N is for No Words

Last Thursday night, I finished a rough draft for this week's Blogging Through the Alphabet meme. I was going to share a cute picture of the way I have my necklaces displayed in our bathroom.

On Friday morning, I heard the horrific news from Newton, Connecticut.

Somehow my post about necklaces and organization didn't seem to matter anymore.

I've seen lots of people post responses over the past few days -- on blogs, on Facebook, or wherever.

I don't have a response or a reaction to share.

Truly I have no words.

It's at times like this that I'm thankful for the power of prayer.

I'm thankful that when I don't know where to turn, I can turn to God. I'm thankful when I don't know how to help, I can pray for the people with broken hearts. I'm thankful that God is still in control, even when I don't understand.

Read-Aloud Challenge (week of Dec 11th)

I stumbled across an idea earlier this week that it making a difference in our homeschool days.

I have one child that rises at the crack of dawn, one child that stumbles downstairs to grab a cup of coffee before going to her online class at 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning, and one child that prefers to sleep in.

For quite some time, I've struggled to wake Brennan up in the mornings. I've decided to embrace this sleepy time in the mornings and use it for our read-alouds. Cuddling up under his blanket on the "fluffy pillow of awesomeness" (aka our new, huge foam beanbag) is almost as good as staying in bed.

We're currently about halfway through The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict. I think it's the newest book in the Mysterious Benedict Society series, but since it's a prequel to the others, it doesn't matter that I've only read (or heard) the first few in the series.

I can't always find books that interest all three of the children, but it's become a family tradition to read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever sometime during the holiday season. "Hey! Unto you a child is born."

Meanwhile, Lauren has continued listening to quite a large assortment of books. Off the top of my head, I can remember reading parts of a Boxcar Children book, one of the American Girl McKenna books, and an Ivy and Bean book. We listened to The Long Winter in the car, and we're nearly finished with The Wizard of Oz.


I'm sharing my list of this week's read-alouds with Debra at Footprints in the Butter.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

"Hey! Unto you a child is born!"

Gladys Herdman, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

Goal Planning Mondays -- Mid December

I'm not quite ready to quit calling it "Goal Planning Monday," even if it does seem like I never manage to post on Mondays. Next weekend puts us right in the midst of the busiest choral weekend this year so I doubt I'll post next week. That's probably for the best, though. I might need two weeks in order to accomplish all of my goals.

Goals for next week:
1. Finish Christmas gifts and put them in the mail. I've done most of the shopping, but I have quite a bit more work to do for some of the presents. (They're still top-secret so you'll have to wait until after Christmas to see what I'm busy doing.)

2. Blog: I can count three reviews that I really want to get caught up on. I want to post a Christmas cookie recipe as part of the Virtual Christmas Cookie Exchange, to give an update on our Read-Alouds (including a change in our day to make life and read-alouds easier), and to continue blogging through the alphabet (halfway-done).

3. I'm designing my own calendar and planner, and I really need to have it finished before the New Year starts. I actually need it now, but I can make do if I get it done in the next week or so.

It seems like such a short list now that I've typed it. I'm not sure that it's any less overwhelming, though.

I'm sharing this post with my friends at Real Life Unscripted, where a bunch of us gather to share our goals and encourage each other along the way.

M is for Menu Planning

I suspect that most every mom has some housekeeping or parenting task that falls at the very bottom of their favorites list. For me, it's meal planning. For a long time I sat down every week and tried to dream up what exciting meals would bring the least amount of complaining from my hungry family. You see, they aren't particularly picky -- they just don't like having the same thing over and over. They groan if I serve the same meal, even a favorite meal, twice in the same month.

A few months ago, I finally figured out a meal planning system that has saved my sanity. It may have even made meal planning so easy for me that I don't dread it quite so much.

I started with a my calendar, my recipe book, and a stack of index cards.

When I looked at my calendar, I realized that I was most concerned with fitting meals into our schedule and not necessarily what specific foods we ate. For instance, I need a crockpot meal for Sunday lunch. It doesn't necessarily matter if it's chicken or beef or even vegetarian; we just need something that's ready when we get home from church.

