Overview of OYOL

After posting this week's assignment, it appears that several of you already have the daily basics down or already have a system set up. And that's perfectly fine. But it dawned on me that you all would probably benefit from a quick overview of where OYOL will take its participants. I don't have the entire thing planned out yet... if I did, I'd be perfectly organized and wouldn't need all this. Ha. Ha.

The first "chapter" is about lining up the basics of home life. It brings us through the bare minimum and pinning down a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly routine of maintenance. We'll sort through all our aspirations and figure out which ones to "cut, combine, or delegate".

After that, we go through more specifics... conquering the overrun areas of our home so that a maintenance routine will work... accomplishing home decor/fixes that we put off... how to organize rooms and closets... how to organized kid stuff... how to fit in ext. family/social "obligations"... how to be a better steward of our online time... managing online business/blogging... ways to simply and quickly make out a weekly menu and shopping list... we'll share ideas on how to organize the whole bills/finances thing... and anything else we may run into along the way.

Anyway, don't know if that helps anyone or not, but I figured you all couldn't see into my brain, and you might be wondering where this is all heading.

I am, of course, open to any ideas. I'm not an expert, at all. That's why I'm going through this.
A note on the worksheets... use them if they are helpful, but feel free to come up with your own "papers" or other system or use others online. I will probably be linking to some of the cool organizational resources I have found. I enjoy making everything coordinate, and if this program goes well and I come out an expert at the end of the year (HA!), I might put it all together as an e-book. Thus all the worksheets, despite availability of something similar elsewhere. So let me know what works and what stinks. Thanks. Ever so much.

My Bare Minimum

Today was day two, trying to follow the bare minimum. I'm finding it harder than I thought, actually. Monday was not very successful. Today was much better, but I still didn't do everything on the daily do or die list. And staying away from the computer is SO SO hard. What is the pull? It's just a box full of electronic junk. (Oh and I still need to post my purpose.)

So, here's what's on my list.

Daily Do or Die:
Read at least 1 Bible verse and ponder it's meaning throughout the day
Have the kids do their chore charts (this would cover their hygiene and their little jobs)
School with Cherith
Wash and dry 1 load of laundry
Spend 20 mins. improving the state of the kitchen (consecutive or in chunks)
SPEAK SOFTLY to my children

My bare minimums for certain days are dictated by my husband's school schedule. On school nights, I will spend the evening playing with the kids. We get along much better if we do, otherwise we all get tired of each other.

Sunday:
Church
Rest
Grocery List/Blog

Monday:
Shopping/Errands
Play with kids
Girls' baths

Tuesday:
School Planning
Boys' baths

Wednesday:
Play with kids
Girls' baths
Blog

Thursday:
Play with kids
Boys' baths
Online social night (email, chatting, FBing, etc)

Friday:
Girls' baths
Bills
Blog

Saturday:
1 hr. extra chore project
Everyone's baths

Marvelous Monday

I have this wonderful mother in law. She comes over every Monday to stay with the kids while I run my errands. Every once in a while, I like to cycle through the kids and take one with me, letting them have Mom dates. Today was Cherith's turn.

I have never had a better time with my little girl! She proclaimed today "Marvelous Monday" (and decided tomorrow should be Tacky Tuesday), and I think I would agree. We got our fill of McDonald's, hopped in to the bank to do a small bit of banking, and then on to the library where we checked out the next set of Bob Books (something she was incredibly excited about). We made a quick run into JoAnn's for some fleece and her $1 Mommy date treat. She chose a paint by number set. Then it was on to Walmart to dash about like wild women trying to grab all our groceries and get home before Aaron had to head off for school.

We drove past Cherith's great grandparent's Lutheran Church as we looked for the library. I'm pretty sure someone moved the library since the last time I was there. It just wasn't where it was supposed to be. I drove up one road and down another looking all over the place. We did finally find it. And you know what? They must've put it back while we were on a different street! Who woulda thunked?? Ok, so I was lost... but don't tell anyone.

So there was a reason I mentioned the church. As we left the library, Cherith started talking about the Christmas Eve service we attended there in 2009. "And you know what the best part was, Mom? They had snacks!!!" I was a bit confused. Snacks? "Yeah," she assured me. "You know... Me and Daryn had animal crackers. And you and Daddy went up to get the adult snacks." Then it clicked. We brought snacks for the kids to keep them occupied, and my husband  and I did go up and take part in their communion.

