Doodle Acres

OK, I admit it.  The last couple of months have been a wonderfully crazy blur, full of many blessed events (hence the reason that I have been blogging so infrequently and also the reason that I encouraged you to add me to your Blogreader —Bloglines is my personal favorite).  While wonderful, these last few months have left me feeling a bit out of sorts with our lack of a real daily schedule and our overstuffed house, which never seems to stay picked up for more than 5 minutes!!!  In fact I feel as if my head has been spinning and in danger of falling off altogether!!!

Needless to say, I really needed this vacation!!!  Vermont is always a place where I find inspiration and peace.  Being here in God’s beautiful nature show always makes me long for simplicity and order in my life and the life of my family.  Being among the trees and on the lake seem to give me clarity of vision that I can lose at home, if I’m not careful.

Having just recently finished Shopping for Time, I have been enjoying “sitting at Jesus’ feet” these last three or four mornings before my family has arisen from their blessed slumber.  This has meant getting up at 6 a.m. while on vacation (I know, I know, I can hear you groaning!!!).  I consider this preparation for when I get home and push up my wake up time to 5 a.m. (Now I hear you really moaning!!!).  This time away and my early mornings spent at Jesus’ feet have made my path clear to me.

Like it or not, 5 a.m. is a necessary evil.  It is the only way that I can have my quiet time, get my housework back on track, and still find time for exercise which is a must for getting off / reducing my blood pressure medication.  These are all things that I used to do thanks to Flylady but have lost sight of in the recent past.  I am grateful for the Control Journal that I put together a while back which makes it easier to get back on the straight and narrow. 

I have spent a couple of hours over the last few days working on a schedule to fulfill all my goals.  I know it will need some tweaking and I will need some patience as I put the plan into action.  Something that I have been learning over these last several months is that when I stumble, I need to just brush myself off and begin again.  Sometimes this means asking the Lord’s forgiveness and forgiving myself.  But when all is said and done, I need to get up and try again (preferably without beating myself up too severely).  So in this spirit I continue this blessed journey.  Now without further adieu, here it is:

Morning Routine 

5 am     Get up

            Make bed

            Go to bathroom

            Vitamins/Medication

            SITTING AT JESUS’ FEET

5:45     Brush teeth

            Apply moisturizer

            Dress

            Hair

            Make-up

6:00     Empty dishwasher, if necessary

            Breakfast, newspaper

            Diet Center food planning

            Daily planning, check calendar, update “to do” list, plan day/errands/goals

            Menu planning, grocery shopping planning

            Puzzles, clip for later

7:00     Defrost meat for dinner, dinner prep

            Breakfast prep for children (CHILDREN”S BREAKFAST at 7:30)

            Put out hotspots

            Wash breakfast dishes

            Shine sink

            27 Fling Boogie, time permitting

7:30     Walk, while children have Breakfast

8:00     Heather & children: Daily jobs

Monday: Change sheets, vacuum and dust bedrooms

Tuesday:  Dust downstairs, vacuum upstairs hallway, vacuum thoroughly downstairs

Wednesday:  Blue bathroom

Thursday:  Upstairs bathroom

Friday:  Kitchen

Daily: 27 Fling Boogie and Zone work, time permitting

8:30     Children’s Individual Chores while I check email, read, blog, correspondence

9:30     Rosary & Beginner’s Bible

10:00   Basic School plan with children

12 pm  Lunch prep

12:30   Lunch

I ask for your prayers as I put this into action next week. 

We have been very busy over the last month or so.  My sweet 16 year old daughter, Hope, was the costume seamstress and left stage manager for the home-school production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.  She is very talented and I am quite the proud mama.  You can check out pictures at Alice Gunther and MacBeth Derham’s blogs.

I just read a wonderful post over at “Here in the Bonny Glenn” by Melissa Wiley about homeschooling and the concerns of well-intentioned nay-sayers.  It is incredibly accurate and funny!!! I encourage you to take a meander over there to enjoy Melissa’s insight and wit!!!

HT: Michele at The Family-Centered Life

In my continuing journey through How Did I Get So Busy?: The 28-day Plan to Free Your Time, Reclaim Your Schedule, and Reconnect with What Matters Most , I was asked to write down my 5 most important priorities.  These priorities are meant to guide me as I evaluate my activities as well as the items I put on my “To Do List”.  Here is my list in no particular order:

• Educating my children
• Spiritual growth of my family and I
• Clean yet friendly home for my family
• Strong marriage
• Living a financially responsible life

Please pray for me as I attempt to align my life with my priorities!!! 

“Less is better. Little things done daily are better than grand plans. Give your children lots of tiny moments. When they approach the computer turn your chair around and look them in the eye and if you find more in their eyes than on the screen get up and take them on a nature walk or read a book to them.”

This is a quote from a post on Dominion Family - in fact this is the last post that will be written by this blogger who is signing off.  Her post is thought-provoking and timely.  I would encourage you to read it, especially if your internet/blogging  habit can get the best of you (as it does to me sometimes).

Well today is Tuesday so that means it’s “Training Tuesday” at our house.  Recently I added a job wheel (I read about it in the Complete Tightwad Gazette book I’ve been reading) to divvy up the dinner meal preparation tasks.  As I’ve mentioned before, I have done a good job training my two oldest children but have slacked off with the younger two.  This job wheel is an attempt to create a better division of labor.

