Schedule Your Priorities

In our country today, we have become very good at being busy. We schedule so many things in our lives that we don't really have time for any of them. Of course, if you've been reading this blog, you know that this is something I have struggled with as well. As I try to organize the house, which is going to take several major projects, and catch up on the farm work, I must be careful not to neglect the things that are most important.

Regardless of whether my projects are complete or not, my family and my friends still need my time and attention. If I do not take the time to develop those relationships now, I will miss my chance. Friendships develop or fade as you share thoughts, feelings and experiences. Kids will continue to grow and will move on, whether I spend the time to be close to them or not. And if I want my marriage to be as strong (hopefully stronger) when they have grown up and moved out, then I must devote time to my husband and our relationship. You hear about couples who were so busy taking care of the house and the kids that, when their kids are gone, they have nothing left to talk to each other about. I do not want that to be what's in store for me and my Mr- that's not what I married him for.

Similarly, if I do not take time to know God more and get my focus on Him, then I may miss his guiding as I go through my day. It is all too easy to become caught up in the daily tasks and trials. If we want our lives to be about more than the mundane of the day to day, we must have a focus and a purpose that is greater than what is in front of us.

One thing I have learned about myself: if I don't purposefully schedule something, it's not likely to happen. The thing that "I'll do it when I get a chance" will stay just that because there will always be just one more thing that needs to get done. That was what led to my post about making time to ride my horses, which is a pretty high priority for me that I have rarely gotten to do in the last ummm three years. I have to schedule time to meet with God and to be with my friends and family. If I don't, it will either be very infrequent or not happen at all. My mom and I took action on this several months ago when we realized we only saw each other when they were babysitting. Now we have a standing weekly lunch date. We still occasionally miss one, but we see each other a lot more than we did before it was on our calendars. Now I just need to find time to do that with my hubby (sans kids) and friends (we may Have to bring the kids!).

With that in mind, this week I have "scheduled" time to read my Bible (I also like to listen to some of the programs on the radio) and I took some time while my kids were out of school (they got Three days for MLK!) to just be with them and play with them and love on them. And, since part of my greater purpose is trying to raise my kids to be people of character, we have also been introducing (or continuing) some lessons to help them become self-sufficient adults who are compassionate and generous with others. Some of these for J involve simple work and giving him responsibility for a share of the household tasks. I have told him that, in a family, we all help each other. We work best as a team. Of course, B isn't old enough for all of that yet, but we are even teaching her. She is old enough to hang up her own jacket (we have low hooks she can reach) and pick up her toys and put them in the bin. Now we just have to figure out sharing...

Take some time today to spend with the ones you love!

The Great Bread Experiment: Whole Wheat Bread #1

We are continuing our experiment with making our own bread at home. Next up: whole wheat bread. I got the recipe for this one from my Better Homes and Gardens cook book. I think it just may be our sandwich bread but then, there are so many others to try first.

Find the recipe and read my full post about my first homemade Whole Wheat bread on Time to be Mom in the Kitchen.

Ready to Ride!

What is most important to you?  What are you willing to die for? What are the things that you ache without? The people you long for when they are not there? Do you live your life in a way that shows these people or things are important to you?

If you say God is the most important thing to you, you should be spending time in His Word, learning about him and how he wants you to live. I'll give you a hint: it's all about loving people, especially those we don't think deserve it, because they are the ones who need it the most.

If you say your family is the most important thing to you, you should be spending time with them interacting with them. Being in the same room but concentrating on something else doesn't count. Spending your life at the office to provide a big house that you're not at with them doesn't count. And men, hear me on this: your wife does NOT need a big house. She needs a relationship with her husband! Your kids do NOT need more toys. They need a father! (I realize that women do this too but men tend to be more goal/work oriented)

I am assuming that most people put these and maybe friends first on the list of things that are important to them if asked. They even say they would die for them; but are they Living for them? Fighting for them? People don't say career or success is the most important thing to them. They just live like it.

Now, assuming that you are spending the time to show God and your family where they rank in your life, what's next on your list? For me it is riding horses. It has been my source of joy (aside from God and family) for 30 years now. When I haven't ridden in awhile, it's almost physically painful to watch someone else ride or even to go feed my horses, knowing I will not ride them that day either. I ache inside for it, almost like I do for Mike when he's out of town.

