Changing around a few things can make a huge difference.

To start with, I think you need to know a few things about me.

The way it used to be (for the summer, last school year was bad, but not this bad!)
I would get up every morning between 10 and 11am.  Yes, I am not exaggerating.
I would then make breakfast for my children, who were also getting up about then.  Nothing fancy, cereal usually.
Next I would shower.  I would tell the kids to get ready for the day.  I would get out of the shower and get ready for the day.  I would get downstairs and they would all either be playing with toys, watching TV, be using the computer (not for educational things), or just laying around being lazy.  I would then start to get angry.   They would know this.  They would then go upstairs and get ready, showering, etc.
By 1:00pm (I am not kidding you), we would all finally be ready for the day.  Then we would begin schoolwork.  For the summer they just need to do 3 things a day.  It was (WAS-YAY) a huge to do to get them to do their work.  They would whine, make every excuse under the sun to not have to do it.  Excuses like, well none of my friends have to do schoolwork, and it’s summer (can’t you just hear that whiney tone). 

By 2 or 3 pm they would finally be finishing up their 3 simple things.  I would prepare lunch.  We would then do a family “quick clean”.  Which meant everybody picked up the main living areas of our house together.  This generally took between 15 and 30 minutes.

Finally the kids would have some free time to go and play or whatever.  Often times I would need to run errands, or run my kids around to various activities, karate, swimming, etc.  I live in a small town and most things close by 5 or 6pm.  Oh, yea, and I would have to pick up said kids as well, that is if I didn’t have to stay for their activity. 
Around 7ish I would start dinner.  Half the time I wouldn’t have anything planned ahead.  The other half, I wouldn’t have all the ingredients- it’s okay though, I am good at improvising. Haha. 
We would eat dinner and hang out as a family until I was done and worn out.  Which usually happened anywhere from 8pm to 11pm.  Those that didn’t shower in the morning would shower at night.  I would send them all to bed while I sat on the couch being grumpy that they weren’t listening and doing what I asked. 
I would stay up until between 1 and sometimes 4 in the morning.
It would start all over again the next day….

Ahhhh,  those days are gone!!  (Hopefully, they don’t come back!)

Here is how it works now along with some notes of what I did

First off I thought about what I wanted to change. 

I wanted:

• an earlier bedtime for all of us
• an earlier wake time for all of us
• some type of schedule that we all agreed upon
• not to feel so stressed out and grumpy over the way things were going
• to be able to keep up on household, mother and wife duties.

What we did first, is I told the kids I was unhappy about our days and we would be having a family meeting the next day to discuss a new family schedule that we would all be required to follow.  I told them to bring their ideas and thoughts.
The meeting went incredibly well, and you know what.  They wanted the same things I wanted.  YAY!
Our agreed upon schedule is this:
8 am wake up
9am start school work until 11:30 on individual studies
11:30 –12:30 lunch break, cook, eat, clean up, free time
12:30-1:00 mom reads aloud
1:00-2:30 mom teach group lessons and we use items we are currently reviewing.  I try to fit game time, art, etc. in this time occasionally too.
2:30 clean up for the day.
6:00 eat dinner
8:00 all kids in for the night/ start showers.
9:00 all kids in bed/ can read until 9:30ish.
11-midnight.  Mom in bed.


We have been at it for over a few weeks now and things have been moving so much more smoothly and I am not such a crank all the time now.  It feels like I have added insane amounts of time to our day. 

Getting Down and Dirty!

 

 

I am soon going to be participating in The Dirty Dash!  I can’t wait.  We are going to dress up 80’s style and run through the mud. 

Admit it, you’re a little jealous.  Well, don’t fret, there are still some spots open and they hold races around the Western US. 

If you already missed it this year, be sure and follow their social media to be on time next year! 

The proceeds of the race go to a ton of charities.

I hope you are just as excited to see pictures as I am that I am running it!

 

I was provided 2 free race entries in hopes that I may mention it on my blog. As always, all opinions are my own.

June Goals

 

 

I have loved these goal setting posts.  They do keep me motivated because I feel slightly more accountable. 

I know I know I haven’t done a post for May.  However, mistakes don’t make me give up.

So starting fresh with June

~ I would really like to blog more.  I feel sometimes that it is an outlet for me.  I enjoy sharing stuff.  Blogs really helped me with my beginning homeschooling years.  Actually who am I kidding, they still help me.  I want to do this without being a “slave to the blog.”  There was a point in time that I had my kids do things just so I could post them on my blog.  Shameful, I know.  They were fun things, it is just sometimes they didn’t fit into our day right.  I hope I am going to be able to do both of these things (build my blog without being a slave to it)  with the help of Mama Jenn and her blogging planner!

~ I NEED to cut down our grocery budget.  I currently spend about $1000 a month between gas for the cars and groceries.  This budget has to be cut down drastically.  I plan on doing this by most likely not doing EMeals anymore.  I have loved it, but I do need to feed my family cheaper.  I may try to alter their menu plans to be cheaper by switching out sides expensive meals.  I am also going to go back to couponing.  Not extreme couponing but using Grocery Smarts and having a spending book where I write down every time we spend any cash or money at the grocery store/ gas station/ etc.  I will let you know how that goes.  We can do this. I haven’t had a car payment in over a year and we just purchased a new truck, so that is the reason for these cut backs!  There are more cutbacks we are making besides groceries.

