house blessing – Pollywog's Place Blog

Back to School!

Published on January 9, 2017January 9, 2017 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

You know how it is when you have taken a break from school, whether it be public school or summer school, and then you have to go back to the regular routine. We had two weeks off for the holidays and today was our first day back. A lot of the schools around us are closed because of the weather but seeing as how we didn’t need to go anywhere to have school I decided that we wouldn’t procrastinate any longer. Below are a few of the activities that have been included in our first day back.

First Momma needed to get ready for the day and have a little bit of quiet time as I knew it was gonna be a bit chaotic as everyone got back into school routine. My verse for the day was Proverbs 14:30, and it was such a good verse to start today out with. As usual I got myself ready so I would be prepared for whatever the day may hold.

It is a Monday so that means the little boys need to do have their laundry washed. They brought it in and loaded it. They also switched it over the dryer and then unloaded the dryer. Jacob (3) loves to clean the lint filter. Then he offered to take care of pushing it to my room as Joey (4) was feeling a little under the weather today. I admire the empathy they show at such an early age.

The older kids took care of the morning chores like wiping the table, sweeping the floor, and cleaning up the playroom. Momma took out the trash and cleaned the bathrooms.

Jacob and Joey did their work on the Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool first. They were on Day 77 of the Getting Ready 1. (I use Ctrl F to find the day easier.) They loved painting the farm and adding animals. They made a mud pit for the pigs and a pond for the animals to drink from. Jacob also found that he could make the rooster ‘fly’ backwards by tapping on the screen.

Then they went to Discovery K12 and worked on Jacob’s account (Pre-K) On here they practiced some phonics. and learned the proper way to brush their teeth.

While the little boys were working on the computer William was at the island with the new touchscreen laptop. It took him a few minutes to get adjusted to it. He stands while doing this work or he will fidget with everything around him. He started off on the Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool site with the McGuffey Primer Day 189.

We work on each lesson for more than a day. Usually a week or two until he is comfortable with the words and can recognize them easily. I have also found that by highlighting the words as he reads them it helps him to focus on each individual word as we go along. He did start independently on his Discovery K12, he is using the K level like Joey, but he ended up joining the boys when Joey started his work. I have to set a timer when William is watching videos or playing games as he will click on something else, that he thinks is more fun than his assignments, and will not get his work done.

I also let him keep a ‘fidget’ beside him as he works to help him stay focused on what he is doing.

When all the boys were

caught up to the same assignments William joined the little boys. They worked on the Discovery K12 site at the K level. They watched some phonics videos, a counting to 100 video, and a video about reading maps which they really enjoyed.

Then they worked at the table on their workbooks. I had also printed out a peacock coloring page from the Discovery K12 site. I printed one for all of the kids as they all like to color.

Around 9:30 we had some snack. Today was Cinnamon Toast….yummy!

After snack it was time for some fun videos. They picked out some nursery rhymes, some counting videos, and some videos about daily routines.

William stayed at the table to color in his new dinosaur book. The little boys were tired of sitting and went to the playroom to play and draw for a little while. Jacob had lots of fun with the dinosaurs while Joey played in the floor.

The workbooks for the boys consist of a variety of things. They have a Daily Activity book that I put together. It has lots of activities with letters and numbers that I put together from free resources on the internet.

I also found a couple of work books at the Dollar Tree and put those in their boxes as well. At Dollar Tree I also found some dinosaur books which are also in the workboxes. We have to have a little fun mixed in and it motivates them to get the other activities completed.

While the boys were working on the computers and doing their school work the girls were also busy. They started out at the table working on spelling and reading.

The reading and math workbooks come from the Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool site. Isabella is on Level 2 while Caitlyn is on Level 3.

The spelling was something I found free on the internet a while back and I printed it off and made a book with it. I have their daily activities on the front page and they write it all down in a notebook. (We use one notebook for everything and just label the days.)