The funny thing is that's supposed to be my job but I enjoy it so much it seems like just fun. When I get a chance to ride, I start thinking of all of the things in the house and around the farm that need to be done and I feel guilty. I feel guilty that I'm not keeping up with all of the other stuff because I want to go have fun. Never mind that I have two horses that I need to finish training so that I can sell them because that's supposed to be my job. More often than not I give in to the guilt and go do something that feels more like work. And the horses get left out in the pasture.

Now I'm sure they don't mind hanging out with their buddies, playing and eating hay, but if I don't work with them, the young ones will never be trained and the older ones will start getting out of practice (and patience with my students). They will not be useful to anybody. And if I am not using them, why should I have them?

So, along with my commitment to take more time just to be "mom" and play with my kids (which has helped J alot), I am also making a commitment to take the time to really do my job as a horse owner and trainer and Ride these magnificent animals I have the priviledge of owning.

To make the time to do this, I am going to have to become better organized and a better manager of the time I have. One of the things I have done this year is to step down as the leader for some of J's activities. I will still be there of course, but now I can use that time for planning. I believe this will also help J because now I can just cheer for him and be a helper in the background instead of being the one who is telling him what to do all of the time but that's a side note.

The other thing I really need to be better about is planning. I have done a pretty good job of keeping track of our schedules but would often lose little things like what to make for dinner. If I plan out enough of those little things, I think I will be amazed at the time that saves. Plus, if I plan out my schedule, I can schedule in riding rather than wondering if I have time to between other tasks. If I know there is time for it, I think I will feel less guilty. I'll feel even better if I know I am taking care of all of those other things that need to be done, even if they aren't going to be done today.

So, tomorrow I am going to wake up, spend some time with my God (He Is first, after all), cuddle with my kids and kiss my husband before we leave for work & school and then get to work. It's going to be rainy, so the riding won't start then, but I can work on some of those guilt inducing projects so that when the sun comes back out, I will be ready to Ride!

Update: I have to brag on My Mr. for a minute. When he came out of his office last night, I was writing this post and he could tell I was emotional. He came and sat with me and read it. His next concern was my note to husbands at the beginning. He wanted to make sure that we didn't feel like he was putting work before us. To be fair, that is something we have struggled with in the past because he does work a lot. However, he has since made a noticeable and concentrated effort to be available and involved, which has done wonders for our whole family. When he finished the post, his response was "Don't worry about me and the house. Go ride. It's what you love to do. I knew that when I married you." This from the man who bought me my first horse (after 18 years of riding). Could he be any more supportive? I am so blessed to have him as the person I get to spend my life with!

My Home Management Binder

Despite Mike's valiant efforts to help me embrace all that this digital age has to offer, I'm just a paper girl at heart. I guess it's just how my brain works. I do take advantage of technology. I read books on my kindle, although I still have a hard time finding the page I want if I need to go back and look at something I've already passed, and I use the calendar feature on my phone, mainly for the reminder alarms; I never could get into the habit of checking it every day to see what's on the agenda. So, even though I can Use the technology, that is not what comes naturally to me.

Something I've learned about myself: if it's too fancy, it's too hard to maintain and I'll stop using it. This is true of organization, discipline, communication, technology and just about everything else. So I'm going back to something I know I'll use: a planner that I can write in and erase and highlight!

This year, since I'm in a big push to purge, consolidate and organize, I thought I would try making a "Home Management Binder" like some of the ones I've seen on Pinterest. There are some great products on the market, but none of the ones I saw in the stores had the layout or categories I wanted. Erin Condren even offers attractive personalized planners on her website but I couldn't rationalize spending $50. If you are on Pinterest, there are LOTS of links to sites with free printables. Some even have tutorials on how they put their binders together!

With so many options available for free, it hardly made sense to spend $30-$50 on something I could create to be exactly what I want. I looked around a bit and decided that I liked the printables available on Organizing Homelife the best. Ginny not only had dated monthly and blank daily pages, but MANY extras like menu planning, chore lists and maintenance record pages and title pages for the various sections. Even so, I still added a few pages of my own, which I will type up to look nicer eventually.