I tried to explain all this to my dear inquisitive child, and this very quickly turned into a discussion of theology and answers to all sorts of questions. We went from the humanness of Mary to the holiness of God. We went all the way back to the history of who satan is and how he fits into the big picture. We covered salvation and redemption. And we talked about God's sovereignty... that satan never "one up"s God. That God always has everything in control and that one day He will crush the head of the serpent forever, and we will live forever in a new world glorifying the King of Kings.

I loved that conversation. She is so understanding. I love her childlike faith and ferver. This evening, during supper, Cherith rehearsed the entire conversation to her brothers. They sat in rapture as she explained every detail in her childlike way. And I... I treasured up these things and pondered them in my heart.

Yup, it was a Marvelous Monday!

One Year to a {more} Organized Life, Week Two

The Bare Minimum

Clear off your refrigerator. You're gonna need it! (Or another place you can post a couple papers and see it many times a day.)

This week's assignment is two fold.

First, take your purpose and display it somewhere in your home where you will see it many times a day. You can get fancy and create a work of art with canvas or vinyl or cross stitch or some other pretty craft. Or you can create a decorative scrapbook layout for it and hang it in a prominent place. Or you can print or write it out on good ol' white paper and post it on your fridge. The method matters not. The point is to quickly get it up and look at it many times every day.

Second, determine the bare minimum for each day. Post it. And follow it! Getting organized is kinda frustrating. If you think about it, you have to be organized to get organized, and get organized to be organized. It's like a dog chasing his tail.

It's going to take time - a lot of it, actually, if your life is like mine - to get to a point of "being organized". In the meantime, we're got to get a hold of this chaos and just make it through each day feeling like we're at least keeping up and not drowning. This is where the Bare Minimum comes in.

We're not talking about all the things you'd like to get done every day. Nor the high and lofty dreams of complete peace and tranquility. We're talking about just the bare minimum... things you must do to ensure that your family has food to eat, dishes to eat off of, clean underwear, good hygiene, and a mostly happy wife and mother. That's it. We're talking survival here. Your home, time, and schedule is not going to be perfect. But something is better than nothing. And as Kellie brought out in her week one post... as Flylady says, “Imperfect cleaning still blesses your home!”

Print this week's worksheet and write down the bare minimum for each day. You may have things that only have to be done on certain days... such as pay bills or make a shopping list. These will go on the left side where the days of the weeks are listed. Things you must do every day will go on the "Daily Do or Die" list on the right.

Do not overwhelm yourself by including too much or getting too detailed. Keep it simple. Do not write "brush teeth, brush hair, wash face...." Just write down "personal hygiene". There's no reason to include things that are already habit. If you already keep up with your dishes on a daily basis, there's no need to include that on your list. The more words you put on your list, the longer it will look and the more overwhelmed you will feel.

One more thing. I'm going to try to hold myself to not cracking open the laptop until all bare minimum items that can be done, are done. I identify with EOS Mom, "...on a daily basis I am surrounded by clutter and clueless how best to use my time--should I be playing with my kids or going through the piles in my closet? Should I clean the powder room or the master bathroom? And there's so much to do that I get overwhelmed and play on the internet." If this counterproductive malady describes you too, I'd challenge you to hold yourself to the "bare minimum first" rule.

Blog about this week's assignment and link up below.

Book Review - Little Star by Anthony DeStefano

I recently received this cute and whimsical Christmas story for review. So I read it at bedtime to my 5,3, and 2 year old on the night before Christmas Eve. While we all enjoyed the story, I was disappointed in the lack of Bibical correlation.

Little Star is a star that all the other stars ignore and forget about. When Jesus was born, the other stars did not believe He was king, but Little Star, knowing what it was like to be small, understood that Jesus was king. He was just small. So He shined so much for Jesus that his light burned out and he essentially died. Therefore, we all mount stars to the top of our Christmas tree to remember Litte Star.

If the message was that God can use even the smallest of us, the story should have tied in God asking the star to shine or being pleased with the star. I think the story would gain a huge amount of weight and meaning if the author touched on the wise men being able to follow its bright light all the way to the King Jesus.

Cute story... it just felt unfinished or lacking in Bibical meaning.


*I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Falling Asleep on Their Own - Baby Sleep Issues, Pt. 5

There were many nights with each of my babies that I got so tired of working for several hours to get my baby to go to sleep. I would nurse them and they would fall asleep. I'd lay them in bed and within five minutes, they were awake again, crying. I'd wait a few minutes and the crying would escalate. I'd go in, cuddle them a few minutes, and they would fall asleep. I'd lay them in bed, and the whole thing would repeat itself. I would try just about every trick several times over before they'd finally pass out in exhaustion.

