The Art of Home Podcast

Recently, I was a guest on The Art of Home Podcast, hosted by Allison Weeks. I found this podcast earlier this year while doing a search for podcasts about homemaking. My nest is almost empty, but homemaking will continue to be my full time job even after my youngest son goes away to college. This podcast features portraits, or interviews, of homemakers in various walks and stages of life. I have learned many things from all of the episodes, but for me and my stage of life, the seasoned homemaker portraits have given me the most encouragement, inspiration, and ideas for my future homemaking days. 

I share my journey of homemaking and some of my ideas. I enjoyed doing this interview so much! But I will admit, I have been so nervous about how I would sound and how I would come across. With blogging, I can always go back and edit and even delete if I want to. With a podcast recording, once it is released, it's out there! 

Here are some links to my episode in case you want to listen. :)

https://www.theartofhomepodcast.com/podcast/episode/815b9fa6/homemaker-portrait-or-roan-johnson

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-home/id1557993655?i=1000631693260

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3gNjh7YmFX1DsyewwGhEf1?si=ZDazW-ESTnemUhpjGFDpyQ

A Johnson Family Update

 So Sunshine left a comment asking about my family and our summer. That little nudge made me realize that yes, I do miss blogging. I still read blogs periodically, but I do spend a good bit of time listening to podcasts. Anyway, here is an update on our family.

We are all doing well!

• Jimmy and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary on June 22. What a blessing to have been married 30 years to my best friend. 
• Olivia and Brian are expecting their first baby in December. They still live super far away in Indiana--a 9 hour drive. I am so excited for them! She will find out next month if the the baby is a boy or a girl.
• Julie and Big Sam are doing well with their two little girls, Mae 2.5 and Bea 10 months. Both girls' birthdays are in August. They live about 15 minutes from us. :) Julie has a garden and baby chickens, and I am looking forward to having fresh tomatoes. 
• Clay is in pharmacy school at The University of Tennessee. He will begin his second year in August. He is also working part time this summer at Handy Man and is studying for the MCAT.
• Leah will be a high school senior (how is that possible?) this fall. Leah has her driver's license now, and it is so nice to have an extra driver. She can drive herself and Sam to their XC practices and Bible studies now which is so nice! Leah has an Etsy shop called PaperCactusDesigns where she sells stickers and various other things that she designs and creates. 
• Sam will be in 10th grade this fall. He is busy this summer working on engineering projects, yard work, and various outdoor activities. Both of them have already been to RYC, and they will attend another camp in July.

I have many, many projects planned this summer. Right now I am picking blueberries for 1-2 hours each day and also working on my "secret room" which is unfinished room off of Olivia's room. This is where I keep all my children's old toys (large and small), stuffed animals (thousands!), memorabilia, college stuff, dress up supplies (way too many!), old t-shirts they want to save, etc. When Olivia, Julie, and Clay were little, this room was cleared out enough that they could play in there, weather (temperature) permitting. Over the years as they have outgrown their toys and things, I stored all of it in this secret room with the intention of getting it out for my grandchildren. Well now that that time is here, I realize that I kept way too much! So I am purging and organizing with the hopes of clearing it out enough for Mae and Bea and future grandchildren to be able to play in there when it's not too hot or cold. I am pulling out all of the children's boxes of "things they want to save" for them to go through and either take it to their houses or get rid of some of it. I am willing to store 2-3 boxes for each child, but not 12! Julie cleaned out the secret room 4 years ago, and I tidied it a little bit 3 years ago, but since that time way too much stuff has been dumped in there. I failed to take before pictures, but I may take some "in progress" pictures today. 

I hope all of you are having a good summer. 

Blog Comments and Flowers

I don't know what kind of flower this is, but here is its story. 

Last year I chose this flower from Lowe's to plant in this pot because it was red and tall. It had only one bloom on it when I bought it, but I guessed it would grow taller and bloom more throughout the summer. The lady at the check-out counter told me that this was such an easy and pretty flowering plant. She said that at the end of the summer I could dig up the remaining plant and keep it inside for the winter....and that next spring it would bloom again. I told her thank you, but knew that I would never do that! When it died over the winter, I would just dig up what was left and plant something new this spring. 

Well. After about two weeks last spring this plant's red flowers fell off, and the plant just sat there all summer. It never grew any taller, and it never bloomed again. I was so disappointed. It turned out to be just a medium-tall green plant in my pot. (I actually have two pots, planted with identical plants--both of them acted the same way last summer.) My plan was to dig them up this spring, throw them away, and choose something different.

I was pleasantly surprised a couple of weeks ago to discover that the red flowers were alive! They  both grew taller, and they multiplied. Look at all those red blooms! There was one flower last year. One! And now already there are multiple flowers on multiple stems in both pots. I have no idea what happened last summer or what happened over the winter (I left them outside in the pots all winter), but I am so happy with the result.

