Weekend Wrap Up.

Our weekends during lent have started with Stations of the Cross before mass on Friday nights. It has been great to reflect on what Jesus went through as he was tried and carried his cross through the streets of Jerusalem.

From it I have also been reflecting on how hard it must have been for Mary to stand by and see her son treated so badly. I know as a mother, it is really hard to watch your child suffer. Mary knew that this was why Jesus came into the world but I am know that knowing this, would not have made it any easier.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day. Every Saturday, Steve and I start the day with Mass and Adoration at 8.30. I didn't want to get out of bed at first on Saturday morning but I was glad I did after we had been.

Saturday afternoon was busy with menu planning, food shopping and getting the house clean. Saturday night we went to the vigil mass.

Today was another beautiful day. We took Tom, Amelia, Christopher and Joseph to the foreshore to ride their bikes and have a play.

I have started writing up some new household schedules also. I really hate schedules but I also realise they are a tool that are very useful with so many things to get done.

I have done two this weekend. I have written up menu plans with shopping lists and a schedule for Sam to clean both our bathrooms. He tends to leave them both until I tell him that they are both getting into quite a mess. From  now on with a schedule, he will either get them done or receive a pretty hefty fine each week.

I also did a bsl chart for Tom. I really want him to be a bit more independent of me in checking his sugars and giving insulin as needed. We have written up a chart for him  to be ticked off each day that he does what is needed at school and when he is out and about. If he can get 80%, he will get a treat at the end of the week.

I hope you all had a great weekend.

Therese.

Weekend wrap up.

It has been a busy weekend here.

Our children have been dumping all our linen in my storeroom without sorting for such a long time, we couldn't see the floor. I decided yesterday to get in there and clean it out.

I have cleaned out the floor, and cleared out one side of shelves. Over this week, I will go through the other side. It will probably go on my Smart Martha list of things to get done.

I hope you all had a great weekend too.

My mission statement.

Last week, I wrote about writing a mission statement. This is what I wrote for my mission.

Firstly I thought about all the roles I have in my life.

I am a provider, teacher, wife, friend and disciple.

To write my mission statement, I thought about, what do I want to achieve with all these roles?

After much prayer and going through the eBook, this is what I came up with for each role.

1) Disciple:

To pray everyday, go to mass regularly, receive the sacrament of confession regularly and to go where ever God leads me, even if I am scared of what it could lead too.

2) Teacher:

To be attentive to the childrens lessons, to help them learn, form good study habits, have a good routine and love life.

3) Provider:

To provide all the children's needs, both emotionally, physically, To keep them all as healthy as possible.

4) wife:

To love Steve. To hold nothing back from him. To be just as happy (or even happier) when our children have all moved on.

5) Friend.

To have relationships with other women. To encourage them and be encouraged by them. To be open to any challenges from them and see when God is using them to talk to me.

So many times this week, I have thought, I don't want to do xyz. Every time I have had this thought though, I have also thought about why I am doing it and what I want to gain from doing it. That is how I see the mission statement working in my life. It gives me the incentive to get up and do xyz when I don't want to.

Mission Statement

I was thinking yesterday, why is it whenever I start a new mothers rule or some new routine that I get everything done the first couple of days but then I start to do things half way? I don't know why it is or what makes me like this.

Today I got an answer to this. I read it in a blog that I have been following for a while.

Inspired To Action had a great post on getting things done.

Go and read the article. It has put into perspective for me what I need to do.

Tonight my goal is to read the Mission Statement E Book.

I have never thought about having a mission statement as a mother before. I am hoping that with a few goals, I will be able to stick to my mothers rule.

Day one of A Mothers Rule of Life.

Over the weekend, I worked on my mothers rule. It hasn't really changed much from before Joseph was born. I do have Christopher at home now rather than at kindy so that is about the only thing I have changed. We did change our timetable a bit anyway when he no longer needed drop offs and pick ups from kindy.

Over all, I was very happy with the day. The school day went smoothly. I did site changes for the boys pumps and uploaded their information to carelink. I got our room cleaned out (including under the bed). Steve and I also got to evening mass tonight.

I am hoping it will continue to go as well as it did today for the rest of the week.

A mothers rule.

I remember the first time I read A Mothers Rule of Life, the author, Holly spoke about the miracle of the loaves and fishes and how God used the miracle to speak to her about her needs and how he could meet them.

When I first read it, I couldn't really understand how the miracle related to being a homemaker and mothering.

Since having Joseph though, I can now see that the miracle does really relate to mothers at home. So many times over the last year I have complained to Steve, it seems like I need to get a lot of jobs done with only a small amount of time. I bet the disciples felt like this when they only had 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed 5000 people with.

