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 | Faith
I have all but given up on rising early. I know that the early bird catches the worm and I would love to start my day with an hour of Scripture and prayer but it’s just not happening. Instead of trying to guilt myself about it, I’ve found another strategy.
I really like the idea of morning quiet time with God. I used to be an early bird. Then I had children. I now really love (and need) my sleep. I still sleep-share (co-sleep) with my littlest and he has a sixth sense. As soon as I try to leave the bed in the morning he will wake up and want to nurse for an hour. So I remind myself that he’s only young once and we snuggle in for an hour of dozing/nursing.
Here are some alternatives to rising early yet still getting into God’s Word in the start of my day:
- Set an alarm and go to bed on time. For me this means at 10:15pm my phone starts jingling and I start getting ready for bed. This is often step one to getting a good start the next day.
- Set an alarm for the morning (mine is at 7am). This one drives my husband crazy because he’s usually the one turning it off while I roll over to go back to sleep. But every once in a while he will be unavailable (i.e. outside working already) and I have to jump out of bed to turn the alarm off. Most of the time the littlest wakes up, but sometimes he doesn’t. And by that point I’m out of bed anyway so I (try) to stay awake and read.
- Another alarm perk: they are on my smart phone. My smart phone also has a Bible app. Since I have my phone in my hand anyway I can flip open the app and start my daily reading while laying in bed.
- Sleep through the alarm and wake up around 8ish with the kids. This has been my usual routine as of late. They run around in jammies while I grab my already made coffee (did I mention I have the best husband ever?) and sit at the table.
I have started grabbing a journal to jot down my thoughts on my daily reading and I click “play” on my phone and Max Lucado reads the Bible to me. Sometimes it takes me half an hour (or more) to get my 15 minutes of reading in. Sometimes they play so nicely that I allow myself a bit of extra time to delve further into a verse that really spoke to me. Or write a quick blog post to tell you that, even if you have little ones and sleep is too precious to wake up early (can you say “multiple night wakings?”), you can still start your day right, with the Lord.
C is now back in the house and will be wanting some breakfast (or probably a cookie as I gave Biscuit one while he was playing outside to buy me a few extra minutes) so I’m off to get everyone dressed, fed, and out the door to do chores.
Do you have any other tips for getting in a few minutes of God-time before you start your day? I’d love to hear them!
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by Tessa | Homemaking
It has occured to me how complicated we can make our effort to living simply. We feel that we need to do it all and then some. We read blogs and books and feel like if we aren’t growing everything we eat and making everything we use, we must be doing something wrong. This revelation came to me when I was reading an article on how to simplify your DIY.
Or maybe I’m just talking about myself here. I know that I have a tendency to over complicate things. I have a wonderfully annoying habit of researching the pants off of anything and then trying to dive in head first. I really should remember what my goals are for changing our lifestyle.
I have a number of reasons: frugality, health, appreciating the simple things, teach my kids the importance of work and more. But, when I dream about my goals for my life, I don’t picture money in the bank, or being superfit/healthy. I picture being able to take the time to enjoy my family. Working alongside them without being tied down by the craziness of this world. Slowing down. Peace.
Now I need to ask myself, will what I’m doing lead me to that life? I’m pretty sure that, if I attempted to learn and do everything at once (garden, canning, herbalism, soap making, cheese making, weaving, knitting, sewing, building and wood working and the list goes on) that I would just burn out. We are not designed to do it all. And very few people are able to dive in head first without drowning. That doesn’t sound very peaceful to me.
So, instead of my grand plan for our garden this year, I managed to move one step further than last year. The only vegetables I planted were tomatoes and carrots. Oh, and onions because I saw an idea on pinterest and thought it would be a simple way to use up the space where I planted my chamomile (that didn’t come up). I planted in containers because I figured it made sense to have a portable garden due to our impending move. I watered with a bucket from my kitchen sink because I have no faucet on my house. And I watched and waited. I did very minimal weeding (one of my favorite parts of container gardening) and only a little bit of fertilizing.
My garden took about 10 minutes to care for every couple of days and I didn’t lose my mind. I learned a lot about growing tomatoes and carrots. I didn’t get a huge and bountiful crop this year but I did manage to learn enough to point me in the right direction for next year’s garden.
Next year my goal is small: plant enough of a garden so I don’t need to buy veggies through the growing season. If that goes well, the year after next I’ll plant enough so that we can store some for the winter.
But, for now, 10 minutes extra into my schedule is simple. Because simplifying should be simple to do.Another couple great posts that I have recently read that are great grounders when you’re feeling overwhelmed or like you’re not doing enough:
How Do you Know When You Are Natural Enough? (Cheeky Bums Blog)
dear sweet mom who feels like she is failing (Finding Joy)
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by Tessa | Homemaking
If this is the first time you’ve have heard about the news I’m about to share, I apologize. I wish I could tell everyone personally instead of having them find out in such an impersonal manner. But I can’t and the deadline is coming closer. So here’s my big news:
We are moving.
We are moving about 3.5 hours away but we have family, friends, and other ties to our current area so we will be back on a pretty regular basis. We bought a farm and are doing some barn renovations down there so things have been pretty hectic lately. Lots of trips down there to arrange renos and prepare the farm for animals and much more needs to be done. So there is a lot of work to be done and I’ve been doing what I can to prepare my family.
This includes things like figuring out internet, grocery stores, mail, banking, church information, kids activitiesc and mommy groups. I’ve also been trying to visualize how we will live in the new place. The house we are going to live in down there has about 200 square feet less space than here. Not a big deal for bedrooms but the main floor of the house is something else. It’s proving to be a tough layout to work with. For example, the “coat closet” is inside the bathroom and the space for the fridge is in the laundry room. I think that we have figured out how we can make our belongings work and I know that God will provide the peace and patience we need to live in that house for the time being. Due to the down sizing, we have had to make some tough decisions. We won’t have the space or storage that we do in our current house (there are only 3 closets in the whole house) so we are getting rid of stuff.
