said it would be. Those are going, too!

So, most of my kitchen tools will have more than one use, or will have one quotidian task, and be relatively simple to use, and therefore will be used much. The kitchen will be uncluttered and more useful, as well as more fun to use.

SDG!

Book Review: A Perfect Mess

This was a fun read asking some serious questions about the place organization holds in our lives. The thesis is that perfection in organization not only isn't possible, but even if it were, it isn't worthy of the lofty place it holds in popular culture. A certain level of messiness is inevitable and even healthy.

The authors delve into many areas of life to support their point, from the way businesses and hospitals are run, to the atmosphere of our homes. Even though some of their side points and applications are somewhat liberal in their assumptions and gave me pause, I agree with their foundational thesis. It reminded me much of George Grant's Gileskirk lectures on the messiness of the Middle Ages and the untidy yet high calling of living in covenant community; also of Wendell Berry's contention that modern and efficient isn't always the highest good.

It helped me to remember not to compare myself with my ultra-organized friends, something that I've been doing unconsciously for years. There are areas of our home that are cluttered beyond usefulness, and those need to be dealt with (and by God's grace are being dealt with), but I really don't have to sweat the areas that are a bit messy, as long as they still work. Those areas express some of the things that are most important to us as a family, those things that make our home unique and give it personality and warmth.

As someone who has struggled with organization for years, I found this book to be a refreshing zephyr blowing across the clutter, reminding me that some things are more important than neatness and organization.

SDG!

(Can you tell I've got a bit of time on my hands this afternoon and am able to finish up and post some of these things that have been hanging around as drafts for the last few weeks? ;-D)

Book Review: Shopping for Time

This little gem just arrived last week. I'm rereading it now, with pink-ink-loaded pen in hand. I found it helpful and challenging on many levels.

What I liked:

The practical yet gracious tips for stewarding time with eternal goals in mind were so helpful.

I loved the glimpse into Carolyn's relationships with her daughters. I've wanted those kinds of relationships with my girls, but had no idea how to go about it. I'm getting a clearer picture.

The evaluation questions - not a list of rules, but questions to help each woman assess her priorities.

The gentle reminders that I'm not called to do everything, but to make sure I'm spending my time where the Lord wants me to spend it.

The sweet grace that infused the book. No standard ways of applying the principles, but lots of practical words of advice and encouragement to do what you can, not what others do.

The one thing I had to get past:

The shopping metaphor. I hate to shop and really don't understand the coupon clipping, sale brochure perusing, and time taken browsing through aisles upon aisles of things I neither want nor need. I'm more of a consumer hunter than a shopper, so when I do know what I want, I look online, find the website (or local store) with the lowest price (including shipping), and order it. {Oooh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is-a comin' down the street. Oh, please, let it be for me!}

I don't like going to stores and, more often than not, not finding the specific item I'm looking for. What a waste of time and energy. And yet, looking online, I've found some beautiful things that I love and that have lasted a long time and that just aren't available at the local mall. (It probably doesn't help that I don't like most of the women's clothing styles that are available right now, and haven't really for the last 15 years or so. I'm waiting for the sixties and seventies to go away (and never come back!) and the classic styles of the eighties to return. I see glimpses, but we've got a long way to go.)

I'm glad I pushed myself through the metaphor (I skimmed those parts) to get to the meat of this thought-provoking tome. I highly recommend it and will be purchasing copies for Anna, Judith, and Rebekah tomorrow so we can read it and discuss it together.

SDG!