She also had some good ideas to make the binder work a little more efficiently. Here are a few that I used:

Problem1:
Wasted paper & ink and possibly a Really big binder if you have daily schedule pages and weekly menu planning pages, etc.
Solution:
Print out enough pages for one week and put them in page protectors. *Use WET erase markers, rather than dry erase, to prevent items from accidentally being erased or smudged.
Note:
It may be the type of page protectors I used but the markers didn't want to write well on the pages at first. They worked better after I had wiped down the pages. My mom suggested using waxy artist pencils as an alternative.

Problem 2:
If you use page protectors, the dividers don't stick out far enough and get lost in between the pages.
Solution:
Cut a sliver off the edge of a page protector and put the divider inside with the tab sticking out! Why didn't we think of this before?
The pictures are of the first one I did, so it wasn't too pretty. I made the others a little neater. The sheet protector is a little hard to see, you know, being clear and all, but you get the idea.

Line up your first divider with how it would be once inside the sheet protector.

Snip the edge on each side of the tab, then cut out a narrow strip in between them.

Then all you have to do is slide it in! I didn't label the tabs themselves. I put the title pages in the same sheet protectors as the dividers, so I felt it was unnecessary.
My final divider fix:

Problem 3:
What do you do with all of the little schedules, calendars and invitations you get from various sources?
Solution:
A non-tabbed divider with pockets at the end of each section. I used clear ones so they wouldn't distract too much from my section dividers.

Here is how I organized my binder:

First is a pencil pouch for pens, wet erase markers, etc. I discovered that "Window Markers" from Crayola work just as well as the Vis a Vis wet erase markers and you can get a box of 8 for about $4 at Walmart. The only drawback is that the package does not include black. I also included a small notebook in case I need to write a quick note to J's teacher.

Section1: Schedules & To-do List

In this section, I have a daily chore list and enough blank daily schedules for the week, both of which I downloaded from Organizing Homelife. Here is a sample of what mine usually look like.

Section 2: Menu Planning

The first page in this section is the weekly menu planner from Organizing Homelife, which has three spaces for each day. She also has sheets for "Recipes to Try" and "Freezer Inventory". I wondered why there wasn't a planning/shopping sheet to list the ingredients for the recipes you are planning to cook, so I just added a sheet of notebook paper for that. I also made a Pantry Inventory sheet and a sheet of ingredients that need to be used soon for the freezer and the pantry. For now, I just used notebook paper. I'll make a prettier version later. I keep the school's menu for the month and a grocery list in the pocket at the back of this section to help with menu planning.

Section 3: Calendar

Obviously, this is where the calendar is. ;)  At the front, I put the birthdays and anniversaries sheet from Organizing Homelife. Then the 2 page per month calendar. In my calendar, I color code appointments and events by family member, church (since I'm on several teams) and horses (since that's my "job" and needs to be well documented). At the end, I put my school contact info, health & insurance info and babysitter info. And I keep invitations, sports schedules, and any other calendars in the pocket of this section.

                                  As you can see, I'm just getting started on filling it all out!

Section 4: Maintenance

For this section, I just used the printables at Organizing Homelife. I used the one that shows all of the home maintenance things that should be done, broken down into quarterly assignments. She also has a sheet for auto maintenance, but Mike keeps track of that stuff on his computer, so I'll leave that to him. I'm going to include home projects in this section, but have not made up sheets for them yet.

Section 5: Goals and Projects

I don't have any official pages in this section, just notebook paper so I can scribble ideas and plans.

The best thing about making your own binder is that you can tailor it to your own needs. I used the Avery brand since it was inexpensive and offers Boxtop points for the school. There were a lot of printables that either didn't have what I needed or had things I did not need. I also made some of my own sheets. It doesn't take very long to make your own excel sheet if you cannot find what you want. I made my own School Contact Info sheet and will be making some for my Menu Planning section. 

I also used a separate binder for recipes. I used one that was already made for recipes that I got cheap at Ollie's. I have tons of cookbooks and sometimes have trouble finding a recipe I know that I like. In the spirit of organizing, consolidating and purging, I am only putting recipes that we have tried and liked in this binder. As we go through our cookbooks and magazine recipes, etc. the "approved" recipes will be recorded and then the actual book/magazine can be donated or given to a friend.

