FlyLady- Pagan Style; What's For Dinner (Day 27)

As you may have noticed, I have been posting the FlyLady 31 Baby Steps and my thoughts on them. I have been adding my thoughts on how cleaning your house, even the simple stuff, can be part of a spiritual devotion, and how the babysteps and the FlyLady program encourage you to think positive about yourself, your home, your habits - all to make life a little easier and better for you!

Today is Day 27 of the BabySteps! So far we have developed a few simple habits of things to do on a daily basis; in the form of simple morning & evening routines. Our goal is to make these routines a habit... if we do them consistently enough then they just become second nature!

Morning Routine

• Make Your Bed!
• Get up and get dressed to lace-up shoes; fixing your hair and face
• Swish and Swipe
• Look at your posted reminders in the kitchen and bathroom.
• Recognize the negative voices and change them. Remember, you are FLYing now!
• Put out your Hot Spots for two minutes
• Check Your Laundry
• What's For Dinner Tonite?*
• Five-minute Room Rescue (pick any room in the house). Set your timer and go!
• Spend 15 Minutes decluttering each day. You can’t organize clutter!

Afternoon Routine

• Check Kid's Backpacks for Flyers, News, Homework, etc.
• Homework Time
• Guide kids to do their daily chores
• Check Hot Spots again
• See more ideas for building your Afternoon Routine Here!

Before-Bed Routine

• Keep your sink shining
• Check Your Laundry
• What's For Dinner Tomorrow? *
• Lay out your clothes for tomorrow
• Put out your Hot Spot. It will make you happy in the morning!
• Go to bed at a decent hour! Set a bedtime and stick with it!

*What's For Dinner?  This babystep can be a Life Saver for those of us with busy lives!  If you have kids, work outside the home, or even if you are a Stay at home parent, knowing what you will cook for dinner well before 4 pm is a huge stress reducer!

Before you go to bed at night, ask yourself, what is for dinner tomorrow night?  Do you need to take anything out of the freezer to defrost? Take it out before you go to bed.  Will you need anything from the store?  Write it down where you will be able to see your reminder in the morning.

When you get up in the morning, ask yourself "What's For Dinner tonite?".  Did you take it out of the freezer to thaw?  Do you need to put it in the crockpot?  Is there anything you need from the store? Is there any other prep work for dinner you can do during the day that will save you time and stress later in the evening?

This week's Flightplan

Just planning ahead a bit to try and keep myself on task!

Of course, I'll be trying to stick to my daily routine, as outlined in my Control Journal.

Each week with FlyLady we have a different Zone to focus on decluttering or detailing. This week's Zone is the Master Bedroom, and my bedroom always needs help!

I think it's just that room where I throw everything and think I'll deal with it later. But it never gets dealt with. I should just re-name this room my Procrastination Room!!

In order to have time to do my daily routines and still have the time I want to focus on organizing this room, I have realized I need to tweak my schedule a little bit! Right now, with summer break and the girls out of school, mornings have been lazy. I've been staying up late, sleeping in, and not getting moving very well in the mornings! I'm lucky to be starting my Morning Routine by 9:30! School will be starting again in about a month, I need to change my habits NOW unless I want mornings to be stressful and chaotic!!

So here's my Flightplan for the week, including my new habit!


Go to bed at 10:00 pm - no excuses!! I do not allow my children to stay up all night, so why don't I take care of myself in the same way? (Actually, that's a lie... I've been letting Miss Zee stay up till 11:00 watching Nick At Nite or Disney Channel! This is gonna stop too... for her own good as well as mine!!)
This means starting my Evening Routine earlier, and restructuring my time before bed so that I still take care of the kids, the house, and myself all by 10:00. I am gonna have to practice some real self-discipline!!