The copywork is also a random compilation of things I have found on the internet. The books include bible verses and famous quotes as well as occasional information related to social studies. I found the Disney math books at the Dollar Tree and threw them in the work boxes to give them a little something fun to do.

The girls then take turns on the laptops. Normally we would be using the Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool site for our group studies like science and social studies but I got a little sidetracked earlier in the year and decided to use the Discovery K12 site.

They were on Day 77 here and learned about the Constitution and Red Cloud for Social Studies. The site had a lot of reading so I used Youtube to find some videos related to the subjects that were on todays lesson plan.

For science they were learning about the life cycle of frogs and tide pools. Again I used Youtube to find some videos for them to watch.

I am pretty relaxed, at least a lot more than I once was, about the way they learn. I know the girls, especially Caitlyn, have some trouble with comprehension. I try my best to incorporate as many different teaching and learning styles as possible to help them learn and retain the information. We experiment, a lot, to find out what works best for each of them.

The girls use the Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool site for their Math and Reading. There are a few other activities that they do on there as well.They do a lot of math games as well as a lot of different grammar games.

I like the Xtramath site as it shows the progress that they are making. The girls really enjoy working on it as well.

After the computer work they go back to the table to finish whatever book work that they may have and then they do some fun stuff.

Usually about 11:00 or 11:30 we start to clean up. The kids put their finished work in their folders. The folders, notebooks, and a few other supplies are color coded. This help them to easily identify where their things belong. It also helps Momma know who left their ruler, notebook, or whatever out on the table or in the floor.

Today we had planned on eating leftovers but there was nothing left over! So we had some good ole PB&J with a banana. (Looks like we may be having banana muffins on Wednesday.)

After eating lunch the kids did a quick cleanup and headed to their rooms for naps. Momma did her ‘House Blessing‘ with big sister’s help. I then decided to upload all of these wonderful pics and write a post. I did not plan on publishing this post right away but sometimes technology gets a little ahead and is quicker than my fingers are. So I thank everyone, who may have seen the published but unfinished draft, for their patience.

This is just one day out of our crazy lives here. We did not do everything that we usually do but it was a day of adjustment as they haven’t been doing the normal school routine. The important thing is that they did learn and they had fun while doing it. I think they will be much more apt to remember these things than if I had sat them down and tried to force them to learn. As you can see, by the choice of ‘fun activities’ that the little boys made, kids have a natural tendency to seek out interesting things and a desire to learn. Everyday is a learning experience for them as well as for me.

I will slowly add in a few other things that we didn’t do today. I will try to post on them another day. But naptime is over and I hear the pitter patter of little feet coming to find me. Ok, who am I kidding? It’s more like the stomping of mini dinosaurs who are looking to devour the first thing in sight that I hear. So I better get off of here and head to the kitchen to find something for these little raptors to munch on.

You can also check our Facebook page for more current things we have been doing.

Too Much Stuff

Published on January 2, 2017 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

I hope you all enjoyed the holidays as much as we did here. We’ve already taken down our tree and put away all the decorations. A little bit of a cleaning bug hit me and I decided we needed to declutter our playroom a bit more than we had before Christmas.

My kids, as you can read in Remember The Reason For The Season and So Much More Than A Basketball, were doubly blessed with gifts this year. That doesn’t include the gifts they received from their older siblings and their father. So when they were instructed to ‘put away’ their toys it became apparent that we had not gotten rid of enough things before Christmas. The following are some picks of what we had going on:

The book cases were overflowing, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but we couldn’t fit any more books on the shelves. The toys piling up in front of the chalkboard were a problem though. As well as the other toys and baskets being piled on top of things and hidden inside of cabinets. Then there was there problem of not being able to find their new favorite toys because of all the clutter.

It was stressful for me just to walk in there, not too mention trying to clean around everything. It was such a chore to pick up this to vacuum, then pick up something else and hope you didn’t knock something else down. Trying to dust was almost impossible and there were so many little things getting vacuumed up I was afraid I was going to kill the vacuum.