One last thing. I do not intend to carry my big binder everywhere. I will keep it at home as a reference. I have a 5x7 inexpensive planner that I carry in my purse so I can write down appointments, etc. and then I can transfer them to the big binder when I get home.

So there you have it. That's my Home Management binder. Feel free to use or ignore any of the ideas you want. Just do what works for your family/life/schedule.

The Sun IS Still Shining

The last couple of days here have been grey and dreary. Yesterday morning, it was so dark that J thought he had woken up too early and went back to bed! This morning, as we drove to school, J noticed that we couldn't see where the sun was.

Now, he's a smart boy. Of course he knows the sun is still there but this gave us an opportunity to talk about God and life. We talked about how, even though we can't see the sun, it is shining just as bright today as it is on sunny days. The clouds are just in the way. And eventually the clouds will move on and we will be able to see the sun again.

Similarly, there will be clouds that come in our life; times that are dreary or difficult when we can't feel God there. That doesn't mean he isn't there. He is just as powerful and loves us just as much on days that are hard as on days that are fun and easy. And if we concentrate on the knowledge that he IS there and that he DOES love us, then we can get through those hard times until the clouds pass and the sun comes out again.

So, if you are having a cloudy, dreary, rainy season in your life, just remember:
God is still there.
God is still powerful.
God still loves you.
The clouds will pass.

The Neighbor's Chorus

This morning my dogs decided that they reeeeeeally needed to go potty at 4:00 in the morning. Or chase a rabbit, I don't know. Either way I was still laying there, wide awake, at 5:00 so I decided to get up and be productive. I didn't want to wake everybody else up, so I headed to the barn. Sometimes it's nice to have somewhere to go where I don't have to worry about everyone else.

As I was cleaning stalls, a song popped into my head as often happens, having been a one-time music person. This particular song was one that we did in the Charlotte Chorale. It's a song by Jaques Offenbach called "The Neighbor's Chorus". It's a very interesting piece and a lot of fun to sing. It's very fast, upbeat and expressive, just a lot of fun. What makes it interesting is the subject that the singers are so chipper about.

Apparently the singers are a group of neighbors and they have spied someone who looks depressed. They sing "we don't mean to bother...why do you look so low?" and then go on to cheerfully speculate what has caused the blues. They assume it's a "lost lady love" and begin with "did she treat you badly? Did she break a date?" and quickly move onto what He could have done to her. The music gets more glorious as the accusations become more serious and there's a final glowing "aaaahhhhh" after they have accused him of beating her!

How in the World is this fun!?! Why was the music written this way?
Offenbach picked up on something that the tabloids know all too well. We (people) Love the pain and failure of others. It makes us feel better about our own troubles and failures, mostly the failures.

This instinct, this Need to compare ourselves is innate in all of us. Why? Why would God have made that in us? I don't think His desire was for us to go around pointing out the faults of others so we can validate ourselves. In fact, Jesus tells us the exact opposite: In Matthew 7:3-5 He tells us to deal with the plank in our own eye (life) before we start pointing out anyone else's speck. Notice that ours is a plank and theirs is a speck.

I think that we have this desire to compare is because we are supposed to compare ourselves to God and to His standard of perfection. If we do that, several things happen:
1. We will see just how undeserving we are of heaven and of his love.
2. We will begin to understand just how big of a thing it is that He has given us his love, despite how unworthy we are (and appreciate it more).
3. When we realize #1 and #2, we should be more willing to show love and grace to people that we feel are undeserving of our love.
If we are honest with ourselves about how many faults and sins he is looking past to love us, shouldn't we be willing to overlook the faults of others and share that love with them?

It doesn't matter what the faults or sins or opinions are. You don't have to agree with them to love them. God certainly has not been happy about everything I've done and said and thought in my life. But He has chosen to love me anyway and Because He First Loved Me, I Will Love Others.

Now, for your entertainment, The Neighbor's Chorus

The Great Bread Experiment: White Bread #1

We have officially begun The Great Bread Experiment! We are keeping it simple to start with and chose a white bread to be the first challenge.

Read the full post, including the recipe, about my first loaf of white bread made from scratch bread on Time to be Mom in the Kitchen!

If anyone has a really good bread recipe (sans tree nuts) that you think we should try, please let me know!