"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
1 Corinthians 15:58
Me, Lynn, and Heather
Well, our meeting went great! It's just that four hours was not long enough! We are still continuing to share ideas via email and texts. We spent a good bit of our time meal planning and recipe sharing. Before we ended our meeting, I think each of us had a list of 10 supper meals planned plus numerous breakfasts and lunches. Heather has since expanded her supper list to include 24 meals! She chose six categories, and then listed four meals under each category. I have not added any meals to the original 10 that I planned, but I did add to "try a new recipe" once a week. I will add new meals to my supper list as I try out new dishes.
If Heather doesn't blog about her categories and meal planning, I will! I know that a few of the categories were things like: pasta/sandwiches, soups/crock pot, and Mexican.
We also discussed housekeeping. The three of us have different needs in this area. I have three older children that can help me out a lot, plus I have a housekeeper that cleans the main floor of my house weekly. That leaves us to thoroughly cleaning the basement and upstairs and keeping the main floor neat and tidy. Lynn has a housekeeper that cleans her entire house every other week, but she doesn't have older children, especially older girls to help her in between. Heather has neither older children or outside household help, but she has lots of energy! No really, she has two daughters that are a huge help to her. We all realized that we should not plan housekeeping jobs on the days that we have "out of the house" activities (things like piano/violin lessons, Spartan running practice, home school co ops, etc.). This left Heather and Lynn with three days at home and me only two. So we worked with it! We consolidated our weekly housekeeping chores to fit in those afternoons that we are home. We also decided that after supper and the kitchen was clean, we are done! No folding clothes or vacuuming after supper. That will be family time and down time. Our "work" will be done at 7:00 PM!
We scheduled our days. This is the rough outline of the schedule that we plan to follow. Of course each of us will tweak this to fit our individual family, but this basic plan should work for each of us. All three of us have schooling to do for most of the summer (with vacations, camp, VBS, etc. interspersed), so on the days when we do not have school, we will work on our summer projects list.
6:00-7:00 AM: personal quiet time (Bible reading, prayer, etc.)
7::00-9:00: exercise, children wake up during this time, breakfast, shower (if time!), morning chores, begin laundry
9:00-12:00: school
12:00-1:00 PM: lunch, supper prep, laundry, make bread, kids have some free time
1:00-3:00: school, check schoolwork, kids begin chores if time
3:00-4:30: out of house or when home, major housework days
4:30-6:00: supper prep, kids complete afternoon chores
6:00-7:00: supper, kitchen clean up
Once the children are done with their schoolwork and daily chores, they are free! For most of our children, it does not take them 5 hours to complete daily schoolwork....but it takes the mothers 5 hours to do school with all of her children. Does that make sense? Sam does not do school for five hours! But I do.
Our housekeeping goals for each day whether we are home all day or not:
If Heather doesn't blog about her categories and meal planning, I will! I know that a few of the categories were things like: pasta/sandwiches, soups/crock pot, and Mexican.
We also discussed housekeeping. The three of us have different needs in this area. I have three older children that can help me out a lot, plus I have a housekeeper that cleans the main floor of my house weekly. That leaves us to thoroughly cleaning the basement and upstairs and keeping the main floor neat and tidy. Lynn has a housekeeper that cleans her entire house every other week, but she doesn't have older children, especially older girls to help her in between. Heather has neither older children or outside household help, but she has lots of energy! No really, she has two daughters that are a huge help to her. We all realized that we should not plan housekeeping jobs on the days that we have "out of the house" activities (things like piano/violin lessons, Spartan running practice, home school co ops, etc.). This left Heather and Lynn with three days at home and me only two. So we worked with it! We consolidated our weekly housekeeping chores to fit in those afternoons that we are home. We also decided that after supper and the kitchen was clean, we are done! No folding clothes or vacuuming after supper. That will be family time and down time. Our "work" will be done at 7:00 PM!
We scheduled our days. This is the rough outline of the schedule that we plan to follow. Of course each of us will tweak this to fit our individual family, but this basic plan should work for each of us. All three of us have schooling to do for most of the summer (with vacations, camp, VBS, etc. interspersed), so on the days when we do not have school, we will work on our summer projects list.
6:00-7:00 AM: personal quiet time (Bible reading, prayer, etc.)
7::00-9:00: exercise, children wake up during this time, breakfast, shower (if time!), morning chores, begin laundry
9:00-12:00: school
12:00-1:00 PM: lunch, supper prep, laundry, make bread, kids have some free time
1:00-3:00: school, check schoolwork, kids begin chores if time
3:00-4:30: out of house or when home, major housework days
4:30-6:00: supper prep, kids complete afternoon chores
6:00-7:00: supper, kitchen clean up
Once the children are done with their schoolwork and daily chores, they are free! For most of our children, it does not take them 5 hours to complete daily schoolwork....but it takes the mothers 5 hours to do school with all of her children. Does that make sense? Sam does not do school for five hours! But I do.
Our housekeeping goals for each day whether we are home all day or not:
- keep house neat and tidy
- prepare 3 meals and clean up
- keep laundry going (folded and put away each day)
- routine morning and afternoon chores
We briefly touched on homeschooling. Most of our discussion in this area is taking place right now. I am trying to decide which method of daily planning I want to utilize for Leah and Sam next year, and I have to do a better job of daily checking Olivia's and Julie's work. We all agreed that during school hours (9-12 and 1-3), we are not going to do laundry or anything else, and we are going to leave our phones in a room far away from where we are doing school!
I will be happy to share my specific lists, chore charts, an
Whew!
ReplyDeleteYou know I want to see more of your recipes and now I'm very interested in your housekeeping schedule.
I'm making your wheat bread recipe this weekend :) I'll let you know how it goes!
Oh I loved it all. Every tidbit that you shared was wonderful. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHow fun and what a great idea. I may have to gather a few ladies and do this too, right here, in my little town.
And yes, please keep sharing about what you came up with. It's already challenging me.
~Cinnamon
I agree with Cinnamon, this is wonderful! Please do keep sharing. I think I may do the same with some of my friends. So how did you prepare for this meeting? Did each lady bring recipes, their menus, schedules to tweak? I can't wait to hear more. By the way, I love your previous post. Your attitude that it can be done, not in the way of the world, but according to what Christ wants from us as women. Lovely.
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