Monday is here...again

I saw a friends profile this morning and for her mood she put "case of the mondays". Hmmm What exactly does that mean? Well, after a nice weekend people are not always ready to go back to work. They are unmotivated, undetermined, and just plain BLAH! BUT as housewives we can not let ourselves get a "case of the mondays." We know what Monday entails we greet it every week. To keep yourself from feeling overwhelmed at the beginning of the week ease yourself into the housework. Dont try to get everything accomplished in one day. Just tackle the worst area today. Which is usually the kitchen or living room. Surprisingly enough we do not have a bad area this week, people picked up after themselves quite well this weekend. WaHOOOOO!
Dont forget to keep on top of your 6 month goals. Look over them every morning. Dont beat yourself up if you do not accomplish every goal in everyday. They are 6 month goals for a reason. It will take a while to establish them as habits.
So lets get washed, dressed, and primped and get to our chores, kids, and work(if you work at home). Have a great progressive day!

Want to freshen up your home?

My friend KC has some wonderful tips posted on her blog that are natural! Go check it out!
The Casey Castle

Wow am I embarrassed!

So I lost control of my emotions today. I wanted to share this to let you all know that no one is ever perfect. Especially with two young children at home!
I woke up at 7:50am YAY. But much to my surprise hubby had texted me to tell me that he had locked his keys in the car while at a training class for a job! I should have stopped and prayed and trusted God. I have to admit that was not how I actually handled the situation. Instead, I lashed out! Yelling at the phone, browsing the internet for any quick fix, and texting everyone I knew hoping they had a solution. I asked everyone but God for help. If I just would have went to him first my day and my family's day would have went much smoother. Everything started to snowball after this, Raymond was fussy cause mommy was, Daven was short tempered cause mommy was, no housework or schoolwork got done. On top of all of this I was unable to make a doctor's appointment. *That is another story all in itself!* Although I let myself lose control and didnt seek God for help first. I did end up having a good evening once I let myself calm down. Thankfully tomorrow is a new day and God is a merciful God and will forgive me for my mistakes and short temper. I will do better tomorrow, I will keep my temper, I will complete my necessary responsibilities, and I WILL NOT take any anger out on my family.

Dressed, Washed, Primped, and Ready for the Day!

Got up successfully at 7:50am! Woohoo! Fed Raymond, read daily bible reading on www.catholic.org , checked groups and to do list, fed raymond breakfast baby food, got a cup of coffee, washed up, put on perfume and lotion, got dressed, and now getting ready to start breakfast for daven as he just woke up! I will post pictures and an update this afternoon after everything is done. My normal goal is to get all my housework done before hubby gets home. Which gives me about 5 hours. Ready, set, GO!

Tomorrow is a BRAND NEW DAY!

Had a good relaxing Sunday today. Woke up and went to mass together. Came home and ate lunch together, started laundry, and headed off for naps. Then we ate assorted dinners, lol grocery day tomorrow. Laundry is almost done and its almost bedtime. I want to get to sleep by 11pm and then up at the latest 8am. I would love to eventually be getting up between 6 and 7am but its best to start with baby steps. Remember tomorrow will start the new goals. If you would like to join me in this please comment with your 6 month goals and we will start together tomorrow. But tonight enjoy relaxing and enjoy your family. Tomorrow is a new day!

My Goals for the next 6 months

So I am up late and reading on cafemom. I know I should be sleeping but here I am. After looking at my Christian Homakers Group I am face to face with who I really am. I am not the wife I long to be and pretty far from it. I know I dont need to be perfect, just better. So I am going to list goals to accomplish and be Routine 6 months from now! On October 19th, 2009 I will post about how I accomplished my goals and then post NEW goals for the next 6 months. Feel free to join me and make your own list of goals. Do not let your list exceed 12 goals. This will give you 2 goals a month to reach.

• Read Daily Bible Reading EVERY morning.
• Pray the Rosary EVERY day.
• Wake up by 8am at the latest and go to bed by 11pm.
• Read the Bible to Daven EVERY day.
  
• Work on my appearance, be dressed, washed, and primped every day!
• Have a gentle peaceful attitude to my husband, children, friends and family.
• Lose 5lbs by doing the Wii Fit for 15 minutes every day.
• Make my husbands lunch every night before bed.

