Systems

When I was younger I was babysitting at someones house and on her fridge was a weekly menu. It included breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I remember not thinking very highly of this menu. I thought it was proof that she was so fixed and scheduled. I thought, "I'll never schedule my life or my children like that." Oh silly girl.

My family knows, and especially Mike, that I forget things ALL the time. I seriously have a horrible memory. I lose things all the time too. But, knowing this about myself I have worked really, really hard to put systems in place to help me remember things and help me be more organized. I have felt for a long time that I needed to be more organized. I would love for my house to be a well-oiled machine.

With that said, I still want my house to have spontaneity and freedom. I don't want to be so tied to my systems that I can't just adjust things and do something else with the boys. One thing I've noticed for sure is that when I have little babies in my house I am much more stiff. I have a hard time going with the flow and rolling with the punches. Because my kids are such terrible sleepers who hate their car seats and don't transfer well from the car to the house, I generally am much more controlling of nap times and schedules. Sometimes I feel like I'm a crazy control freak when I have a new baby.

But, that isn't the case in our home right now so I think we are more free with our time and our schedules. As I try to make our house run more smoothly I've found a few things:

1. I am a minimalist. I don't like involved systems. They bug me.
2. Going along with the first, it doesn't matter how cool or organized a system is, if it doesn't work for your family it isn't a good system. I have tried multiple things only to find in a few weeks that it's just not working for us and then I have to find a better system for us. But, as with any habit, it takes a while some times to make something stick. It's just that if it never sticks then it's not working.

Here are a few of the things we do in our home to help with organizing my thoughts, time, and life in general.

1. We have a board upstairs by the craft room with a list of things the boys need to do (feed dog, brush teeth, clean room, etc.). They are supposed to look at it before bed and make sure they've done everything on the list. This worked well before Laila died but then life turned upside down and we didn't use it for awhile. We are trying to get back into it. I also have some magnets with pictures on them that I laminated and I use them to put which activities we do for the day (there is one for lunch, park, library, TV time, nap time). These worked better when the boys were younger. I think I'll use them again with Eli because he is young enough to like looking and seeing what things are planned for the day.

I also have a little card for me that I write the crafts I want to do or the chores I want to accomplish during the day, etc.

Then under the board you can see a mailbox. I painted it white because eventually I will paint the wall a different color. I put little notes or treats for the boys in the mailbox and they love looking in to see if I left something. I think it goes well with their room especially since they have a missionary room.

2. We try to have a family theme with goals. We chose the Armour of God but again, since Laila died we haven't done a lot with it. We are ready to get serious again about our theme. Each month we will tape a piece of armor on our guys.

3. I used to have a grocery list and plan for two weeks but I found I liked to change my mind too much so now we just do a week. It's gets annoying to go shopping every sing week but this way I stick to it.

4. I don't have a mud room (a dream) so this is the best we have. The boys have a cork board that I put their spelling words, homework, notes from teachers, etc. on. I also have one with a calendar on it and notes for me to remember during the week. I recently posted a paper for me to record my weight, calories, and exercise on each week on my cork board. The plan is to have Mike frame them with some of the trim we have left over from the pantry to make it look a little better. Also, these hooks are awesome for the boy's backpacks and jackets.

3. The boys also have hooks in their rooms for their towels (I've posted pictures of these before). Each hook has their picture above their hook so they know which towel is theirs. I found that they had a hard time hanging their towels on their towel rack in the bathroom. This works much better.

4. I have an excel document that lists the majority of the foods we each. They are broken into groups of Italian, Mexican, Asian, Traditional, European, Soups, Sandwiches, Breakfast, and Side Dishes. I don't have everything listed that we eat but the majority. We like to try new foods quite frequently so some of the new foods aren't listed yet. I counted about 126 items on my list. It's great to just pull out the list and say, "Hmm. I want Italian today." Then I look at my list of Italian foods, choose one, and then find the recipe in my cookbook. It's easy this way because otherwise I think, "What should we eat?" and this way I know exactly what we like and eat.

5. This one isn't too organized yet but I also have a list of learning activity ideas for Eli. I am hoping to get serious about actually planning them before the day of.

6. The other system we used for awhile that we stopped when we moved to Colorado is the smiley face system. It worked so well for the boys and was needed at the time. I'm trying to decide if it is still the best system for them or not. I liked that the system made them responsible for their actions. But lately I am trying to be more concerned about the effort they put into something rather than the outcome, if that makes sense. I'm not sure if the smiley system works as well for that. Something to think about.

7. To help us understand what should go in our families food storage, we maintain a list that we use to annotate our usage rates of various food items. Each time we use a can of chicken broth, for example, we put a hash mark in the chicken broth row. So far, we have a little over 3 months' worth of data. We can extrapolate our annual usage from that and get an idea of how much we should have for our food storage. We'll keep it up for another three months and see how our annual usage changes.

These are some of our ways of making life more smooth in our house. As you can see, a lot of them were in place before Laila's death and we stopped doing them. We are only just beginning to get back into them again. I am always looking for new ways to be organized so if you have ideas, please pass them on. Like I said though, I don't like overly involved things. They have to be easy and workable.