Before we get started on today’s topic, I am wondering how you are doing with your morning routines?  Come on fess up?  I have been getting up at the time on my morning routine since Monday and it is getting easier for me.  My mornings are going better so I know this is worth it.  This morning I was done early!!  That never happens and I even put a roast in the crockpot for French Dip sandwiches.  If my mother is reading this she can personally attest to the how amazing this is, but I am caught up on my laundry!  This morning I went down there and washed sheets since I didn’t have enough clothes for a load.  Trust me, usually you can’t even get into my laundry room.  My mom has come to stay before and always would get me caught up on laundry, but it only lasted for a week or so.This time I got caught up on my own, just by doing my morning and evening routine!

Now, on to calendars!  Over the years I have tried many different things to get track of the many aspects of my life.  I am very happy with my current system.  I have tried to only have one calendar and that has not worked for me.  I am very visual, so I need to see the month at a time.

At home, I have what I call calendar central or you might call it the side of my fridge.

I have had the same calendar on the side of the fridge for about 8 years and I LOVE IT!I am a former flybaby (follower of Flylady at Flylady.net).  Every year I purchase a calendar from the Flylady shop.It is a great calendar with large boxed to write in.  It is great for keeping all the family stuff on.  This is the calendar that hubby and kids look at to see what is coming up.  You can look at and purchase this calendar here. http://www.flylady.net/pages/FlyShop_calendar.asp

I used to try to keep my home chores and everything on my calendar as well and I no longer do that.  I use Yahoo Calendars (free online at http://calendar.yahoo.com/) as I showed you in my morning routine post on Wednesday.  I enter my weekly cleaning jobs as well as monthly and yearly items on my yahoo calendar and have them reoccur as needed.

I just discovered something very cool about Yahoo Calendars.  This is a life saver for me.  If you are familiar with the techniques of the Flylady, you know how important a timer can be.  At home I use a timer to remind me that I have clothes in the washer and many other things.  With Yahoo Calendars I can set up each item of my morning routine with a reminder that is texted to my cell phone –free of charge!  I do have unlimited texting on my phone.  I tend to get absorbed in a task and lose track of time.  Now in the morning my phone texts me to say “Get out Of BED”, and then at 5 minutes before I should be switching laundry my phones texts me “Switch Laundry/Empty Trash.  You might think this is obsessive, and maybe it is, but it has been so very helpful to me.  I easily get sidetracked.  I also use the Yahoo calendars to remind me to do things I forget.  I just set a reminder for at noon each day that says “take medication”.

Ok, I might as well reveal all my geeky tendencies.  I also use yahoo calendars at work.  Each morning I decide what I need to get done and set them in my Yahoo calendar so I stay on track.  So if I am setting aside 1 hour to respond to email, I set that into my yahoo calendars and set an alert for the next task as well.  This way time does not get away from me and I only spend 1 hour on email and then I move on to my next task when my phone texts me and says to start the next task.  I have been WAY more productive at work using this technique.

Work Calendar:  I do keep a paper calendar that I carry with me everywhere!  I use a Weekly/Monthly Planner that runs from July 2009 – June 2010.  I am too busy in January to change calendars so I use an academic one.  I write anywhere I have to be on this calendar.  This includes work, church and personal commitments. 

My work also likes if I enter my calendar onto my outlook.  They want to know where I am as I can be out of the office at appointments a lot of the time.  My son convinced me that I needed a smart phone and now I wouldn’t be without it!  I sync my smart phone to my outlook at the office so I know what is going on and have all my contacts with me as well.  Very Handy!

What to do with the various school and soccer calendars??

I enter all the dates on the school calendar on my work calendar.  My kids are in two different schools that have different schedules.  I enter everything in and put the original calendar away for safe keeping, more on that later.

For the monthly school lunch menu and the classroom schedule for Tommy, I have that hanging on a closet door by the door so we can review it each day on our way out of the house each day.

Wow….just typing this up I am realizing how much it really takes to keep me this organized.  If you wear less hats in life you might be able by with less, but I have many hats and it takes a bit to keep me on track.  Oh how my mind wanders!

