Doing Things Better

I have been thinking a lot about how to do things better around here. I want to be more productive with my time, grow in my relationship with my Savior, get things done around the house, spend time with those I love, and enjoy each and every day. No small order, I can tell you that.

I know that my relationship with God and my family has to come first....before any household task. Speaking of my family, I have been overwhelmed with the love I feel for my girls and my husband the last couple of days. I don't know why really. Maybe because we had such a good weekend together, maybe because the weather has been nice and I have been outdoors just enjoying my girls and not stressing out about the house and all the things that have to be done, or maybe God has pricked my heart to remember all the blessings in front of me. I don't know.

Yesterday we stayed home all day long and I was intentional about the time I spent with Reagan. We played games and read books and talked and talked and talked. Goodness, that girl can talk. My mind kept going to the near future where the last thing she will want to do is talk to me. I went through that stage with my own mother, as most girls do. Thankfully, that stage has long since passed and we talk almost every day. Maybe I'll skip that ugly stage with my girls. I can hope, right?

Gene came home early yesterday afternoon, which gave us another long night together. It was so nice. Gracen was in a cuddling mood and stayed in my lap last night. She would certainly play, but shortly come back and crawl in my lap, like she just needed a hug from momma. Oh, my heart could have just burst wide open. Even this morning, my eyes filled with tears as I was rocking her and singing her to sleep. Time goes by in a blink. I know the days that I have left to rock her and love on her are numbered. It seems like just yesterday that I was rocking Reagan to sleep, but yet it was years ago. Precious, precious times.

I wish I could just spend each day with them and not focus on anything else, but we all know that is not reality. Looking around my house, you can tell that I have spent a lot of time doing things with the family and not cleaning, etc. So back to my thought that I really want to be productive with my days. I want to get things done AND spend time with those I love. So, I am trying to come up with some kind of system or schedule to follow to keep up with everything that needs to be done around here. We have talked about this is our momMEtime meetings at church, but I still haven't started a "system" that really works for me yet. So, that is the goal for the week...to come up with my own personal cleaning schedule. One that is doable, but yet still gives me ample time with my family. I am thinking about dividing the rooms of my house into days of the week, so each room will get hit once a week. Or maybe I could divide certain tasks by days of the week....like floors on Monday, dusting on Tuesday, etc. I am not sure yet. I just know that I need a little system in place because it is overwhelming to think about doing the whole house in one day. Scratch that. There is no way I can do my whole house in one day. My girls won't allow it.

Are there any stay home moms out there who want to share your system of getting things done around the house and spending one on one time with your children? I am all ears. Leave a suggestion in the comment section...please.

The next area I am thinking about tackling is couponing....doing a better job at saving money at the grocery store. I don't mean just cutting out a few coupons out of the Sunday paper, but matching up the weekly grocery store sales with the online coupons and the Sunday paper coupons with my weekly menu. I have been looking at many coupon sites on the web and this is very time consuming. I honestly want to do better with the monthly budget, but this is another area that takes me away from my kids. I could easily spend hours on the computer looking for coupons. Of course, I am learning, so I know this would get much faster the more I did it. I guess this activity would have to be on the weekly rotation like any other chore.

If you have any links or suggestions on how to effectively use coupons, let me know.

Well, that is what is on my mind today. That's enough, isn't it?

Proverbs 31:27 "She carefully watches everything in her household, and suffers nothing from laziness." (New Living Translation)

Until next time...