It is amazing how much stuff a person can accumulate. I filled a garbage bag with toys to donate and I packed some of the less popular toys. The boys haven’t missed them. They are actually sitting in a clear plastic bin on a shelf in the playroom and neither boy has asked for them to play with in the whole 6 weeks they have been packed. I may have to donate them as well. I have noticed that since I packed up a good number of toys (the boys play outside most of the time anyway) that I don’t have nearly as many issues getting them to clean up. I’m not tripping on toys the way I used to either. I like that!
I have also taken this opportunity to simplify other areas of our life. I packed about half of our dinnerware. I do still have extra plastic plates/bowls for snack times but we mostly haven’t missed the extra dinnerware. I have been doing way less dishes. I have a dishwasher but I used to wash all the plastics and pots and larger items by hand because the dishwasher was always full with plates. Now I can fit nearly every dirty dish and pot into the dishwasher and just run it every other day. It takes me 20 minutes to do dishes and clean the kitchen in the morning instead of 1.5 hours. The only issue I’ve run into with this is that my husband was upset that both large coffee mugs were dirty and he didn’t want to use a medium one so he didn’t drink his coffee one day.
Things I have already packed/donated: DVDs (we watch Netflix once in a while but that’s about it), books (just kept a couple out that I will read before the move), baby gear (lent it to my sister actually), all of the kids’ clothes that they don’t currently wear (plus most of what actually fits them too – less laundry!) and a lot of my clothes (sad yet freeing to donate all my nice business clothes I used before I became a SAHM, they can bless someone else).
Next areas to simplify/pack: towels (probably leave 1 towel per son, 1 for me, and 2 for hubby), computer gear (we have extras of nearly everything), some fabric (I have to face the fact that I won’t have time to sew it all before the move).
So preparing to move has given me a great opportunity to live with less. It has shown me that we really do have an abundance of “stuff” that we don’t really need. I’m not at the point that I could get rid of it all but I certainly am looking at things differently. I still have a bin with clothes that fit my boys because I know that they (especially my 4 year old) will wear out a couple pairs of pants before they outgrow them. I can just go to the bin to grab a “new” pair. I know that we will eventually have company over for dinner and will require those extra plates. So I’ll just go to the box to grab them. But the won’t go into my regular rotation because I don’t want to be a slave to my stuff. I don’t enjoy dishes or laundry so I’m going to keep it to a minimum.
Less stuff really does translate into more time!
Is there an area in your life and household that you can simplify? Ask yourself, do you really need that stuff or can you do with less?
by Tessa | Personal Development
In the midst of
Pinterest,
Facebook fan pages and all of the really great blogs and articles out there, it is very easy to get overwhelmed and intimidated when it comes to making lifestyle changes. It seems like everyone else is living the lifestyle that you want and, if they can do it, why can’t you? I think it is fair to say that we read all these great ideas, see all these projects ideas, organizational techniques, and recipes, and we don’t know where to begin. So we don’t ever begin. We don’t ever move ahead.There are many areas that I want to change for my family. I’ll give you a partial list:
Food:
- Make bread weekly (from flour I grow and grind myself)
- Make yogurt weekly
- Make cheese quarterly
- Make butter monthly
- Cook healthy dinners from scratch
- Raise chickens for the eggs
- Tap trees to make maple syrup
- Homemade vanilla coffee creamer
- Homemade pasta
- Make freezer meals monthly
- Well stocked pantry so I can do one-a-month shopping instead of weekly
Garden:
- Tomatoes
- Carrots
- Herbs: garlic, basil, thyme, rosemary, ginger, chives, calendula, motherwort, St Johns Wort, chamomille, mint, lavander, plantain, comfy, lemongrass, hyssop
- Lettuce
- Cucumber
- Broccoli
- Cauliflour
- Strawberries
- Raspberries
- Apple trees
Home:
- Always clean enough to have company over
- Decorated and matching furniture
- Declutter – clothes, toys, books, and kitchen stuff
- Wood burning fireplace
- Organized bookshelves
- Chemical free cleaning and body care (toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo etc)
- Line dry laundry
- Build my dream home for my family
Christian Living:
- Attend church every week
- Read the Bible through every year
- Keep a prayer/miracles journal
- Have a Bible study journal
- Study scripture with my family
- Memorize passages regularly
- Have regular a family worship time
Education:
- Read daily something to expand my mind in a subject of interest
- Read daily to my children
- Write and publish a book (or two)
- Learn a few languages
Business:
- Meet my sling sales goals every month
- Do 1-2 trade shows per year
- Get 1000 followers on my blog by the time I write/publish my book
- Get the farm to the point that Adam can take regular days off
Family:
- Two weekends of camping every year
- One family “field trip” per month
- One date with Adam per month
- Institute a weekly family games night
- Crafts with the kids weekly
That is a long list. And that is not even the complete list! If I look at my complete list I can get very overwhelmed. I think that if I actually was doing everything on my list then even I would not want to read my blog! The reality is that I’m more like you: big dreams that I haven’t followed through on.
Instead of focusing on what I’m not doing, I’m going to fill you in on a little secret. This secret revolutionized the way that I look at my life goals. And now for the cliff hanger: I’m going to put it in another post because this one is getting too long. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, I have a challenge for you: Grab a pen and piece of paper. Make your own list. Break it into different areas of your life and list (in as much detail as possible) how you want those areas to look and what you want to accomplish in those areas.
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.