Please share with us your ideas to keep yourself organized.   I look forward to hearing for each of you!

HOMEWORK:  Find a calendar that will meet your needs and start filling in important dates for the upcoming school year.   The best way to start using a calendar is to have one!!  The Home School Mom has some free online planners to get you started. The website My Free Calendar Makers has all formats of calendars: yearly, monthly, weekly and daily.

Stop by on Monday for Reader's Questions Day.  You have a question and I will answer.  Please leave your question in the comments of this post and I will answer your question on Monday, August 3, 2009.

Have A Great Weekend!

Hello Everyone – I meant to do this yesterday, but I wanted to take some time to tell you about myself and my family.  That might help you to understand why I do some things the way I do. 

Five, soon to be 6 people reside in my home.  My hubby and I, our three kids (Josh, Erik and Tommy) and hubby’s brother make up our household. 

I work full time outside of our house as a social worker with children with disabilities.  My drive to work is about 30 to 45 minutes one way depending on the time of day.  I work at least 40 hours each week out of the house.

I also volunteer hours for different projects at Tommy’s school and our church.  Last year, I volunteered in Tommy’s classroom for a couple of hours each Friday.  I hope to be able to do that again this year.  I am on the executive board for the Parent Organization at Tommy’s school.  I am also a co-coordinator with a friend of mine for a fundraising program selling scrips for the school and church. 

In my free time, (laughing to self) I belong to a monthly book club and enjoying reading, cooking and blogging. 

My hubby is great.  He is helpful around the house and is a great Dad and hubby.  He does struggle with remembering things due to ADHD so that is partly why I am so organized with a home calendar for him to look at.  He does well with email reminders and uses a system of those to keep himself on task.  Hubby works full time at the local college in the computer department.

Josh is our 21 yr old son.  He was a very forgetful and disorganized student in high school.  He has done very well in college and his chosen field of computers.  He relies heavily on his smart phone to keep him on track and his laptop to keep his school stuff organized.  He will be moving back home in a month or so, putting us back to 6 members in our household.  Josh also works full time at the local college and is taking classes to finish up his degree. 

Erik is nearly 17 and struggles with issues associated with his being on the autism spectrum.  He is making great progress, but that requires consistency and structure.  As any parent knows it takes a lot to remain consistent and structured.  He is working on a learning to use a calendar and a daily schedule.  We have various therapists, social workers and support staff that work in our home.  Trust me that will encourage you to make sure your dishes are washed each day.  (I so need to have a dish washer someday)

Tommy is our baby at the age of 7-1/2.  He attends a parochial school and is a very active little boy.  He does keep us very busy with school events and soccer.  As a family we try to be very involved at his school and the church.  I struggle with consistency with Tommy as he is pretty strong willed little guy. 

Well there you have it…my family.  As you can see we are very busy and it takes a lot of effort to keep us all organized.  Please take the time to comment and let us know about your family. 

Happy Friday!

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Vote for my son, Josh, in week 3 of his Brickfish competition!

Anyone that knows me can attest to this, I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON. Trust me, I have really tried to become a morning person.  I have struggled greatly to find a morning routine that would work for me.  I need to have cushion built into my morning routine as I might not get out of bed in time (probably wont!).  But I will say that now that I am doing my morning routine again, I am seeing the difference in my life.  I arrive at work more awake and productive.  I am less stressed because I am not rushing the children to get ready saying we are late, AGAIN!!   Towards the end of the school year, Tommy would ask me each morning “Are we late?”I think that is how he gauged what mood I would be in.  Needless to say my best moments were not in the morning.  I feel bad about this. My hubby is nice in the morning and I am a bit crabby at times to him.  So it is really important to me to once again conquer this morning routine and be the person I wish to be each morning.  I know this comes easy to many people, but for me it is a real struggle.

My morning routine has changed over the years due to the different seasons of my life.  But my morning routine sets the mood for my day and I want that mood to be peaceful and energized.  I set my morning routine by envisioning what I wanted to accomplish each morning.  I work full-time outside of the home, so I do have to include some additional tasks into my morning.  So everyone’s routine will be different.Maybe you home school and want to have uninterrupted time to work on lessons with your children.  Once I had a list of the tasks I wanted to accomplish each morning, I decided what time I need to leave the house.  I have to drop Tommy off at school each morning so I need to leave the house at 9:00.