I grabbed a couple of trash bags, a laundry basket, and a tote. Big sister and I started in one corner of the room and went around it in a full circle. Every area was taken apart, dumped out, and sorted through. If there was an item that didn’t belong in that area it was placed into the laundry basket so it could be put away properly.

Some of the items that were seasonal, like some sensory bins and activities for Fall, were placed into the tote. Broken toys were thrown away and toys that they had outgrown or no longer played with were put into another bag to donate.

When we finished we had several small bags of books to donate and two trash bags of toys to bless others with. There was a bag of broken toys and other items to be thrown away. Then the seasonal items were put away for later in the upcoming year. Some of the toys and books were passed along to their little cousin. The TV that had been in the cabinet was passed along to big brother and the cabinet now holds the laptops and chargers plus a couple of items for younger kids to play with when we have visitors.

Below are some pictures of the results:

The kids are much happier now that they have the toys organized. There are also some empty bins for new things that Momma may pull out of the closets later on. We were able to set up some individual areas for magnet/dry erase play, dinosaurs and legos, and an area for the kitchen and food play. They have their dinosaur skeleton on display and they can easily look at it. There is also a space where they can play with the Spielgaben set and/or the light panel that we have.

The bookshelves are so much better looking now and they actually have an area where they can sit and read. The storage table now holds their dress up and the new race car sets that they got for Christmas. The top of the table turns over and has a flat surface that they can set the race tracks up on so it works out great.

So far the only downside was that I moved the storage bench out and now I can’t reach the calendar to change out the month or days. Sigh, the constant struggles of being short. Luckily I have a kitchen stool that works just fine and I did get the calendar switched out.

My kids were happy to pass along some blessings to other kids that may not have gotten quite as much for Christmas. There were actually a couple of new toys that I passed along as well as I knew the kids would not play with them. This is something that we do every couple of months and sometimes they will actually bring me something that they no longer play with and ask me to pass it along to someone else.

I am slowly trying to pare down our belongings as the more stuff you have, the more clutter you have, and ultimately the more stress you have from keeping up with it and cleaning it. In the end it frees up some of my time also by not having to clean it, move it, or take care of it. Do you have something that you aren’t using? Why don’t you pass it along to someone who can use it. You’ll feel so much better.

Routines

Published on December 4, 2016October 16, 2023 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog21 Comments

I know, we’ve all heard about how important routines and schedules are. Some of us may have every minute of every hour planned out on a ‘perfect’ schedule while others would rather just have a ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ kind of routine. I’ve always been kind of in the middle while I can say that at different times of my life I have leaned more towards one side than the other.

How do we find a balance?

Well, the answer is not the same for everyone, every family, or every situation. For instance, there are some children who thrive on strict routines and schedules and they don’t like change, I have one of those children. Then there are some families who are extremely busy with things, maybe a home business, and there is no way that they could guarantee that they would be home by 5:00 every day to eat dinner. Then we have work routines where sometimes there are deadlines and things that must be completed in a certain time frame.

I went through a period of time when I was really sick. I went from being a vibrant young wife and mother (who also held down a 40 hours + job) to almost being bedridden. I had a couple of different surgeries, followed by infections and long recuperation periods. These illnesses triggered an autoimmune response in my body and I have been plagued by chronic pain ever since. I had been diagnosed with scoliosis, DDD, herniated discs, IBS, GRD, hiatal hernia, migraines, and fibromyalgia among a long list of things.

My doctors prescribed a cocktail of medications to help with the problems but those medications caused lots of side effects. I was extremely fatigued, developed seizures, and was constantly having various rashes and other conditions that couldn’t be explained.

During this time my housework really suffered. My house wasn’t a total mess but it did get pretty bad. The more I tried the worse it looked. This caused major problems between my spouse and I. I was trying to keep up with the inside of the house, the outside of house, the garden, the animals, and the kids.

