Wise Counsel

I don't make New Year's resolutions, as a rule. I know myself far too well. I start strong, but I don't always finish well, depending on what it is. I need to take ownership of something in order to be motivated to see it through to completion, and a calendar date doesn't normally serve as a catalyst.

I can decide that it's time to eat better, work out harder, clean more, get organized, revamp our school schedule, be nicer to my children, remember to iron Craig's shirts before he needs them, catch up on emails... the list goes on; 

but God's Word tells us to number our days, to make the most of every opportunity, to take up our cross and daily follow Jesus.

None of those former things matter much apart from the latter, and January 1st doesn't have to be the day that spurs me to frantically start checking things off, just to find in a couple of months that I don't have enough steam left to accomplish my lofty ambitions.

Still, while cleaning up Christmas and New Year's messes, putting away decorations, and gearing up for the rest of the school year, it's a good time for reflection and planning.

2011 was an exciting year for us, full of change, blessing, and challenge.

I can't make any particular declaration about what I expect to see happen in 2012, but these things I do know:

~ God is faithful. (2 Timothy 2:13)

~ His mercy is new every morning. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

~ He longs to be gracious to His people. (Isaiah 30:18)

~ He has promised in His Word to bring to completion the good work that He has begun in us. (Philippians 1:6)

Tomorrow, we have the wonderful opportunity to take a day trip and visit some special friends. I'm looking forward to this time of fellowship and refreshment before resuming our daily routine here at home.

After that, I plan to spend the rest of the week doing some spiritual "assessment" with the children and seeking God's will and direction for the rest of our school year.

A friend shared this blog post from a faithful brother in Christ, which I find especially useful and inspiring. Craig and I read it and have decided to put Mr. Phillips's counsel into practice.

I'm sure that our lists will differ from the Phillips Family's lists, but several of Doug's suggestions are worth copying, such as his advice to personally thank those who've blessed and influenced us, and encourage our children to do the same.

I'm excited about taking time with the children to recall God's specific blessings and provision for our family over the past year, and looking ahead to what He has in store for us next.

Nook Bag

Gabriela never leaves home without her Nook. 

Ever.

I've been so nervous that it'll eventually plunge to its death on one of our outings.

Yesterday in church, I noticed that she was taking sermon notes on her Nook, so it gave me an idea.

I've made a couple of messenger bags recently using a tutorial that I found.

I promise that I listened to the sermon yesterday, but I was momentarily distracted as I figured out in my head how I'd use what I already know to make a smaller bag for the Nook.

I couldn't wait to get home and start on it!

I called Gabriela into the sewing room and asked her if she has any favorites among my fabrics. Apparently, she's had her eye on a particular combination ever since I made this.

I didn't tell her what I was planning to do, which made it even more fun.

While Gab watched football with her daddy, I worked happily on my idea.

This morning I quickly made a tissue pouch to match her bag. I mentioned recently that the tutorial for the tissue pouch is no longer available; but I should have mentioned that the author has made the pattern available for purchase. (I just figured it out on my own.)

It's Good to Be Back

So... THIS is the sewing room...

We've been in our house for almost a month and a half now. The boxes have been unpacked since week 2 or 3, and we've already had 10 or 11 overnight guests and many more dinner guests.

What has taken much longer is getting into a regular routine and making time for sewing. I've owed projects to people since spring, but our move really did set me back quite a bit. Now that school has started for us & I have our schedules ironed out, I've purchased some sewing time for myself.

A while ago, I posted "before" photos of the sewing room, followed by photos of Caelyn, who ended up being the first to use it. I can now begin to make up for lost time.

This nursing "bib" (as I like to call it) is for a friend whose baby was born around the time of our move. Sadly, I wasn't able to make it before our transition, and that friend has already received a cover from someone else. Still, I wanted to keep my word; so now she'll have a back-up "bib" for travel.

I felt super guilty for making my sweet friend wait so long for the nursing bib, so I decided to throw in a couple of bonus items:

A reversible baby bonnet, from this tutorial

An embroidered burp cloth

All of this was made possible by my two new favorite tools:

Quick Turn tool (for turning fabric tubes right-side-out) (Fabulous! Nigh miraculous!), and OLFA Rotary Circle Cutter
The best things since the Vita-Mix

It's good to be back in the sewing room again. Now I can begin to check off that pesky list of "owed" projects, as well as some brainstorms that keep me awake at night.

Thanks for visiting!

[Necessity ÷ (Time x Tasks x 7)] + Initiative = Organization

I like to live by lists; but after another major relocation (3 in under 3 years!), I've been remiss in making & keeping up with lists.

I own a few books on organization, and I follow a few blogs that provide ample inspiration to get my act together.

Genetically speaking, I'm Wally's daughter, so it's safe to say that God has fully equipped me to be thoroughly organized.

But alas!

I've had to regain the discipline necessary to take initiative in this crucial aspect of homemaking/homeschooling.

It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and my desire for order and sanity has made it necessary for me to (finally) get everyone into their right places throughout the day so we may again begin to measure progress.