So from 9:00AM, I go backwards in time and add my tasks and how long each task will take.  I overestimate greatly the amount of time it will take me to complete a task to build in my cushion for the morning.  By going backwards I will come to the time I have to get up to be able to accomplish everything I want to do each morning.  I use a separate online calendar for my home tasks.  I use Yahoo Calendars and I highly recommend it.  I recently discovered how to have the reminders sent to my cell phone from Yahoo calendars.  Way cool!  I will go in detail about this when covering calendars.  It has really helped me a lot.

My Morning Routine

*Alarm Clock goes off at 6:25

6:45 – Out of Bed/Dogs outside and fed – honestly I roll out of bed around 6:50 or so.  But my goal is 6:45!

7:00 – Switch and Fold Laundry/ Empty Trash Cans – I give myself a ½ hour for this, but I can usually get it done in about 20.  That is my built in cushion in case I didn’t get up in time, which happens.

7:30 – Shower/Wipe Down Bathroom/ Spray Shower with Cleaner – I take a very quick shower.  I keep Lysol wipes in the bathroom and wipe the toilet and counter down every morning, which cuts down on cleaning for me.  Remember, I am mom to three boys!   I also spray the shower with a cleaner if I am the last shower of the morning.

7:50 – Wake Tommy – I start waking Tommy at 7:50 – he is a lot like his mommy and not easy to wake up!  So it could take 30 minutes to get him out of bed.

8:00 – Daily Chore if there is one– I plan a daily chore a few mornings of the week.  I have a chronic illness and some mornings I am ill, but I do the best I can.  I divide my weekly cleaning in to small chores each morning so I don’t have to spend a lot of weekend time cleaning.  On Mondays I go in later into the office so I have more time.  But on Tuesday I am very tired as I work until at least 9 in the evening on Monday nights.  So I plan according to meet my needs.

My Chore Schedule

Sunday – Change Bedding, Trash, Cat Litter

Monday – Mops floors: Kitchen and bathrooms

Wednesday – Vacuum Living Room/Sweep Kitchen and Bath

Thursday – Clean Bathrooms

Friday – Pay Bills/Order Scrips

9:00 - Leave for School/Work – Off to work!!

TIPS:

Alarm Clocks – have your older children get themselves up with an alarms clock.  We started this with Erik last year.

Start Out Small – Have one or two things in your morning routine and add items as you can.

Write It Down – This might sound funny, but write down your morning routine!I also have my cell phone text me for every item with a reminder.  I need this to keep on task.

HOMEWORK:

Ok…what do you think?  Do you have a morning routine to write down or would one be helpful to you?  I have two things I would like you to do this week.

1. Use the process above and develop your morning routine. To add an element of accountability, post your morning routine in the comments of this post!
2. Give a shout out to your fellow members of this challenge and tell us a bit about yourself. That will help us to relate to each other and how our lives are similar or different.  I will post about me and my family in a separate post and you can add about yourself and family in the comments to that post!  I look forward to learning a lot from each of you as well!

Thank you again for joining me in this challenge!  I am excited and am working hard to get myself back on track as well.  Together we will all have a wonderful start to our school year!!

Stop back on Friday when we will be discussing our next topic:  Calendars – include how I use Yahoo Calendars/text messaging.   I will be doing a question and answer day next week so post your questions and I will respond to all of them next week!

Today will be the start of our discussion about getting ready for Back to School!   I have to run off to this place called work, but will finish up my post over lunch and will get it posted when I come home from work!   I am excited by all the interest in my blog series.....pass the word onto your friends as the more that participate the more valuable the experience will be!  

Check back early this evening and let's get this discussion hopping!!

The smell of school supplies are in the air!!   The summer is starting to wind down and I am getting ready for school to start.  I have really slacked off on all my routine this summer and I am feeling very stressed by this.  Therefore, it is back to school boot camp time for this mom!  The success of the morning at our house really is up to me.  I set the tone and attitude for the morning with my children.  Towards the end of the year, the success of our mornings really deteriorated. 

