Family Planning

Don't you love a new calendar, all fresh and clean and ready to take on the adventures that await in a brand new year? Last year, I used a MomAgenda. I was disappointed with the some of the features (mostly offensive quotes that jumped out at me and made me sorry I paid for the privilege of reading them again and again for a week). But I did love the column format of the MomAgenda, even if the columns close to the binding were a bit difficult to use. It was all bound into a book--sometimes a pro, sometimes a con. In September, I started using Google Calendar. I'm still using it, though not as regularly as I should. The nice thing about Google Calendar (well, one of the nice things) is that as soon as I get an email from a coach or a teammate about a practice or event, I can add it directly. No searching for the planner which might be in my diaper bag or might be in the kitchen. The bad thing about Google Calendar? It's not in my diaper bag or the kitchen. The good thing about Google Calendar? I can share the calendar with my husband and with friends, too (a huge blessing when I was tweaking learning schedules). I created a calendar for each child's school plans, a liturgical year calendar, an appointment and activity calendar, a calendar for household chores. I was a calendar-crazed mama! These are printable, though not nearly as nice to print as the calendars one can create on a Mac. Sigh. All that work and I ended up with calendar envy.I'm still tweaking my Google calendars and hoping the geniuses at Google will figure out way to take all the extraneous junk out of the printable versions. Or that I get a Mac for my birthday.

In the meantime, I miss my kitchen refrigerator at-a-glance-where-is-everybody calendar. I wanted something pretty and warm that celebrated the season in a family's life. It's no secret I'm a huge fan of Susan Branch. This year, I'm going to use The All for One and One for All 2008 Family Planner. Susan says that her greatest claim to fame was being the oldest of eight children. This is a family -friendly calendar with columns like the MomAgenda. (There are only five columns, though, which means I might need two.) Instead of politically charged demoralizing quotes there are delightful illustrations and a sprinkling of happy thoughts. Here's an interesting little tidbit: my husband sat and flipped through the entire thing and read all the notes and such. He even noticed all the eye-candy. This is a man who's most recent calendar is dated 1997. And it's not written in at all. At least he looked at this one:-). I think this one will end up duplicating the online appointments and activities calendar but it will stay put on the fridge for reference. The Google one will catch all the updates and it will be printed when necessary for Dad.I'll continue to rely on checking in with Catholic Culture daily to plan ahead and to immerse myself in the day of the Church. As I do that, I note what I want to remember on the Google Calendar for the liturgical year. Eventually, Google will work out its print issues and won't I have a great printable resource for my Faith Home Companion notebook?
I have ceased searching for the perfect calendar for my organizing purposes. Very few (no?) planner people are planning for ten people in a household. Then again, I once talked to Sean Covey about his planners and he has a whole gaggle of kids. We agreed then that the Simplicity pages worked best for large household management.I haven't yet tried Franklin Covey electronic planning. Maybe that would be the solution...Probably not. I have trouble seeing past the whole corporate mentality. I'm organizing and inspiring a family, not running a business. There's a huge difference and that difference really needs to be reflected from the get go. If our planning has a purpose, it has to be a family purpose.
Really, there is no perfect planner. I know that. The key to making all this planning and preparing work is discipline. I need to decide on a system and then work the system.I can tweak a bit as we go and read about other ideas, but in the end, what matters most is that I am faithful enough to stick with it. No planning system works if it's abandoned the third week of January for nothing, or even for the next thing to come along. I can't establish rhythm if I'm twisting in the wind, whether I'm looking for that rhythm in my household management, my school plans, or my prayer life.
The waning days of December are so peaceful. Happy children are engrossed in new toys and books. There is little pressing in the way of obligations. We have a little respite from the regular lesson schedule. it's a great time to build a fire and curl up under a Christmas comforter and ponder how to make it all work in the new year. So, I think I'll do that today. More later. Much more.:-)

My weekend project

My homemaking notebook is about a year old. I have to say that I'm very grateful Kim talked me into this endeavor. And, tonight, I'm very appreciative of her gift to me. I was appreciative when she first sent me the binder and the dividers. They were beautiful and she perfectly nailed my "graphic personality." A little country, a little Susan Branch. I want Kim to come decorate my house--she could probably make it look more "me" than I can. But, now that I've undertaken a little makeover, I'm even more appreciative. It takes some effort to make these look beautiful! I recycled some of Kim's work and added some fresh paper where needed. And they're so pretty, I'm inspired all over again!

My binder was becoming big and cumbersome and was looking a little rough around the edges. So, I bought three smaller, heavyduty binders and set about to break the big binder apart. I made a kitchen binder (and named it after my kitchen blog), a "faith in our home" binder where I will keep all my notes for our family's celebrations of the liturgical year, and a home management binder for schedules and chores/cleaning routines, and everything else that was in the big book.

I'm pleased with the way they look. Very inspiring. Do you wonder what's in them?

Um.

Nothing.

Yet.

I'm working on it. Stay tuned.

Inspired.

