My First Bloggy Award and Household Management Book

A big shout out to Kate in NJ from http://www.growinginthegardenstate.blogspot.com/

who gave me the triple bloggy award. I am honored and grateful to be so recognized. I'm strapped for time today so will post my 10 choices over the weekend.

It's my first night back to work tonight and I'm so not looking forward to going. I've been off 9 weeks and while I've recovering I have to say I really did enjoy not having to work and doing all the things I enjoy. I also started some freelance writing work so if you need me to be a guest contributor to your blog, website, company....well I ain't to proud to beg and have reasonable fees.

Honestly, this week, we didn't get much bookwork done. Patrick was sick at the beginning of the week, Morgan was vomitting after him and last night Tae woke up at three a.m. looking like the exorcist had made several visits. Yeah-I'm a nurse and I don't do vomit well. A big "I Love You-Honey" to my husband who changed sheets in the middle of the night. I comforted my son...after he changed his barfed on shirt. Everyone slept late today in our efforts to get healthy. If they were in public school they would be out sick anyway so no losses I guess.

I have a stinkin' cold so have been loading up on Vitamin C and Echinacea. I'm hoping the whole barfing thing stays away from me.

This was my breakfast this morning. A delicious, juicy pink grapefruit. Think Vitamin C.

I ran to the Back to Basics Store last night before my meeting at church. I picked up some Lavender castile soap (fair trade of course), some Lavender oil and Tea tree oil. Hopefully, I can get busy on making my dishsoap and homemade dryer sheets this weekend.

Tae drew some pictures this morning for his "school folder". Yes, I know he put it in

upside down.

My evil cat Dixie guarding my keyboard. Type too fast and she'll take a swipe at you.

I started putting together my household management book. I have tried using one of these before but abandoned it because I don't think I was organized enough. I'm off to a good start. I've made a list of what I want to include in it and I found some great printouts on:

http://www.organizedhome.com/

I love this site and they have templates for every kind of organizing you can think of. Plus I love the section where people send in photos and descriptions of their household notebook. Lots of scrapbookers out there who have made some phenomenal books. I'm not to the point where I can personalize mine yet but I'm pretty sure my Cricut cutter will come in handy here.

Some of the things I'm going to include are our:

-my favorite gardening quote by Thomas Jefferson.

-homeschool schedule, curriculum listings (so I can find them easily)

-Cleaning schedule

-Menus for the week and month

-Shopping lists/coupons

-pantry inventory

-A master list (birthdays, anniversary etc)

-favorite, frequently used recipes (like my bread and bagels)

-Kids chore list

-Personal listings (clothing, shoe sizes for all family members)

-Emergency info etc

-I've also placed some pockets in here for library cards, address labels, stamps, dry erase pens and pens and pencils.

-I'm using page protectors for everything. This way I can use the dry erase marker on top and not have to print off ridiculous amounts of paper each week. Erase and reuse.

I love organized home and their templates. Here is the pantry list.

And the weekly Menu planner (which I used to do but for some reason have left). I'll start doing that again this week. With our evenings and days so full it really is a help so that I'm not scrambing for something to cook at the last minute. Plus it helps with money saving and pantry inventory to know what you are using.

The emergency contact form just in case I ever save enough money that my husband and I would actually be able to hire a babysitter and afford a night out sans children. Dinner in a restaurant...what's that? I'm also open to restaurant gift card donations.

I finally ordered all of the kids curriculum at a HUGE savings from Amazon. The money I saved will still be spent on homeschooling but for field trips, outside classes, etc. I'll post all of the curriculum over the weekend. Some of their books have already started to come in for next year and while it is early in the year, it will give me a chance to go thru and see what we like and what needs to be returned.

Creating Sacred Space

The icky stomach flu bug thing has hit our house. Patrick was up all day and night vomitting. Larry didn't feel well today either. We were supposed to travel to Princeton, Massachusetts to NEADS (http://www.neads.org/) to celebrate Larry and his hearing dog Stewie's graduation. The weather forecast predicted a bad storm but mostly we got a dusting today. We didn't end up going though between Larry not feeling well and the storm and Patrick spent all day in bed anyway.

I did manage to get so much done today though. I'm loving all the organizing and it's making me feel really good to have some control over my household. Larry slept in this morning and while he did I enjoyed my coffee and made my list of things I needed to get done today.

This is the dry erase board in my office/classroom. Notice that there are only two things not crossed off. I have to make a payment for a Prairie Class that Morgan and Tae will be taking next month. It sounds really cool and I'm very excited about it. The other thing I still have to do is finalize curriculum for next year. We are buying all of our books used from Amazon this year to help save money and the money that I save will be used for classes and field trips for the kids. We missed out on a lot last year because we didn't budget well so I'm really excited to be able to finally let them join in on more classes outside the home.

So what did we do today? I baked two loaves of bread, a pan of brownies, finally cleaned out my bedroom closet (4 hours worth), cleaned and emptied two huge boxes that were in my bedroom, finished painting the bedroom (ok-Larry did that yesterday along with hanging my new Roman shades, curtain rods and curtains), updated our Monthly calendars for March, made a Roast Turkey dinner, made more laundry detergent, found some recipes for homemade bagels

( I refuse to pay $3.99 for 6 bagels anymore), and found some recipes for some homemade cleaners because I refuse to buy the chemical stuff anymore).

Yeah-I know- what's happened to me? I make my own laundry detergent, cleaners, bake bread, raise chickens for fresh eggs, and have turned into the frugal housewife. The weird thing is that I'm loving all of it. Everything we do to sustain ourselves is less impact on the environment and brings our family closer together. None of it is hard to do but it does take planning to accomplish. Today, I'm dog tired from doing so much.

This is our sacred space-fresh and newly painted. The wall color in this picture looks peasoup green but it's a nice mustardy color.





I still have some pictures and artwork to hang but am loving my space. The kids are not allowed in here. It's mom and dad's space. No toys, no playing and no hanging out.





And yes, I finally tackled my closet today. We actually have a floor in there- I was beginning to wonder. It's all organized and neat. I threw out 4 bags of garbage, packed things away, straightened, washed and ironed tons of lines and donated a ton of clothes to charity. Whew! I'm very glad to have this whole area done.



Tomorrow I tackle the main bathroom linen closet. We have a very full week with Pediatrician appointments, Dentist appointments, art and sign language class, our coop, soccer practice and I have a meeting at church. I also go back to work this coming Friday night and am not looking forward to it. Patrick will be on a field trip to a Synagogue as part of his Neighboring Faiths curriculum at church. Catch me if you can.

And here is my funny little man. He helped me to make brownies today.

Chocolate everywhere!