Managers of Their Homes

It has been no secret that I have struggled, the better part of the last year, to get into the swing of things. What I mean by swing of things is to get all the things, that I perceive need to be done, done.

But, with the school year looming in the very, very near future, I knew something needed to be addressed sooner rather than later, about how I manage our home. I want to accomplish a little more in school, I want to cook and bake a little more and I want to have more time for fun, all the things I envisioned homeschool being. But, because I feel like there is something that always needs to be done instead, the other fun things get pushed to the side.

About a week ago, though, I ran across a book called Managers of Their Homes by the Maxwells. I had looked it up once before and, for whatever reason, chose not to explore it further. This time, I sent an email out to my homeschool network and gave a brief description of my personality and my family and asked for recommendations.

Most who replied said it was worth checking out. A wonderful lady, whom I never met, offered to meet me somewhere so I could look at hers. And when we did meet, we had a really great conversation, about a lot of different topics and then she offered me the book, for free. On the condition that if it wasn't for me that I would then pass it on. Which I assured her, I would do.

But after reading the first few paragraphs, I knew it was for me. It was all about scheduling and having a plan. Now I will give a disclaimer: The more I read books about homeschooling, child rearing and marriage, the more I understand that I MUST listen to God first, then hubby and I don't have to use every single idea that an author recommends. Every single solitary family is different and just because one thing works for one family doesn't mean it works for every family. (You would think I would have figured that out before now.)

So, keeping that in the back of my head, I continued to read the book and got some really, really great ideas that just might help me out for this up coming school year. First, her whole theory is every hour of every day is schedule and you don't really ever deviate from that schedule. (She is homeschooling mom with 7 kids, so for her and her husband, that is important. Also, half of her kids are considerably older.)

That whole concept would never work for us in practice. For starters, most of my kids are still relatively young and, as I mentioned before, hubby works shift work, so every day is different. I also felt, that having such a "strict" schedule for us, would not leave time for God to work through us, in a lot of different ways, that I consider part of homeschooling, such as Meals on Wheels for instance.

So, taking all that into consideration, the following is a list of really great ideas that I am going to try to implement:

Our day will be broken up into hour and half hour chunks of time. These chucks of time will have such things as Nature Girl play with EG outside (while Little Mama and Mommy read history) or one half hour slot might be every one do laundry.

The weekly schedule plans, for me, to have play time with each kid individually.

It also encourages a scheduled play time for me with all the kids.

We have a time for PM daily chores, than a snack.

At 5 o'clock, I have scheduled time with hubby.

I even have scheduled time for me to read my Bible and a fun book. Make cards and pay bills.

The author suggested scheduling different play areas around the house and having special toys that only get played with on certain days.

She went so far as to have a weekly lunch and dinner schedule. And a set grocery list. That would never work in our house. I know the system we use for dinner and shopping works just fine.

I know some of these things may seem intuitive to family life, but, the longer I do family life, the more I realize I spend tons of time putting out fires and not getting much else done. If it is written down, on a schedule or a list, I am 10 times more likely to do it. Plus, all the stuff that use to get in my way of having fun would have its own time slot to get done through out the day and week and month.

Yesterday, I finished our schedules for everyone but daddy. He politely told me he didn't want one. :) But, was supportive of ours. Instead, I am going to provide him a list of things that I think need to be done, that I can't take care of myself. And, if he feels so inclined he can do one of his "chores" on his day off. He did offer this suggestion, that given his schedule, our days, when he is home, will not always go on schedule. I kind of already figured that.

But, I am productive if I have a list, a goal, a plan. I like knowing where I stand at any given time, even if it happens to be WAY BEHIND. I am going to use Flylady again, in the hopes of getting rid of the cleaning lady (who I happen to LOVE.)

I have condensed many notebooks and binders down to 3 2" binders: one full of coupons and meal plans; one is my prayer journal and the newest is my Life Journal. It has 10 sections ranging from one section for each school age kid, to "to-do" lists, to my calendar, to Flylady stuff. So, now, instead of going from one notebook/list to another, it is all in one big pretty bluish/purple binder.

I keep threatening hubby, "I am going to be organized." He just kind of smiles. He has heard it all before. I am going to give it a test run in August. We will be partially back to school. We have a few scheduled things going on. So, we will see if my new system makes it through the long haul. If so, maybe I will post at the end of the year, the changes I have had to make.

If it doesn't make it, I am sure you will see a post in about 3 weeks, with my new plan of attack . . .