Blogger Comments

I love blogger comments! I read every one of them, and I like to respond to them, but.....something is up with the comment platform. A couple of people have told me they have had some problems commenting on my blog. Leanna says that when she types a comment, it disappears when she clicks publish. Trey says that while he can comment, it always labels him as "unknown" even though he is signed in to Google. When I try to reply to a comment on my own blog, it simply disappears when I click publish. However, I commented on my sister-in-law's (Megan) blog yesterday, and she uses Blogger, and it published just fine!

I did thirty seconds of Google research and found that (1) Blogger is outdated (that's what it said!) and (2) Many people who are trying to comment on Apple devices or using Safari are having the same "disappearing comments" problem. It's apparently because Apple, by default, has enabled "prevent cross-site tracking" from all websites, and Blogger needs this feature to publish your comment. So I looked up "what is cross-site tracking" and from what I can tell from my thirty more seconds of research is this tracking is what advertisers and maybe other entities use to gather data about the users???

So I don't think I want cross-site tracking, right? (I don't use Siri, or Alexa, or even the iCloud!) But I want to reply to comments on my own blog! And it's a mystery to me why I could comment on Megan's blog. (Leanna, will you try to comment on Megan's blog and see what happens?)

All that to say, I will work on this commenting thing! Those of you who can still comment, please continue! I am reading them. I enjoy them, and I want to respond. I just need to figure it all out. I have considered switching to Wordpress, but I have used Blogger since 2008, and I don't know if I have the brain cells to learn a new platform. I barely remember how Blogger works! Plus, what would happen to this blog content if I switched. One more note for you techie readers, I do own my domain, www.joyfuljohnsons.com. I just have it redirected to Blogger. (No idea how that works. I set it up years ago.)

Anyone have any advice? Comment please (if you can!)

How The Housecleaning Went

I completed my very first week of following the Clean Mama routine! It went well. Each day took longer than the 15 minutes she advertises for me to complete the daily cleaning task, but I did each day's assignment.

Here's how it went:

First of all, each day I made my bed, cleared the clutter, washed, dried, folded, and put away (at least) one load of laundry, and kept the counters wiped clean. I completed these daily tasks fairly easily, because I already do these things every day.  Clean Mama also tells you to check your floors each day. This was a new task for me to do, but I did it too, and my floors have not been this clean in a very, very long time. To complete the check your floors task, I ran all three of my Roombas every single day.  After a year of having Roombas, it still amazes me the amount of dust, dirt, and pet hair those things pick up every time I run one.

Monday:  bathrooms-- I cleaned three of our bathrooms alone and helped Leah and Sam clean their bathrooms. It took way longer than 15 minutes, but probably less than one hour total. If I keep on doing this every Monday, it may take less time since they won't be as dirty.

Tuesday:  dusting--I was skeptical about dusting my entire house in one day. However, I was pleasantly surprised! It did not take as long as I thought it would, and Leah and Sam dusted their own rooms. I also think this task will take less time if I continue to dust once a week.

Wednesday:  vacuum
Thursday:  wash floors

I actually combined vacuuming and washing floors, and divided my house in half. Since I have all wood floors (with the exception of ceramic tile in my schoolroom),  I have to vacuum right before I mop. I vacuumed and mopped the basement and upstairs (where all the kids's bedrooms and bathrooms are) on Wednesday, and then vacuumed and mopped the main floor of my house on Thursday. Leah and Sam helped me by doing their rooms plus a little more on Wednesday, but I did Thursday's work all by myself. Both of those days took a long time. On Thursday, it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to vacuum and mop! My right shoulder is hurting from all that vacuuming and mopping!

Friday: catch all--I was so happy on Friday! My house was clean! For my catch all, I chose to clean my microwave and stove. I also washed sheets on my bed, Leah's bed, and Olivia's bed (because Leah was having three girls spend the night, and we needed clean sheets on those beds)--and I went ahead and washed my sheets too instead of on Saturday because I was going to be out of town most of the day Saturday.

Saturday:  sheets and towels--Since I had washed sheets yesterday, I didn't have to do this today. But I did forget Sam's bed! Oops! I'll get his sheets next week. I wash towels all through the week as needed, so I just did regular laundry today.

Overall, I am so glad I tried this method of cleaning. It was hard work, and it took longer than I wished, but I am so happy with the results! I plan on doing it again next week, and also adding some of Clean Mama's monthly tasks for February.  I'll just get done what I can before March gets here, and then I will try to mark off as much as I can on March's list.