There ya go! There is my list of goals. They are going to be difficult and rough for sure. But by Gods grace I will accomplish them. I was thinking about picking 2 that I would accomplish each month. But I would like to work on working towards all of them everyday. They all are things that NEED to change!
Philippians 4:13---I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!

Making Your Home a Haven: Evening Routine

Tammy's Kitchen | Homemaking

(photo by A Source of Joy!)

Thanks for joining me for this week's Making Your Home a Haven challenge! :)

Last week I encouraged everyone (including myself!) to choose love and joy during those moments when we're tempted to be grumpy and unpleasant. This is truly a challenge that never goes away. I know I'm still in need of a lot more practice!

My week didn't go how I had planned and I'm humbled to report that today I realise even moreso how far I have yet to go in this area. Thank you for your encouraging blog posts and comments -- you are truly a blessing to me!

Okay, so, we've written down our morning routines. Have you revised yours yet? I have! There's certainly nothing wrong with making changes and adaptations as we figure out what works best in each of life's many seasons! :)

I've found that my initial morning routine was too huge for me to tackle with success every day, so I pared it down to the 5 things that will help boost my morning and inspire me to keep going, rather than bogging me down and taking the entire morning to complete.

My revised Morning Routine:

1. Make tea/take vitamins
2. Bible time with children
3. Make (put away) bed
4. Put away clean dishes
5. Breakfast (hot cereal)

This simpler morning routine is helping to energize me in the mornings. Instead of doing a larger project (like school time) and not getting our bed made until mid-afternoon, I'm getting the easier pick-me-up stuff out of the way first.

How are you doing with your bed time? I am making it about 50% of the time. I am working on successfully streamlining a few more things in order to have more time for sleep. I'm hoping to have a good progress report in this area by next week! :)

This week's challenge is to implement an Evening Routine!

Your evening routine can consist of five (or fewer) things that you can do each evening to help give you (and your home!) a better start the following day. Sometimes the extra 5 minutes spent planning ahead for the next day is all it takes to make your home more of a haven. :)

My Evening Routine

1. Plan tomorrow's meals
2. Write a reasonable to-do list for tomorrow
3. Clean up kitchen
4. Bible time with Joshua
5. Shower

Taken from

Making Your Home a Haven

Making Your Home a Haven: Choosing Love

Tammy's Kitchen | Homemaking

(photo by A Source of Joy!)

Last Monday I challenged you to set a bedtime and follow it. How did you do? I did better this past week but I wasn't as disciplined as I had planned to be. I'm thankful for a new week and a new chance to keep working in the area of getting to bed on time! :)

It can be difficult to find that happy balance in life sometimes. You know? My life rarely seems as though it's perfectly balanced, perfectly managed, or perfectly ordered!

When I go to bed on time, I accomplish "less". I can get grumpy if I start thinking about all the things I wanted to get done, bemoaning the fact that I "wasted" those hours asleep!

And on the reverse, when I stayed up way past my bedtime in order to check more things off my lists, I felt grumpy the next morning because I'd only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before!

There's really only one cure for this (besides hiring a nanny, secretary, housekeeper, and lots of other things I can't afford!).

I discovered this little trick about 5 years ago when my first baby was born. (Suddenly, sleep just wasn't the same any more!)

If you want to be cheerful, you must choose to be cheerful (even when you don't feel like it). If you want to have patience, you have to practice waiting quietly and calmly (even when you don't feel like it). If you want to be kind, choose kindness (even when you don't feel like it).

The good news is that this attitude adjustment is infectious! And it will make your days pass so much more pleasantly -- for you and your family.

So today, along with continuing to follow your set bedtime and morning routine, I want to encourage you to try your best to be loving towards your family... even (or especially!) when you want to feel grumpy.

Found Here

Simple Woman's Daybook

Simple Woman's Daybook
Outside my window... Are the pretty mountains and beautiful sky

I am thinking...God will provide.

I am thankful for... My hardworking and determined husband. My wonderful boys. My Family. And most of all my Heavenly Father.

