Alas, even the best-laid plans of a mother are easily foiled.
The Ant Bug has come down with croupy-sounding cough and a fever over 100 degrees. So, needless to say…we won’t be taking a nature walk tomorrow. Feel free to go ahead without us (let me know how it goes!), and we’ll try again next week.
I like to make lists. I find it highly satisfying to cross something off my list. It just feels good.
Today I am going to share my weekly “To Do” list with you. It’s taken me awhile to get to this point, but I’ve found a system that works really well for me. At some point I realized that I do a lot of the same things the same day each week. Monday is always my sheets/towels laundry day, as well as Family Home Evening. Tuesday is my grocery shopping day. Wednesday is always playgroup. You get the picture.
In order to save myself a little paper and writing time I created a master weekly list. Under each day I penciled in the activities that I usually need to get done that day. Here is a peek at two of my days.
Monday
Friday
I typed up my schedule and stuck it in a sheet protector. On Sunday evenings I sit down with my dry erase marker and add in anything extra for the week (ie. Dr. appointments, Enrichment activities, library days, etc). I left room on the right hand side to write in anything else I need to work on that week. I use a magnetic clip to keep my list in a prominent place on my fridge so I can refer to it easily. Sunday evening I wipe it all clean and start over again.
Here is a visual for you, part-way through the week.
A few suggestions for making your own “To Do” list.
Everyone has different priorities, so take some time to think about yours. For me, after my husband and children, there are 4 major areas that demand a portion of my time.
Think about what your days are like, and plan your schedule accordingly. Figure out when is the best time each day for you to get things done. For some, it might be early in the morning before your children wake up. Or it might be during naptime. Or you might be a night-owl and work best late at night.
I plan to get most of my work done between the hours and 8-10pm, after my children are in bed and before I head to bed myself. That is my time and I can be quite protective of it. I schedule one of the above activities for each weekday evening. I still have to be flexible because some weeks might be busier when it comes to Primary tasks, or preparing for a piano recital, or whatever. But I have a basic guideline to follow for organizing my time.
About cleaning. I never clean the house after 8pm unless absolutely necessary. Except for the dishes, usually whatever didn’t get done can wait until the next day. My children have learned not to expect me to play with them until after the dinner dishes are done, and they usually tag along beside me while I clean the bathrooms or vacuum the floor. I want them to see and learn that it takes work to run a home, and I also deserve some time in my day when I don’t have to think about cleaning.
Don’t forget your most important priority–your family. My husband and I usually spend our evenings with each of us on a computer (he’s a busy graduate student). But we’re in the same room so it is easy for us to take a break and talk with each other. Friday night is reserved for our date night–usually it’s spent at home, but whatever we’re doing we’re doing it together (we like snuggling up with popcorn and movies). Mornings (and a lot of the other time too) are spent with my girls. We read together, we clean together, we go to the park, we play together.
I am far from an expert when it comes to organizing, but I just thought I would share some of the things that have worked well for me. There is a lot of information available online (believe me, you can spend hours reading about this stuff!). My two favorite organizing blogs are Simple Mom and Organizing Your Way. They both are full of good ideas, so check them out for further reading.
The Fifth World Congress of Families was held recently in Amsterdam. Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles was there to represent the church and he gave an excellent address. Here are a few highlights from his speech:
“On all sides, the family is under attack. Many wonder if the institution is no longer needed. Our response is certain. If there is any hope for the future of nations, that hope resides in the family. Our children are our wealth; our children are our strength; our children are indeed our future!”
“Dear friends, future happiness and even the future of nations is linked to children. Families with children need to be re-enthroned as the fundamental unit of society. We simply must value children more than we do! Without a new generation to replace the old, there is no wealth; without families, there is no future.”
“Children come from the union of a man and a woman. The happiest and most secure children come from happy and secure marriages of fathers and mothers. History and contemporary studies have shown that marriage of a husband and a wife, with both contributing their distinctive natural traits to the family, provides the ideal context within which to rear productive, compassionate, and moral individuals.”
You can read the full-text of his address here.
