schedules – Page 3 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Put your Meal Planning on Auto-Pilot with the Perpetual Meal Plan for Winter – FREE Printables! (Updated)

Published on January 4, 2024January 12, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog22 Comments

Yay! I did it… my first big project of the year. I actually finished the Meal Plan that I’ve been working on and I wanted to share it with you. I know it’s not perfect and I’m sure there will be some changes made to it but it’s a place to start and I’m happy with that. These were inspired by The Dinner Calendar written by Fannie Merritt Farmer in 1915 but they have some modern recipes, most of which can be found on the blog. I love that I can pull/print recipes one time and be able to use them again and again over the next few months! The kids are also working on a list of muffins, oatmeal, quick bread, cookie, and dessert recipes as an add-on to this meal plan.

Why plan for the week or month when you could plan for the years to come all at one time? We have been using this for a week or so now and it has helped tremendously! I’ve also been able to simplify my Cozi calendar by using this meal planner… so nice!

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I don’t have enough time to get it all done!

Published on January 2, 2024February 21, 2024 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

How many times have you said this or thought this? How stressful does it feel when you feel this way?

Maybe it’s not that you don’t have enough time but maybe you have too much to do, too much to take care of, too many unnecessary obligations. When you have young kids that time can slip by all too quickly and in the blink of an eye your toddler will be towering over you with keys in his hand.

I know that things can get really crazy, really quickly around here and I’m sure it’s the same in other homes as well. The past week was a train wreck with us being sick and not being able to do many of the things we had planned to get done so now we are almost a week behind already for the New Year!

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Getting in the right mindset to simplify… setting up routines

Published on January 14, 2023January 11, 2023 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

It seems like our lives can get so hectic so quickly without us realizing it is even happening. I know that I seem to get one thing running smoothly but then ten other things seem to just fall off the track and then everything turns to CHAOS.

For me, the very first thing I need to do before starting this process is to find a little time for me & God… I often find that life feels overwhelming when I haven’t been able to have any quiet time for myself. I have tried getting up earlier but that just isn’t working out right now, I often would take a few minutes after lunch when the baby was down for a nap but our school routines have been out of whack since adding a new kiddo, when the time bedtime rolls around I am worn out. I do find little bits of time here and there to have little chats with God but I just haven’t been able to have my devotional time and I think that may be part of the reason that I am feeling so overwhelmed.

When something is frustrating me I often go to Him in prayer and ask Him to help me and show me ways that I can change or that we can change as a family. I ask Him to give me wisdom and guidance about the changes and things we need to work on so that they will benefit everyone.

Where do we start when it seems like everything is the problem?

We use this process in our home for a lot of different problems, part of it we even use for teaching the kids to make good choices. I’ll give a couple of examples of how we have used this system in the past.

1. STOP and identify the problem.

This might be the most difficult part of the whole process because sometimes it can be difficult to actually narrow down what the problem actually is when you are feeling overwhelmed. Many times there are multiple problems and sometimes the problems are not actually what we think they are. If you do find yourself with a multitude of problems then just try to focus on the biggest one first and work on ONE AT A TIME or you may find yourself even more overwhelmed and frustrated.

Maybe your mornings are very hectic and it just feels like you can’t get anywhere on time. What’s the problem?

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Getting back in the groove

Published on January 4, 2021May 30, 2022 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog1 Comment

Well, to say that 2020 was a challenging year would be an understatement. It was a year full of surprises (both good and bad), unbelievable stresses, and so much more than I could have ever imagined.

On top of everything we had just gotten married (we celebrated our 1 year anniversary on December 25th!!) and found out that we were expecting. That in itself can be quite stressful but we were also dealing with our new house issues (which seem to be never-ending) and it felt like things kept hitting us one right after another.

In January of 2020, we learned that our pregnancy was extremely high risk and the odds of making it to term and having our baby survive birth were very grim. I also began experiencing some pregnancy-related issues with my thyroid and blood pressure which I’d never had issues with before.

I seriously felt like I was losing my mind and felt completely helpless about everything. I was doing my best to ‘hold it together’ and kept myself busy working on our new house so we could get moved in.

Then the COVID pandemic took over and so many restrictions were put into place. We moved into our home during the beginning of it and all the hopes we had of celebrating our accomplishments with friends and family were dashed.

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Colds, a collapsed well, and some deep cleaning

Published on December 31, 2020September 15, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

It’s New Year’s Eve and I, along with many others, will be glad to be putting 2020 behind me. It was a rough year in so many ways. We did have quite a few good things that came from it, like our beautiful baby girl, but it seemed like something new and even more ominous was lurking behind every corner.