Therefore, I have re-invented the proverbial wheel, so to speak, by bringing together some older and some not-so-old methods of corralling my family & tackling household jobs.

Something that takes the lion's share of our day is the idea of eating. It entails meal planning, list making, grocery shopping, slicing, chopping, grating, baking, roasting, grilling, sauteéing, clean-up, loading/unloading the dishwasher, washing dishes by hand, setting the table, clearing the table, wiping the counters, sweeping the floor...

All of these jobs - along with many other chores - require workers, obviously. With seven people in our home, it would seem daunting; but years ago, I adopted the adage, "Many hands make light work."

I hope this isn't disappointing, but it seemed logical to me. It's a bit difficult to read here, but it has each one's name in a specific color, making it easy to locate each one's turn for fixing a meal, washing, or drying dishes.

I'm an old-fashioned paper-and-pen kind of gal (although we probably own more apple computer products than most American families).

I don't like the thought of having my life stored on a device that could crash or become obsolete. 

So, each year, I start with what my generation once considered an administrative staple: 

3-hole-punched, lined paper & the best pen ever manufactured - a blue Bic cristal.

All of my lists are kept in a cute 3-ring binder, purchased at Target.

Told ya it was cute! It reminds me of a particular fabric that I should have bought but didn't.

And if you're ever blessed with the opportunity to go to the Vera Bradley Factory Warehouse Sale in Ft. Wayne, IN, you, too, can score some adorable little binder clips like this one! It holds things like the scary list of DOs & DON'Ts from the E-Z Tag store, and other small paper items that don't really go into the rings.

Getting back to the matter at hand, this year I started by simply making lists of all that needs to be done. Once this was accomplished, I wrote names next to each task and made a note of which might be the best days of the week for each to be done.

Deciding which chart method to use was a bit tricky for me, as I tend to be indecisive if given too many options.

Years ago, I discovered Teri Maxwell's Managers of Their Homes. Despite the encouraging testimonies given by moms with much more responsibility than I've ever had, who successfully used Teri's method in their own homes, I waited like a scared cat for two years before finally taking the plunge into accounting for every single minute of every single day for every single member of our family (minus Craig, who goes to work).

On that first day, several years ago, of implementing M.O.T.H., my children actually thanked me.

("Yay, Lord! You gave me children who love lists, too!")

I've decided against the actual color-coded time-slot charts this year, in favor of simply writing each one's routine on a "Daily Schedule" list taken from this resource that I bought very early in our homeschool experience (before it was available on CD-Rom in colorful packaging).

I used marker for each child's name for easy ID, and pencil for each time slot, in case any adjustments need to be made.

Each room of the house has a "master list" of what needs to be done daily/weekly, with a person's name underneath the day of the week for each task. These master lists are kept in my home organization binder for a quick overview, but each individual chore chart is kept on a separate sheet, on the reverse side of the page protector holding the daily schedule.

When I start brainstorming ideas for my lists each year, I usually visit Donna Young's site. It's the mother lode of home-organization resources. If Donna Young were my neighbor, she'd hate me, per Proverbs 25:17, as my foot would OFTEN be in her house! 

(Actually, she's probably a very sweet, patient woman who delights in pesky neighbors who assume she has all the answers & bring pies to her doorstep with selfish motives.)

OK, back to meal planning. This seems to be the biggest monster a lot of moms face. Fortunately, we love to eat, so we're motivated not to fall too far away from a meal-planning regimen.

I have several spiral notebooks that have served as my sloppy, unattractive, but easy and convenient mode of making menu lists over the years. These notebooks are like scrapbooks, in that their pages hold scores from games we've played with each other and with guests, guest lists and menus from holidays and other occasions, song lyrics, and other random things that I deemed worthy of inclusion in the menu notebook.

I've tried to use days-of-the-week menu charts in the past, but I tend to follow my cravings rather than a schedule for meals. It helps to know, in general, what's available; then I decide either the day before, or even that same morning, what to have for dinner. This works for me just fine, and no one is complaining.

This is our current menu notebook, along with a "system" I tried to implement a couple of years ago. It hasn't worked for me due to my whimsical personality, but it was still a good idea. The list on the printout is similar to the lists in the notebook, with one exception. There are seven dinners (with fewer lunches/breakfasts, which are easy to throw together with leftovers, etc.), and the reverse side includes a shopping list for each meal.

This is the shopping list for one menu list. I haven't used these because when I set them aside for a while, I plan meals according to my craving. Then when I try to return to one of these pre-printed lists, I find that we've recently eaten a few items on the list. Not wanting to repeat, I set it aside, and the cycle continues. By the way, I have several of these lists. My original plan was to be able to forget about menu planning for a couple of months at a time. Try it. It may work for you.

Here's how my life really looks. :-) This is the same basic list system mentioned above, but in my own handwriting inside the spiral notebook. I like to think that posterity will appreciate my having done this - as long as posterity tends toward the grandmother's habit, rather than the grandfather's computer-dependent system.

The result of well-laid plans?

Happy children who take joy in checking items off the list!