I was OVERWHELMED!

Then I found an index card system for housework. They also have a book called Sidetracked Home Executives which I never bought but maybe should have. I immediately jumped in and began to use the system. I tweaked it here and there to make it work for our family. I then developed a similar system for work and it made an amazing difference in my productivity levels.

Unfortunately my spouse wasn’t as thrilled with my new found method. I could never keep our home as ‘showplace perfect’ as he felt I should. The marriage fell apart and I moved with my four kids to our current home. This is where I found FlyLady, who has been a lifesaver to so many people. (You may want to check out the site for yourself.) A lot of the routines I will list below follow along with her basic plans. I again tweaked them to work for our family.

My house is not ‘showplace perfect‘ nor will it ever be. My house is lived in and it shows. I do get a lot of compliments like, ‘I would never know that you had so many kids here.’. I’m not quite sure what they expect my house to live in but I am pleased to surprise them.

The outside of my house is a bit of a mess and I am working on that. Many people have stopped as they thought I am running a daycare. I guess I kind of am in a way. Some of the mess is beyond my control as it doesn’t belong to me.

I really believe that everyone should be proud of what the Lord has blessed you with. Be content where He has put you and make the best of it. I pray that you will find some helpful tips and suggestions as you read through the links. (If a link isn’t working please let me know in the comments below.) Please remember to use these as a guideline for setting up your own routines. If something isn’t working then change it and make it work for you. Don’t get discouraged!

Getting Routines Started 101

Morning Routines

Kids’ Morning Routine

Yearly kids chores by age

Age-appropriate chore charts

FlyLadyPlus FlyLadyPlus for iPhone

FlyHelper | Personal Organizer for Android

Weekly Routines

Published on December 2, 2016January 15, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog17 Comments

I hope you have had a chance to read through my other posts on routines. If you have then you are probably wondering what Weekly Routines are.

For me these are tasks that need to happen on a weekly basis. I have divided these tasks up by certain days but sometimes I may complete them ahead, or behind, schedule. These just help to keep our house running smoothly and keep the cleaning from becoming such a chore.

Sundays are more of a resting day for us here. The only things I have listed to do on Sundays are:

Check for newspaper coupons
Empty all trash

I will go to Couponmom.com to see if there are coupons in the current week’s newspaper and then I will either make a quick trip to get 2 papers or ask someone else to pick them up for me. (I will need to do another post on couponing.)

Then I will also have the kids check the various trash cans and empty them. Our trash collection runs on Monday morning so we try to get it all ready ahead of time.

Mondays here can be a little hectic just like they are for everyone else. Monday is normally the day when I try to do our ‘house blessing’, another FlyLady term. I have actually divided these tasks between Monday and Tuesday but will try to get as many finished on Monday as possible.

Take the trash to the road
Wash clothes — Ds3 & DS4
Scrub & Shine the sink
Wash coffee pot in the dishwasher
Dust*
Vacuum*
Purge magazines*

So the first one is pretty self explanatory but sometimes I forget so it helps me to remember. Someone usually has to help the boys to get their hamper to the laundry room but they can load/unload the washer and the dryer. You can see our Laundry Routines for more info on the second one.

Third is to scrub and shine my kitchen sink. I try to wipe out the sink every night before bed but it does seem to need a good scrubbing once a week to keep it nice and shiny.

I rinse the coffee pot out each day but by the end of the week it starts to look a little dingy. A quick run through the dishwasher takes care of that and it is ready to go again.

The last three marked with an * are parts of our ‘house blessing’ which I learned from the FlyLady. Each of these tasks can be completed in 10 minutes or less at my house.

The weekly dusting I do is not the pull everything off the shelves and dust each piece individually dusting that my Mom-mom had me help with when I was little. This is just taking a feather duster and quickly dusting through the house. I also dust the blades of the ceiling fans once a month. We live on a dirt road so dust builds up rather quickly.