Get up at 7:00 am - UHG! This is going to be so hard!! But I know I can do it!! Once again - Self-Discpline!! This means setting my alarm and actually getting UP!! Before 8:00!! Because once school starts again I will need this time to get the girls ready for school, and if I'm not in the habit before school starts; well it's last year's Morning Chaos all over again!!
This is going to mean really embracing my morning routine. Get Dressed To Shoes. Brush Teeth & Hair. Get Kids Dressed. Breakfast. Vitamins. Coffee. Water. Feed The cats. Check My Hot Spots. Make The Bed. Check the Calander / Control Journal. Plan for Dinner.
See, I didn't even have to look at my Control Journal, I know my Morning Routine by heart. But I just have to make myself DO it. ALL OF IT!! If I get up by 7 am, I can have my morning routine done by 8:30!! Which is the time I will be taking the girls to school once it starts again. And look, I'll already be ahead of myself by a whole hour!


7:00 - 8:30; Morning Routine / Kids & Self ready for Day!
8:30 - 11:00; Daily Cleaning. Doing the usual stuff on my list. Two and a half Hours should be plenty of time, if I stay focused and don't get distracted. 30 minutes at a time with short breaks in between.
11:00 - 12:00; Break for lunch, rest, etc.
12:00 - 1:15; Zone Work, Decluttering, Organizing. This leaves an hour for this stuff, 30 minutes at a time with a 15 minute break in the middle.
1:15 - 2:45; More cleaning IF I'm motivated and have more to do. Otherwise, this can be time for Blogging, FaceBook, games, reading, studying, Tarot, etc. Whatever I want.
Once school starts again, at 2:45 I will be going to pick up the girls from school. So I want to have all housework and stuff done BEFORE this time. Plus, in the fall, if all goes as planned, I will get my hours back at work, which means that I'll be working in the evenings again.
3:00 - 4:00; Homework and studying, Arts & Crafts with the kids. I've been awful about this. It's time to get the kids, and myself, back into the habit of studying, doing homework, reading, etc. Even if it just means coloring or painting.
5:00 - cook Dinner, eat dinner, family time. However long it takes.
7:30 - Evening Routine!! Kids Baths or Showers, Clean up from dinner, Shine the sink, rescue the livingroom, and start winding down for the day. Put the kids to bed, take a shower or bath, yoga, meditation, etc.
10:00 - BED!!


Link to this week's Zone Plan @ FlyLady; http://www.flylady.net/pages/FlightPlan.asp

Goals in the Master Bedroom;
Organize the bookshelf
Declutter the wire shelf by the door
Declutter top of bookshelf #2
Top of Dresser
Vaccuum, Dust

Monday; Weekly Home Blessing Hour / Livingroom Blessing / Monday's Oracle
Tuesday; Weekly Kitchen Blessing Day / Pampering Day / Tarot Tuesday
Wednesday; Weekly Bathroom Blessing Day / Anti-Procrastination Day / Wordless Wednesday
Thursday; Weekly Kid's Room Blessing Day / 27 Thing Fling Day / Thursday's 13
Friday; Weekly Master Bedroom Blessing Day / Hot Spot Day / Weekly Houswife's Report

MENU PLANNING
Monday - Sour Cream Enchiladas
Tuesday - Chicken, Veggies
Wednesday - Pancakes, Eggs, Bacon
Thursday - Chicken Veggie Stir Fry, Salad, Garlic Bread
Friday - Pizza Night
Saturday - Spaghetti, Salad
Sunday - Hubby's BBQ nite

Weekly Housewife's Report 7/10/09

It's time for the Weekly Housewife's Report!! Sooo.... what did I do this week?

Well, I am proud to say that I have done a pretty good job with my routines this week. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this!! I managed to stay on top of the little things and keep the clutter to a minimum, plus I woke up to a SHINY SINK every morning!! (Do you know what that means? It means I did the dishes every night before bed!!) No more procrastinatoritis for me!! I even managed to get the kids to help me in picking up their room, a little at a time, each day. Miracle of Holy Miracles - it's Friday night and the kid's bedroom isn't trashed!! I mean, it's not spotless and tidy, but I can see the floor!!

