Confessions of an Organizationally Challenged Woman

If you drop by my home unannounced and the van is in the driveway but noone answers the door, I'm probably hiding upstairs.  Just kidding of course, but seriously I am often embarrassed by the state of my home.  I am an organizational junkie.  I have cleaned and organized only to let entropy take its course and the house fall back into chaos.  I've missed appointments because reminder cards got misplaced or I didn't check my calendar.

Even as a kid I fondly looked forward to a new school year, with fresh pencils, notebooks, and a planner.  I loved organizing everything and dreamed of everything staying neat and tidy all year long.  In the same fashion,  I start our homeschool year organized with a fresh outlook each year.  I take the manuals and use Post-It ready tabs to divide it into sections: 

I organize things with boxes, baskets, tubs, and drawers.  But no matter how hard I try, it's always been difficult to keep up with my organizational systems.  This summer I am hoping to thin out our school resources and sell off what we no longer use.  I am considering boxing up books we won't need this year and storing them in the basement, while only keeping out this years books.  I need to consolidate the art supplies and restock them.  I also need to toddler proof the room and get the pencils, markers, etc... put where Lilypie can't get them.  She draws on everything!

A new year always brings new hope of being organized, one of these years I might even achieve it.

Planning for the new school year.

    We have switched back and forth between two homeschooling curriculum providers over the years, but I am happy to say that we have finally settled on one program for the rest of the homeschooling adventure.  It is the one we started with back in 2004 when John was first starting preschool work.  The company's name is Heart Of Dakota.  In the beginning they only had plans for elementary aged guides and were recommending that everyone switch over to My Father's World for high school, but they have decided to continue writing curriculum through 12th grade.

     I ended up using some of both for elementary ages.  So far we have used 4 programs from Heart of Dakota (HOD) and 2 from My Father's World (MFW).  I have found that the style and content of HOD is a much better fit for my family than MFW.

     For the last 2 years, the kids have been combined into one main program through MFW with language arts and math at their own levels.  This year we will be separating them into two completely different programs again. This way they both work at their own level throughout the day and we can still come back together for bible study and storytime to enjoy learning together.

     Joanie will be using Bigger Hearts for His Glory with the extension package add on since she will be in fourth grade this year.

     John will be using Creation to Christ with the History Interest package. History is his favorite subject.

     And of course we will continue our Community Bible Study in Brighton.  It's a year long study.  This year we will be studying Kings and the Minor prophets.  The kids do the same study the adults do but with fewer questions.

       I am so looking forward to this year.  Both kids will be moving to more independent learning, using the teaching guides as their own daily school planners to do their work and hopefully feeling more ownership about their work.  This looks to be a great year.

6/13/2011 - Girl Time

Like many little girls today my daughter wanted an Americal Girl doll.  She loves to pour over the catalogues they send out and knows all about the different dolls.  She sometimes searches EBay for American Girl items.  One year we got her an American Girl doll for her birthday.  We've never bought any of the American Girl clothes or accessories just the one doll.  But our daughter loves her doll.
My hubby and son went on an adventure this weekend leaving me home with my 8 and 1 year old daughters.  Perusing the local thrift shop we found an 18" doll that needed a little TLC for a $1.  Joanie asked if we could rescue it so her American Girl would have a companion.  I wish I had taken a before picture, the hair was dirty and ratted but we shampooed it, conditioned and started brushing.  Undaunted, we scoured the web for ideas.  The steam method looked intriguing.  We dutifully boiled a pot of water and held the doll over the water for a few seconds then combed, then steamed and combed until the hair was tangle free.  It was a simple trick but it worked wonderfully, it made it very easy to comb her hair out.
We went to see the new Judy Moody movie, taking along the new doll of course, and then wanted to do something else fun together.  We like to sew but rarely find the time so a sewing project seemed like the perfect idea.  Joanie loved this idea for a strip skirt, and wondered if we could make matching skirts for her and her dolls.  She's always wanted matching clothes but the Americal Girl sets seem so overpriced.  This was a perfect idea for a fun project.  The strip skirt called for 12 strips that are 4" wide for a child's skirt.  Using a ratio of waist measurement to skirt width, I figured out the dolls strips should be 2" wide so that the doll skirts would also have 12 strips.  We got busy cutting the strips and Joanie sewed her doll skirts together on her own little sewing machine (which was another thrift store find):

Then we worked on skirt for Joanie together.  I decided to make it slightly fuller by cutting 4.5" strips.  Joanie ran the foot pedal for me while I sewed up the skirt on my sewing machine.  the finished skirts are very cute:


Joanie is very happy with their matching skirts!