Elder Nelson’s wife, Wendy Watson Nelson, also spoke, along with Sheri Dew. Links to their inspiring talks are below.
Wendy Watson Nelson: “Not Even Once!”
Sheri L. Dew: “‘Resurgence of Moral Virtue’ Is Necessary”
A few weeks ago for Family Home Evening we pulled out our 72-hr emergency kits. I was a little chagrined by what I found. Our packs had been last updated in November of 2006. That means our food was two and half years old–yuck! And we only had two kits–for our family of four. Not so good.
So we got to work.
We thought it important to focus first on our food packs. I pulled out my sizable file of preparedness information I’ve collected over the years and did some research. These two blog posts were also very helpful:
Prepared LDS Family: 72-hr kits food packs
Team Freeman: Project Prepared Part 3
Keeping their suggestions in mind I made my shopping list. I did some price comparisons and ended up doing most of my shopping at Sam’s Club, picking up a few things that were on sale at my local grocery store.
Kellogg’s Pop tarts (twin) 4 oz.,*Note: This is the amount for one day. It doesn’t look like much. Some sites recommend more food than this, but this is what we are comfortable with right now, keeping in mind portability and our budget. I would like to add some PowerBar Protein bars soon but I’m waiting for a good deal to buy them. The gallon size Ziploc bag serves as the holding container for each day’s contents.
To keep things simple I kept the same menu for each day, for each member of our family. So multiply the above list by 3 and you’ll have enough for one person’s 72 hr (3-day) pack.
We then spent another Family Home Evening assembling the packs for our entire family. The 4-year old Ant Bug was very excited about helping with this activity, but the 20-month old Sweet Bee mostly just wanted to eat the fruit snacks.
The first step is to label each Ziploc bag. I used sticky labels and wrote “Day One-K”, “Day Two-K” and “Day Three-K”, repeating this with their initials for each member of my family. Using the Ziploc bag helps keep things organized; it’s waterproof and it can also double as a trash bag.
With all of our food gathered we then went around the table and filled up our bags.
Water
Not included in the above menu is water. The recommendation is that you have 1 gallon of water per person per day. Obviously we can’t carry that in our packs, so I just stuck 3-16.9 fl oz water bottles in each pack.
The Plan
I don’t want to end up with two year old fruit cups and granola bars in our kits again. So our plan is to pull out our kits every six months and change out the food that is nearing expiration. The easiest way to remember to do this is to coincide it with General Conference sessions. It happens twice a year and you won’t forget it! I’ve heard of this idea from many sources, so come October I’ll be pulling out our kits again.
Helpful Resources
Prepared LDS Family: This site is amazing and very helpful! Read it, and you’ll be inspired to do something to prepare your family!
If ye are prepared ye shall not fear: This thought-provoking site explores issues of preparedness for the coming hard times.
Team Freeman: Project Prepared Part 3: A real-life example of a 72-hr kit.
Ready.gov: Prepare. Plan. Stay Informed.
Nurture Mama has reached another milestone. This blog is one year old today!
Would you like to read how it all began? Read my very first post here and see why I do what I do.
When I reached my 100th post I asked for your help in creating a list of the 100 things that mothers do.
With your help we’ve listed 75 words in a mother’s job description ! But I’m sure there are more. Feel free to send me your one-word inspiration in answer to the question: A mother’s job is to…
Mothering brings me a lot of adventures and a lot of sweet moments. Thanks for reading and letting me share my moments with you!
The lazy days of summer are here! But I’ve got great plans, so I don’t think we’ll be too lazy!
I am really excited about our summer schedule because I think I’ve hit on a good balance of fun, free-play and learning activities. Here is what our summer schedule looks like:
7:00-10:00: Morning Routine
10:00-12:00: *Get Out and About
12:00-1:00: Make Lunch, Each Lunch, Clean-up Lunch
1:00-2:00: the Sweet Bee naps, the Ant Bug has computer/movie time, and the Mama gets time for herself
2:00-3:00: the Sweet Bee naps, the Ant Bug and I do reading lessons and piano lessons
3:00-4:00: Play time, Snack time
4:00-5:00: A Book, A Song, and A Craft
5:00-8:00: Dinner and Bedtime Routine
These times are not set in stone, but it does give us a nice guideline to follow. My children and I really thrive on the predictability of a schedule. The Ant Bug always asks me what we have to do each day–this week she even made up a little calendar and wrote down an activity for each day.