Same with the vacuuming, 10 minutes or less, just vacuum the main areas. I am fortunate enough that my vacuum has a long enough cord that I can pretty much plug it into an outlet near the kitchen and be able to reach my bathroom, my bedroom, the playroom, the living room and most of the other bedrooms. The kids are responsible for vacuuming their rooms at least once a month. We don’t move the furniture or anything like that, unless we are rearranging or deep cleaning, as there will be a day that is designated for that with our daily missions from FlyLady.

To purge magazines doesn’t take long at all. I have a stack of magazines and only keep a set number. Once we reach that number I will either pass them along to someone else or throw them away if they are in bad shape. I do keep a few of them to use for art projects as well.

Tuesdays have another set of tasks that are completed each week. These include:

Wash Clothes – DS14
Clean room – DS14
Polish*
Mop*
Clean out fridge
Clean out microwave
Meal planning
Mow the play yard

OK. The first one is just something we do every day, and the second is something I have recently added. DS14 is special needs and sometimes his hygiene practices are questionable. While I am trying to teach him to be as independent as possible his room often needs attention. He will sometimes spit everywhere or lick the walls, I know it’s gross, or do other things that cause his room to smell funky. So I get him to strip his bed and we thoroughly clean his whole room, wipe down the walls, shampoo the carpets, etc. every Tuesday. I have a system to my cleaning and can usually have his room cleaned in about 15 minutes. This helps everyone in the house and is just something that really has to be done.

Again the ones marked with an * are parts of our ‘house blessing’. These take 10 minutes or less to do. I grab a rag and a bottle of Windex and run, maybe not run as running isn’t allowed but I do move quickly, and wipe off all the shiny surfaces first. Shiny surfaces would be the mirrors, glass, TVs, computer monitors,etc. I also try to wipe all the light switches,remotes, and kitchen appliances like the stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher. Then I do a quick wipe of the tops of my coffee tables and end tables. I will also wipe some of the newer cabinets that we have as they seem to be a magnet for sticky hands.

When everything is all nice and shiny we do the mopping. I use a steam mop but a regular mop is just fine. This is not a get down on your hands and knees to scrub the floor either. I will fill my steam mop with water and set it to ‘scrub’. Then I first use it on my kitchen table and benches. It helps to get any of the ‘stickies’ that DD8 may have missed. After I finish with that I will do the kitchen, laundry room, and entry ways. I save the bathroom for last. Then the mop pad goes into the hamper for the whites. This is normally 10 minutes or less as the cord for my mop reaches to every room except the back bathroom.

The key is to keep it under 10 minutes for each task. The house blessing is not the time to do a major detail cleaning. That can be added to your To-Do list for another time.

I will try to put a cup of water in the microwave before I start mopping. I set it for 2-3 minutes and leave it. By the time I finish mopping I can open the microwave and just wipe it out really quick. If I didn’t get the outside of it when I was polishing I will give it a quick wipe also.

Same with the fridge. I don’t take everything out. I quickly grab anything that needs to be thrown out and empty it. Then I just wipe off the shelves and clean up any obvious messes. There will be another day to do a major deep cleaning of the fridge. I will also polish up the outside if I missed it earlier.

Once the fridge is clean and I can see what we have and don’t have or what may need to be used I will review my menu plan and start a grocery list.

Sometimes I have DS21 here and will have him mow the yard. When he mows he will mow everything that needs mowed. If I am mowing I just break it down into smaller segments that I can do quickly. The play yard needs the most attention as the kids are out there almost every day.

