Getting Ready for the New Week

Our fall break week last week went by in a blur!  I accomplished a lot, however, I did not complete every single thing on my "to do" list.  I will just have to save it until our December break.  I stayed so busy last week that I only turned on my computer to post my running miles on Daily Mile.  No blogging!  I still have pictures and stories to share about Nationals, Spartan shaving cream fun practice and Spartan Crazy Hair and Sock practice.  We also had our end of the season Spartan pizza party last night, and Olivia, Julie, and Clay ran a 5K yesterday morning.  All of the pictures documenting these events are on Jimmy's computer, and I plan to make time to catch up really soon!

We will begin school tomorrow, bright and early!  Thankfully, this upcoming week is a 25 mile running week for me, and so I do not have to run tomorrow morning.  In fact, I am only running two days this week:  Tuesday--5 and Thursday--20.  Then, the following week I have 47 miles, which is the peak week of marathon training.

We are going to make a minor change in our schedule this week, to see if it will work.  I am finding that each afternoon when we are all done with our schoolwork, everyone (including me) is too tired to think about cleaning house.  We are able to pick up the house each afternoon before supper and put away our clean laundry, but frequently I have not required the children (nor myself) to do our daily cleaning chores.  So what happens is that after a week or more of our neglecting to clean the bathrooms, vacuum, or dust, the house is really dirty, and it takes an entire day to get caught up.  After spending two days of our fall break cleaning house, I decided that there has to be a better way!  So, this is what we are going to try starting tomorrow morning.

Each morning after our regular chores/Bible reading/breakfast, we are going to do our daily cleaning chore before we begin our school day.  Currently my goal is to begin each school day at 8:00 AM.  Now, I am aiming for 8:30, which should give us enough time to do some housework.  I am committing to trying this for one entire school week.  I will reevaluate after Friday to see if this is something that we want to stick with.

I have a laminated chore chart hanging inside our pantry door.  There are rectangles for each child and me under each day of the week.  Each box has a chore listed. We simply mark off the jobs as we complete them.  At the end of the week, I wipe the chart clean, and we are ready to begin again.

I spent some time Saturday making a monthly menu.  I considered shopping for a month's worth of groceries, and even began making a list, but I decided that it is just too much for me to tackle.  I am not sure I have storage for that much food, and with Thanksgiving coming up, I knew that I would be making trips to the grocery store for specialty items....so I plan to shop tonight after our church service for just one week's worth of groceries, just like always. I am glad to have such a large list of supper ideas to choose from.  I have had the same grocery list for years.  I print off about ten of them at a time.  This grocery list is simply a list in column format (in teeny-tiny font) of all items that I buy at the grocery store.  I have the list grouped by aisle, in the order that I walk through the store.  Each week I highlight what I need to buy and I write the quantity out to the side if I need more than one.

I hope all of you have a fantastic week!


Colossians 3:17
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.