Thankfully, this was not a nightly thing. But when it did/does happen, it's completely frustrating and exhausting... even maddening. I have no idea how parents deal with this on a nightly or nap time basis.

If your baby or toddler cannot fall asleep without you helping them in some way, that's striking evidence that they are the victim of sleep dependency. I make it sound so dramatic, but it can sure feel just that when you're having to deal with it.

So what to do about it?

Do your best to prevent it, in the first place.

1. When your newborn falls asleep, lay him in bed. There's nothing more snuggy than holding a sleeping baby. But your little one needs to become familiar with their bed. They need to learn to connect their bed with sleep. Try to get in a lot of snuggle time during their awake hours when they're staring at you as if they had to memorize your every feature. It's certainly fine to hold them while they are sleeping occasionally, but don't make it a habit.
2. When they begin to grow out of the fall-asleep-anytime stage, lay them in bed when they are very drowsy, but not quite asleep. Let them get used to drifting off to sleep in their bed. If your baby is in the habit of falling asleep while nursing or taking a bottle, change their feeding schedule. Feed them after they have been awake for about an hour. Then put them to bed again, once it hits two hours from the time they got up. This way, they are not going down hungry, but they are not "milking" themselves to sleep. (I would still nurse them right before sleeping for nighttime sleep.)
3. Create a consistent bed time routine. I've found with my babies that including a bath in the bedtime routine was a huge trigger to them that it was time to go to sleep for the night. The evening goes like this... supper of solids (if 6 mo. or older), bath, get jammied up, nursing session, put in bed. They most generally fell right to sleep without crying, or with very minimal crying. If I skipped the bath, they would either wake up in a couple hours or have a very hard time falling asleep. It's like they needed their evening to be predictable.

If dependency is already an issue, the solution is going to depend on the age of the child and how long they have been dependent.

1. Work on fixing nap time sleep first. It is far easier on our sanity to handle the extra stress during the day.
2. If your child is still nursing or bottle feeding, change daytime feeding time so that it does not hit your baby's sleepy time. You want to put them down for a nap without nursing or bottle feeding them to sleep. They may cry, because this is new to them. It's not typical routine. I realize that everyone has their own opinion on "crying it out", but the truth is, there will most likely be some crying. (More on that in a bit.)
3. Establish and stick to a peaceful bedtime routine. Make sure your child's evening is predictable to them. They do not understand time as dictated by a clock. They perceive it as dictated by circumstance. (Routine will vary depending on age and your family's schedule.)
4. To deal with excessive night time wakings, it may be easier to wean them off of it, than to go cold turkey. If all they want to do is nurse, decrease the nursing time by a few minutes every night for a few nights, so that eventually, they're hardly nursing at all. If your child is older and just wanting you to come in, decrease your cuddle time every night for a few nights, then don't pick them up at all, then don't go in at all.

- A note on crying. I generally let them cry for a few minutes, then go in to them, cuddle them for a minute, then lay them down again. You can generally tell a difference in their cry, whether it's a "disappointed" I'm awake" cry (more like a moaning, whining that is willed to existence) or a very worked up cry (involuntary and more than likely very hard for them to get over on their own).

These are only a few ideas. Every circumstance and child is different, so these may or may not work for you. If you have a particular situation or question, feel free to email me and I can try to help you out.

I have also found some great advice from Dana Obleman. She has a free sleep assessment option. It's computer generated, just so you know. And it also signs you up for way more emails than you may want, so you may want to either use a junky email address or unsubscribe later. If you scroll down to the bottom of her page, there are several links to specific sleep issues. Her blog has many videos where she personally answers questions.

Sleep good tonight... I should start thinking about getting there.

Lyrical Devotions - He is my Strong Tower

Kutless - Strong Tower

"In the middle of my darkness
In the midst of all my fear
You're my refuge and my hope
When the storm of life is raging
And the thunder's all I hear
You speak softly to my soul

You are my strong tower
Shelter over me
Beautiful and mighty
Everlasting King
You are my strong tower
Fortress when I'm weak
Your name is true and holy
And Your face is all I seek"

I think we probably all have fears, doubts, and hurts that stalk us. Sometimes sleathily... other times, they shout in our face and thunder in our soul. But no matter how they present themselves, He is always there for us. Always there to take us in, heal our heats, and bring us joy in the morning.