Wednesdays are more of an errand day here:

Change sheets
Wash whites
Make grocery list
Clip coupons
Grocery shopping
Drop off donations
Get gas

I have the DD8 & DD9 change the sheets on their beds. (I keep an extra set of sheets for everyone’s bed so they can remake the bed after they strip it down.) Then DS3 & DS4 will also bring in their sheets. I also strip my bed down and remake it as well, as Momma needs to lead by example. I know everyone has different opinions on how often sheets should be washed but I like to do them every week. If the weather is nice I will hang them outside because it makes them smell so good!

I keep a hamper in my bathroom for the whites. When anyone has anything that needs to bleached they put it in that hamper. DD8 & DD9 are responsible for gathering up any used/dirty towels, bath rugs, and wash rags and bringing to the laundry room to be washed with the whites also. After the sheets are washed I will throw in the load of whites.

While the kids are doing their school work I will start working on the grocery list again. I will check the sales and print off lists for each store that I plan to visit. Then I will pull the coupons out and clip what coupons I need and put them in my binder. I also try to check for ecoupons if I have time.

Once the kids are down for naps and DD17 is up and ready to babysit I will head to the grocery store(s). While out I will drop off any bags or boxes or donations that we have accumulated the week before. There are many different drop bins in town so I will stop at whichever is closest to where I am going. I will also try to fill up with gas while I am out.

Once I am home everyone helps to unload the truck and put away the groceries.

Thursdays are usually kind of slow here. The kids are ready to be done with their school work for the week and Momma is usually ready for them to be finished also.

Wash clothes – Momma
Restock the bathrooms
Carry shopping bags to the truck
Vacuum
Call Mom

Again we have laundry, Thursday is my day to wash clothes. DS3 and DS4 like to help with restocking the bathrooms. They know where to put the toilet paper and are always to eager to help. I check the bottles of soaps and such. I will refill the soap containers, if needed and bring new shampoo, conditioner, and/or body wash to each bathroom, as needed.

The next one just helps me to remember my reusable grocery bags. Sometimes I just throw them on the bench at the back door and forget about them. Then when I go grocery shopping I can’t find them so I just have this as a reminder for myself.

We will do a really quick vacuum through the house. We are surrounded by sand and there are many feet that walk through our house on a daily basis. Everyone takes their shoes off at that door but the sand still finds its way to the carpet. Not to mention the other little things like the paper bits off of notebooks and such. This quick task just keeps the house looking freshly cleaned.

Last I have ‘Call Mom’ on my list. Sadly I admit that I do not talk to my family as much as I probably should. We text but that isn’t the same connection as actually talking to someone and hearing their voice.

Finally Friday! Yay! Who am I kidding? I don’t get the weekend off. As our week is winding down we have a few more things that we do just to keep everything under control.

Wash clothes -DD8 & DD9
Clean out vehicles
Clean out purse
Clean out work boxes
Mop
Pick up in the yard

Not too bad, we have laundry as usual.

I will grab a grocery bag and one of the kids to help me with cleaning out the truck. It isn’t usually too bad as we try to pick up our messes as we go. I will change out the trash bag I keep in the truck too. I try to do a quick wipe down of the seats, dash, , steering wheel, and console while I am in the truck as the dust is really bad. (I should probably get me a small duster to keep in the truck.)

Then I try to clean out my purse as we all know how receipts and things can pile up in there. Also kids will always hand you things to keep for later and then never reclaim them.

I have the kids clean out their work boxes. Our work boxes are just simple plastic containers that hold their pencil pouches, notebooks, and workbooks for school. During the week the kids manage to accumulate massive amounts of paper and trash in their boxes. By cleaning them out once a week I can try to help them tame their clutter monsters.

Again I do a quick mop as it is usually needed by Friday. I don’t do the table and benches though unless they are super sticky or something.

The kids will also grab a grocery bag and run around the yard to pick up trash that has blown in and get rid of broken toys that may be laying around.

Saturdays are pretty simple:

School planning
Check oil/fluids in vehicles

I try to find a little time on Saturdays to get the following weeks lessons planned out and entered into our Homeschool Manager app. I will also check to make sure that I have entered grades and checked off the completed assignments. I try to go ahead and make printouts or copies of the things we will need and put them into my file organizer.

