My new corner office - and the job to go with it.   

January 1, 2009 | 2 Comments

The Feminists lied to me!

As a child of the late 70’s and 80’s, I grew up with the general understanding that housekeeping was what a woman did if she lacked the education, ambition, or intelligence to do anything else.  Running a household was the most mindless thing a woman could do.  Of course we could work 80 hours a week and slip in a little housework here and there.  No big deal, right?

Ha!

I’ve done both.  Ok, maybe I’ve never pulled an 80-hour work week.  Not even in the late 90’s when you had to put in 80-hour work weeks before the cool geeks would even give you the time of day.  Sorry, I guess I missed out on that bit of geek cred.  I kinda like sleep occasionally.  But I’ve been a working mother with a corporate job, a work-at-home Mom running my own businesses, and even (for brief periods) a stay-at-home Mom with no outside work responsibilities.

Anybody who tells you that managing a household is mindless has never actually done it.  Running a household - at least a household like mine! - is like negotiating Middle East peace, balancing the federal budget, running a corporation, and changing blow-out diapers, all at the same time at 4 AM on the day after Thanksgiving at WalMart.

For quite some time, I’ve been operating under the idea that if I could only get things to a baseline, get everything organized and figured out, life would run smoothly.  Unfortunately, I really need peace and quiet to do that kind of thinking, and well…that’s a pretty rare commodity around here.  Rather than giving up on the idea and just accepting life as one crisis after another, I’m trying another tactic:

I’ve taken a new job:  CEO of Ballad Family, Inc.

Responsibilities include oversight of various divisions including Education, Food Service, Accounting, Human Resources, and Site Maintenance.

Salary: $1000 per month.

According to the budget, there should be about $1000 left over at the end of every month.  So why have we been living paycheck to paycheck?  I have no idea.  I can’t even begin to tell you where that $1000 goes every month.  So, that’s my first goal.  To accurately track our budget, eliminate waste, and stick that $1000 into a savings account where it can’t go wandering off.  To achieve this, I’ll need to examine each area of this operation and streamline it.

I’ll be sharing my progress with you, in the hopes that what I’m doing will inspire and give you some practical tools to use in your own household.

And yes, I even have a corner office.  My Christmas present from DH was a complete re-organizatin of our bedroom.  What was once a storage and sleeping room is now an oasis of order!  I’ll post more about that on Tuesday, when I re-join Tackle it Tuesdays.

Tackle it Tuesday: Three Year Olds Can Put Away Laundry!   

March 11, 2008 | 6 Comments

First off, I apologize - I meant to have photos to post of this project, but my camera up and died yesterday! Hopefully it’s just the battery and I’ll be able to post photos later this week.

Ok, now on to today’s Tackle. I have a family of 5 - soon to be 6 (if you haven’t already, check out the nursery blogging project!), and with our 3-year old potty training, let’s just say we generate a LOT of laundry! One of the biggest challenges to all this laundry hasn’t been getting it put through the washer and dryer, but getting it all put away. I can get through about 4-5 loads of laundry in a day if I stay on top of it, and it’s easier for me to put it all away at the end of the day, rather than put each load away individually. I usually sort and fold laundry while the kids are in their bath.

Here’s the problem with my existing system: by the time I have the clothes sorted and folded, the boys are ready for bed. I can’t really get the clothes into their dressers and closet while they’re trying to go to sleep, so their clothes end up being stored in laundry baskets.

That’s gotta end - it’s driving me nuts!

There are two reasons that the boys couldn’t put their own clothes away: First, they would have to accurately figure out which clothes belonged to which person, and second, they would have to remember which drawer each item of clothing belonged in.

On the first point - figuring out which person each item belonged to - I bought 3 smallish laundry baskets. They’re just big enough to hold one boy’s clothes, and small enough for them to carry or push them down the hall to their room. I labeled them with each boy’s name in their favorite color. As I’m folding, I sort the clothes into each boy’s basket.

On the second point - helping them remember which drawers are theirs and which holds shirts, pants, etc. - I’m turning that problem into a homeschooling opportunity! Our oldest is starting to read independently, our middle son is starting to sound out words, and our youngest is learning to recognize his name and his brothers’ names.

I found index cards with manuscript lines printed on them, and some clip art showing shirts, pants, and pajamas. I made three cards for each boy, and wrote a label for each drawer in the boy’s favorite color, then taped a picture of the clothing item to the card.

Now, each boy has a color-coded laundry basket with his name on it, and three drawers with color-coordinated labels with his name, the word for the appropriate clothing item, and a picture of the clothing that belongs in that drawer.