Delay

Drew was hoping to finish tiling this weekend, but the rose mosaic won't arrived until early next week. I'm okay with this as I'm feeling a bit under the weather right now. (The kids went to Gileskirk alone today - a first!) It's also another rainy, cloudy, cold day and the guys would have been miserable outside cutting tile.
~~~~~
I'm still re-organizing the kitchen, but I'm stumped about how much plastic to keep. We don't use plastic containers or plastic wrap in the microwave. I don't like drinking out of plastic (with the exception of my pink kid-lit-themed Nalgene water bottle from Powell's Books as it's so much harder than typical plastics) and I'm not sure I like the kids drinking out of it. We don't have little ones who drop and break glasses and such (at least not often). I'd like to kiss plastic-days good-bye, but Drew and Anna take leftovers to work in plastic containers. I'd rather they used foil-covered plates and bowls, but I don't think I'll be able to convince them.

Well, if this is the most important decision I have to make today, that's a pretty easy day, so I'm not going to fret about it. If you have any suggestions for something more stable than plastic, yet less spillable than foil covered plates, I'd love to hear them.

One Lump or Two?

I had a wonderful chat with a precious mom of seven this afternoon. As we talked, she shared some of her difficulties in teaching such a wide range of ages. She’s currently actively educating five of her brood, with a pre-schooler and a toddler in tow. She said she’s felt scattered lately. I understand her struggles.

I’ve found that, with a large family, the more I lump my children together (in other words, teach them all the same thing, even if they’re working at different levels) the more sane and the less scattered I feel.

This blending (or lumping) requires a different approach to evaluating curriculum. There are many good books and curricula on the market today. We are blessed and almost have too many choices. It can be overwhelming. Currently, in addition to evaluating the worldview and rigor of materials, I think about how I can use it at many levels at the same time. Even better, will it also allow me to combine two or more disciplines or subjects together at many different levels? (Talk about multi-tasking!)

Now, I don’t necessarily mean that my children are at different places in the same text book, although for independent studies (math and phonics), that works well. I mean that, if it’s something that we struggle to get to and I decide my direct involvement is necessary for learning to take place, I ask myself if there’s some way we can all work together, yet each at his own unique ability-level.

Here are a few specifics of what this looks like in our home:

We all study the same era of history. I can’t answer questions about Napoleon, Nero, and Nixon all in the same day...or the same week for that matter. Our oldest students’ Gileskirk study decides which era we’ll be studying each year.

Our literature studies are not approached and assigned by grade level. All my high schoolers read, discuss and write about one and the same book; all my middles read, discuss, and write about another. And our literature studies are dictated by our history studies. This year, we’re studying Christendom (a.k.a. “The Middle Ages”) and so all our literature selections were written during or are about Christendom.

The excerpts we analyze for our grammar studies (KISS Grammar but I don’t use the workbooks) come from the literature the kids are reading or, currently from Shakespeare’s plays as we’re working on a Shakespeare unit (ie. watching many versions of many plays and then discussing them). My little ones use portions of these same excerpts for their copywork. This cuts way down on my prep time. I love Project Gutenberg! I find the excerpt I want to use there and copy and paste it into a Pages document, format it with a larger font and triple-spaced for the olders, and with lines on the lower half of the page for the ones who are copying it, print them all out, and I’m done. My older students analyze the excerpt for more elements than my younger students, but the youngers listen in and glean what they can while the olders and I go through the more advanced work. When we watch the play, all the kids enjoy join in in reciting the lines from the monologue or dialogue they analyzed or copied. Another thing I love about KISS Grammar is the continual review. Students analyze for everything they’ve learned in the past while they practice new concepts.

The format for the writing that they’re doing for history and literature comes from The Lost Tools of Writing, although the topics are adapted from Veritas Press’s Omnibus II. Since the process is repeated for each essay with new bits added as the student progresses, I can use the Lost Tools techniques with all my kidlings, adding a new bit for each child as he’s ready, but we still work through the invention process together. And while we work on that invention process, we’re discussing history and literature.

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As I re-read what I’ve written, it occurs to me that this may sound overwhelming and that’s not my intention. I added in one element at a time, using curricula that wasn’t necessarily the easiest to use until I found something that worked better. It was a process. I was willing to change, even in the middle of a school year if I thought the change would be beneficial in the long-run. And most of the time it was the right thing to do (not always, but we learn from out mistakes, right?)

If you can eliminate grade-level divisions from your thinking, and look at each discipline in terms of skills and each ‘subject’ as the context for learning those skills, many options open up for those of us teaching a larger brood.

SDG!

A Time to Every Purpose

The picture of the freesia blooming outside my front door was taken on Thursday morning between thunder storms. No poem yet...haven’t had time to finish it, although I’ve been working on it slowly.

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Speaking of time...I had an interesting interchange with an acquaintance recently. She asked what my daily school schedule looked like and I had to admit that I don’t really have one. She seemed a bit surprised by my revelation. The conversation was interrupted shortly thereafter, but it’s given me something to think about since.

I’ve read those books and manuals that instruct you to block out your day in quarter- or half-hour increments, a column for yourself and for each of your children. I’ve assembled schedules that look like something NASA could use to launch the space shuttle. They’re color-coded, carefully planned so that each minute of every day is filled with purposeful activity. I work hard to make it all come together, but I just can’t pull it off.

I don’t have the heart for it. After I put that much energy into creating these scheduling masterpieces, I fall apart when the schedule does. I know when we get off track that we’re supposed to simply jump into the activity scheduled for that particular time, but it always seems that we miss the most important things that way. I also hate for every day to be like every other day, which means that I need several schedules to get me through a typical week and I’m continually tweaking. Because of the effort I’ve invested, I hold my plans too tightly.

So, no, I don’t have a schedule per sé, but our days, weeks, months, and even years have a rhythm to them. Some days we must be somewhere at a specific time, but when we don’t have to be anywhere, I simply don’t watch the clock. (Spring Forward reinforced what I’ve been learning from George Grant’s Gileskirk Christendom and James Daniels’ workshop on leisure at last year’s CiRCE conference, helping me see time in a slower, more relaxed fashion. It wasn’t the book’s main purpose, but it underscored the arbitrary and commercial nature of our modern notions of timekeeping and clockwatching.)

There are a few activities (personal, household, and school) that I aim for each day or on certain days of the week. We don’t get to everything everyday . But the kids seem to be learning and we’re not burning out, stressing out, or flipping out. Different studies rise to the top of the heap each day. I’ve also been trying to pray through my days, asking the Lord what he wants for that day.

Ironically, in the midst of all this, I’m working on organization and time management with my kiddoes. I recently bought The Organized Student and am learning a bunch, especially when combined with Organizing from the Inside Out. I worked up an assessment to go through with each of my kidlings to figure out how and where they work best. They’re each making different choices regarding how to organize their school work (binders, poly envelopes, accordion files, etc.). Once their physical environment is more orderly, then we’ll work on time management. But it’ll be rhythmic, not according to a stopwatch.

Life is much easier when I hold my plans loosely, accepting that my Sovereign King might have something in store that wouldn’t fit on any schedule I could dream up. There truly is a time to every purpose under heaven, I just need to remember that I’ve been put on this earth for God’s purposes and not my own and that I can trust him to guide my days.

SDG!