I have realised this past week that since Joseph's birth, I really haven't followed a mother rule like I was before he was born. I guess something new came into our lives and I just went into survival mode and doing what I could when I could.

Joseph was a pretty easy baby but he is very much a mummy's boy. He doesn't like to go to the other children while I am busy with other things. Since he started crawling, he isn't as demanding but still likes to be in my arms more than any other place. I suspect he will also be less demanding once he starts walking as well and once he has completely weaned.

It is time though for me to write up a mothers rule again. I need to reevaluate what God wants me to be doing through my day and what my priorities need to be.

This is one of the things I really love about our Catholic faith. It is only because it is lent and I have been making more effort to take the children to church and praying extra prayers that I had this realisation.

So over this weekend, I will be making a list of my priorities and writing up how I should be spending my day. I hope with a bit more organisation, I will be able to get everything done well.

10 things in 101 days.

A blog I read had a post about doing 101 things in 1001 days.

I thought it would be hard for me to come up with 101 things to do but I thought I could do a list of 10 things to do in 101 days and break it down.

So I am starting today.

Here are the 10 things I want to do in the next 100 days.

1) finish sewing our curtains for the lounge room.

2) finish sewing Brigette's curtains.

3) Pray the rosary every morning for a week.

4) Go to bed every night by 10.00 for a week and get up at 6.00 am.

5) Reorganise our kitchen.

6) sew some new tops for me.

7) Take the children out for a family day.

8) Sort out our home school books.

9) write up menu plans for 3 different oamc.

10) write another 10 things to do in 101 days.

Start date is today, 11th January 2011.

End date is Friday 22nd April 2011. I will keep you all updated as I do each thing.

Last week of school.

This week is week 10 of term three. We will have two weeks holidays and then our final term for the year starting in October.

I have a lot to get done. Next term, Christopher will be doing full time home school. He has been at kindy for 5 terms now. Usually, children here go for 4 terms but the staff at his kindy offered me an extra term to help with his speech delay. It has been good for him to have this extra term. His speech has improved a lot.

I have started to organise our new timetable. I am hoping that not going out for kindy pick up's in the middle of the day will make the days a bit easier and we will get more home schooling done.

Steve is going to build some cupboards and a bookshelf in the family room/home school room during the holidays so I will also be organising all our home school resources and other things that will be stored in there.

My camera that was dropped a couple of weeks ago is not working at all now. I had Steve video our children at their kids club service and it is all fuzzy. It will probably be okay for photos only but at the moment, we cannot even get that to work. Maybe I will try charging the battery and see if that makes a difference.

Finished!!!!!!

Sewing area all cleaned up. Joseph was a bit fussy yesterday and I had to carry him around a lot so only finished it off this morning.

He has been really cute this morning. Here is a photo of him with his new toy from my mother in law.

Now to do some sewing. My next clean up area will be our store room. It is very messy!!!!!!

Baby Steps.

I have cleaned up the desk. Tomorrow, we will work on the floor and then I should be ready to go.

It is a long weekend in Australia this weekend for Anzac Day. I am hoping to get a bit of sewing done on Sunday and Monday.

Hope you all have a good one.

Are you born organised or a SHE?

Last night I was reading Cathy's blog and she had a before and after shot of her clean office. She reminded me of a post I thought about doing.

I am a SHE. A SHE is a sidetrack household executive. If I set about any task, I always get sidetracked.Lots of things sidetrack me from finishing a job (unless I set myself a deadline).

I have been wanting (just a little bit) to get my sewing desk cleaned up. It have been putting off doing sewing until it is clean. Each day, Brigette folds our washing and brings it into our room. She usually puts it on our bed or on my sewing table. If it gets put on our bed, Steve or I move it to the sewing table when it is bed time (and I think, I will put it away tomorrow). Tomorrow never comes in this house though.

This is what my sewing area looks like at the moment:

I need to get it cleaned up so that I can do some sewing. I will post an after photo once it is done. Now that everyone knows, I will be more motivated and try and get it done sooner. If you don't see an after shot on here in the next couple of days, start harassing me. That should get me moving too.

My review of A Mothers Rule of Life.

A Mothers rule of life is a book mainly about scheduling and organisation for a Christian Mother. It is much more though than just about organisation. It is about bringing peace to our souls through living our vocation and seeking God in the way that he intended.

Holly speaks about 5 P's that a mother has responsibilities in.
The 5 areas are:

1: Prayer.

2: Person.

3: Partner.

4: Parent.

5: Provider.

Each P has a priority and when a lesser P takes on a higher priority our life becomes unbalanced and life becomes unmanageable.