Housework

It seems like I am always behind in my housework. (According to my standards--which have gotten lower and lower over the years!) My friend Heather introduced me to Clean Mama about 3-4 years ago, and I was so interested in her blog, her books, and her products. I even emailed a cleaning question to Becky, the author of Clean Mama, and she emailed me back! However, even after reading her blog and books, I have yet to implement her cleaning system. I have made some of her homemade cleaners, and I have printed out many of her checklists (all of which are included in the back of her books), but so far, I have never followed one week of her cleaning plan.

But this week is the week! I am going to follow her instructions, and do exactly what she says. Even though I don't think it's going to work for me (that has been my excuse these last few years). But since my method is not working that well, I am going to try hers. Then I will either know for sure that  it's not for me, or I will be pleasantly surprised!

So today's task is cleaning the bathrooms plus the five daily tasks the recur every day. These are:

make your bed (check!)
clear clutter (we do this several times a day, but always after supper before bed)
check your floors (I have already swept my stairs, and I have the Roomba going)
wipe down counters (I do this all throughout the day)
do one load of laundry (check! one load washed, dried, folded, and put away)

I have four bathrooms and one half bathroom, so I will enlist Leah and Sam to help me clean those later this afternoon when we get home from piano lessons.  Clean Mama says she can clean all the bathrooms in her house in 15 minutes. I highly doubt we can do that, but with the three of us working together, hopefully we can clean all of them in 30 minutes.

Happy Cleaning!

The Thanksgiving Celebrations Countdown

Whew! Yesterday afternoon I typed my to-do list and timeline for this week. This is my first time ever to prepare the Thanksgiving meal all by myself and serve it at my own house! My mother is unable to host this year, so I am using all her traditional recipes and hosting my immediate family. There will be eight  of us for Thanksgiving lunch: Jimmy, Me, Clay, Leah, Sam, Julie, Big Sam, and Mae.  I plan to serve the meal on my fine china that I have used only once or twice in our 27 years of marriage.

Thursday night we plan to take our leftovers over to Kelly and Lynn's house to eat with them and watch the Egg Bowl on TV. Friday night we are having a Thanksgiving dinner at Russ (Jimmy's brother) and Megan's house, and on Saturday we are going to Rhett (my brother) and Amanda's house. Lots of fun and food ahead!

Here is the timeline: As I just read over it, I realized that I forgot to list actually buying the Christmas tree! We will buy it sometime Wednesday and decorate it Friday.
Oh. And we will do some school today and tomorrow, and we also have CrossFit and piano lessons today.

Monday:

• clean upstairs
• change Clay's sheets, guest sheets, and Julie's sheets
• get out Christmas dishes
• decorate for Christmas (after supper)

Tuesday

• vacuum downstairs
• clean guest bathroom
• make dressing
• make carrot salad
• slice ham
• freeze hambone

Wednesday:

• grocery store early for last minute ingredients

• make sweet potatoes
• make corn/rice casserole
• make orange delight
• make green beans x 2
• thaw dressing
• make chocolate and pumpkin pies
• clean my bathroom/bedroom

Thursday:

8:00 AM

• bake turkey
• vacuum downstairs
• vacuum stairs
• set table—wash and dry tablecloth on quick cycle to remove wrinkles

11:30AM

• set out all casseroles
• boil eggs
• make gravy
• prepare cranberry sauce

12:00PM

• bake dressing
• bake green beans
• slice turkey
• put ham and turkey on platter

12:30PM

• bake sweet potatoes
• bake corn/rice casserole
• set out butter

12:45PM

• bake rolls

12:55PM

• set out orange delight
• set out carrot salad

1:00PM—EAT

Friday

• white chili in crock pot on high (for lunch)
• brown ground beef for tomorrow
• decorate Christmas tree (hot chocolate and popcorn!)
• make banana pudding
• make chocolate pies
• make chocolate chip pound cake 
• bake green beans one hour before going to Megan's.

Saturday

• put 7 can soup in crock pot on low (for supper)
• make strawberry spinach salad
• take cake and salad

Happy Thanksgiving Week to you!

Back At Home

So I've been home for almost a week. I attended two weddings last weekend, unpacked and washed lots of clothes, and started back to school yesterday. No, we are not done with this school year yet. We will be done by next Friday, June 8. I am determined for Leah and Sam to both finish their math books, and they will by the end of next week. We will have a shorter than normal summer break, because I plan to start them back at the end of July. I want to get some school done before Julie's baby arrives, because I know I will need to take some time off for that. Our summer break is not actually shorter than normal, it is just broken up differently since we traveled to Florida and Romania in May.

