One last College (no wait! I graduated!) try at this blog

I have been meaning to return to the land of blogging for some time. Every once in awhile, I dust off the Blogger Dashboard and tap away and entry half-heartedly. Truth be told, I've had very little extra energy the last five years or so, but that has changed! I graduated with my MS in Communication Disorders and I'm now a real Speech Language Pathologist. During those years in graduate school, I also worked full time and was a mama to my two small kiddos (one of whom was born during school!).

So now that that venture (grad school, not mamahood) is over, I want to try my hand at getting this house dominated. And life.I want to dominate that, too. One of my ideas at how to do that is to go through my Pinterest boards and work one project or pin at a time and blog the results that are of any value --whether they worked or not. I'm starting with my Making Time board.  I have long had a love affair with paper planners. Back in my late teens/early 20s, I was obsessed with my Franklin Planner. This is something that I inherited from my dad. I used to love going to the FP store with him and get my new planner inserts....or on a very exciting trip a new binder! Over the years I have used various other planners. This year I have used an Erin Condren Life Planner, which I have really enjoyed using. I love the layout and the colors and the graphics. However, the new planner has a little more streamlined layout, I think because many people decorate their planners. I don't, so I want the color and graphics there. I've been kind of poking around looking at various planners and I think that next year I'll try a Keep It Together planner. However, until January, I'm still in my ECLP, which I love.
I've been pinning Time Management pins for quite some time. So I'm going to work through those and see which I can implement in my life to make some productivity changes.
One of the strategies that I learned from Franklin Planning is to order the priority of things to do A items are very important and need to be done TODAY. Then you order them numerically in order of importance and work down your list. B items should be done if possible, and C's just need to be done at some point.
In the various pins and blogs I have read, I've seen an idea of "Top Three" and I like this idea. Sometimes even with the Franklin strategy, which I like, I can feel overwhelmed. I also want to take this Top Three strategy a little farther. Since maintaining my home in a presentable state is one of my great challenges, I want to think about which Top Three items make me feel best about my home....and also which top three in each room I would need to have done to reduce my stress. So figuring this all out will be one of this week's tasks for me.
I organized my desktop  last summer and I love how it turned out, BUT I had the document areas sorted for work and school and no longer need that. I need to re-do it, and I like this idea of putting the family calendar on it, so I may try that .
In addition, my days need a bit more structure. I want some routines that will help me keep days running smoothly. There are some weekly routines that I do well, like choosing my outfits on Sunday night and hanging them together on a rod in my bathroom so that workday mornings are smooth. I know that I'm the kind of person who will thrive if I find routines that work. Of primary need right now is a routine that gets the house tidy! I'd like to do zone work done in the morning, so that if I have a long day I am not thwarted. I'd also like to have some quiet time to read the Bible and my devotional in the morning. I also like the idea of a Sunday Baskethttp://organize365.com/the-sunday-basket/  to prep the coming week. I like to think of Sunday as a day to "re-set" my life and home and prepare for the week. We try to adhere to a screen free Sunday here and spend time together and in preparation for the week. However, after the kiddos go to bed, I may indulge in following this linky party  for Plan With Me Sunday over at Keeping Up With Mrs. Harris . So this week, I want to think about what I (ideally) would do on Sundays to make the coming week run smoothly.

So this week's goals:
1. Establish TOP THREE for whole house, and for each room.
2. Create a new organized desk top
3.Come up with a daily morning routine which includes quiet time and zone work, and adhere to it.
4. Figure out a Sunday Routine to re-set my week.

MamasTotalDomination....and this time, I mean it!

It has been quite some time since I decided to dominate this whole house.  I started an instagram with the intention of posting domination projects. Somehow I posted more pictures of shoes and outfits than housework. Time passed, I stayed stressed and nothing changed. I was still finishing gradaute school, and trying to balance work demands, mom demands, school demands and the demands of my brain to just get to slouch sometimes.
Technically, I am now done with graduate school (dependent upon the results of my comprehensive exams *crossed fingers*), so there is no longer that excuse that I can pull out and wave like a white flag.
Just about the time I started to feel like I really need to get in charge around here, I discovered this book   in a video by OrganizedJen and downloaded it immediately. I started to read it tonight, as well as loaded up my playlist on youtube with lots of videos by people who are using this KonMari method to purge and tidy their homes.
I love tidy. I have pinboard after pinboard of obsessively tidy spaces. It makes me feel calm to look at those spaces. I also love things, and those two are just not good roommates. I purge a lot, but it never manages to make a permanent difference. In reading the book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, I know I am going to have to come to terms with the things, but I am hoping this is a project I'll be able to do.
I think I'm going to begin in small projects and build up. The nice thing about her method is that you work by category of item, not room. That will feel much more do-able to me.
But, for now....I need to finish the book. This isn't something to rush, according to the author Marie Kondo. I want to do this right, so I'm going to have to do this in order and with intention.