I brainstormed the meal types I needed and wrote them down on separate index cards. I had a card for crockpot meals, ones good for our weekly potluck gathering, ones that can be reheated easily for the nights when we're all coming and going, ones that take a little bit more preparation time than others, and favorites that didn't fit into any particular category.

I then divided up all of our favorite recipes into six weekly menu plans. These weekly plans only included Sundays through Thursdays. Each week, I am free to choose either an old favorite or to something new on Friday and Saturday nights. My two flex-days in each weekly meal plan allow us to enjoy something especially complicated, to grilled something on lazy weekend days, or to try the latest meal idea I've seen on Pinterest.

While I was brainstorming favorite meals, I went ahead and made an index card of favorites that didn't make the rotating schedule. That makes it especially easy to figure out what we'll have on my flex days.

I hesitated to share my planning idea because I feared it wouldn't last. Now that we've been through it for a few months, I'm confident enough to recommend it to others. It's organized enough that I'm not starting from scratch every week and yet flexible enough that I can adjust to fit our crazy life.

I am linking this post with others that are Blogging through the Alphabet. Be sure to stop by to see what some of my other friends found to share about or, better yet, join us on our crazy journey through the alphabet.

First Day Photos (December)

I cannot believe that it's already December and that the end of 2012 is nearing. Our December is packed with activities. I'm thankful that I took the time Saturday to snap a few first day pictures. I hope that next month I remember to snap more pictures so that I'm not left looking at my collection thinking that I wish I had taken a few more.

quick stop at the Commissary

rowing exercises for PT

pulling the scooter across the carpet is quite a workout

the playground across the parking lot from Addison's chorus rehearsal

relaxing with friends after the CD release party

forget adding the hot sauce to the chili

"the fluffy pillow of awesomeness"

I am linking this post with all the others at Journey to Josie. Click the cute paper airplane button if you'd like to join us.

L is for Laundry Day

Several years ago, I had a friend share one of her tips for successfully juggling three homeschooled children, their outside activities, and household chores. She designated one day each week as "Laundry Day" and didn't schedule any outside commitments on that day. It was her day to stay at home and make sure she got caught up on everything.

At the time, I laughed at the idea of being able to have one day each week that I could just stay at home. Lauren was still itty-bitty and had multiple doctors appointments each week. For years, I adopted another popular theory on taking the laundry demons -- wash a load or two every day. It worked, but I felt like I was always doing laundry.

About a year ago, I thought back to my friend's Laundry Day plan and tried it out. For some reason I took this picture about a year ago. Perhaps it was one of my first laundry days, and I was incredibly proud of the way all of the clothes were clean at the same time.

Over the past year, I've tweaked my Laundry Day approach. I realized from the start that I couldn't possibly get all of the clothes clean unless I was focused. I couldn't hear the dryer buzz and think, "I'll get to that in a few minutes." I have to pay attention to changing the laundry as soon as it finishes so that I don't waste any time.

I've recently added even an extra challenge to my laundry day. I decided that it wasn't enough of a challenge to get all of the clothes washed, dried, and folded in a single day. What I really wanted was to have all of the laundry completely finished so that I didn't have to worry about it the rest of the week. For the past several weeks, I've decided not to put a new load of clothes in the dryer until the previous load has been folded and put away. Usually the dryer finishes ten to fifteen minutes before the washer does, and I have plenty of time to fold the clothes while they are still warm and wrinkle-free. It's just a matter of taking a short break from what I'm doing to go take care of them instead of putting it off just a bit longer.

The great thing about Laundry Day is that I only have to do laundry one time per week. I don't restart the washer because I left a finished load in there so long that it smells funny. I don't have wrinkled t-shirts that are a pain to fold because they've been in the dryer for a few days. The absolute best thing about Laundry Day is the feeling of satisfaction that comes from finishing the job and not having to worry about it until next week.

My laundry confessions are linked up with others that are Blogging through the Alphabet. This week Kelli at Adventurez In Child Rearing is hosting the link-up; be sure to stop by and see what some of my other friends found to share about.

Also, I blogged earlier this week about Lilla Rose Flexi-Clips -- two "L" posts in one week. If you haven't already stopped by to enter my giveaway, please do.