Planning for the New Year

I LOVE the New Year! It just feels like a fresh clean start. And I love getting myself reorganized and setting goals for myself. I thought I'd share a few things I'm using to do that right now.

I still use a home management binder where I keep my routines, schedules, menus, important documents, and articles and printouts I want to keep. I base a lot of it on things I have gleaned from Flylady, Candy at Joyful Christian Homemaking and the book Large Family Logistics.

For my cleaning schedule I still use Motivated Moms. I have been using it for so many years I have lost count. Whenever I decide to try a new system, I always end up going back to MM. I just love it and have started incorporated the kids into it too.

Here is a great printable I recently found. It's where I keep my daily routines. I have it in a page protector and daily fill out the rest using a wet-erase marker. I love how it motivates me to drink my water. It's hard to do that!

I just found this the other day and it looks great! A small decluttering task for each day of the year.

For my other printables, I have gotten them from the Intentional Planner, an old Old Schoolhouse planner I got during a super duper sale (I never wanted to pay full price for it, but it's great. Mine is 2010, but most of the pages are reusable in any year.), and Donna Young.

For my bible reading schedule this year, I am using the One Year Bible schedule. I have the schedule both in my binder and in my bible. The printable schedule can be cut into monthly bookmarks. This year I am going to try to read through the KJV which will be a challenge for me.

For my calendar, on-the-go planner, AND journal this year, I have purchased a Moleskine daily planner. In the front it has your calendars and other forms you may need for keeping track of appointments and days, then it has a whole page for every day of the year. Here I can journal, jot down important notes and numbers, even keep track of things I need at the store, and can refer back to it and know exactly when I wrote it. I think it will turn out to be a great companion, as well a wonderful record of the year. It is very nice!

If I think of or come across any more great resources, I will add them.

The new translation of Psalm 127

Sometimes I wonder when the bible got changed to...

Children are a burden resulting from our own actions;
The fruit of the womb is the consequence of our own irresponsibility.
Like arrows in the hand of a fool are the children born in one's youth--
Overwhelmed and unfortunate is the man that has his quiver too full of them.
They should be ashamed, and will just look like idiots to their enemies at the gate.

Psalm 127:3-5 New Worldly Translation

Don't you?

I Love My Life!

I just read this post I wrote in 2009 and it reminded me of what a wonderful life I have! I forgot about it, but I sure needed to read it!


I am so in awe that God would see fit to give me a life that is everything I have ever dreamed of and that I get to do everything that I love and love everything that I do! If you are looking for someone to gripe with about being "stuck at home" with kids and cooking and cleaning and laundry or to whine about the agony of pregnancy or the toil of caring for babies, you have come to the wrong place! I LOVE my life!

I get to be pregnant, which is the most wonderful state for a woman to be in, not once or twice, but many times! I get to give birth naturally because I want to because it is the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. I get to breastfeed my babies as much as and as often as and as long as I want because I get to stay with my baby 24 hours a day!

I get to play with cute clothes and adorable cloth diapers and beautiful baby carriers and call it "taking care of the baby"! I get to snuggle with the most delicious fat rolls and inhale the most fragrant breath you can imagine all day and all night long.

I get to hang out with the people I love more than anything, having fun and loving and learning all day long and call it "mothering".

I get to snuggle on the couch with them and read books and learn amazing new things every day WITH them and call it "homeschooling"!

I get to blast music and sing at the top of my lungs and dance around the house with the children with our list of chores and call it "cleaning".

I get to do fun experiments in the kitchen, and sometimes my helper and I will pretend we're on the Food Network, and call it "cooking".

I get to pop my delicious baby in a sling, put 2 more gorgeous blondies in a stroller, and walk behind 2 other amazing kids on bikes, and breathe in the evening air and the company of my family and call it "exercise".

At night I get to sit in front of the TV and watch a few of my favorite shows I've DVRed and call it "folding laundry".

At the end of the day I get to curl up in bed with a huge stack of books and call it "research and higher learning".

I also get to curl up in that same bed and feel the warmth and comfort and security and happiness and joy of cuddling up to my husband's sleeping body and call it "marriage".

I cannot even imagine a better life! I can't wait till tomorrow to do it all again!