~ I want to be more on top of things around the house.  I can wash clothes all day long, it is the folding and taking care of that I despise. I want to feel like my house is clean again, like I can be on top of it.  It is not that it is dirty. It is the everyday stuff that gets me, picking up, dishes, cooking, etc.  I am going to really work on having a happy heart while working on this.  We do 15 min quick cleans once or twice a day but I still feel like I need 15 min cleans every hour. I will be writing about those later this month also. 

I am feeling like these things will be great for me to work on.  I can sense that June will be a great month.  We have really simplified our schooling process for the summer.  I feel that I will be able to focus on household things more and get them more organized and into a routine which will in turn help next school year go much more smoothly. 

 

Feb Goals Check in and March Goals.

 

 

My February goals were

• To have a planned grocery day each week.

This has been going fine according to me.  According to meeting the goal as far as having a set day.  That has not happened.  However it has stayed between Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays.  I mostly wanted to do this because I live in a small remote town and the grocery stores here are out of so much over the weekends.  They are also super, I mean SUPER, busy over the weekends too.  I have been menu planning using E-Meals and I just go to the store when my menu runs out (which would mean I am out of groceries for the weeks menu). 

• To workout 5 days a week

This has been much more of a challenge.  I was doing so great.  I worked out every morning until about Feb 14th.  My husband was off for a week and it just messed with my schedule.    That’s my excuse.  LOL. 

So my new March goals will be:

• To get back to working out.  I was really feeling good about myself, I drank more water and I had more energy. 
• To have a scheduled dinner time each night.  We are going to try for 6:30pm to be sitting at the table eating.  

 

Sewing my way to Summer

I am joining a bloggy friend in her challenge. This challenge is to help use up your fabric stock, but to  be honest, I don’t really have a stock.  So I am going to use it as a challenge to get some sewing projects done that I have wanted to do, even if it means I have to buy some material.

My first project is going to be to set up a sewing area!  hahaha!  That may be why I haven’t gotten any projects done. 

My first sewing project is going to be to hem my pants.  I have about 10 pairs of pants that I would really like hemmed. 

To join us click on the banner above.

February Goals Check in

Back at the end of December I wrote about my January Goals.

Here is how things have been going with that.

• Eat out less

     This  one was truly hard at the beginning of January.  I kid you not on January 2nd.  I made Ham and Scalloped potatoes for dinner.  Somewhere, something went terribly wrong. The dinner was a disaster.  I said fine and we went and picked something up.  I could have cried that day.

My husband and I did go out on one date out to eat also.

And one other time I just did not have my act together with dinner, so we ended up eating out then too. 

This may seem like a lot.  I mean 3 times a month,  and I am ashamed to admit that it is a huge cutback for us.  I have seen my grocery bill increase substantially!!  However, we are spending less than we were when we were going out to eat more often.  I also feel like we are all eating healthier and enjoying dinner time. 

 

As far as laundry goes,  I have not done the one batch a day like I was supposed to.  However my laundry has stayed pretty well caught up.  I have been doing about 4 loads on Tuesdays, and 4 more on Wednesdays. Then we do a family fold clothes sometime on Wednesday.  Tommy has been doing his and Tyler’s laundry once a week, 2 batches and that has helped out immensely. 

So while it may not seem like I met my goals, I feel really good GREAT about them. 

 

Time for new goals. 

Feb goals will be:

Have a planned grocery day each week.  I am hoping for Wednesdays.  I am also planning on having that day be the errand day.  Any other errands that need to be ran that day, dry cleaner, library, gift shop, etc. 

 

To workout 5 days a week.  I have already started doing that.  I am on my second week actually now of Jillian Michaels 6 week 6 pack.   I have been getting up earlier than the kids and working out.  It keeps me from sleeping in and I feel really great about it. 

 

 

 

Time for changes….

 

 

The end of the year always leaves me reflecting on the past year.  Thinking about if I have been settling.  Thinking about what I could do better.  Thinking about what went well and what works perfectly. 

So I normally write down some resolutions.  I try to “limit” it to no more than 20.  I mean I could think of so many things to do better, then I would just get depressed at how much work I think I  need .    

Years past it has always been things like exercise more, save more money, be a better wife, mother, friend. 

And while those are great goals, they are just too vague for me.  This year I have been thinking about ways to really make some changes for the better. 

Tim over at Families Again posted a great article about how to do just that. 

As soon as I read it, which was moments ago, I knew THAT is what I had to do.  So I will be setting up a few GOALS a month and then posting my progress on them.  Then each month I will be reflecting and seeing the progress as opposed to waiting a year and only seeing the resolutions that I didn’t make.  (Really the gym lasted a few months this year, and I still go occasionally, once in the last 6 months is occasionally, right?)

I have got my thinking cap on now as to which ones I would like to work on first.   

Let’s see……..

I am going to start out slowly so how about in January I focus on 2 things:

• Eating out less, and having more healthy snacks in the house.  My dinners are planned pretty well with E-Mealz. I still struggle with breakfast and lunches. 
• Keeping Laundry caught up.  I will do at least 1 batch every day, all the way through.  WASH –DRY- FOLD- PUT AWAY

I am going to start focusing now, a head start for me is always good.  Then check back in February to hopefully celebrate my successes!!!