The book has a good flow to it and is very readable. There is a lot of personal testimony in it that many may find irrelevant to their lives. I think that it shows the journey that Holly went on though to get to the point in her life that God was the top priority and that living her life in the way that God called her too was the way for her to get to heaven.

It is definitely a book I recommend reading and keeping. I refer back to it a lot.

Mothers rule of life.

Here is a link to the Blog that Holly Pierlot runs to give mothers help with their mothers rule.

A Mothers Rule of Life.

You can order the book and write to Holly about anything from the book to get help with your own mothers rule.

For anyone in Australia the book is available from The Nile.

It is a book that I refer back to a lot. While I was in early pregnancy, a lot of my chores were neglected and chaos started taking over in our house. It is at times like this that I reread Holly's book and get the motivation I need to start over.

A typical home school day.

Jillian posted on her blog about their home school day.

I thought I would do a similar run down here as to what happens with our day.

Usually everyone is up by 7.30. The older children are responsible to get their own breakfast, get their lunches prepared for school and pack their school bags.

I start breakfast preparation first for Tom, Amelia, Christopher and I. Tom and Christopher need to have their sugars checked first thing before breakfast. Once breakfast is cooked I will sit and check email and look at a few blogs while I eat my breakfast.

At 8.20 I leave to take the older children to school. I get back from this trip around 8.40 and this week we have started jumping straight into home school as soon as we get back.

Prayer is first, followed by reading. After reading we do a different subject each day.

Monday: Science.
Tuesday: History.
Wednesday: Geography.
Thursday: Sewing.
Friday: Cooking.

This usually goes till around 10.30.

Tom and Christopher do another blood sugar test and then they have recess. This is usually playing outside especially if it is nice weather.

At 10.30 I generally will get a cup of coffee and get on the internet again. I try to limit my time to 30 minutes but sometimes I end up going over.

Once morning tea is finished, the children and I will work together to clean something. I don't really have a timetable for this but I do what I think needs doing. If a room is particularly messy, we will do that one. At 11.45 I start to get Christopher ready for kindy and he has an early lunch. He needs to be there at 12.15.

When I get back from kindy, Tom and Amelia will have a quick lunch and we will start our afternoon learning at about 1.00. In the afternoon we do spelling, maths and literacy.

These three lessons usually go till around 2.30 and then our home school day is finished.

At 2.45 I leave to get Christopher and the school children.

When we get home the children have a snack and then do a job they do before they are allowed to play.

We eat tea at around 5.30. At 7.30 or so we will have family prayer.

8.00 is bed time for the younger three and lights get turned out at 8.30.

I have to do a blood sugar test for the boys at 10.00 (about 2 hours after their supper) so from 8.00 till 10.00 I generally spend time on the computer or doing some sewing.

Cleaning out.

Every time I am pregnant I go into frenzy cleaning out and making room for the new baby.

Today I started. I am starting off with the store room. I have a heap of fabric that has been sitting there since Steve did the room. Most of the fabric that is in boxes has been given to me. I keep it thinking I might use it one day. I have realized that a lot of that fabric is fabric that I probably wouldn't have chosen myself if I was in a dressmaking shop looking at fabric. I tend to buy patterns first and fabric second. I don't generally see fabric and think oh that would look good as a dress or that would look good as a jacket.

So today I bagged up 3 garbage bags of fabric. I will send them all to the St. Vinnies shop. They send it from here to a place in Adelaide that makes clothes to sell in the shops. I also decided on a few projects.

I haven't done very much sewing since the beginning of pregnancy and I want to do a heap for the baby. Each time I have been pregnant I have usually sewn a lot especially in the second trimester. I will do the same thing this time hopefully. This is the first pregnancy that I have been home schooling but I still feel pretty confident that I can get some sewing done.

Once I have finished cleaning out the storeroom, I will post some before and after pictures.

30 minutes to a clean house!

30 Minutes to a clean house.

Check out the post at Graces blog. I was laughing so hard, Brigette came over to read what I was reading.

Procrastination.

I think often that I am the queen of procrastination.

I put things off until they desperately need doing or the very last minute. I have always been like this. When I was at Uni, I was the student rushing to finish all the assignments in the last two weeks. I remember one time staying up all night to finish off an essay that was due the next day. I got it in on time but I swore to myself that I would never put myself under that kind of pressure again. I never pulled another all nighter doing an essay but I did always rush at the end of semester to finish off the work that had been neglected. The kicker was, every start of term, I would think this term I am going to be ultra organised. I am going to start all my assignments in the first week and work my way through them slowly. I never ever did though.

A couple of years ago, I read about she's and born organised people in Fly ladies book. I recognised myself straight away and realized that I am a she. A "she" is a side tracked household executive.