5/10/2011 - Obsessed with knitting...

It's amazing how much craftier I've become since having kids. When I was a little girl, my Grandmother was always trying to teach me to knit, crochet, sew or quilt. I hated it with a passion and even went so far as to try to sleep over at friend's houses when Grandmother was coming for a visit. I was not a very good granddaughter, was I? Birthday and Christmas presents were always knitting needles, crochet hooks, or sewing kits. The only one of those I actually appreciated was the cherry pie knitter. The rest went unused. The problem I think was that I couldn't find any practical use for the stuff. Grandmother wanted me to help her on a King size double wedding ring quilt, or to learn to knit dishcloths and potholders. I think if I had realized then that I could make barbie sized quilts and knit little stuff for my dolls, like maybe small rugs for the dollhouse that I might have been more interested. That's not Grandmother's fault, I just couldn't see any use for it and didn't want to learn.
Fast forward to today.
With my hubby unemployed when I was pregnant, I tried to make my own stuff whenever possible.  I made a wool mattress for my cradle from two old army blankets, one mine, one my Father-In-Law's.  To hold it together I made a pillow sham from an old sheet to fit the size of the cradle and stuffed it with the blankets.  It made a firm but cozy sleep surface.  I sewed a nine patch baby quilt, made curtains to cover some of our bare windows, sewed diaper covers and longies for the baby and knitted hats for my two big kids on the Knifty Knitter Looms that my son wanted me to buy him at a yard sale several years earlier.
Now I was hooked on seeing something emerge from the basic raw materials, the things I sewed and the hats I knitted started from nothing. I love the feeling of accomplishment when you see the finished creation and the look my kids give me when I give them something I made just for them.  So I joined the church knitting group.  These are mostly older women, but there are one or two younger women.  They taught me to cast on and off, and taught me to knit and purl.  The rest I've learned from YouTube videos, and the facebook for knitters, Ravelry.com.  I am a slow knitter so I haven't made many things yet but I have a start.  I knitted an Ipod cover at the request of my son, fingerless mittens for the baby for playing outside, and diaper soakers and shorts.  My current project is a blanket for my baby made from the softest yarn I have ever felt, a birthday gift from my husband.  This time I DO appreciate the gift.  Thanks Dear!
Unfortunately I have designs in my head for so many projects that I will never have the time to do them all.  Between homeschooling, kids programs and day to day life, I barely have any time left over.  My scrapbooks haven't been touched in a year and a half.  I need to dejunk the house, clean it and organize and plan craft time into my day alongside meaningful bible study time, homeschooling, taking care of my Husband and Children and trying to keep up the house.  I used to be able to get more done in a day.  Maybe after Lilypie quits cutting teeth I can catch up on sleep and get my energy back.

5/10/2011 - Lily's Talking!

Lily is our third child and of course they are all different. I'll admit that I was starting to get a bit worried over my little Lily's lack of speech. At 16 months she said very little but a month later she is exploding with words or at least partial words. She points to the door and says "duh". She pokes you and says "poke, poke". She frantically points to her cup saying "cup, cup". She can say:

1. poke
2. "duh" for door
3. "puh puh" for potty
4. Hello
5. bye
6. Mama
7. Dada
8. Jaw (for John)
9. Juh (for Joanie)
10. daw for doll
11. baw for ball
12. ow
13. go
14. toe
15. uh oh
16. stop it

She shakes her head Yes and No and she will grab your hand and point to where she wants to go. She has a sign for nursing. In short, she is starting to communicate and she is both excited when it is successful and frustrated when it isn't. She has fewer words than my other two did at this stage but she is talking and I am relieved. Another child on the way to sassing their parents by age 10, lol.

