by Tessa | Homemaking
One of our household mantras go like this:
How do we behave?
Polite and Gentle and show each other Love.
We first started this when my oldest was learning how to properly pronounce an “L.” It encouraged him to repeat words with the “L” at the beginning, middle, and end of the word. It was an added bonus that it also included a character lesson.
In spite of the fact that my boys are typically less rambunctious in their play than one would expect from boys their age, we do have a tendency toward more intensity when it comes to emotions. With the addition of another little boy to our family last week (more on that later), we are in the midst of the extra dose of fatigue and attempts at finding a new family rhythm. Gentleness is a habit that we need to get back into.
One of the things that has helped serve as a reminder for gentleness was to light a candle and say a prayer for my home. C and Biscuit help me light (or remind me to light) the candle and I explain why I’m lighting it and pray out loud for peace in our home and gentleness toward each other. I love having a visual (and scented!) reminder and we hold each other accountable treating each other with love. Yes, I allow my children to call me out when I treat them unacceptably.
I know that there are a lot more ways to increase the habit of gentleness but I’m starting with my candle and prayer. It’s simple. And, with a newborn in my arms, simple is about as good as I can do!
Do you have any other simple ways for increasing gentleness in yourself and your children?
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by Tessa | Homemaking
Head over to my Facebook page to access my free planner printable available to my fans!
Last week I shared some of the things that I’ve learned about myself while doing research on how to get my life and home organized before my family welcomes another addition in November. I promised to share with you this week what I’ve learned about home management binders. So I’ll dive right in:
Even though all those free printables and different section ideas are very tempting, I don’t need them all. Some things come more naturally to me than others. I don’t need to organize areas of my life that are already organized. For example: My bill paying and savings plans are second nature to me. They don’t require a section in my binder. I also don’t have any need for a lot of space for appointments because, let’s face it, my schedule on paper is very boring. I made and tried a daily planner. I had used a two-page-per-day planner for years before I had children so I thought this would be the best method for me, but found that it was just not working this time around. Then I read this article about different levels of planners and it became clear to me what the problem was. I was much like her and started off with the “nerd planner” when I really only needed a Week-at-a-glance. I have found it makes more sense for me as my tasks are not usually day dependent because the amount I can do in a day varies so much.
I have since upgraded to a color printer so my weekly pages are color coded into different sections. Keeping the boxes and line space to smaller amounts has meant that I can only add so many tasks to my list, so as not to overwhelm myself. I took a lot of inspiration from the Uncalendar and tweaked this idea to suit my personal and business life. First, I made a list of things I wanted to keep track of: personal to do, blog to do, kids to do, meals, habits I’m working on, people I need to get in touch with, a weekly memory/focus verse and a simple “catch all” area for when I don’t want to pull out the specific list or project sheet for thoughts that pop into my head. That’s a lot of information that I was trying to get out of my head and onto paper!
I also have a very simple list of regular housekeeping tasks, broken down into daily, weekly, and monthly. I put them in a page protector and I just lay it on top of my binder. One side has my brief daily list and a section for each day of the week. On the reverse side I have a 4 week rotation of monthly tasks and I will choose one week at a time to complete. I found it much simpler to make my own lists rather than print or purchase those made by someone else because, others’ lists just don’t suit me. There are certain cleaning tasks that I just don’t care about (at least in this stage of my life) and I do different things on different days than or not as frequently as premade lists tell me.
I’ve been using my weekly calendar for a few weeks and it has been working very well. I leave it open on my counter so I can see it and add to it throughout the day. This method has eliminated the need for me to write out my to do list every evening and transfer everything that I didn’t accomplish to the next day. Planning my day in advance takes just a couple of minutes and having the whole week visible allows me to shuffle tasks around easily.
I am still using a lot of the tips I learned from Planner Perfect when it comes to projects, lists, goals, and having all of my brain’s information available at my fingertips. My mind feels much less cluttered and, surprisingly, my energy levels have increased! It has been great to use this newfound energy to play more with my kids and actually stay (mostly) caught up on my housework.
Do you use a home management binder? I’d love to hear about it or see photos because I’m on a constant quest of tweaking mine to perfection.