I am almost in panic mode regarding what I have to accomplish the next two weeks....besides finishing up school, I am teaching VBS at our church next week, and the week after that I am teaching at RYC. I spent most of this afternoon preparing for my VBS class, and I hope to start on RYC planning tomorrow. I am teaching (with three other wonderful ladies) 3rd and 4th grade again this year. This is my fourth or fifth time teaching this age group.

My house is also super, super dirty! It has not been cleaned since the end of April. Sam's room and walk-in closet look like an episode of hoarders, and Clay's college stuff is filling up Olivia's room. Plus Julie's room is full of her wedding presents and five fully packed suitcases! I am not sure even where to begin! My plan is to just start cleaning my house today. I am just going to start in one room, and keep going, little by little until it is all done. It may take me a month! :)

I pulled out my master clean out list I made back in January. I have only checked off January's tasks so far. But I am determined. After I get my house cleaned from top to bottom, I plan to begin tackling that clean out list. We will see.

Life always gets in the way.

Spring Fever

The weather here in north Mississippi can't seem to make up its mind.  One day we need to run the air conditioner, the next the heat. In fact, when Leanna and I met at 6:15 this morning to run, it was 38 degrees. Typical. I don't think it has been above 40 degrees in months when we have met in the mornings to run. I am ready for some consistently warmer weather! We have actually had some days here and there where the temperatures were in the upper 60s-70s, so everything is blooming and is so pretty! Our dogwoods and azaleas are just lovely.

We are in track season, so that means getting to sit outside for hours and hours while the kids run and run! I am hoping for beautiful weather for our state homeschool track meet next Friday.

As the days warm up, I long to be outside reading a book instead of inside doing school! I plan to do what I always do as soon as it is warm enough--move our read aloud time to the backyard. I also eat my lunch outside when the weather is nice. We don't have too many pleasant days before it is super hot.

We are slowing winding down our school year. Since we have a 18 day trip (total travel time) to Romania next month, we will not finish all our school subjects before we leave. I plan to keep on keeping on until we have finished--even if it takes on into June to do so! I also plan on beginning our next school year at the very end of July, so that does not give us too long of a summer break. But that's ok! I reminded the kids that most of May is a vacation, so that is part of our summer. The reason I am starting us in late July is so that when Julie's baby is born in early September we can take some time off for that! I. cannot. wait.

I have so many cleaning out projects that I am itching to do! They include the rest of my kitchen (I've done over half my drawers and cabinets), the "secret room" which is an unfinished area upstairs where I have stored many, many toys and lots of Olivia's and Julie's things, and Sam's room and mostly his walk-in closet that has become a catch-all for, well, everything.  I would love to have a TV show come do the secret room and Sam's room and closet for me! Both of those rooms are going to be major projects that require big chunks of time. I'm really too embarrassed to post before pictures, but I may get brave and do that.

As you can see, yard work is not on my list. Thankfully, when Clay and his roommate were home for spring break, they did almost all of our spring yard work! All we really have to do is maintain now. I am so grateful for all the hours they spent putting out mulch.

I hope you are enjoying your spring too.

Homemaking Goals for 2018

I started a new spiral bound notebook for 2018. This is in addition to my daily Erin Condren planner. I like to keep a spiral notebook for all kinds of lists that are too lengthy for my planner. I headed several pages with broad categories where I wanted to list things I wanted to accomplish this year in each area.  One of these is cleaning out. We have lived in our current home for 13 years. While we have been married one 26 years, this is the longest we have ever lived in one home. We have no plans to ever move from this house.

So. After living in one space for 13 years, we have acquired all kinds of clutter. You wouldn't see it if you walked into my house, but it is there, hidden! I assigned myself an area or room to each month of this year.  Here is my list.

• January--storage room
• February--kitchen
• March--garage/back porch 
• April--Sam's room
• May--den/living area
• June--my bedroom and bathroom
• July--schoolroom 
• August--the "secret room" (a room off of Olivia's closet that houses the kids' outgrown toys and lots of other stuff that needs to be purged!)
• September--guest room and bathroom
• October--laundry room and hall closet
• November--foyer and dining room
• December--Leah's room and the upstairs built in desks/bookshelves

I also have a detailed checklist of drawers, closets, shelves, etc. in each of the above rooms. While I want all the cleaning out done right now, I realize that it did not get junky overnight, and it will take me the entire year to get through it. I hope I do not lose my stamina!

Winding Down the Holiday Season

We have experienced the best two weeks ever! All of my children and their spouses have been here, and it has been so wonderful!

And now they are leaving.

Julie and Big Sam left yesterday at 6:30 AM. We all cried and hugged and prayed, and then they were gone. They arrived in Serbia this morning, and had a 5 hour car ride to their home in Craiova, Romania. They should be there soon.

