Cardamom's Pod

We had our first official day of school for 2010 yesterday.  I’m glad I didn’t  plan much because it was… busy.  There was a lot of orientation to do, especially with the 3 and almost 5-year-old.    Today will be even busier as we have a FULL day.

Here’s our plan:

• Bible, Spelling, Science, and Math will be 5 days/week
• History, Social Studies, Geography, Language Arts, Reading will be 4 days/week, usually Monday through Thursday.
• Four of our children take piano lessons once a week.

In addition to that, we added two beagles (almost 5 months old now) to our menagerie before Christmas.  That has added an interesting dimension to our day and we are all adjusting.  We also have a new baby buck goat, and are milking goats again after a 5 year break.  If everyone wants, I can post pictures of the cute little critters sometime.

Yes, I’m still here – lots of fun things have been going on.  We had family visit over Christmas for a week, then friends stop by for four days.  Today my husband has taken Sam (11) and Debi (12) hunting for the first time.  He called to say that even before they’ve reached their hunting spot, they’ve already had “events”.  They had to slow to 20mph to let turkeys cross the road, saw two bald eagles, and my husband’s temporary crown came off while he was eating breakfast!

I’m changing the way I’m approaching my blog – and I’m planning to write about that very soon.  I’m so thankful for some very encouraging posts I’ve ready about moms and blogging, and will share that with you.

In the meantime, my husband still has the weekend off, and we are preparing for starting up homeschool again.  We have a massive amount of cleanup to do after Christmas and New Year’s, and lots of puzzles and games to store…

Hope you and yours had a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year!

Check it out over at Raising Olives .  BONUS included for large families!

That’s why I’m posting this, of course!

Wow – how can it be 12 days since I posted?  Real life has been a-goin’ on over here, folks!

Oh, yeah – now I remember – we set a new family record for the number of days in a row having people over – 9 days straight – mostly different people each day with a couple repeats.  We thoroughly enjoyed it!  This is the second of 2 days “off” – some friends are coming over tomorrow to just spend the day with us schooling, gardening, baking, and preparing for Thanksgiving.

My developing schedules and routines have really been put to the test.  One thing I definitely learned during this time is that our updated afternoon chore routine is a VITAL part of our day, no matter what that particular day holds!  We spend anywhere from 30-60 minutes at the “end” of the day on various chores, starting at 3pm – or earlier if the day’s events require it.

First, everyone tidies and sweeps their “jurisdiction” – an area of the house that is their responsibility to maintain.  This actually gets the entire house picked up and swept in about 15-20 minutes (less if there’s nothing to pick up).  The little girls work with me, and then they get spray bottles and rags to spot clean the floor.  (I really need to remember to KEEP them with me when they have their spray bottles…)

Then, everyone has their turn once a week doing these daily tasks to make sure the house is ship-shape and ready for Daddy:

• sweep front porch walls, floor and steps
• sweep back door area, straighten recycle bins if needed
• tidy shoe shelf, hat/glove shelf, and kitchen ledge
• tidy bookshelves and homeschool cubby shelf
• vacuum living room rug and entryway mat
• empty all trash from house into kitchen trash bag, take that out for burning, and replace bag
• mop living room, dining room, kitchen

I’ve scheduled an hour for this time, but it’s taking less time each day as the children learn their duties.  It’s also scheduled right before outside free time so they are HIGHLY motivated to get things done, and done well.  As this takes less time, I plan to add one cleaning chore to the jurisdiction time – wash windows, dust, mop, vacuum, etc – in order to get the majority of our housecleaning done Monday through Friday.  This will leave Saturdays free to work on outside chores, spend time/tackle projects with Daddy, and enjoy our Saturday afternoon winter BBQ’s.

I’ve had afternoon routines before, but this one grew out of a lot of prayer and thinking on how to have the house the way my husband likes it by a specific time each day.  I really started listening to the “little” things that bothered him when he came home, or things he’d mention needed to be done the next day, and turned those into this list.  What a difference it has made in the house, in the children, and especially in my husband’s mood when he arrives after a long day at work!  When everything’s done and in its place, we can see the gratitude and relaxation in his eyes.  That makes it so worth all the hard work and training.

This works for me! What kinds of things does your family do on a daily basis to keep the mess monster at bay?  I’d love to hear from you!

Through the years, in the process of learning how to schedule our family, I have tried many different things.  I have asked friends to share their schedules with me so I can glean ideas.  I’ve bought scheduling books, and looked things up on the internet.  I’ve fussed and fumed, scribbled on hundreds of sheets of paper, made computer charts – I’m sure you can imagine!

I’m still learning, but there is one “inside tip” that has become my first step when thinking about developing/tweaking a schedule.

PRAYER

Before you start – pray and ask for wisdom from God, who gives it liberally. (James 1:5)

When your proposed schedule is in pieces, either in your head or on your table; when you have tackled it for hours and it turns into a big plate of mental spaghetti – put it away and PRAY.

When you begin to fuss and fume, feeling like you will go nuts if you can’t get this schedule thing together – throw your hands up to the Lord and admit that you CANNOT do this in your own strength, and ask for His.  He promises that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. (Phil. 4:13)

When you do this – get ready!  Keep a notebook handy because ideas will seemingly come out of nowhere.  I’ve had them pop into my head while driving, and have recited them to my children so I’d remember to write them down when I get home.  I’ve been talking with friends and they’ve said something so profound that wrapped up several loose ends I’d given up on trying to tie.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding:
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
Proverbs 3:5,6

This definitely works for me!