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Head over to my Facebook page to access my free planner printable available to my fans!
by Tessa | Homemaking
Do you every get overwhelmed when you read all those wonderful and amazing blog posts written by people who are already at the destination of organization? Me too.
If you follow my Pinterest boards, you’ve likely noticed my recent stint of pinning a bunch of links related to organization. I’ve been scrambling to get my house and mind and family all in order before the baby comes. Creating rhythms and routines and setting up a reasonable housekeeping schedule is tough when you’re dealing with unpredictable mealtimes (my husband’s schedule is not consistent right now), unpredictable children (because kids are like that), and unpredictable health (fatigue, morning sickness, other pain and injuries). I don’t have it all figured out.
I know that everyone says to not compare yourself to others but let me tell you a few things that I’ve learned about people (and myself) through doing all this research:
Many people have way higher housekeeping standards than I do. Some even clean their baseboards and windows weekly! (Did you know that no one will notice if you clean them once per year? Or never?) Unfortunately, this means that when people tell you to lower your standards when you’re finding it hard to keep up on housekeeping, that doesn’t apply to me. My standards have already been lowered enough.
Many people feed their children way more than I do. Lately we have peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, yogurt or oatmeal with fruit and cheese n crackers for snack/lunch, and then simple, homemade dinners (that can be made in 30 min or less). We also drink a lot of milk during the day which fills their tummies with lots of long-lasting protein. The only thing I (currently) plan is dinner and my children often make their own sandwiches for breakfast.
Not everyone needs as much sleep as I do. I look at some of the evening and morning routines of other bloggers and I know for a fact that I could not survive with that little of sleep. Some people can thrive off of 6 hours of sleep. I’m not one of them. I need at least 8.5 hours. I need to go to bed at (at least) 10:30pm and need to sleep until 7am. My children also sleep until 7am. I have no morning solo quiet time. My sleep is also interrupted several times through the night so I’m still tired during the day. I can often be found napping on the couch in the early afternoon while my children watch an episode or two of Transformers Rescue Bots or Magic School Bus. I’m okay with that. This is where I am at right now. Plus this is actually getting us into a good rhythm for when the baby comes and I’ll be needing a daily nap even more.
Everyone has a different perception of organized. Some people love to have open cabinets with everything on display; some people love to have lots of wall decor and knick knacks; some people prefer a minimalist view with lots of empty space and everything hidden behind cupboard doors. This was helpful to find out because I grew up in a home with a lot of knick knacks on display but I haven’t unpacked any of mine since moving 11 months ago. I don’t need to feel guilty about it because my personal style leans more towards minimalism and white space. I also learned why my kids’ book and toy shelf in the living room drives me nuts, even when it is tidied up. I need to get something with doors I can close so I don’t see all that stuff.
I know that I’m not the only one comparing and learning about this sort of stuff otherwise those blogs wouldn’t have so much traffic. Please leave a comment because I’d love to hear what lessons you have learned about yourself while on your journey to organization.
Also, subscribe to my weekly blog post roundup because I will share next week what I’ve learned about setting up a home management binder through this journey. (You can subscribe by filling in the simple form on the right.)
by Tessa | Homemaking
Typically, the words “unchooling” and “planning” do not show up in the same sentence. So how can I claim to be an unschooler and still be scouring the internet for information on how to plan a homeschooling year?
C is 5 this year and, even though kindergarten isn’t mandatory where I live, I have decided to register with a homeschool board. I did this for a couple of reasons:
1. To get people off my back about his education. Everyone is asking me what we’re doing so now I can tell them he’s registered as a homeschooler. It just eliminates some of the much-repeated questions I receive.
2. To give a school board a “trial run.” I know that I want to homeschool but I don’t know exactly what it will all entail, as far as there being required records or plans, or what a meeting with a facilitator would look like, or what a homeschool board will offer in terms of support/guidance.
Back to the whole “planned unschool” idea.
I used to be a schedule-a-holic. My days were planned down to the minute (including time for inevitable interruptions like traffic or getting stopped by a chatty co-worker). I loved it and thrived. It reduced a lot of stress in my hectic life/career and helped me accomplish more than I would have if I wasn’t a planner and list maker.