From the kitchen... Chicken Tacos was for dinner tonight :D

I am wearing...pajamas :D its sleepy time already

I am reading...articles on biblical womanhood

I am hoping... that I can get myself out of this rut.

I am creating... my blog.

I am hearing... the tv and my baby sleeping

Around the house... all is quiet as everyone is tucked into bed

One of my favorite things...is waking up to my darling family and zebra cakes :D

A few plans for the rest of the week... get caught up with cleaning, get my to do list completed everyday and trust in the Lord whole heartedly.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing with you...

My Bedtime!

Ok I am actually pretty good at this part lately. Since having my second son I lay down with him and hubby at 8pm and they both fall asleep around there. Then I get my alone time on my laptop. I also watch a few tv shows. I then go to sleep @ 11pm. So this is already my normal bedtime and I dont feel that I need an earlier time as the boys get up soemtime between 730-9am so this is plenty of sleep for me. I should be getting up before the boys BUT it is impossible to get up without waking them up so I just stay in bed til they wake up.

Making Your Home a Haven

Making Your Home a Haven: Bedtime

Tammy's Kitchen | Homemaking

Thank you all so much for joining in last week and sharing about your morning routines! :) This week's challenge is something I've needed to work on for quite some time...

Do you ever have trouble getting to bed on time? Surely I can't be the only one who frequently lacks discipline in this area.

Staying up too late (and usually for non-important reasons!) has a great impact on how well I function the next day... how patient I am... and whether or not I can read stories to my children without conking out!

I personally feel that going to bed on time is one of the most important aspects of making our homes a haven. It's also one that I frequently do not choose to do. I want to change that!

There are certainly times when it is a good thing to stay up "past our bedtime". But when we are regularly indulging the flesh while ignoring good sense, it can become a sinful trap that Satan uses to keep us from giving our very best to our family and home.

It's difficult to get everything done, isn't it? I know I've sure tried, and it just never works. Our bodies were made with a need to stop and rest. If we're like the majority of people, our bodies need 7+ hours of sleep each night. I could go off on a rant about all the health benefits of getting proper sleep, but you probably know it already. Sleep is good for us!

In order for me to get to bed on time, I have to cut out distractions. The computer is my biggest downfall in this area. Other distractions for me are books and cleaning.

If you, like me, desire to go to bed on time and get a reasonable amount of sleep, then we have to prepare, plan, and yes -- exercise some self-discipline and self-denial regarding what we'd rather do, knowing that we are making wise choices for our bodies and our families!

So my challenge to you today is to come up with a good bedtime for yourself. Your family, schedule, individual sleep needs, and spouse's preference will influence what time is best for you to be in bed, but decide on something and resolve to be in bed by that time every night this week!

You may have to work harder today, to be sure you'll meet that goal. Or maybe you'll be going to bed tonight with a few dirty dishes out and a computer that has stayed off for the evening. It's okay.

My bedtime needs to be 9:00pm. I'm gonna stick to it! Boy, won't Joshua be excited when he reads this post! If I stick to a bedtime it'll be about 10 times easier for him to follow it too. (And we both get up at 5!)

Click Here for the Website

Making Your Home a Haven

Making Your Home a Haven: Morning Routine

Photo from a source of joy

Welcome to this week's Making Your Home a Haven challenge! (If you missed my intro, you can read it here.)

We're going to stick to the basics this week. For years, Crystal has plugged the idea of having a Morning Routine.

A simple Morning Routine is a list of 5, and only 5, things that you plan to do each morning. Getting a good start for the day can set a beautiful tone for the rest of the day's challenges!

I've done Morning Routines in the past, and even stuck with them for quite some time because having a little daily list, a little structured routine, worked wonders for me -- even while juggling babies and toddlers and everything else.

However, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that in recent months I haven't been using my mornings very wisely, and I certainly haven't been following any Morning Routines.

Far too often I am finding myself unmotivated, staring at a pile of leftover dishes, toys, dirty laundry, or messy floors and then crawling off to the living room to goof off with the children. (Yes, some goofing off is good. But things like not planning dinner and not clearing the dishes is not good!)

That said, I am motivated to re-institute a 5-Things Morning Routine for where our family is right now!

