Pollywog's Place Blog

We’ve had quite the month already, and we aren’t even a week in yet, but it’s OK. There has been a sense of calm in our home, and things have been pretty PEACEful, which is our goal for the month.

I’m going to take a quick look at what we have planned for the month so you can get a little idea about how all of our systems work with each other.

Calendar

My morning routine means that I check our calendar every morning, and here is what I am looking at:

• There are few appointments that are noted, and I have reminders set in my Cozi app. One appointment is this week, so I remind my husband about it to make sure he remembers.
• There are a couple of birthdays, and I am noting the special meals in my planner.
• A few ‘special holidays‘ that we would like to include.
• Days that the public school will be out for one of the older kids.
• I also try to look for a day that will be a good time to go to the flea market or produce market for seasonal produce.

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Chores

I also like to review the chores at the beginning of the week, as we have them listed by daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.

Daily chores are pretty automatic, but our monthly chores rotate by the day of the month… I try to keep things as easy as I can.

Some of our daily chores include:

• Getting ready for the day – make beds, brush teeth/hair, get dressed
• Animal/Garden chores – watering and feeding
• Breakfast – see our Breakfast Routine here
• Laundry – see our Laundry Routine here
• Planning the day – check calendar, to-do list, meal plan, etc.
• Morning Routine – see a sample day here
• School
• Lunch
• Quick Clean up
• Afternoon Chores – water animals, check eggs, etc.
• Dinner
• Clean up

If you click on the links, you can find more in-depth information about each task.

Some of my weekly chores are:

• Home Blessings
• Homeschool Planning – look for lessons ideas to go along with our monthly task and upcoming holidays
• Menu Planning – check that we have everything we need for upcoming meals
• Garden Planning – check what needs to be transplanted, seeded, started, and bought.
• Other Planning – Valentine’s Day, Super Bowl?, President’s Day, income taxes, and possible outings/vacation; check for upcoming birthdays and anniversaries
• Grocery Shopping & Errands
• Desk Work/Paper Work/Bill Pay/Budgeting

Some of the monthly chores this week are:

• deep clean the coffee maker
• restock/reorder coffee supplies
• declutter/organize coffee bar
• clean out the lower cabinets
• declutter/organize food containers
• declutter/organize pantry
• pull out any foods that need to be used up- work them into upcoming meals
• deep clean stove top
• clean stove hood
• scrub high chairs

Some of the yearly chores for this month are:

• take down the Christmas tree
• check garden beds for any repairs needed
• pruning anything that needs it
• gather information for income taxes

Sometimes the kiddos are tempted to skip over chores, but it catches up to them later on when things break down or run out. We are trying to teach them important skills that they will need later on in life, skills that will hopefully make them successful in all that they do.

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Homeschool

Today, I check my Homeschool Manager app for anything that I might not have added to the main calendar. I normally look over the next week’s schedule on Thursdays, after we finish our school work.

• I note when we plan to start back.
• I add the appointments to the monthly lesson plan calendar as well, so I can plan accordingly. I realize that I may need to alter our start date and just use that as a Home Blessing day to get the house back in order, so I just swap a few things around really quick.
• I also go ahead and update the sites for our lessons so everything is set to go for Monday!

These quick changes will keep us from having a very frustrating week back to school… at least I pray it will.

This month, I will be focusing on adding Biblical-based Financial Literacy tasks to our homeschool routine, so I will look over those tasks to see what I can work in with our lessons.

Financial Literacy (January)

We work on our family budgets and get our Bills organized in January, so it just makes sense to use this as a teaching moment for the kids.

Some ways we are doing this are:

• Biblical Stewardship:
  • teaching financial principles through a biblical lens
  • emphasis on the fact that EVERYTHING we have belongs to GOD
  • learning to FAITHfully manage our resources
• Budgeting & Generosity
  • researching what the Bible says about charity, giving to the poor, and tithing
  • creating budgets that allow us to give to others in need
• Bible verses related to contentment, greed, money, and giving
  • Discussing needs vs. wants
  • ex: Luke 12:15, Proverbs 21:20, Psalm 24:1, Hebrews 13:5, etc.

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Bill Paying

I usually sit down to pay bills on Fridays.

• Pay the bills due, pay more if money allows
• Check accounts to see what payments have cleared, and highlight them on the worksheet
• Note any bills still left to pay

I usually do this first, so I know what I have left to spend. My bill pay worksheet makes things much simpler as I can see what I have paid, and what needs to be paid.