To test the theory, I lined up the full baskets in the hallway outside their room, and sent them each in to put their laundry away. It worked - even my 3 year old got all of his clothes put away in the correct drawers!

I’ll try to get pictures posted later this week, once my camera is working again.

Tackle it Tuesday: The Monthly Budget   

March 4, 2008 | 4 Comments

Ok, this week’s project wasn’t nearly as inspiring or creative as last week’s Big Board, but it’s arguably just as crucial. This weekend I tackled our budget for March. I’ll admit, I dread the project every month, but when it’s done I have to admit I feel like a huge weight has been lifted.

It’s fear of the unknown. Unless I write out a budget for the month, I have literally no idea whether or not we’ll have enough cash to make it through the month - and odds are we’ll end up with a nasty surprise around the 15th because we just didn’t keep track of how much we were actually spending.

So there you go - it’s not glamorous, but it’s necessary for maintaining sanity. Of course, writing up the budget is the easy part. Sticking to it all month is what gets difficult.

That’s my big question in this post. WHY on Earth is it so darn hard to stick to a budget? Sometimes unexpected expenses pop up. I understand that. But even when that’s not the case it seems like the math I do at the beginning of the month never seems to match up to reality by the end of the month. Any ideas as to why this is and how to make math reflect reality?

End of the month, time to plan!   

February 27, 2008 | Comments

It’s February 27. This Saturday is March 1.

So what? In my experience, the last few days of the month is the most crucial. If I scratch out time today or tomorrow to write out our budget for next month and plan the projects I know are coming up in March, odds are around 90% that we will stay withing budget and complete most or all of what we want to.

If I don’t get around to working up the budget and planning the month until sometime during the first week of March, guess what? First off, we will have already gone over budget one way or another. Second, I’ll feel like I’m playing catch-up all month long, and I won’t get nearly as much done as I’d like.

So that’s the goal for the next two days - write up a budget and plan out the projects I need to tackle in March.

Tackle it Tuesday: The Big Board   

February 26, 2008 | 11 Comments

Shauntelle over at A Beautiful Abode suggested that I should join the Tackle It Tuesday meme, so here goes. My big project this week is the Big Board. I tried to get pictures, but it’s kinda hard to photograph something transparent, so I’ll just give you the quick rundown.

I’m a very visual person. I need to see everything going on, for my own mental health. If I can’t see it, I’m likely to forget about it, and that usually has consequences. Bad consequences. So there’s the background for this project. There’s a lot going on in this family, and I need to be able to see it all at once.

I have my household notebook, but it’s simply not big enough to show me everything at once. I decided what I really needed was a really big whiteboard - ideally about 3′ x 4′. I could go bigger, but that’s the size of the wall space I can devote to this. When I priced out whiteboards of that size at the office store, well….I decided that household organization probably isn’t worth a week’s worth of groceries for the family. So - it’s time to get creative.

Step 1. Get a big sheet of plexiglass. I spent $19.95 for a sheet that measures 3′ x 4′ at the local home improvement warehouse. While you’re there, pick up some picture wire and some strong wall hooks. I’m using Hercules Hooks because they’re rated to 150 lbs. and don’t need to be drilled into a stud.

Step 2. Drill two holes at the top corners of the plexiglass.

Step 3. Thread the picture wire through the holes and knot securely on the back side.

Step 4. Put the Hercules Hooks into the wall so they line up nice and straight.

Step 5. Hang the Big Board.

Not too hard, huh? The great part is, plexiglass takes dry erase markers perfectly. They erase better than real whiteboards do, I think. There’s no scrubbing, and no ghost lines left if you leave something up for a week or more.

Now, I have a different color for each member of the family, an area where I list out what I need to do each day for about a week, and a brainstorming area for - well, brainstorms, notes to self (or others!), and general mind dumping.

We’ve had this up for about 10 days now, and the family has already learned that if they need me to know about something, they write it on the Big Board. If it’s not on the Big Board, I don’t know about it and I’m not responsible for remembering it!

So there you go. My first Tackle It Tuesday post. Here’s to plenty more!

Sprinting in a Marathon World   

February 25, 2008 | Comments

I’m a sprinter. As in, give me a short project that requires 100% of my time and energy over a long-term thing that only requires 10% any day. Unfortunately, life is all about the Marathon. So how does a confirmed Sprinter manage to finish a Marathon?

She starts by breaking down a Marathon project into Sprints. Take this blog for example. You might have noticed that despite my best intentions, I don’t post nearly as regularly as I’d like. I tend to be sporadic. I’d love to post something insightful or useful every weekday.

Ok, so now we have the starting line and the finish line mapped out:

Starting line: sporadic posts whenever something useful crosses my mind.
Finish line: useful posts 5 days per week.