Olivia and Brian leave tomorrow. More sadness!  But we have crammed so much fun into these two weeks. Fortunately, Clay has a few more days here at home, but then January 8 will come, and we will be a family of four again. I suppose we will start back to school that day, but I am not really ready.

Julie and I are having our own little book club. I gave her and Olivia each a copy of More Hours in My Day by Emilie Barnes. That is one of the first books I read as a new homemaker, and it gave me so many ideas that I still use today. When I went to Amazon yesterday to buy myself a copy (I cannot find my copy anywhere! And I looked through it just a month ago!), it was unavailable. I bought three copies in early December, but now Amazon has no more. Strange.  So I bought it for my Kindle. Julie and I are going to FaceTime each Friday morning at 8:00 (my time--4:00PM her time) to discuss a chapter. I am so excited!

I worked a little bit yesterday and today on my January clean-out project, my storage room. I am overwhelmed! I am not even sure I can get it all done in one month! So far I have cleaned out and organized all my scrapbooking supplies (and who knows if I will ever scrapbook again, but if I do, I am ready!), and generally made a huge mess in the room pulling out boxes and making piles everywhere. Plus it's super dusty in there. Yuk.

It's just January 3. Let's keep on working on our new goals and resolutions!

Something New for 2018: Instagram

Big Sam's brother, Abe, and his wife Grace spent a couple of days with us over the New Year's weekend. While we were visiting Grace encouraged me to join Instagram (get an Instagram account? whatever the right way to say it is). So. I am going to sign up for Instagram and try to figure it out. I have no knowledge of how it works, how I will connect with other people, how it will will relate to my blog, etc.
But, I am excited to figure it out! Julie is getting an Instagram too, so we will have fun learning about instagram together.

I have begun some of my January goals. I am not sure what my exact exercise goals are, but so far I have run both yesterday and today. 4 miles total. That is a start!

I made a list of 12 areas of my home that I wanted to clean out, organize and deep clean. I assigned each area to one month of the year. January's space is my storage room. I may not finish it this month, but I have big aspirations! I plan to begin today. I wish I had a couple of days that I could block out and do it all at once, but I don't. So I plan to work in small chunks of time with hopefully a few blocks of 3-4 hours. It looks so bad in there that I don't even want to take before pictures! (But I might).

How are your January goals and plans coming along?

Menu Planning on Monday

Somehow I got on a email list for Stephanie at the Ultimate Meal Planning Bundle. Earlier this week she began a series of emails with free daily tips for bootcamp menu planning. Her most recent idea inspired me to look inside my pantry and freezer and take inventory of what I have. I plan to create my weekly supper menu and grocery list based on what I found.

Here is what I have to work with:
Freezer

• small pan of lasagna
• 1 container of chicken broth
• about half of a spiral sliced ham
• ham bone with ham attached (for soup)
• small bag of spaghetti
• 2 bags of onions and peppers blend
• 3 cups cooked shredded chicken
• 1 container of beef broth
• 5 bags of mixed vegetables
• 1 bag of corn
• 1/4 of a pork tenderloin
• 1 bag of green beans
• 2 bags of lima beans
• grilled chicken strips
• 1 bag of hash browns
• 6 containers of mystery soup (I can't tell what kind of soup it is)
• 1 container of a brown mystery soup or something? lentils maybe?
• 1 container of red mystery sauce--pasta sauce?

Pantry

• 1 large jar of pasta sauce
• 5 cans of tuna
• rotin
• pinto beans
• kidney beans
• chickpeas
• cream of chicken soup
• rotel
• baked beans
• chicken broth
• vegetable broth

I think we will take a chance and defrost the mystery soups for one or two meals. I plan to make some chicken fajitas with the shredded chicken and onion/pepper blend. We can eat the lasagna one night for supper, and the spaghetti one day for lunch. With the remaining frozen vegetables, pork tenderloin, and one of the broths, I can make a vegetable soup. (I'll buy some canned tomatoes to add to the soup.) One more meal idea is to serve the ham with the baked beans and make some potato salad to go along with that.

What's in your pantry and freezer that you can menu plan with?

Just Freeze the Bananas

Early this morning I made myself stop what I was doing and take the time to peel and freeze three very ripe bananas. It took less than one minute. However, trying to decide if this was a good time to stop what I was doing and actually complete this task took me longer than one minute.

Do you find yourself doing this same thing? Things like walking past some towels that are folded but still need to be put in the cabinet? Or knowing that a plant needs watering, or something needs refilling, or some shoes put away? Just little things that can be done in probably less than a minute, but for some reason you find yourself walking past them because you think, "I don't have time to do this right now."

The reality is doing those little tasks the moment you recognize they need doing takes much less time (and mental energy) than thinking about them, not doing them, and nagging yourself about leaving them undone.