I will be doing a series of articles regarding various back to school topics that are important to me.  It is time for me to get back to my routines and get ready for the morning routine of our school days!  You might be asking why am I starting already.  A couple of the areas I REALLY struggle with and it will take me until September to get back on track in those areas.  Below are some of the topics I am thinking about and taking steps to get these areas ready for school.  If there are topics or questions you might have, please let me know and I will make sure to cover them if I can. 

Back to School Topics:

1)  Morning Routine
2) Calendars – include how I use Yahoo Calendars
3) Tracking Important Papers/ Phone Numbers – binder and school wall
4) Household Cleaning Routines
5) Menu Planning
6) Kid Organization – back pack/
7) Laundry
8) Lunches
9) Bedtime Routine
10) Bill Paying
11) Mail Management

The success of this series will depend on my readers’ participation.  I know other moms must also struggle with the overwhelming tasks of being a mother/household manager.  So please join me and together we will have the best kick off to a new school year ever!!   Your participation and comments are invaluable.  If you find this series helpful to you, please forward the location to your friends that might benefit from this series as well!

Check back on Wednesday, July 29th for the discussion of my first topic – Morning Routine!!

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Vote for my son Josh in the second week of Finals for the Windows Brand Ambassador contest! Thank you!!

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Please vote for my Son, Josh. He is in a contest sponsored by Microsoft and would appreciate your support!

Hello faithful readers....(those actually reading this)

I feel like I have abandoned my blog and am determined today to update my readers and visit others!  It is a lovely day in MN.  I am sitting on the back deck and blogging away in the sun.   Nothing better - plenty of things to do in the house, but I really miss my xanga friends!  

School ended for my youngest son, Tommy the latest this year.  His last day of school was on June 12th.  That was the official start of summer at our house.  Tommy is attending daycare at Busy Bees the daycare center at the college where my hubby works.  The week of June 22nd, Erik was gone on a mission trip to Cortez, Colorado with our church.   He did ok, but unsure if it will work out for him to go next year.  He did get in trouble, but the youth leader did not have us come get him since it was late in the trip. 

That same week, June 22nd - Tommy went to Vacation bible School for the first time.  It never worked with my work schedule to get him there and picked up each day.   This year I dropped him off and hubby picked him up on his lunch break and took him back to Busy Bees.   That seemed to work pretty good. 

In June we accepted the bid to finish our basement.  We are adding a 5th bedroom to our house.  It is more of a suite than a bedroom.  Josh is moving back home in August and this will be his space until he is out on his own again, then hubby and I will take the room.  It is a very large bedroom with a seating area and walk in closet.  We spent most of May and a bit of June emptying out everything we had in our basement.   We started sorting it, but it was taking too much time.  Instead everything was moved into the garage and I will slowly go through it all as I bring the items in the house we want to keep.  But luckily we had the basement empty and the floor sealed by the time the  contractor was ready to start work. 

In the beginning of June, hubby's brother, Pete came to stay with us for a week or so.  He came to visit as we were celebrating their parents 50th wedding anniversary.   We had a nice party at the party room at my inlaws apartment building.   Everyone was able to attend the my inlaws were very happy with the celebration!

Work in June was crazy for me with an emergency placement and just trying to get caught up to go on vacation in July.  So far in July I have only worked 2 days.  I must say this vacation was a very needed break.  Hopefully I will be able to work the rest of the summer and get things ready for budget season. 

Hubby, Josh and BIL worked very hard on getting the egress well completed so our window could be installed.  We had alot of rain and the well collapsed once before the blocks were in place.  OOPS.....they worked very hard and the results were great!!

JULY - brought our family vacation.  We went to South Dakota to attend my cousins wedding and spend a week in the Black Hills.   It was a hard trip for me.  Even though I saw a specialist and received my official diagnosis in May, travel was not much better for me.  Being diagnosed with IBS is the only thing in my life I would ever change.  My family was understanding, but I hate to be a bother to them.  I am blessed with an incredibly kind, supportive and patient hubby.  He let me drive when I needed to eliminate some of my illness and he put up with many bathroom stops.  If there is any silver lining in having IBS and traveling is that I lost 5 pounds in a week.  So once we were in the Black Hills I spent time at the cabin while hubby, BIL and the kids went out exploring the sites.  I was able to read three books and get a review or two written. 