This past summer, I was having one of those "battle of the mind" days... you know, when the doubts, the fears, the hurts just won't leave you alone, and no matter how hard you try, you can't turn it off. I was driving through town with the radio up, trying desperately to drown out the thoughts, when Kutless's "Strong Tower" came on. And the tears poured down.

The snipers and ghosts that attack the mind and heart cannot be quieted with willpower or music. Safety is only found in the Tower of our God. Only He can silence the fears. Only He can heal our wounds.

I came home that afternoon and wrote the following story. I hope it brings as much healing and comfort to you as it did to me to write it out.

Strong Tower

“Thou hast been a shelter for me,
and a strong tower from the enemy.”Ps. 61:3

She could hear it faintly through her loud, raspy breathing and the thunderous pounding of her feet as they hit the ground. It was coming closer and closer with her every step. She knew she was running as fast as she possibly could, and yet she felt as if she were crawling. She peered over her shoulder into the darkness, feeling the urge to freeze in a paralyzed stupor, but knew she must go on, for Fear would soon reach out its gnarled fingers and squeeze the life from her soul. She could hear the rustling steps much closer now and could feel Fear’s warm breath on her neck. The air around her began to reek with an indescribable, evil stench, threatening to intoxicate her.

She must run faster. Surely somewhere, somehow she possessed some sort of unknown inner power that could drive her beyond her failing strength. Her foot caught hold of a stone. She fell in slow motion to the ground, feeling as if she had hit a brick wall. Everything seemed far away… everything but the darkness. It closed in with suppressing thickness. For a second, she entertained the idea of giving in to its heaviness, but the rustling of Fear’s steps jolted her from her comatose state. She pulled herself to her feet and groped in the darkness, trying to find her bearings.

Only as she began, once again, to force one foot in front of the other, did she noticed the piercing pain shooting through her leg. Her steady pace turned quickly to a limping fast walk. How long must she run? When would this end?

Suddenly, she stopped. What was that lurking in the darkness? It flittered past her again. Her hair fluttered with the breeze created by its movements. There it was again. This time, it brushed her as it passed. It must be Memory, the stalker she had heard horror stories of. She must keep going. But before she could move an inch, Memory returned, knocking into her and ripping at her with his sharp claws. Blood poured from her chest. She could feel the breeze and knew he was coming at her again. She tried with all that was in her to duck out of the way, but Memory predicted her every maneuver and hit her again and again, each time ripping deeper and deeper into her chest. She knew she must run. She must get away before he reached her heart and ceased its beating.

She turned and, with as much strength and speed as she could muster, limped away. Blood poured from her wounds, and she could feel herself fading in and out of reality. When would this stop? She felt a tiny sting in her right shoulder that soon burned as hot as fire. Another hit the middle of her back. Then another and another. The snipers of Reminder showered her with darts. Doubt and defeat began to creep in. She wasn’t sure she could keep going. Fear’s rustlings following her… Memory’s breezes threatening her… the snipers of Reminder pelting her. There was just no way she could outrun them. Not with these extensive wounds. There was nothing left. No strength. No speed. No power. Not even a desire to run. If she could just find a shelter of sorts where she could hide from it all and rest.

Then something caught her eye... a tall, dark shadow looming before her. Unable to stay on her feet any longer, she fell to the ground. Grasping roots and stones, she pulled herself closer and closer to the looming shadow, hoping with everything inside her that it was a place of safety and not another trap. She looked up, trying to make out its shape. A glimmer of hope ignited within her. It appeared to be a tower… a strong, high tower of stone. If she could just drag herself the last ten feet, she would be at its base. One pull after another brought her within a mere foot. She reached out her hand, her fingers slightly brushing the wall. Just one more pull. But there was no strength left in her. She laid her head on the ground in defeat. At that moment, she felt herself being lifted and carried. She cracked her eyes open just enough to notice she was passing through a stone doorway. She was gently being lowered and her wounds were being washed and tended. She could stay awake no longer and finally let herself drift away from everything. It was a good sleep… a healing sleep.

The joyful song of birds filled her ears as she slowly opened her eyes. She gingerly ran her fingers across her chest. The wounds had closed. All the pain she had felt the night before no longer consumed her. She turned her eyes to the window where sunlight was streaming in. Morning had arrived and with it… hope, joy, and healing.