What are some things you can do now instead of putting them off to later?

I try to always carry something that goes in the room I am going to as I head that way. For example, we have a basket at the top of our stairs leading to the basement (where our schoolroom, craft area, workout room, garage, and storage room are located). Throughout the day I place items in that basket that belong in one of those areas. Every time I go downstairs, unless my hands are already full, I try to take either the entire basket and empty it or at least take a few items out of it and put them in their proper home. When I leave my bedroom in the morning, I like to take the stray items that ended up there the night before and return them to their proper place.

My children each have a plastic dishpan with their name on it in my laundry room. I place their folded laundry in there each afternoon, but I also place anything I find around the house that belongs upstairs in their room or bathroom in there too. They are responsible for emptying the buckets (that's what we call them, but they are not really buckets) each evening. I used to keep a basket at the bottom of my stairs that lead to the children's rooms for those random items, but now I just put everything in their buckets.

So, my challenge for you today is to just do that small, but maybe annoying task that won't take longer than one minute! If you do several of these tasks each day, it will keep your home looking tidier and hopefully boost your morale too!

Just Checking In

Hello! I thought I would check in on this beautiful Friday morning! The temperature is supposed to be almost 80 this afternoon here in Mississippi. I want to do school outside today! We just might do that.

The kids are at the track right now running. I stayed behind because I did not want to be that mom that takes her kids to the track to run and just sits in the car! I normally run or at least walk when I take them (it makes me feel better to be exercising too instead of just watching them), but since I am still struggling with this strained/pulled/broken forever trapezius muscle, I am unable to do anything really. It's been 11 days since I injured it! 11 days! It even hurts to walk for very long, so I am not running of course. I am getting a little antsy without regular exercise. And my house is getting dirtier and dirtier because I certainly cannot vacuum or mop!

Anyway. I have been pinning and planning things for our little pop-up camper while I am resting. We are taking it out for the first time soon, and I hope to have everything all ready. It will certainly be a learning experience the first few times we camp. I really cannot even imagine how it will be!

We have had a productive school week. In addition to their regular subjects like math, grammar, spelling, etc., Leah and Sam are still learning about the presidents and each of our fifty states. Each morning we spend 15-30 minutes reading about and making a page for our notebook for either a president (in random order) or a state (in alphabetical order). When both projects are complete, I plan to bind the state pages in some sort of book. The president pages are 3-hole punched and are going into a decorated binder.  We are also slowly working our way through Sonlight Core F which is the Eastern Hemisphere. We are studying China right now.

I hope all of you have a fantastic weekend! I hope to clean out my refrigerators. Fun!

Better Than Before Book Club Week 8

Well hello there!

I was in Florida all last week for the Florida College Lectures. We were able to visit friends from Jimmy's medical school days on our way in Dothan, Alabama. Vicki and Tim were such gracious hostesses, and we enjoyed our time with them so much. We spent the rest of the week with Olivia and Julie plus many other friends. Olivia is student teaching this semester so we did not see her as much as we did Julie. But it was so good spending time with my girls!

We drove the 12.5 hour drive home last Friday, and I spent Saturday doing loads of laundry and catching up after being gone for almost a week. Saturday night we attended Family Bible Study at Kelly and Lynn's house. It was so good to be back among our own church family.

Last night, our friends Michael and Beverly were traveling through Tupelo on their way home from Alabama, and they attended evening church services with us, and then we all (along with Leanna and Joe and their family) enjoyed a delicious dinner together at Fairpark Grill.

So today was back to normal. Well almost. I had the bright idea this morning to make homemade Pop Tarts. My normal morning routine includes running a few miles either outside or on my treadmill while the kids are getting up, eating breakfast, and doing their chores. Sometimes I finish before I wake them up, sometimes I don't start until after they are awake, and sometimes I run a little bit--stop to wake them up--and then finish running while they get ready for school. Our goal is to begin our school day at 8:00 AM. This morning I began the pop-tart project at 6:50. I figured I would whip them up, wake the kids, and then run while the pop-tarts were baking.

Wrong. It was 8:05 before the pop tarts were ready. I never ran, and my kitchen was a mess!
But they were delicious!  Here is a link to the recipe I used.

So on to our book club. Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin.

How is your reading coming along? Are you applying any lessons or ideas to your daily life?

I really like this chapter, It's Enough to Begin. First Steps. Begin now is such good advice. There will never be the perfect time to begin any habit or project, so just do it now. I am going to apply this advice to myself. Leah's and Sam's closets (well, actually Sam's entire room) need major purging and reorganizing. I mean I need to take every single thing out of Leah's closet and just start over! Most of the clothes and shoes in her closet do not even fit her or are not her style. That's because of two reasons. 1. She is growing like a weed--already taller than me! and 2. Many of her clothes are hand-me-downs from her college-aged sisters and they just don't look right on her. I guess styles do change over time, even though I try to avoid trendy clothes.