Our evenings were filled with wonderful home cooked meals, hot tub, pool tournaments and visits with family and friends.  The trip home was not all it was cracked up to be!!  I got a speeding ticket in Highmore, South Dakota.   We also stopped in Pierre to visit my brother and his wife.  We were very late getting to my parents house in Aberdeen, SD.   We slept there and headed back to MN the following morning.  All went well until we got near the cities.   A fuel truck had been overturned on I94 and the freeway was closed going both ways.  ARGH!!  We refused to wait in line....so my amazing hubby studied the hudson map book and got us to a different exit onto the freeway by taking different back roads.   The freeway was closed for 9 hours, but it really didn't slow us up too much since we found an open entrance to the freeway in Albertville.   It was very weird to be driving on the freeway we were the only cars on the entire freeway.  

It is good to be home.....I am person of routine and structure, more so as I get older.   Last week Tommy had Sports Camp and hubby was at a conference all day so I stayed home and transported Tommy.  Work was started on Josh's new bedroom while we were gone.  It was great to come home to walls!!!  I went back to work last Thursday, but found I wasn't ready to deal with it all.  So I took Friday off and helped move the library at Tommy's School. 

Hard to believe we are already preparing for school to start!!  Where did the summer go?   Rooms are being prepared at the school for painting and the first MPTP (like PTA) executive board meeting is scheduled for this coming week!!  I took on a few more responsibilities at Tommy's school and church in general.  I am the treasurer for MPTP and a Scrip Coordinator with the school.  Starting in August I will be assisting at the information desk at church a couple of Sundays a month. 

Isn't xanga an interesting place??  Even though I have been away from xanga I must say I found my thoughts and prayers including a wonderful xanga friend, Cheryl.  She is going through treatment for cancer and I am amazed by her strength and love!   What a wonderful godly woman, I am blessed to have met on xannga!!

I will post a separate blog with some pictures from our vacation!  This one is jsut getting too long!!!  If you made it to the end of this post, please pat yourself on the back!!  Thanks for continuing to be a faithful reader.

Blessings,

WHAT WE ARE EATING THIS WEEK.....

Menu Plan For
July 18th - August 1st 

Thanks to Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday. Go and check out more great menus!   Menu planning will help you have more time with your family and enjoy your summer.

Keepers from last weeks Menu include the following: 

Grilled Honey Balsamic Chicken,  (add to website)

Grilled Honey Mustard Pork Chops, (add to website)

Chicken Parmesan Burgers,(add to website)

Teriyaki Chicken Over Rice (Crock Pot 4 to 5 hrs) *Taste of Home Simple & Delicious  July/August 2009 - pg 19 (add to website)

Flops from Last week:  Crockpot Cowboy Stew, 

Saturday - 18th = Grilled Marinated Chicken Breasts - Creamed Brushel Sprouts - Ranch Potato Wedges  (all good add to website)

19th  - Pork Roast, (add to website) Potatoes, Broccolli

20th - Frozen Meal from Church

21st - Pork Chops W/Gravy - Mashed Potatos - Peas

22nd - (wed) Honey Pecan Chicken , Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing, Veggie

23rd - (book Group) - Spaghetti/Meat Balls - Garlic Bread

24th - Camping - ???

25th - Camping - ???

26th - Camping - ???

27th - Frozen Meal from Church

28th - Breakfast - Pancakes, Sausage and Scrambled Eggs

29th - Traditional MeatLoaf - Mashed Pots - Veggie

30th - French Dip Sandwiches - Fries

31st - Black Bean and Beef Burritos (left over French Dip Meat) - Spanish Rice (boxed)

8/1 - Crunchy Oven -Fried Chicken Drumsticks,  Potato Salad, Corn on Cob

Another way to Try Brussel Sprouts - http://www.menus4moms.com/kitchen/weeklymenu/2007/070924.php#b