4/21/2011 - Living in Cloth

When I pregnant with Lily, my husband lost his job.  To cut down on expenses, I decided to cloth diaper our baby.  I researched it and figured out the least expensive diapers would be flat diapers like my Mother used or prefolds.  These diapers are made of cotton so of course you need some kind of covering.  My mother used rubber pants.
Nowdays people use either PUL, wool, or fleece.  In earlier posts I showed how I've made fleece soakers for diaper covers.  They are soft and machine washable, easy to care for and they work well.  I've also made wool pants (called Longies) for Lily from sweaters, these are wonderful, especially for night, but they do require more care.  Wool has to be washed by hand and lanolized, but you only have to wash every couple of weeks unless the wool gets dirty or starts to leak.  I've also used Thirsties Duowraps which are PUL.  These are ok but they don't breathe as well and we get more diaper rash with them so I mainly use them if I need a really trim diaper cover under those cute two piece baby outfits she has.
In addition to cloth diapering, we practice Elimination Communication or EC.  EC is based on the idea that even little tiny babies know they need to go potty.  But in our culture, we teach them to use diapers for their elimination needs.  In many countries, diapers are not used and babies learn early to eliminate on cue and then later to signal that they need to eliminate.  "Potty Training" as we know it is unheard of in those countries.  So I started practicing EC with Lily at 7 months old and after a week, she learned to pee on cue.  That doesn't mean she does it all the time or that she doesn't still go in her diapers.  But with every trip to the potty, that's one less diaper I have to wash and one more chance for her practice her potty skills.  Before she started walking, she was even getting up at night to pee.  She was successfully going all night without peeing in her bed or in diapers.  Once she started walking and cutting molars, everything changed and nightime potty trips are fewer but that's ok.  Lily is perfectly comfortable going potty in public bathrooms or even in parking lots crouched behind a car door.
So between cloth diapering and practicing EC, I have found that we do many things differently than we did with our first two kiddos.  For one thing, I dress Lily much differently than I dressed the others.  No onesies, they are a pain in the butt to snap over top of a cloth diaper and diaper cover and an even bigger pain in the butt to unsnap in a hurry when you are trying to get a baby on the potty before she pees. This winter Lily has mainly worn fleece or wool Longies paired with a tshirt and sweatshirt.   She stayed warm enough without them...  Who knew.  If I had cloth diapered my first two, I would never have bought all those onesies or two piece outfits.  This summer she will mainly wear fleece or wool shorts with a cloth diaper or training underwear underneath and a t'shirt or dress.
Cloth diapering is a little more work than disposable, but not much.  Until Lily started eating solid food I didn't have to do anything special with her diapers.  You just dumped them all in the washer, did one rinse cycle and then washed on hot and rinsed twice.  After starting solids, you have to wash poopy diapers out in the toilet first but that's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  After all I already had to go through washy poopy underwear when the first two went through potty training right?  Knowing what I know now, I wish I had cloth diapered the first two.  It would have saved us so much money.  And even more, I wish I had learned about Elimination Communication when I was pregnant with my first.  Many people who start EC right away with a newborn baby are completely out of diapers by the time the baby is one.  Lily is 16 months now and I don't see her out of diapers any time soon but sometimes she tells me she needs to go or that she went in her diaper.  And even going potty a couple of times a day helps because I can go longer between washing diapers. I am thinking I might just put her in training pants this summer and see how things go.
Well, I've rambled enough for now...

2/28/2011 - Sabbath Days

Our Pastor is doing a series on the Ten Commandments.  Today was the fourth commandment about honoring the Sabbath.  The Sabbath is a gift from God to be enjoyed.  How often do we really enjoy the Sabbath and treat it as a special day?  I have gotten into the habit of doing laundry on Sunday.  Catching up on other chores.  Trying to get ready for the week ahead.  That's not the intent of the Sabbath.  Really, it's not just "Ok" to rest that day?  You mean it's a day given for rest?  That's quite a change in how I think about it.  I'll admit that I still washed a load of diapers today but we had simple sandwiches for lunch and leftovers for dinner.  Easy meals on paper plates.  I played Twister with the kids and we went swimming tonight.  It was a very good day.