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Meal Planning & Grocery Shopping

I normally do my menu planning on Wednesday or Thursday. I print out a couple of meal planning sheets and a grocery list so I can fill them in as I look over our Winter Meal Plan.

• I write in the birthdays and special holidays for the month, and then add those ingredients to the grocery list. Clicking on the link will give you a ready-made list of holidays for the month and links to recipes and menu ideas to make them special.
• I look over the planned meals and pencil them in.
• I note the days when we have appointments and swap those meals for easier meals, if needed.
• I check the grocery list that the kids have been filling out on the fridge, and add items to the main list.
• I also check my pantry restock list to see what I need to add to the list, if money allows.
• I make sure I have the ingredients to preserve the produce that I plan to pick up this month as well. I will add supplies to the grocery list, if needed. Some of these posts have not been published yet, but you should be able to find the printables in the library.
• I will either schedule a time to go shopping or place an order for groceries and set a delivery or pickup time that works for us. When I go to town, I usually plan to take care of several errands at once.
• At the beginning of the month, I will also place a Sam’s Club order for bulk supplies to be shipped, as well as any supplies we need from Amazon.

Special Holiday Meals: January Edition

Some of the pantry restock items I added to list are:

• Honey/Syrup
• Flour
• Jelly
• Peanut Butter
• Toilet Paper

Some of the produce I’d like to buy for preserving:

• Broccoli/Cauliflower
• Dry beans for canning

If money is short, we can skip the restock and the preserving items until next month. I don’t like to skip things to often, but we do have our pantry pretty well stocked, and as long as we replace what we use, we should be fine.

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Garden & Animals

I usually try to get feed and garden supplies once a month to cut down on the number of trips I make to town. The feed store is in the opposite direction of our normal grocery store, and I need all the space in the back of the van for feed, so I can’t really combine these tasks, or I would.

I go out to the greenhouse and garden just about every day, so I keep a running list of things that I need. I will also check my monthly list of tasks that need to be done. I went over my lists this weekend, and I have:

• placed online orders for seeds and plants
• ordered some new garden beds
• made a list of seed starting materials that I need to pick up.

I need to:

• get some seeds started for the Spring
• get the heater hooked up in the greenhouse
• transplant some of the cool weather crops out to the garden beds
• replace the broken beds with the new beds
• order mulch/soil for the new beds
• sift the vermicompost to make potting soil for the new seeds

Some of the tasks are also listed with my yearly tasks to make sure that I don’t forget them 🙂

I also check with the kids to see what animal feed we have, check that against my master inventory list, note down what we need in my phone, and then I will make time to go get the feed. I try to combine a few tasks during the same trip.

When I go to get the feed I will:

• get feed and animal supplies
• pick up seeds or plants at the Farm Center – I did grab a few seeds
• check with the nursery to see what they might have available – I didn’t stop this month
• stop at the grocery store, if there is anything we need before the next grocery order
• fill up with gas on the way home

When I get home, I always have the kids unload the feed right away, mix anything that needs to be mixed, and put the surplus in the old freezer that we use for storage. Once the feed is taken care of, they will clean out the back of the van 🙂

I try to make sure to do this mid-week, as Fridays & Saturdays are a bit crowded at the Feed Store. It’s always a bit stressful when we get too low on feed as well, so by making sure we have a regular schedule, we can alleviate some of the stress and replace it with PEACE, as we know we have what we need.

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To-Do List

I also like to start a To-Do List because things always pop up that I can’t fix right away. I also find things when I am out in the garden that need to be taken care of I will usually snap a photo and then add it to the list if it can’t be taken care of right away.

This is our list so far:

• Master Bathroom
• build new garden beds
• add solar lights to chicken coops
• finish chicken tractor
• hang cameras
• put the StarLink on a pole

It isn’t too long yet, but it will grow longer the further we get into the year… hopefully, we can stay on top of it.

This is just a quick look at my weekly plans… I have all month long to work on some of them, and I will try to knock out as many as I can. I know that by handling the smaller things now, it will free up time I might need in the future for BIGGER and BETTER things. A little maintenance helps to keep things running nice and smooth… it also helps us to appreciate all that we have been BLESSED with.

I pray that you will find something useful in these links.

God Bless!