Category: Life

Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 7 (The Week After Thanksgiving)

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

Thanksgiving is over but there’s no time to rest yet as the real preparations are beginning for the holidays! One of the biggest things we need to do is to take time to sit down and evaluate how our Thanksgiving was. What was everyone’s favorite part? Was there anything that didn’t work well? Do you need to set up a rotating schedule to have dinner at other family member’s homes? (Odd year here, Even year there, or every 3rd, 4th, year?) Would it be better to have a potluck-style meal where everyone brings something? Was there anything you would like to do differently? Start now for your planning for next year so you don’t forget these ‘little things’! We will also be getting all of our Fall decor ready to be put away next week so we can start pulling out the Christmas decor.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com
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Fall Gardening 2023

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

Our Fall garden is doing so well and I can’t believe I’ve never tried this before. We recently harvested our first squash from the Fall garden and we are eagerly anticipating more!

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A Christ-Centered Thanksgiving and other Thanksgiving homeschool resources

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog4 Comments

This week we have been focusing on Thanksgiving with our homeschool studies. I had purchased ‘A Christ-Centered Thanksgiving‘** several years ago but just never got around to using it. This season I am trying to be a bit more intentional and I have included different seasonal activity slots into our school schedule to help me remember to look through what I have.

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Holiday Planner Pics… Nothing Fancy!

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog10 Comments

I’ve mentioned in several posts about my Holiday Planning Binder but I don’t know if I’ve ever really shared what it looks like. It’s definitely nothing fancy… just an old Trapper Keeper that the kiddos didn’t use and the folders are old pocket folders that they aren’t using. I really like that it zips up because it helps to keep everything contained really well and prevents the inevitable spillage that happens when you have kiddos running around.

This is what the outside of the planner looks like… nothing special at all but the fact that it is purple helps me to identify it from other binders on the shelf and I can tell almost anyone to grab me the purple binder and they have no trouble finding it all. I probably should’ve tried to clean it up a bit before the pictures but this is how LIFE goes around here and these smudges and smears remind me of all the little blessings that are running through my house!

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Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 4

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog9 Comments

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve posted about some of the things we are doing to help prepare our homes for the holidays and hopefully prevent a little of the CHAOS. We will continue to review those things and work on a few more things this week. Our list is as follows:

  1. As we do our weekly ‘Home Blessings’ we will continue to look for things that don’t belong and get them put away where they belong or get rid of things we don’t really need.
  2. I will definitely be paying more attention to the items I still need to purchase for Thanksgiving Dinner as well as making sure I have plenty of napkins and such … maybe even some To-Go containers for leftovers.
  3. I will have the kids go through some of their toys (we have actually been decluttering quite a bit so this shouldn’t be too hard.) to get rid of things they no longer play with so they can make room for new items that will sure to be coming. This is better to do BEFORE CHRISTMAS rather than AFTER!
  4. I try to get rid of any catalogs that come in as they come in so that I am not tempted to overspend on items that we don’t really need. It seems that we are flooded with catalogs and credit offers at this time of year but no thanks!
  5. I will review the menu lists in my Holiday Planner so I can try to add as many of the pantry goods to my weekly grocery list as well as double checking to make sure that we have plenty of the everyday essentials like toilet paper and paper towels because we don’t want to run out of those things when we have guests. I will add these to my Sam’s Club order to get them knocked off the list so I have a few fewer things to worry about.
  6. I will review any mail-order purchases to check off what has come in and also check off any gifts I have been able to buy/make so that I can cross them off the lists. While sitting at my desk I will also take a quick look over my regular bills to make sure that I haven’t forgotten anything during the process of ordering things.
  7. I will also look up some information about Thanksgiving traditions and history to add to our homeschool lessons as well as some fun Thanksgiving activities, if I haven’t already found some. I did go through some of my older files and compiled a list of things we will be doing HERE.

Life is crazy enough without adding holiday stress to it. The simpler we can keep things, the better in most cases and we are always trying to find creative solutions to things we need to get done. By spending just a few minutes a day working on these tasks it helps to get us prepared without causing a lot of unnecessary stress.

For more great ideas you can check out the FlyLady website HERE.

Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 4Download