Enjoying the Morning

Wouldn't it be so much easier to wake up happy in the mornings if you woke up to the mountains in this picture? (This photo is actually one my sister took. She lives in Colorado. I'm not jealous. Ok maybe just a little jealous. Or a lot.)

I have never enjoyed the mornings. I would never  have been classified as a "morning person".  My husband greets me in the morning with a sweet hello, and my usual response is simply a sound..."ugh". Once I had a cup of coffee, washed my face, and dressed for the day, I am usually up to a few words rather than a grunt. When we didn't have kids, this wasn't really an issue. I could just roll out of bed. Get myself ready in my own time. I didn't have any one else asking anything of me.

Then kids came. Everything changed. I now had to roll out of bed quickly and head down the hall to a hungry baby. Change his diaper, dress him, feed him, and get him settled for the morning. Add a second little one and double everything from before. Rushing in the mornings, not washing my face, or getting dressed till almost lunch time, stressed me out! I felt yucky. I probably looked yucky. I didn't feel refreshed, or ready to take on the day. When you feel that way, it becomes difficult to get motivated to do much of anything. I hated the mornings. My boys were the only good part about it. It's hard not to feel joy when being around them!

It was too difficult to give my family my best when I was half asleep. I decided a change needed to happen. A few mornings I woke up about 30 minutes before the kids usually wake, in order to get in some Bible reading. I noticed on those mornings, that even though I got a tiny bit less sleep, I felt better. I was completely awake and actually prepared for when they woke. I didn't feel as sluggish or as irritated. I was on to something...

I have now developed a loose morning routine for myself. I wake up around 6:00 am, stumble into the kitchen and start the coffee. Gotta have that coffee! While it is brewing, I open the living room windows to let in a cool, refreshing breeze. I grab my coffee and Bible, and snuggle up on the couch to read. I usually read for about 30-45 minutes. Then I look at pinterest, check out a few of my favorite blogs, or post my blog for the day.

Once I am done, I head back to our room to wash my face, brush my hair, and get dressed for the day.  This only takes me about five minutes. It is usually around 7:00 by this time. I head back to the kitchen and fill in my daily routine in my Home Management Binder. This helps me to get my priorities in line for the day and stay on task. After that is filled out, I start breakfast, wake up the boys, and get going with the day.  I will let the boys sleep in past 7:30 if they were up later that night. During that extra sleep time, I try to start a load of laundry or any other small chore that needs to be done.

I never thought I would say...I love my mornings! The house is so peaceful and quiet. I get to spend time with my Savior. Plus, I get dressed before noon! It has been wonderful since switching to this routine.

This is a loose routine, so on the nights we have to stay up late, I sleep in a bit later and just adjust. On those mornings though, I regret not making myself get up earlier. I miss my quiet time.

If you are struggling in the mornings, I encourage you to give this a try. Make up a routine that works for you. Do something so that you can relax, enjoy, and look forward to each morning. If the thought of losing an extra hour of sleep seems like too much at first, then work up to it in fifteen minute increments. It is so much easier to get through the day joyfully when you have started it that way!



Thanks to my awesome sister Erica for the gorgeous pics! Colorado is beautiful. Yes, we are all jealous now.

Managing Our Home...the Ultimate List

The first time I heard of a Home Management Binder I kind of laughed. My thought was "wow, that is a little unnecessary". I just didn't see a need for it. Two kids later...I totally get it! Between the boys schedules, doctor appointments, homeschooling Jack, Chad's schedule, church activities, keeping up with laundry and cloth diapers, keeping up with cleaning the house, and shopping for and cooking meals...it gets a little crazy. I found my self constantly playing catch up and feeling stressed out when I would get behind. On top of that, all of our schedules were starting to conflict. I would schedule a necessary doctors appointment on a day my husband had something big scheduled. It quickly became frustrating.

One day, I was looking at Passionate Homemaking, a blog I LOVE, and she was explaining her Home Management Binder. I started taking a serious look at the links she provides. I have to say...they are really cool! This is coming from a girl who loves to make lists! They honestly have every kind of list you could ever think of making. For me, it was love. Oh man...I know...I am a dork, but I do love it. I get so much more accomplished in a day, feel so much more organized, and a lot less stressed.  So here is a look at my home management binder...

 

I am all about doing things the inexpensive way, so I looked around my house first to find what supplies I already had on hand to use. I grabbed...