Vehicle maintenance is important and as I don’t have anyone else to do it for me I have to remind myself to keep a check on everything.

This is the basic run down of our day by day weekly schedule here. I know it may seem complicated or seem like a lot of things to do but its not really all that bad. These tasks and routines are what keeps our house running as smoothly and stress free as it does.

When you first start your routine it will take a bit of time to get used to it. Start simple and basic and slowly add things to it. Pretty soon it will come as second nature. You will immediately start to see the results of doing things on a regular basis. I wish you all the best of luck!

Evening Routines

Published on December 2, 2016December 4, 2016 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog6 Comments

I know by the time the kids are in bed the last thing you really want to do is think about any more routines. However the success of tomorrow morning will greatly depend on your evening routine. I try to keep it fairly simple and if I have checked off the tasks on my Morning Routines and Afternoon Routines then it doesn’t take me long at all.

Below are the screenshots of my current Evening Routine:

Once the kids are in bed it is time for me to finish up the day so I can relax a little and have a bit of quiet time. I may sit in my room or watch a movie with DD17. Sometimes I just chat with some of my friends who are night owls as well.

First thing I do is check to make sure the coffee pot is ready to go in the morning. I also check our bread basket, which is more of a bread box now, and I will pull a loaf or two of bread out of the freezer if I need too.

Then if the dishwasher is full I will make sure it has been started and if it has already finished I will crack the door a bit. I have DS14 and DD9 hang their glasses on the bulletin board so they don’t misplace them. I will clean them and get them ready for the next day.

I will also wash out the water bottles, if they didn’t make it into the dishwasher, and refill them so they are ready for the morning. I have some really thirsty kids here and they love water!

Shining the sink is a FlyLady term and it simply means cleaning up your sink and making it shine. Nothing like coming into a clean kitchen with a shiny sink! I will also take the dirty wash rag and dish towel to the hamper and set out clean, fresh towels and rags.

I check to make sure the porch lights are on, and that the doors are locked, while going from room to room to double check that everything is pretty much in order. (2 minutes or less for this task.)

Before I put my computer away I will double check my calendar for the next day to make sure of any appointments or activities we may have planned. I will also review the menu and see if there is anything I need to prepare for them.

I will also double check my FlyHelper app for any other tasks that may still need to be completed for the current week and/or month. Those will go on my To-Do list, if they haven’t been completed.

When I go to check on the little ones I will set their outfits out for the next day. (I usually hang a pair of bottoms with a top to make it easier.) Then I try to set out my outfit for the next day as well so I can just grab it really quick in the morning.

Ahhh…. the day is almost done and it is time for some ‘me time’. I will fix me a cup of tea or cocoa and take a few minutes just to relax. When I get ready for bed I remind myself to take out my contacts, I am guilty of forgetting this, and then I wash my face, put on moisturizer, and brush my teeth and hair.

I try to spend a little time reading my bible or devotional. I remind myself to go to bed at a decent hour but for me a decent hour could be 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. I do normally try to go to bed by 10:00 but often times I just can’t sleep.

I hope these routines will help you to set up and maintain your routines. I can promise you that your house will run more smoothly and your stress levels will go down tremendously. Don’t try to just copy mine unless you also have 6 kids at home, a dog, a cat, and 50+ chickens and a few geese…. I’m just kidding. But in reality what works for me may not work for you. My priorities will not be the same as Mrs. Smith’s who lives down the road.

Remember that what looks good on paper isn’t always right. So if you try to set up a routine and it isn’t working then don’t be afraid to revise and revise again until it does work.

If getting up and exercising at 5:30 isn’t your cup of tea then don’t do it. Maybe it is better for you to exercise later in the day or every other day. If you don’t like cocoa then that wouldn’t be the best way for you to relax in the evening.