Progress versus Perfection. Otherwise, entitled "No more CRAP!"

Perfection.
We all want it. But it takes energy and discipline to get even close to it, and even then, when we are running constantly on the discipline treadmill there will still never be a way to attain it. Does that mean we just don't try? Well that's what I've done for years. If I can't do something perfectly, I just don't do it.
But as Elsa says, (endlessly on a loop around here) I need to Let It Go. Perfection, hit the road.
Still in the back recesses of my tiny brain that image of perfection lurks. What does it look like? Well it goes something like this:

It is five am. My alarm trills with a sweetness that brings me joy. I leap up out of bed and head to the shower where I spend a few moments to myself, in prayer and preparation for my day. I head downstairs, let the dogs out, and start the Keurig for a cup of coffee. At this point, I head to my laptop that lives on the roll-top desk in our front room. The desk is neat as a pin, everything organized and labeled. I head over to my daily devotional reading at She Reads Truth. When I am finished, I thoughtfully and prayerfully plan my day in my adorable Erin Condren Planner (due to arrive next week, actually). Then I head off to do my morning routine adapted from FlyLady. In this moments, I flit around my cleaning zone with  a mix of determination and joy. Then I eat breakfast and head back upstairs to get dressed for work (the week's outfits picked out and hung ready to go--something I actually DO), and to make my bed once it has been emptied of children, cats and a husband. Some mornings, I may even have time for a nice walk to get my blood going.

At work my sessions run smoothly according to the plans for the day. Paperwork is where it belongs. Meetings are attended. I spread light and joy with confidence wherever I go.

When I arrive home from work, I do not dump things near the door. I wrap an apron around my waist and I prepare dinners which have been planned for a month at a time (I'm actually fairly good at this part). When I open drawers, cabinets and closets things are put away and labeled. There is order and peace.

Children do chores and earn rewards from the chore store system I have set up. After dinner dishes go directly into the dishwasher and the dishwasher runs every night. The house is tidied before bed and when I lay my head down at night, I know that if someone breaks in to our house and the police have to come at least I won't be humiliated by the mess.

Want to know my reality? The alarm goes off and I keep saying "five more minutes" until my response becomes "CRAP!" and then I don't even have time to eat breakfast;  instead I'm eating goldfish crackers out of the packaging while I drive.
I never forget my coffee, though.

I've seen decorating pictures on Pinterest lately that are marked "BEFORE" and "PROGRESS" rather than "BEFORE" and "AFTER" I like this idea. My mom used to teach college-level English composition classes and she used to say, "A paper is never done, it is only due." That's true for everything in life, isn't it? There is no "after" there is just where we are today. And I hope that place is progress.

Project Mama's Total Domination

It has been quite a few years since I blogged regularly. I have always intended to come back to it, but I find myself split so many different ways that I find it hard to find something coherent to say.

The past few years have been a whirlwind. I have been learning to be a mom, which is an ever-changing job. I blogged through infertility and pregnancy and now have a 9 year old son and three year old daughter. I'm now navigating through homework and scouts and potty training and dance.

In the midst of all of the fun that is motherhood, I went back to graduate school to become a Speech Language Pathologist. I left my job that I'd had for almost 17 years at a community college to become a speech therapist at an elementary school...and juggle new job, grad school, parenthood,  being a good spouse, and all the other assorted roles that I may slip in and out of in any given day. 

No wonder my house isn't company clean, right?

I like to say we play hard because we work hard, and we do. But I want more order around here. I want my days to flow easily, and I want to be able to handle life's daily surprises  because I am in control of my environment, rather than my environment controlling me. I want a home that loves on my family. I want it to love on friends as well.

So, for the past year I've been working on a project called Mama's Total Domination, MTD, and slowly but surely I am gaining a foothold. Though I do admit that sometimes I spend more time on Pinterest dreaming of MTD than DOING... But my organization boards on Pinterest are a sight to behold!

My first project back that I want to share with the blogosphere is the chore store, chore payday system that I've designed. I finished all the plans tonight, and Liam begged for a stay until tomorrow to start.

So tomorrow we start. And next week I'll report.