Here is my Morning Routine:

1. Put away clean dishes.
2. Bible time with the children.
3. Make tea and take vitamins.
4. School time.
5. Take children outside.

Join me in making a list of 5 things you want to call your Morning Routine! Your 5 things will likely be very different from mine! Do what works for you. Keep it simple and manageable: something you can reasonably do on a daily basis.

Click here for Website

Quick House Clean for Company

Tips to zoom through your home and clean up quickly when company is on the way.

Company is on the way and your house is mess. But there is hope for a clean home in record time. If you have about 15 minutes and can work fast follow the steps below to get your home clean and organized, at least as far as your guest is concerned, right in time.

Your Tools:

Timer

Large Trash Bag

Large Basket

Surface Wipes

Damp Rag

First of all if you have a few odors open all windows and maybe a back door with a screen. Spray something fresh. Or better yet throw some frozen cookie dough in the oven. Or simmer some vanilla diluted in water on the stove. The open window will work the best and quickest to rid your home of odors.

Next you?ll be dragging your trash bag from room to room. Start where your front door is. Most likely the living room. Just in case your company arrives before you finish you want to at least have the room they see first the cleanest.

1. Set your timer for 5 minutes. You have 5 minutes to get the front room and any peripheral rooms, such as dining room or family room, together.

2. Trash: Dragging your trash bag around with you (you don?t want to leave it one place and keep coming back to it as that is wasted energy and time) start dumping any garbage lying around into the bag.

3. As you?re trashing straighten items you come to. Fluff pillows, straighten magazines. Just pile don?t look for places to put them. Clear off dining table. Push in chairs. Don?t organize. If the dining table is foody (my sister?s word) wipe it with the damp rag. You only have 5 minutes for this area.

4. Clutter: Get your big basket. This should also be drug around with you. Dump those mischievous items that don't belong in it as you clean. If it?s a nice basket you can stuff it in a corner. You'll find their correct homes later.

5. Bedrooms: Make all beds. I say this because I can't believe how nosey people are and they always find a way to look into your private bedrooms. I don't like this but it happens so take care of the situation before it arises. If you have a very short amount of time just cover with the comforter. This takes seconds.

Your timer should go off somewhere here. Reset it for 5 minutes again and then move on to the...

6. Bathroom: Go to the guest bathroom and (hopefully you have some emergency wipes that you keep in there on hand) use your wipes. Really try your hardest to make it to this room. Cleaning the living room and the bathroom are the most important. Wipe down the mirror and the chrome with the window cleaner wipes. Wipe the counter tops with a general purpose wipe. Swish your toilet and use a flushable wipe to clean the seats of it. Use a wipe to spot check any (noticeable) spots on the floor. Take all used towels and dump them in the laundry area. Hang a nice clean hand towel (this is of course after you?ve washed your hands from toilet duty) and spray some nice scented something. Put out a new piece of soap. Take the old one to your personal bathroom.

If your next 5 minutes aren?t up (they shouldn?t be) just take your timer to the next area. The...

5. Kitchen: Get all the dirty dishes out of the sink and off the counters. Wash them if you have time or put them all in the dish washer. Wipe down counters. Put any food sitting out away. Sweep the floor. Again the trash should be emptied here and spray in the can with air freshener if needed.

If you still have time vacuum the living room and dining room if you have carpet. Or sweep these floors.

Whew! Now go comb your hair and spritz on some perfume! Look relaxed. You will daze and amaze your friends. They will wonder how you always have such a clean and organized home! ; )

Honestly you would be surprised at what you can accomplish in 5 minutes. From a messy breakfast I can clean the kitchen in 5 minutes. In 15 minutes I can put my home back together after hosting my extended family. Test this method out before using it real time and adjust it to meet your own household?s needs.

Homemaking Organized

Determined!

I have been a stay at home mom for a little over 2 years but I didnt accept my role as a homemaker/housewife til about a year ago while I was pregnant with my son Raymond. Still I have not figured it all out yet. I'm still trying out cleaning routines and daily routines lol. All while taking care of a 5 month old and homeschooling my son, Daven(4yrs old). For those of you out there who are still learning to get organized or are just starting out you are not alone. :)