Systems for Sanity: Kitchen Day: Part 1

Part of the Kitchen Day will be spent focusing on some major kitchen chores. Most of these chores will be weekly and a few of them will be monthly. I sat down with the children this morning and talked about what chores they felt were necessary for a clean kitchen after having made quite a list myself. I was surprised that they actually came up with things I hadn't thought of.

Since creating this file, I have thought of a few more things and added them in pencil (a BIG step for me). I'm including the pdf version and the word version for you to tweak and make your own.

This will look different for you than it does for me. Your husband may have preferences that aren't on our list. You may have preferences that aren't on our list. To each his own - don't get bogged down in looking like someone else.

To start making my home management binder, I printed a sheet with the day of the week and then what area we are focusing on - one for each day/area. Then I am adding things in pencil that I want to accomplish or do that day. I'm printing out chores or meal plans, etc. to go behind each of these days/areas. I can go back and redo things later, make them prettier, update, etc, but the point is to just get them down and in the binder so that we have a reference point to what the week should look like.

When I am feeling like a crazy woman and don't know what "the next thing" is, I can go to the binder and "do the next thing."

When I asked Pete what area he wanted me to focus on, his preference was to streamline meals and meal time. That's what I'm working on so I'm filling in the gaps on my blog in case it is helpful to some of you.

Systems for Sanity: The Weekly Plan

This won't be news to anyone with a large family, but I'll say it anyway. Kim Benneman of Large Family Logistics blog has written a book with a ton of her years of wisdom and learning; under the same name.

I used to read Kim's blog and then it went away when she was dealing with the premature birth of one of her babies. I never fully implemented her system because I have a hard time reading on the web for long periods of time and I didn't really care for printing out large portions of her blog. I'm a cheapskate with some things.

So glad to have this book. What an incredible investment for our family. I'll save the details for Kim to share with you when you purchase her book, but the jist of it is to have a plan for your week where you are focusing on one area of your home each day. I'm a categorizer by nature so this is perfect for me.

Here is our plan:

Sunday - The Lord's Day
Monday - Laundry Day
Tuesday - Office Day (Planning Day)
Wednesday  - Town Day
Thursday - Kitchen Day
Friday - Cleaning Day/Camping/Field trips
Saturday - Garden/Farm Day

More on each area as we go...

Systems for Sanity: Quiet Times: Part 1

I think I'm going to blog my way through the journey that Pete and I are going on. I figure that the Lord is showing us mighty things and they might be helpful to someone else. Please know that this is going to look different for each person and I expect that you will take direction directly from the Lord and not from me. This is just here if you need a little more inspiration after the Holy Spirit has led you.

Quiet time is a necessary part of a Christian woman's day. This is non-optional and vital for a growing relationship with the Lord.

That said... I am a planner and I like to have a plan for my mornings when I'm expecting to have a wonderful visit with the Lord. I have to make lists when I finally get together with my dear friend Tanya. Likewise I like to come to the Lord in an orderly way - praise, time in the Word, and prayer. I've already been talking about praise and music and I'll get back to blogging about that when I get a clear go-ahead from the Lord.

The idea I am about to share came from Elizabeth George in her book Life Management for Busy Women (excellent book, by the way). It is a Quiet Time Calendar and the idea is that you will fill in the box corresponding with the date each morning during your quiet time. The goal is that you will build a solid line through the months as you meet with the Lord, your very best friend, each morning.

I didn't want to copy it out of the book so I built my own to go in my new 1/2 size binder (purchased for $5 at Mardel). I'm sharing it with you here in Word format and PDF.

Printing on card-stock is ideal because you will (hopefully) be using this 365 times - let's be honest and realistic - 250? And if you happen to be thinking that you don't own 1/2 size paper, you just take your paper fold it in half, lick, fold, lick, tear - the old fashioned way. :)

This is all in conjunction with the Maximize Your Mornings Challenge that Kat just posted. And since I want to encourage you to maximize your mornings in the Word of God, I'm going to bed right now so that I can maximize mine. Night.