 So. To apply the best time to begin is now advice to myself, I plan to work for 30 minutes in Leah's closet tonight. This will also use the advice of small steps (Rubin 105).  Leah's closet certainly seems overwhelming, and I have put it off for some time now waiting for the perfect huge block of time. Hopefully over the next week or two I can get Leah's room completely cleaned out and then move onto Sam's. Which will be a monumental task. Can I just say two words? Legos and stuffed animals. Both have multiplied out of control in Sam's room!

What are your thoughts on transition rituals? (Rubin 108-109)
I like my transition from sleep to kids. I also like my transition from kids to sleep. When my babies (and toddlers and even pre-school aged children...and even older) needed me to rock them to sleep or lie down with them until they fell asleep, I happily did that. I did not even mind if they woke up in the night and wanted to sleep in our bed. In fact, I encouraged that. But I had to have my transition time (even though I did not have a name for it). After I got all the children to bed, I needed a few minutes to just lie in my bed with a book. No precious children, just Jimmy and me. Even if a baby or toddler needed me within an hour or two, as long as I could go to sleep by myself (well, with my husband too), I was refreshed enough to handle whatever my babies needed at night.

The morning transition from sleep to kids is a sanity saver for me as well. This one took longer for me to achieve, however. My kids all had some sort of built in sensor. As soon as my feet hit the floor, they would wake up! It did not matter what time it was. Someone was crying or calling out to me before I could even get to the coffee pot!
Now, they all sleep until I wake them on most mornings. I treasure the hour or two I have in the mornings before my work day begins. I read my Bible, pray, fix Jimmy's lunch, start the laundry, and run on most days.

Ok. So this post has gotten super long, and I have not even discussed stopping. 
I think I will continue this chapter tomorrow.

Chime in! Do you like to begin a task or new habit with a small step or a big step?
What transitions do you use?
What about stopping your habits? Do you stop when on vacation? When you get overwhelmed by sicknesses?

The First Day of the Month

February is here!  Where did January go?  And here in Mississippi it feels like spring. Of course, it will probably be back in the 30s next week.

On the first day of each month I always do two things. Change the air filters in our house and give the pets their monthly medication. I'm also supposed to change my contact lenses monthly, but I don't always do that.

What do you routinely do at the beginning of each month?

I'm off to administer flea/tick and heart worm medications to our seven pets.

A Few More Goals

How is your new year going? Have you set any goals? Are you keeping them so far?

I decided how I was going to cover my gospels reading each month. I plan to divide each gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) into 6 readings, and read one gospel each week. So this week I am reading 5 chapters of Matthew each morning and on the sixth day I will read 3 chapters.

I set a running goal for 2017. I want to run a total of 1000 miles this year. That is an average of 20 miles each week. Until last year had little difficulty reaching this goal since I was training for marathons or at least keeping a consistent long run. I ran only 699 miles in 2016. I have run 10 miles so far this week! I also decided to record my miles on Daily Mile again. If you are on Daily Mile please ask me to be your friend!

I am still working on my reading list. I am currently reading the play Our Town in preparation for the English class I teach. We are also reading Huckleberry Finn later this semester, and I have not read that before. I did read Our Town in high school, I think.

My homemaking goals for 2017 are to keep up with my weekly housecleaning chores and to tackle a few major projects throughout the year. In January I plan to completely clean out my closets and drawers--all my clothes, using the Konmari method. I have divided my house into four zones, and I aspire to clean each zone each week--one zone per day. Other major projects I have include a big clean-out and reorganization of Sam's room, helping Jimmy clean out his workshop, and deep cleaning the entire house (ceiling fans, baseboards, light fixtures, windows, etc.)

I think that's all my goals for now!

Online Shopping Fun

Last year Leanna, Lynn, Lesley, and I started what we hoped would be an annual November tradition. We spent an entire day Christmas shopping!  We began around 7:30 AM, and we shopped at our local stores until 9:00 that night. It was exhausting, but oh, so much fun!  And we accomplished a lot. 

This year we looked and looked at our calendars, and there was no day that all of us had open to have an all day shopping day.  Sad!  So we decided to have an online shopping party. Tuesday night we met at Lynn's house (because she has the fastest, most reliable internet) around 5:00 PM. We ordered take-out salads for supper and had M&Ms for dessert! We all sat around Lynn's dining room table with our laptops, shopping magazines, and Christmas binders all spread out. We actually got a lot of shopping done.  The UPS man has been coming to my house every day since!