I have to be inspired to clean. Sometimes, all it takes is a new scent from Mrs. Meyers. Sometimes, all it takes is knowing that the truck to take away my giveaways will be here Wednesday. Sometimes, all it takes is knowing that the lady who has been cleaning her footprints off the fridge and everything else in sight will be in my house in a few short weeks. And sometimes, it's a beautiful blog with really well organized lists that lights my fire. This morning, the stars have all lined up. It's all there. It's all happening. I have an overwhelming urge to put things in order. Kara's lists are really remarkable. They are Flylady inspired and  tweaked for her personal use.  There is an overall at-a-glance for dailies, weeklies, and zones. Then, she's detailing, room by room, for her homekeeping notebook. I was just saying that my notebook really needs some updating. Michael's departure completely sacked my routines and now that we finally have new ones in places, my pages need re-doing. Kara has beautifully  inspired me. I have Home Comforts and I have Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook. Should be a simple thing to "just do it," particularly given all the inspiration I have. Should be. First though, a cup of tea...and then I promise, I'll get going. Many blessings to you on this Monday morning. New weeks are so inspiring, aren't they?

Foss Family Home Companion

Now that Kim has given you the history behind our home management notebooks, I'd love to share my details.  Kim and I discussed what we wanted out of these over the course of several months.  We're both very visual and we agreed they had to be pretty.  We had to want to handle them frequently and we wanted to be rewarded when we looked at them.  She's a graphic genius and she sent me my cover inserts and divider pages.  They were all the inspiration I needed to take off on my own.

We both had taken to heart stories like this one and this one, and since we were both pregnant, they were in the back of our minds as we sought to put on paper everything we knew would make our households run more smoothly.  The chance of our demise notwithstanding, there were other reasons for committing household routines and rhythms to paper.  We saw these binders as works in progress and we knew that they would become the living books with which we could teach our daughters to keep house.  That's why we both chose visual themes with our daughters in mind.  And we also knew that the exercise of thinking these things through would only benefit our families, not just in the long run, but in the near term.

When a bottle of red wine fell off the top of the refrigerator and onto the granite counter below, thoroughly drenching my copies of Heart of the Home and Autumn from the Heart of the Home, I cried.  Then, I blotted and reconciled myself to the fact that now I had lots and lots of pages to cut and paste in order to add graphics to my planning pages. I downloaded the same font she'd used for the dividers from Two Peas in a Bucket.  I wanted all the pages in the same font if at all possible.  For purposes of this post, I have saved all the downloads in a plain Word font, since you wouldn't be able to read them in the Two Peas font unless you'd downloaded it as well. Clear as mud so far?

I have already benefitted enormously from this book.  I had all these routines in place by midsummer and my children and I were well practiced before the fall and the stresses that came with it.  Within a two week span, my husband changed jobs (from one that had him traveling often and working at home to one that has him traveling still but working in a downtown office as well) and we added a baby to the family.  Add to that the beginning of the school year, a new activity schedule, and some nasty viral illnesses and I could have been looking at utter chaos.

Thanks to the help of some very dear friends and to the forethought of the plan, we are surviving rather well. It's not perfect and my house doesn't look like a Better Homes and Gardens spread, but it's functional and when we put our minds to it, it's downright lovely.

The book begins with some inspiration.  Kim sent this page:

and then I added this post to remind myself why I am doing this whole homemaking thing.

The Schedules section of the binder begins with a master schedule for the week.  I've listed, by day, where each child goes and how they get to and from.  Behind that are pages that include all the game and dance rehearsal schedules, directions to all the fields for the current season, my husband's travel schedule, the local school schedule and any correspondence from coaches or dance teachers.  I keep a few empty page protectors there so that I can file things the minute they get home.

The Food section includes:

• a Basic Kitchen Inventory Download healthy_kitchen_basic_inventory.1.doc which I use to generate a grocery list
• a three week cycle menu Download cycle_menu.1.doc
• all the recipes that go with the meals in the cycle menu-- perhaps they will appear at Kitchen Comforts sometime soon (I keep promising Lissa)
• the co-op order form (we order all our poultry, eggs, butter and many dry goods from a Virginia farm once a month)
• an inventory of all the food in the upright freezer (twice a year, we order a side of beef)

The Cleaning Section includes:

• The chore chart.  I began with a subscription to Motivated Moms but quickly discovered that the schedules there didn't work for a family this size and my definition of clean and orderly.  So, I tweaked it.  I still consult the Motivated Moms schedule weekly, but the chart we use is way-tailored to my family each week.Download EDAILYCHORES--10-22.doc
• Several pages clearly defining what "clean" really is.  These are also laminated  and posted throughout the house. These charts enable my husband to make "inspections." Download eslists.1.doc
• A page with the laundry routine Download laundry_routine.1.doc
• Instructions on washing diapers Download washing_diapers.1.doc
• How to make various household cleaners Download basic_cleaners.1.doc

The Health section includes:

• The names and numbers of all doctors and dentists and the pharmacy.
• Health insurance information.
• A list of symptoms and herbal remedies.
• A pediatric herb compendium.
• Our family's immunization schedule

The Faith section includes:

• current novena prayers
• The Mass schedule and contact list from my parish
• All the great liturgical year ideas I've gleaned from places like the 4Real boards, the Cottage, and Jenn Miller.  This section is growing very fat.

The Home Education section includes the plan for each child that I wrote this summer.  Those are all linked on the sidebar of this blog.

The Contacts section includes:

• the back page from our community news magazine which has all the names and numbers of local offices and merchants.
• a printed list of the names, phone numbers, and snail mail addresses of all the 4Real Message board moderators.
• a printed list of other frequently called numbers

Whew!  I'm having such fun reading others' ideas and plans for management notebooks and I'm sure glad that I bought a two inch binder from the get-go.  I see much adding in my future.

For more on Homemaking Companion Books click here.