Inspired by this post by Connie at Smockity Frocks, I dusted off my MOTH (Managers of Their Homes) book.  I picked up different colored Post-It notes and posterboard, and my chart is on a hallway wall, partially filled in.  The children are so excited, and are looking forward to having a highly visual Plan Of the Day, or POD, as my ex-Navy husband likes to say.  Hey, that’s great!  Cardamom’s POD – too cool!

Next up is dusting off my MOTC (Managers of Their Chores) which will help me iron out the wrinkles in daily, weekly, and monthly chores.  I’m thankful my children really are good workers most of the time, and as long as they know what to do, they’ll tackle it with a will.  Usually it’s been my lack of organization in routines that has kept things from running smoothly.  By God’s grace, that aspect is being addressed.

I find it such a blessing that as I am praying for God’s help in this area of my life, that there’s been all sorts of posts popping up by my “bloggy” friends about how they manage their chores!  Just yesterday, Kim at Life in a Shoe posted her current chore list.  I’ve been going back and copying down the “weeklies” Connie mentions in her video.  It looks to me as if she’s taken daily tasks such as sweeping and cleaning high traffic areas and assigned it to one child on a weekly basis.  So it gets done everyday, but by a different child.  Brilliant!   I’m also working on “focus areas” (I first heard that at Large Family Logistics) or “jurisdictions” (as the Duggars say).  Of course, my friend Kimberly at Raising Olives has posted a lot on the subject of chores and scheduling.

Please share if there are any posts that have encouraged and inspired you in this area!

A favorite activity of ours is to open our home to other families for a meal and fellowship.  During one such recent event, we did not explain to this family before they came over that they could help us with the back pond.  We never just blend another family into our daily routine, assigning them chores with the rest of the family.

A flow well water line had broken, cutting off the water supply to said pond, and the fish needed to be relocated to the canal near our house.  Our children and theirs headed out to the back pond while the moms assembled lunch and the dads watched from a distance.   When it was time to round everyone up, we did not wish we had filmed the adventure.  Children were not covered with mud, and our guests did not have to borrow clothing before we sat down for lunch.  My children were not the dirtiest of all because they did not slip and fall into the muck.

During the clothing change, as we were commenting on the amount of mud (and the laundry we’d be doing the next day) one of my sons did not pop his head out of his room and loudly proclaim,  “Mom, look! These USED to be white!”  Don’t worry, he was NOT waving his underwear out of his doorway.  No way. Not my son.

We are delighted that this family’s children are not begging to come back.  We would not want to repeat an experience like that again.  (They are not planning on bring 2 extra outfits, just in case…)

Go ahead and laugh at with us!  Check out my other Not Me Monday posts, or some of our family’s humorous moments.

We have a lot more wordless photos, and you can visit 5 Minutes for Mom for more.

“Don’t forget to set your clocks back/forward this weekend!” We hear this in spring and fall here in the United States. Personally, I think life would be much simpler if we didn’t have to think about moving the clocks twice a year – much less which way.  (Just remember “Spring forward, and Fall back.”)  With 9 children ranging in age from 14 to almost 3, here’s what I do to make the transition easier for our family.

I’ll have to say the most pleasant time change, of course, is the one in the fall where we have to move our clocks back and we “gain an extra hour”.  I enjoy feeling “lazy” – while feeling diligent – as I let the routines and schedule drift 1/2 hour at first, then 1 hour later than usual.  I try to start this about 3 weeks prior to the time change.  Often it begins to happen, ahem, “naturally” an entire month ahead of time, and then I remember, “Oh, yeah!  Time change is coming up…”  For meals, we usually eat 1/2 hour later than usual, since another 1/2 hour when the time change occurs is not too difficult to implement.

Where this really pays off is in the spring, when you’ll have to move the clocks forward.  It requires more diligence, but pays off, especially with young children.  Usually I will try to remember to start a month ahead of time with moving the entire routine 1/2 hour earlier, and keep it that way for 2 weeks.  Then I move it another 1/2 hour earlier for the last two weeks before moving clocks forward.

Of course, while you are preparing for the transition, all regularly scheduled outside activities have to still occur at their proper times!

Since the time change is supposed to occur at 2:00 in the morning on Sundays, we set our clocks back/forward on Saturday morning and work that whole day on the new schedule.  If we’ve started ahead of time, it’s actually easy!

Helping children (and the whole family) adjust to time changes ahead of time works for me!

One morning at breakfast, we ended up having an extra pear at the table.  I did not hold up my hand for my daughter to toss the pear to me – from across our 9.5 foot long dining table.  The pear did not fall short and land oh-so-perfectly in one of the other children’s cups (that was full of milk).  So, because this did not happen, milk did not splash all over me, 6 feet of the floor behind me, and 8 feet up the wall behind me.  Of course not!  Seriously – what mother of 9 children allows her child to toss things across the dining room?!  Not me!

During the first cool weather of the season, my husband and I were outside watching our children play and explore in the yard.  One of our children was digging in the dirt – most likely adding to an ant lion collection, we assumed.  There’s no way this child would have triumphantly held up something skewered on a pine needle, and said, “Cockroach shishkebab!”  Rest assured this was not one of our girls…

Lastly, just in case you didn’t see this post, my boys did not come up with a guaranteed way to cut clothing and laundry costs in half.  Here they are, not trying to figure out how to get back to their room in their new invention…