So here are your holiday hints for the week:

1. Take inventory of your gift wrapping supplies and buy what you need. 
2. Make a list of shopping you wish to do online, then set aside some time to actually shop online. Always be on the lookout for sales and free shipping coupons. (Usually found in the magazines and catalogs that companies mail to you.)
3. Begin wrapping at least one present a day (if you have done some shopping or crafting).
4. Set up a gift wrapping station. This can be a card table in the corner of your bedroom, in a room you don't use often, on your dining room table (but not the table where you eat all your meals...you don't want to have to clean up the wrapping station every time you need to eat). Make sure you place scissors, tape, pens, gift labels, wrapping paper, tissue paper, gift bags, and ribbon in your station. 

***Don't forget.  If you want to participate in our Monday Online Book Club, read the introduction to Better Than Before. We will discuss it this Monday. I'm so excited!

My Christmas Binder

I began keeping a spiral bound Christmas notebook in 2001. In 2007 I switched to a 3 ring binder with the following dividers:

Gifts:

• This section is subdivided by year.
• I create a document for each year in a table format with the following columns: To, Gift, Bought, Wrapped. I list the recipient's name and the gift. Then I put an x when I buy (or make the gift), and an x when I wrap the gift. On the pages that I create for my children, I make one page per child, and instead of having the To column, I have a From column. That is because I shop for my mother and my mother-in-law most years, and I can keep track of who is giving what to whom. This list is also handy for seeing what gifts I gave to others in years past.  I also love to look at what I gave my kids in years past, especially when they were younger.

Addresses:

• I keep a list of the addresses I use for my Christmas cards. I reprint this list each year because I make changes on my computer on the master list as I get wedding announcements or sadly because some people pass away.
• I also make a list of addresses for any parties that I send invitations.

Parties:

• I keep copies of party invitations in this section.
• I also keep guest lists for various parties here.

Food:

• This section has recipes for all the Christmas goodies we make and share each year.
• I include menus for Christmas meals and parties.
• Some years I have made labels for the homemade treats we give to others. I have the master copies of those labels in this section. I like to put who the goodies are for on these labels. This helps when distributing them.

And that's it. My Christmas Binder. It brings me great joy to keep this binder. 

15 Minutes

So I haven't blogged in almost a month.  In fact, blogger had signed me out.

I have struggled with time management for quite some time now.  Homeschooling, homemaking, housework, parenting, marriage, family, friends, service, outside the home obligations, etc., The same things most other women are trying to balance.  Most days I succumb to the tyranny of the urgent, and I am tired. of. doing. that.

This morning while I was running and listening to Gretchen Rubin on her podcast (love her podcast, by the way), I was reminded of a couple of things that have been game changers in my day today.

1. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.  That has been one of my problems. I have slipped into all or nothing mode in a few key areas of my life, and so since the urgent shouts so loudly most days, the all has mostly become nothing. Now I am still cooking, schooling, and keeping up with the laundry, but house cleaning, lesson planning, wedding planning, extended Bible reading, letter writing, blogging, making phone calls, visiting others, hosting people for meals, and such have been neglected because I have been waiting for the perfect big block of time to work on or do those things.

2. Something that can be done "anytime" ends up being done at "no time". This really goes along with point #1 (that's the number sign, not a hash tag!) I find myself putting the same things over and over on my daily to do lists.

So. What to do? Well, today I chose to not let perfect be the enemy of good and do some things that can be done at anytime today. I also relied on my old stand-by, my timer. I can accomplish so much in 15 minutes if I know that timer is ticking.

In my perfect world, my entire house would be clean from top to bottom in one day. Once a week. And it would not get too dirty in between.

Today, instead of aiming for perfection, I chose to clean part of my house while my children were doing their chores. I ended up having about 30 minutes, and I scrubbed my shower door (Bar Keeper's Friend mixed with water to make a paste and scrubbed on with a kitchen scrubbing pad does the trick!), cleaned the rest of my bathroom, vacuumed, and mopped the floor.   While they ran, I cleaned my bedroom (dusted, vacuumed, mopped). Yay!  Part of my house clean.

I won't have this block of time to clean every morning, but today I did so I chose to take advantage of it. I found some time to blog tonight. It's almost time for me to read to the kids before bedtime, but I knew I had about 45 minutes. The laundry is all folded and put away. The kitchen is clean. The coffee pot is set up for tomorrow morning. I set my timer for 15 minutes and connected to the internet.....The timer actually chimed about 3 paragraphs ago, but I am about to wrap this up.

I am now going to read Pride and Prejudice (for the English class I teach) in the remaining minutes until the kids' bedtime.

Redeeming the time.  One day at a time.  I hope to have another spare moment to blog again tomorrow. I will try not to wait for the perfect time but strive to take advantage of a small window of time.