Last week Lily learned how to set a proper table.  Today she learned to make salad.  She had used the salad spinner before but this is the first time that she cut the carrot herself (with supervision, of course!!!).

Peter even got in on the training today when he spilled his water on the floor.  I directed him to the rags and he cleaned it up himself.

Peter learning to wipe the table after lunch:

Step One: Get him away from his toys.

Step Two: Get a rag from the closet.

Step Three: Wipe the table that Mom has sprayed with vinegar and water spray.

Lily learning to set the table PROPERLY using a handy-dandy guide.

This is Lenny wiping down the counters with vinegar and water spray after washing the lunch dishes.  I have asked him to add this to his mental “to-do” list when it is his turn to wash dishes.

After contemplating training ideas for my littlest angels, I got to thinking that there are some things that the two oldest children and I could stand to learn as well.

Training Ideas for Lenny

-         Make his own eggs for breakfast

-         Make grilled cheese

-         Follow a recipe to make several dinner dishes

-         Learn to make an entire dinner of homemade foods (not hotdogs but a real meal)

Training Ideas for Hope:

-         Meal planning and budgeting for an entire week

-         How to change a tire

-         Clean house herself (not picking up, just cleaning) in about 4-5 hours

Training Ideas for Me:

-         How to change a tire

-         Clean house myself (not picking up, just cleaning) in about 4-5 hours – If a cleaning lady can do it, so can I!!!

Well I think that I will dedicate some time each Tuesday to training my children (and me).  I’ll call it Training Tuesday – hey, this could be fun!!!

While in Vermont, we decided not to use the dishwasher but rather to wash the dishes by hand.  After an afternoon snack of popcorn, I asked my seven year old daughter, Lily, to wash up the popcorn bowls.  She consented readily but I was astonished to find as I oversaw the task that she really didn’t know how to wash the dishes.  She was fumbling through but it was clear that I had never taught her how to wash dishes. 

I have always prided myself on how well I have trained my children to work.  However, at that instant I realized how well I had trained my two older children to work.  I have come to rely heavily on Hope (15) and Lenny (12) but have continued to view Lily (7) and Peter (3) as babes.  Yes, I can hear you saying that Peter is indeed a babe.  That’s true but he is capable of supervised work (toting light groceries from the car, emptying wastepaper cans, drying unbreakable dishes, etc.)  By age 8, Hope was doing most of the family laundry on her own.

I have a strong belief that we have all been created to work and that we do our children no favors by waiting on them.  Now my eyes have been opened to the fact that I’m only half way through the training process – Two children down, two to go!!!  Let the training begin…

Tasks to teach Lily:

-         Washing and drying dishes

-         Vacuuming and mopping floors

-         Folding her own laundry

-         Wiping down bathroom counters and sinks

-         Set table properly – the emphasis on “properly”

Tasks to teach Peter:

-         Emptying wastepaper cans with help

-         Drying dishes with help

-         Spray and wipe the kitchen table with vinegar spray

Theresia McLain shared a beautiful piece she wrote about home-schooling on the Family-Centered Learning yahoo group.  She has graciously allowed me to share it with you.

When people think of homeschooling they think of many different things. But for me it means TIME. Time with my children. Time for my children to spend with their siblings. Time for them to pursue interests outside the regular curriculum. Time for us all to grow in love, knowledge and service of our Lord.  Time to really delve in to subjects. Time to spend on areas of difficulty.  Time to spend outdoors, in nature, in energetic play. Time for ‘real life’ learning. Time to get to know my children’s strengths and weaknesses - and for them in turn to know mine. Time to talk. Time to play. One-On-OneTime tutoring each child at their own pace, in their own style of learning, for the greatest success. Time for a tea party in the afternoon while we read poetry aloud. Time for the children to contribute to the family in the way of chores and care of their younger siblings. Time to read, and read some more. Time to play together, cook together, work together and pray together. Time for learning in the ‘real world’. Time to work on developing character and virtues - the children’s and mine.

It also means MY time. Time to plan lessons. Time that I can’t spend leisurely at coffee with friends after a bus has picked the children up. Time browsing through endless catalogs of curriculum and manipulatives. Time grading papers, checking math page after math page, and endless hours discussing grammar. Time cuddled up on the sofa teaching a little one to read. Time, after time, after time of cleaning up manipulatives, crafts and paper, paper, paper. Time worrying and fretting over each child and their successes and failures. Time to watch and listen as the children play. Time for me to learn right along with them. Time to break up squabbles and fights. Time to try to encourage and motivate a teenager. Times of multitasking - nursing a baby, watching a toddler play, giving a 2nd grader a spelling test, redirecting the distracted 6th grader, grading an algebra assignment, thinking about what to make for dinner and breaking up a fight between two kids. Time that I can’t devote to hobbies or outside interests. Time when I ramble on and on to my husband about my fears, concerns, and the sorrows and joys of life. Time to weave our faith into our curriculum. Time to love and time to serve. Homeschooling is FAMILY time - not ‘quality’ time. For us, it is a way of life.

I think that is so beautiful!!! Thanks Theresia for allowing me to share it!!!