3 ring binder

 Scrapbook paper

 Colored Sharpies, glue stick, and scissors

File Folders

 Hole puncher

Computer and Printer

The first thing I did was to decided what sections I wanted to have in my binder. I chose to include...

Weekly Overview

Daily Overview

Menu and Recipes

Cleaning

Family Info

Homeschooling

Master Copies

There are a lot more you could include depending upon your own needs. Here are some additional ideas... Schedule, Finances, Inventory, Blog Posts, Contacts, Medical, ect. Add anything that applies to your families specific needs. I am planning on still adding a Contacts and Blog Posts section to mine.

Next I went through several different websites to pick out which templates I wanted to use. You can check out the Passionate Homemaking link above or check out my Pinterest board Organization and I have pinned the sites where you can find some of the templates that I used. I especially love this site and this site for free printables. 

What I did...

Once I gathered all my supplies I started to organize. In the front of my book I put the week's calendar... this has the schedule and any notes I need to remember.

I also have the menu plan for that week...

 

...and a to do list that I fill out each day. I love this list because I can write in specific things I need to get done that day, as well as make up a new schedule for each day. 

  

Next I have my sections. First is the Weekly Overview. I keep all of my extra copies of the weekly schedule shown above in here. Right now I am trying out several different types of templates for a weekly schedule...but so far I like the one found on this blog the best.

  

Then I have my Daily Overview section. Once again this contains extra copies of my daily schedule for the week. 

 

The Menu and Recipe section holds all of the extra copies of my weekly menu plan, as well as a page full of meal ideas to help me fill out the menu plan faster. I plan on adding a grocery list template but haven't found one that I love yet. I might end up just making my own. 

The template below is one I made myself. I copy down my favorite recipes from Pinterest so they are easily accessible. 

Is it weird that the Cleaning section is my favorite? I think it is because it holds some of the things I am most excited about lately. Weird...I know, but since discovering that I can make all of my own cleaning products, save lots of money, and it be better for my family, I have become excited about cleaning. Again...excited about cleaning...weird...I know :-)

 

I found the cleaning schedule below at the  Time Warp Wife blog. It is great for keeping up with basic household chores every day. It spreads them through out the week so it will only take you thirty minutes or so to complete, rather than trying to do it all in one day. This leaves me with a lot more time for the more important things...like my boys! On the first page of this section, I wrote out a list (not shown in pictures below) of the reasons why I desire a clean house. I did this to help my self stay focused and motivated on the real reasons a clean house is important to me. Here is what my list looks like:

Reasons I Want A Clean Home...

to have a feeling of peace

to feel comfortable

to do a good job taking care of my family

to keep my family healthy

to take care of what God has given me

to make our possessions last longer

to be able to be hospitable to others

I do not have to have a perfectly spotless home. Everything does not have to be perfectly in it's place at all times. With two little kids, that is just not possible! I do want to have a home that my kids and husband can feel at peace in, that they can feel comfortable. A lot of clutter or filthiness can make it very difficult to relax and enjoy time together as a family.  I would encourage you to make a list for yourself that you can look at on days when it is difficult to remember why you are doing all this.

The next two pages I made for my book. The first page is for writing down the recipes I have for each of my cleaning products, and the other is for awesome cleaning tips. I love that the soap on the cleaning products page says "Make Awesomeness"!

 

 

I also added a Spring Cleaning Checklist that I found on this awesome blog, as well as a list of 60 uses for baking soda. How did I not know that baking soda could do so much?!

The last three sections do not have much in them yet, but I will be adding to them soon. The Family info section will have a baby sitter information page filled out for each kid. As well as medical information, family birthdays and anniversaries, etc.

Eventually the homeschooling section will hold lesson plans, schedules for the kids, and fun projects to do.

Can you even begin to guess what the Master Copies section holds? Yup, you guessed it..a master copy of each of the templates I am using. This way I don't have to go searching through websites to find the one that had the template I liked. I also did this so that I don't accidentally use the last one and can just make more copies.

It took a little thinking and planning to figure out exactly what I wanted, but I am so happy with the finished result. I added a lot of scripture to my notebook to remind myself of why I am doing this and to stay encouraged and focused. The scripture really is my favorite part.

The great thing about this notebook is, you can make it exactly what you need it to be. If you are looking for help and little bit more organization in your life, I would definitely encourage you to give it a try!