This week's 'Zone' was the Kitchen. (It's a FlyLady thing.. look it up) So other than my normal dishes and laundry and clutter controlling, I was giving some extra attention to the room that used to be the bane of my existance; The Kitchen. I mean, I don't like to cook, I hate washing dishes, I used to avoid this room like the plague! So anyways, it's looking pretty good now. I re-organized the bookshelf, scrubbed down the countertops, cleaned out both refridgerators, and organized the tops of the refridgerators too!! Plus, since earlier this week I actually made a menu plan and had a grocery list for responsible shopping, I had every days' meals planned out and we made it thru the week and still have food left!

So, here's some evidence of this week's Zone work; my Before & After pics of my refridgerator. Look if you dare, just don't show my mother the "Before" picture, it's rather embarrasing!

BEFORE

AFTER

Uhhh... where did all the food go? Turns out my fridge wasn't full at all... not with food anyways. Remember the Weird Al Yancovich song "Livin' In The Fridge"? 'nuff said....

Anyways, the thing I am most proud of is that even though my house is clean, I DIDN'T spend my entire week cleaning!! Nope, not I!! I still had plenty of time for blogging, social networking, Tarot stuff, playing with the kids, watching a movie, being crafty ----


and even some refreshing silliness in the sun and water!

** Contented Sigh **

I love my Housewife's Life!!!

Manic Monday, July 6 2009

This day is flying by, I have kept myself busy with my FlyLady routines (Control Journal) and working on my Monday Mission. Mondays are "Weekly Home Blessing" day with the FlyLady program, so I take out trash, dust and vaccuum, and just do things to bless me home all over! I can now happily say that my home has gone from Chaotic to Company-Ready in only a couple hours, and I am feeling just wonderful!! Check this out; I was keeping track of my 30 minute bursts of cleaning with some of my "Motivated Mommas" cleaning buddies on CafeMom;

10:30 - 11:00 -
gave Xander a Bath
Picked up Bathroom (clothes & trash)
Swish & Swipe
Took out bathroom trash
Took all trash out to dumpster

11:15 - 11:45 -
Alyssa took her bath
Made lunch for kids
Put away dishes from yesterday (unloaded dishwasher)
washed reamining dishes (from weekend & breakfast)
Wiped Countertop

12:00 - 12:30
Decluttering in Zone (kitchen counters)
Zone Mission - Wiped down all kitchen counters)
Hot Spots in Kitchen and Livingroom
Dusted in Livingroom
Sprinkled "Carpet Fresh" to get ready 2 vaccuum
Sprayed for bugs in kitchen & livingroom (gotta keep them at bay!)

12:35 - 1:05
Vaccuumed Livingroom
5 minute room rescue Master Bedroom
Master Bedroom Hot Spots
5 minute Room Rescue Kid's Bedroom
Unloaded Dishwasher again
reloaded dishwasher again (LOL)
Shined the sink!

1:10 - 1:40
Made a Menu Plan for the Week
Made a Grocery List
Wrote menu on white board in the kitchen

So that's it. About 3 hours of cleaning, with short breaks between each 30 minute mission, and my apartment is rescued and in much better repair than it was when I got up this morning!! Yay for me!! and a Big Thanks to my online cleaning buddies!!

okay, yes, I might be obsessing about cleaning again! But it feels right. There are worse things I could be obsessing about, right???

Here is my Menu Plan for the week. Honestly I used to hate making menu plans, but it saves me stress of worrying about what's for dinner each day, saves me money on my groceries, and helps me plan more balanced meals. I need to work on making Menu Planning a part of my Monday Routine and save myself a lot of stress!

Monday
Chicken Stir-Fry, Fruit Salad
Tuesday
Shepherd's Pie, Salad
Wednesday
Baked Chicken, Veggies, scalloped potatoes
Thursday
Brats or Hot Dogs, Baked Beans, veggies
Friday
Salisbury Steaks, mashed potatoes, veggies
Saturday
Hubby has this nite - BBQ!!
Sunday
Spaghetti, Salad, Garlic Bread