Just a few details on our *Get Out and About category. We live in a pretty small-ish home without a backyard, so we all like to get out of the house for a portion of our day. Here are some of the things that we will be doing in that time span:
-visits to the library (be sure to check out my Reading List to see what books we’re enjoying)
-ward playgroup
–Free Family Film Festival
-teach piano lessons while my girls play with friends
-trips to the natural history museum and museum of art
-playgroups with friends
-swimming, splash park, beach, springs (we are taking advantage of life in Florida!)
-grocery shopping, errands, etc.
Here are a few links for more ideas on preparing for and spending a summer with kids:
Keeping the Kids Busy this Summer on Make and Takes
Preparing for Summer Vacation on Just Organize Yourself
Summer Schedules Series on Organizing Your Way
Summer Activities for Kids on Frugal Dad
I think it’s going to be a great summer!
Earlier this week I was surprised and flattered to receive the “One Lovely Blog Award” from Alisha at Homemaking Honeys. Thanks for the recognition!
Here are the rules for the award:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
3) Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.
Now it’s my turn to award some other lovely blogs. My first thought was to award my favorite daily reads list (which you can see on my right side bar), but then I decided to branch out a little bit. So here is my list of awardees:
1) Serving Pink Lemonade
2) Nannygoat
3) Piano Teacher’s Retreat
4) MeckMom
5) Being Frugal Is Fabulous
6) The Bookworm’s Booklist
7) …and Spiritually Speaking
Go check them out when you have a minute!
I first tackled the idea of menu planning over four years ago when I became a stay-at-home mom. My initial plan was ambitious–plan a months worth of dinner meals at a time. Unfortunately, I came to dread the beginning of every month because it seemed like I spent all of my free time in that first week thinking about what to have for dinner. I would pull out all of my cookbooks and seek inspiration for something delicious and healthy to make every night. Planning a month at a time was a bit daunting for me.
When I was expecting my second child I changed things up a bit. I planned out a 3-week menu and repeated it again and again. It got me through the pregnancy and new-baby months when the last thing I wanted to think about is what’s for dinner, but we eventually tired of the same menu.
After nine months on my latest menu plan system, I think I’ve got something good. It works for me, so I thought I would share it with you. I’m currently on the Plan One Week of Menu’s at a Time plan. Here are the basics:
*Something that has been really helpful to me has been keeping a menu record. Last August I started keeping track of what we ate for dinner. This has given me a good pool of ideas to draw from and helps me rotate through our favorites appropriately. Are you curious what we had for dinner on August 22, 2008? White chicken chili in the crock pot.
Menu planning this way is something that is manageable for me. It eliminates a lot of the dinnertime stress and saves us money. But… how does menu-planning work for you? I would love hear your tips.
So after all that, here is my menu for this week:
If you are interested in learning more about menu planning there are loads of ideas online:
Simple Mom posted a Basic Guide to Menu Planning, including the benefits and her menu plan system.
Mandi at Organizing Your Way has a great series about Menu Planning. I loved this tongue-in-cheek Top Ten Reasons You Shouldn’t Plan a Weekly Menu.
Want to see what’s on everyone else’s menu this week? Check out the weekly Menu Plan Monday carnival at I’m an Organizing Junkie.
Sometime past my mother-in-law sent me this great card for Mother’s Day. I loved it and held on to it to remind myself that being a mother requires an extraordinary set of skills.
I also loved this latest sweet Mormon Message.
To the many mothers I know, thank you for magnifying your role as a mother. You are truly magnificent and I learn so much from you.
“Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels.” (First Presidency Statement in Conference Report, Oct 1942, 761.)
Amy over at Let’s Explore just finished a wonderful series of posts about Social-Emotional Skills for Preschoolers. She has some great suggestions with plenty of tips and activities. I especially appreciated the segment on giving good directions. Go check it out!