5 years ago: enter baby #1. He was on his own schedule (of nursing for about 30 minutes every 1-2 hours and not sleeping longer than a two hour stretch until about 18 months). It didn’t match mine. I retired from my business and significantly slowed down my pace so I would be better able to meet his needs. It was an amazing season of growth, trust, and learning priorities. Everything else could wait. My son could/would not. He was about 2.5 before he finally settled into what most of society would consider a decent routine. Which allowed me to settle my life into a bit of routine again. Until his brother was born a couple months after that. Thrown into chaos, any semblance of a rhythm or routine eluded me. Fast forward another couple of years and we moved away from everyone we knew and, consequently, all outside of the home commitments. The first few months were hectic as there was a lot of extra work on the farm which made scheduling anything rather difficult.
A few months ago I started reading about home management binders on Pinterest and became a little obsessed with finding a way to work a planner back into my life. The boys are at a stage where they spend much of their time playing together happily outside, which means that I have more time to figure out things like a housekeeping and time management system that will suit our ever-fluctuating family rhythm. I have been running my home management binder (a “lite” version compared to some of the other ones out there) for a couple months and it has made a huge difference for my family.
I am in the process of figuring out a loose routine that will allow me to have lots of breaks to sit a nurse the baby or change diapers and such, but will also encourage me to stay on top of things in my household, including encouraging the interests of my children. I’m not there yet, but I’m praying about it regularly and the pieces are starting to come together. Including the pieces that require me to be very involved with my boys’ interests and assisting them in furthering those interests, through various methods. Though I’m not planning any curriculum for them, they still deserve my focused attention. Their interests are important to them and, therefore, they are important to me. And kids spell love T-I-M-E. So that’s what I am planning to give them.
by Tessa | Homemaking
I wrote last week about how I am currently in a season of rest. I gladly gave up all the busyness of my previous life when we moved, and I made a purposeful decision not to reignite that path. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the multiple playdates and friend visits every week. I loved my women’s Bible study and the hours I spend volunteering with new moms. I truly enjoyed my sewing business and doing the marketing and sales for it. I even loved giving the gift of marketing and bookkeeping services for a couple of other local businesses. Not to forget living out my role as a wife and mother.
But it couldn’t last. I was beginning to emotionally, mentally, and physically suffer.
Moving away from nearly all of my family and all of my support system presented me with a unique opportunity to hit the “restart” button. We knew that the farm startup would require a large time investment. I was able to commit the hours needed to parent the children largely on my own while my husband worked long hours and am glad that the farm work I had to do allowed me to bring them with me. They spent a great deal of time in the barns those first 6 months. I wasn’t able to reach out to the community a lot because I knew that my days were not my own. With most mornings spent in the barn, then brunch, housework and naptime, and then late afternoons consisting of chores, supper and then bedtimes, I was left with very few hours to pursue anything off the farm.
In spite of the fact that our days were so busy, we have felt a peace settle over our family. I think this peace came about for several reasons:
1. We are following God’s direction for our lives and His grace sustained (and continues to sustain) us through the transition and all that has come with it. We have had to rely on Him in a whole new way and He has provided more strength than we could have imagined.
2. We were spending more time focusing on just being with our family in our spare time. Partially because we were (are still, actually) so tied to the farm, but also because the family was/is working together toward a common goal. Even the kids sensed the importance of the work and put on their snow gear every morning to help out in the barn.
3. We are at a good stage right now with the kids. After having a very rough couple of years with a difficult pregnancy, my post partum depression and back injury, topped off with a son that took a long time for us to understand, we finally started to get into a good family groove. Days aren’t perfect but, since we aren’t overrun with outside commitments, we are able to meet our children where they’re at.
We are fully aware that things will be turned upside down in a few months as we prepare to introduce a newborn into the picture, and we’re okay with that. We are making preparations with our family rhythm and, more importantly, we are preparing our attitudes. The boys know that the new baby will need lots of attention and they have both eagerly volunteered to help out wherever they are able. We are practicing different housework tasks and, while the 2.5 year old is more limited in the duties he can do, the 5 year old is quite capable of doing nearly everything that I can do in the house.
Our season of rest may be nearing an end, but that doesn’t mean that we need to kick out the Peace that has settled either. I have a feeling that our next season could be entitled “Peace In a Time of Flux.”