Linking to Raising Homemakers

Back to the Basics: Menu Planning

 It drives me nuts to go to the store and spend $100- $120 on groceries for our tiny family of four! By the way, that's for one week! Ridiculous! I know I can spend less, a lot less, if I just work at it a little. For the past few months I have started to change a few things in order to get the grocery bill under control.

Here are a few things to initially cut down on your grocery bill...

1. Write up a weekly menu plan. Include breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snacks.
2. Check your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer for any ingredients you already have on hand. Check to see if you need toilet paper, or cleaning products (We include the cost of cleaning supplies in our grocery bill budget since we shop for all this at the same time).
3. Make a list of the ingredients and items you will need for the week. Stick to the list and only buy what is on it. Sticking with this list will help you to not buy unnecessary or extra items you don't need.

Now I could add a point #4, using coupons, if that works for you. I did try this for a time, but found I was not very good at it. I did not have the time it takes to devote to doing it well and making it worth it. I also found that there were coupons for a lot of processed food, which I didn't really want my family to eat any way. However, if you can do coupons and it is worth the time to you, then by all means go for it! I know a lot of friends who manage to save a lot of money this way.

 

The next things you can do to cut down on your grocery bill is to begin making your own cleaning products and switching mostly to cloth. By making your own cleaning products, you can avoid buying all of those expensive and unnecessary cleaning products. Plus you have the added benefit that it is better for your family...but more on that in a later post. To get you started in the mean time though, you can follow my Pinterest board "Make it yourself!" That has tons of pins for making your own cleaning products.  

With those changes I have managed to cut our bill down to $80 for food and about $10-$15 for any other supplies. My ultimate goal is $60 for food and $10 for other supplies. In order to achieve this, I have started to completely rethink my menu planning. It is so nice to finally be able to run my oven in the winter and it not make my house feel like a sauna. For this reason, I have been making a lot of casserole type dishes. They are so delicious...but also require a lot of ingredients. Especially meat. It costs me roughly about $8.00 for 3lbs of lean ground beef, and $7.00 for a whole chicken. This will give me about 5-6 meals. That is $15 a week for meat just for dinners. 

I started realizing that meat was the main component of our meal and every thing else was just extra. If I could cut down on how much meat we are eating, I could lower our bill and possibly help my family eat healthier at the same time. After telling a friend what I was thinking about doing, she mentioned that she always followed this formula for a meal...

50% Vegetables

25% Starches

25% Meat

 

I decided that made a lot of sense and would help me rework my weekly menu planning. So we are going to try this for one month and see if it makes a difference. Not only a difference cost wise, but also health wise. My hope is that by eating more vegetables, salads, and beans that we can be healthier. I went ahead and worked up a full month of meals. Then I wrote down how many meals we would be eating meat for so I could buy it in bulk at the beginning of the month (hopefully for cheaper). With this next months meals, we will only be having meat for 15 days through out the month. On the days we are not having meat, we will have some type of beans to give us some of the protein my growing boys need.

I did not put any casserole type dishes on the menu, but I think after this first month I am going to add one casserole dish per week. This way we can still enjoy those meals.

Here is what a few of those meals will look like...

           1.  Small portion of shredded barbeque chicken
                Brown Rice
                Steamed Broccoli
                Black Beans

            2. Baked Potato
                Corn on the cob
                Great Northern Beans
                Salad

            3. Large Salad
                Crash Hot Potatoes (find the delicious recipe here)
                Green Beans
                Carrots

            4. Baked Fish
                Black eyed Peas
                Quinoa
                Bread

            5. Soup
                Grilled Cheese

I am really taking us back to the basics. We will see how this works.
I am hoping that all of this will...

1. Get us eating healthier, REAL food
2. Save us money on our grocery bill

What does your family do for meals to help cut down on cost and eat healthier? 

I LOVE LISTS!

Getting Organized For 2011

One of my long term goals for this year is to become more organized, more organized in our life and in our home.

After finding the blog Money Saving Mom,
getting my life organized will be just a little easier!

Let me start out by stating just why I love this blog so much...it has daily schedules, chore charts, and cleaning lists- among a ton of other amazing stuff. You can either download (for free!) the schedules they already have filled out or you can customize them yourself!

I LOVE LISTS!

The Daily Docket is the first form I am going to download and print out...it has everything! Even a place to check off Bible reading, exercise, and even how many glasses of water you drank that day (great for a pregnant woman who needs to make sure she gets her eight glasses of water a day!)

I am so excited about getting my day more organized, and ultimately being more productive through out the day!!!