On keeping house.... some tips.

Been getting ready for the new year by getting organized again--- I got a little bit too social this last season and forgot my personal goals and my goals for the family, and I'm now making up for it by re-doing my housekeeping the way I want it and with some extra work in the cleaning department that I had neglected. We will probably be moving in February because our lease will be up, so we are looking to simplify, simplify yet again. (yay!)

Part of that is making my 2009 (is that really possible???) control journal and this year I'm doing it differently. I realized I am not prone to "fill in" stuff so I'm making my own-- and of course I'd be happy to post pics when it is finished. Those of you who aren't familiar with Control Journals-- they are something we Monica-on-Friendsesque housewives make to help us stay organized. Usually, mine are a binder or small leather organizer with schedules, notes, and important stuff to keep on hand-- cleaning schedules, daily schedules, family projects, etc.

For lots of amazing moms' great control journal ideas, just google it or follow this link:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=com.google%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=650&q=Control+Journal&btnG=Search

One of my favorites is fly lady (those of you who don't know her, will love her!)

I know I've posted mine in the past and I'll continue to do so as it expands and gets better every year. This year, I'm doing it in a classic 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 size organizer so that I can carry it around, partly because I've already got this giant binder for Carmelites that I have to tote around enough too.

Soooo. This also means that Peter and I have revisited the Family Mission Statements to see if any revisions need to be made and I've also added house rules (partly because of my newfound obsession with the Duggar Family (who now have their own TV show! yay!) which have been really fun to make. Over Christmas I'm going to type them both up and put them up in the house somewhere. I borrowed two from the Duggars (hello, they obviously make it work with 18 children!) and a few from the bible, but brainstormed the rest for a looooong time.

So, without further ado, I present the Family Mission Statement (revised)

Our Mission is to advance the Kingdom of God by being the change we want to see in the world. We plan to accomplish this by:

-demonstrating godly love for each other and our neighbors.
-modeling a loving, joyful, and biblically-ordered family life.
-living by faith, and thus growing in character and wisdom.

The Family House Rules:

1. J.O.Y. (Jesus first, others second, yourself last.)
2. Treat everyone in the house with love and respect. No whining-- use your words to be understood, and remember to lead by example.
3. No raising our voices. We always mean what we say.
4. Work first, play later: when in doubt, do it now!
5. Use ONE toy or activity at a time, put it away when you are done, and share when you are able.
6. Never let the sun go down on your anger.
7. Healthy bodies, healthy minds, healthy choices.
8. Before we think "entertainment," we should think "improvement."
9. Respect family events and the family schedule (like dinner, nap, schooltime, devotional time, and family silent time, etc)
10. Practice moderation and find joy in simplicity.

May the Lord bless us and keep us and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.

Aside from these two things, I'm creating new cleaning schedules, new homeschool schedules, revising our family devotional times, and making new four-week menus for the new year.

A few of you have asked me to type out some hints for keeping a grocery budget low. I know a lot of you do coupons and that in itself will probably save you a ton of money. I don't have the time-- I know I could make it, but I don't because I budget without the coupons and do fine. if they could find a way to make coupons electronic, I might do it, but since I already have enough of a problem maintaining control over myself in the "small scraps of paper" department-- coupons are a nightmare.
Instead, I make simple meals, and I use a lot of forethought to help us use everything we buy, which means we save a lot of money AND resources in our environment.

In our house, we eat on a four week meal plan. In advance, I made four weeks worth of menus right down to snacktime and grocery lists to go with them. I pay special attention to how I can overlap them, which means I might do two sets a year-- one for cold months and one for hot months. I do things like looking for where if I bought a bag of potatoes and used six, I could use another three the following week, etc. Once I've done that, it's simple-- I buy generic over brand name in nearly EVERYTHING (there are a couple of exceptions, but they really depend on taste) and I prefer to choose frozen over fresh because of the price difference. The last key is to go without the husband--- they are really good at seeing something "tempting": and just sticking it in the cart.
In the end, I find that I can make a grocery budget go from about 150 a week for four people to between 60-80 a week.
It's pretty awesome!
Additionally, I recommend making things in bulk and freezing them so as to have less work to do, but BUYING things that are not pre-made, since this can get very expensive. I am all for convenience, but it's always MORE convenient to have money in your wallet.
All it really takes is sitting down for an hour or so to determine what your menus would look like, and thinking about them for a week or two before just settling on them, because you may find they need tweaking in the practice of using them (just like a schedule!)

Once you've found one that works, stick to it. That's what it really comes down to: discipline. In my life, I have found that God sometimes requires me to be flexible. and that has been hard, because I'm a girl who loves a schedule. Nevertheless...flexibility doesn't have to mean chaos-- and for those of us with little ones, we know that a schedule makes all the difference in our sanity.

Speaking of children, the time has come to blog a bit about children and discipline. I recently took the "binky" (pacifier) away from my oldest during the day, which sounds like it wouldn't be a big deal but it really is her only "comfort" item--- she just totally loves them, and they are also her coping mechanism. When she has a meltdown, she knows she is not allowed to "throw a fit" so binky is what stops it--- and now that we don't have binky-- she doesn't know what to do with herself. We've been working on taking some breaths, doing a down dog or a cobra... and that seems to work pretty well. Nevertheless, the experience has reminded me that it's my job to help her learn to get control over herself, and thus I've felt extremely convicted lately about not taking this responsibility seriously and allowing her to just kind of go through life doing what she wants to do.
It doesn't help her in the long run, it hurts her. And I know this, I'm always telling others that, but I had forgotten it for myself.

The binky experience was a good reminder that I need to stay on top of correcting my kids and not just soothing them.... it took me a while to remember the point of my parenting is to help them learn what then need to succeed in God's Kingdom, not this one. :P

My family in France sent me this huge box of stuff, including some pictures and drawings me and my brother had made as children. It was a totally bizarre experience going through these books he and I had written at 7 and 8 years of age-- his were all about being a paratrooper, and now he's in the 82nd, 15 years later, and mine were all about a journalist who investigates haunted houses--- sound like anyone you know??? It's wierd to think that even then, who we "are" was being written on our hearts. So I want to guide my children.... help them to discover how to be their best now, when it is all being decided.