In our family of nine, I would say that there is three people that are born organised. Those three are Steve, Daniel and Brigette. The rest of us a she's. I remember talking with Steve about it. Brigette overheard our discussion and then decided to take it on herself to speak up everytime I got sidetracked. She would say to me whenever she wanted something or whenever I put something off, don't be sidetracked mum, you can be a born organised person too. You just have to say now instead of later.

One thing I realized through from reading Fly ladies book is there is nothing wrong with being a she, but you need to learn how to work with it, rather than against it. I think part of my problem is I think to be a good housekeeper, home schooler and mother that I need to be a born orgnaised person. I just have to realize my limits though and that I will never be one.

My tips for those of you that are shes.

1. Write lists. It is the only way I accomplish what I think needs to be accomplished.
2. Be realistic in what you can do. Don't go putting together a list that needs 2 hours attention when you only have an hour to get it all done.
3. Take breaks and do not expect to get everything done in one day. I think that one of the biggests problems of being a she is we think I will catch up and do everything then keep it all up to date. The only problem is, when we have caught up with everything, we are so exhausted that we don't do anything for a week and we start going in cycles just like I did at uni.
4. Routine. A routine is good. It helps you remember what you need to do and stick with it. I find that often real life gets in the way of the routine. The biggest problem with this is it only takes one day to stop the routine and then it goes out the window. This happens to me all the time. I have been concious since we started home schooling though that just because abc didn't go well yesterday, it doesn't mean it has to go badly today. I make more of an effort to start the routine again.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this for myself. We have been back at school one week and for most of the week it has gone well. Today though was a bit of an up and down day and by lunch time I gave up. We didn't get much done even though Christopher was at kindy in the afternoon. I just need to remind myself to get back into it again tomorrow. We only have 3 subjects to do in the morning. Fridays are a bit of a different day though because Christopher is home from kindy. After we have finished Religion, spelling and Maths, we are going out to spend the day with another home school family.

Next week is a new week and a chance to start anew.

Laundry tips!!!!!!!!!!!!

I subscribe to Dr. Mercola and he has some great articles on natural living.

I got the newsletter today and it had a link to an article on How to End Laundry Chaos. It is a great read so I thought I would link to it:

You can read it here

When Steve finishes the bathroom, we are doing a new laundry so maybe I will get him to read this too.

My mothers rule.

Why is it whenever we have a disruption to our routine that it takes forever to get back into it again?

I think I know the answer. Since we came back from Adelaide, I have been running around like a headless chook trying to get my house tidy and washing all done. Every night we have the kitchen done and the lounge room in a presentable state but the bedrooms are not getting done and the washing is still behind.

It is because I am not planning my days and following my routine. I also have neglected my prayer time. I keep on telling myself that I will pray when I am back in routine and everything is done. If I keep on neglecting my prayer, I will never get back into routine. I know this from the past.

So, tomorrow morning I will get out my control journal and start with my morning routine and follow through with my daily chores. I will cross off my list as I do different things and hopefully get back on track.

Works for me Wednesday.

On the weekend Steve and I were talking about self control. I really don't have very much self control especially when it comes to the internet. I always have the intention of spending a limited amount of time on but never stick to my plan.

When Steve and I were talking about it, I said I think I need to have you take the modem cord to work so that I cannot connect at all. It is the only way I can spend a limited amount of time on here.

So today being Wednesday is the third day that we have had no internet from 8am to 4pm. Tuesday is a bit longer because Steve has a staff meeting.

It has been really good. For the first hour on Monday morning I actually felt quite sorry for myself but then said to myself, no you need to get other things done. The internet hasn't been cut of forever, it is only 8 hours each day that you cannot have it. It is my work time.

After three days I am seeing that this has been really good for us all. The children need me to be a bit more attentive to the school work they are doing. The housework was getting done mostly but it really wasn't fully completed. I am feeling better about the way the house looks. Hopefully I will be able to get all our curtains finished and sew some winter coats for the children because we are going internet free for those 8 hours.

Next week we will have school holidays. I am going to talk to the family about having no internet for the hours of 8 to 4 even though they are all home and in the second week when Steve and the older children are in Sydney for WYD I am going to try and continue it.

I have lots of plans for the holidays. I want to go through our linen and see what needs replacing, clean out the bookcase in the girls room and get some new curriculum for Tom and Amelia. Sam is going to be doing home school for the second half of this year too so we will be looking into curriculum for him. In an effort to help Sam with organisation I may even go into his room (aka the black hole) and see if I can do anything to help him with his organisation. Once all these things are done, we will sew bedroom curtains and winter coats for the children (that really should have been finished about a month ago but they will be able to use during July and August.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Great link:

Check out Totus Tuus Family blog for this great post:

Catholic rebuttals to Abortion