At this point you’re probably sitting there asking, “So what’s the problem? Take 10 minutes and post - how hard is that??”

(It’s ok, I’m not offended. I’ve asked myself the same exasperated question over and over.) The only answer I have is this: “I have no clue why I can’t seem to sit down and write a simple blog post every morning.”

Wait! There it is - a clue to the problem. My original goal (starting small) was to post twice a week. That means, I have to sit and think about it. Did I post yet this week? I know, everybody tells you to start small, don’t set unrealistic goals at first. But I’m going to stand here and say just the opposite. Set big goals that fit into your routine. For me, it will be easier to post every single day than it was to post once a week. Why? Because I don’t have to think about it. It will become a habit - every afternoon, I’ll post something to the blog, then move on to working on the next short story or the current chapter in my nonfiction book.

So here’s the next question. If you’ve read my blog, what would you like to see more of? What types of issues are you curious about? I’m working on an editorial calendar so that you’ll know what to expect when you swing by on a Tuesday afternoon, and so that when I’m staring at the blank screen on Friday I’ll at least have some idea of what to write about.

The Weakest Link   

February 22, 2008 | Comments

We’ve all heard the phrase “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Well, this week I made a very revealing discovery. When it comes to keeping a household running smoothly, there are two basic methods:

• The CEO method, in which there is one primary person in charge of keeping the whole system running smoothly.
• The Co-Op method, in which everyone has responsibility for some part of the system, and enough knowledge of the rest of the system to step in if one person is unavailable.

Wanna take a quick guess as to which method most of us use?

In our house, I’m the organized one. I accept that. I’m really good at planning, organizing, and coming up with new ways of getting things done. I’m also only one person, and a pretty average one at that. I don’t have some extraordinary gift for squeezing 25 hours out of the day.

My family is generally good about helping out - as long as I tell them exactly what I need done, and give them a deadline to have it done by. Unfortunately, when I got sick early this week and ended up spending three days essentially on bedrest, everything ground to a screeching halt. Literally. By Wednesday evening, the family ate frozen pizza off of paper plates. (Not that there’s anything wrong with either frozen pizza or paper plates on occasion!) Laundry hasn’t been done since Monday. Don’t ask about the shortcuts we’ve taken in homeschooling this week!

The CEO method of household management has its benefits - you have a single point of contact for household management questions, and well, sometimes management by committee just doesn’t work.

If several members of your family are good at organizing and managing, the Co-op method might just work for you - one person is responsible for laundry, another deals with meals, someone else does the planning.

It’s a great idea, but a pure Co-op method won’t work in our family so we need a hybrid approach. And we have a hard deadline to implement it - if I’m still occupying the corner office in this household when the baby arrives in May . . . I don’t want to see the chaos I’ll come home to!

So here’s the plan.

I’m expanding upon my current household notebook, and will document a lot of the processes that I “just know” right now - like the stuff that I know goes on every week’s grocery list, and how long we can let dishes or laundry go before nobody can eat or get dressed. The overall goal here is to ensure than when/if I am gone for several days at a time, the entire household won’t grind to a halt again.

Wish me luck! This isn’t a small project, and I’ll post progress here as I go along.

There’s no such thing as a small victory   

February 11, 2008 | 1 Comment

A victory is a victory, period!

This weekend, I had a pretty ambitious list of stuff to get done. This was the first weekend we were home after traveling the for the past two weekends, so I was in major catch-up mode. On Friday night, I made a comprehensive list of everything that needed to get done, appointments we had, everything. I wrote it on a big sheet of newsprint (borrowed from the kids’ art supplies!) and tacked it up on the living room wall.

By Sunday afternoon, I was exhausted and convinced that we had spent all weekend running and gotten nothing done. Until I started marking off all the tasks that we had accomplished, and I realized that we had actually finished well over half of what I planned. Considering the ambitiousness of the plan, getting half of it done is a real victory!

When we label our victories over the craziness that is life “small” we minimize the time, effort, and creativity that went into those accomplishments! There’s no such thing as a “small” victory! Take the time to celebrate your victories and see how much more motivated you are to keep on going, even on days when your motivation is practically non-existent.

Hitting the reset button   

February 4, 2008 | Comments

Last week was crazy, and I haven’t a clue as to why. (Well, that’s not actually true - but we’ll get to that in a minute.) By Thursday morning, I found myself staring at a chaotic, cluttered house and two little boys demanding to know what we would do for homeschool that morning.

Uh . . .

Don’t even get me started on what we ate for dinner last week. Let’s just say Pizza Hut made their weekly sales goals. Then add in a freak snowstorm that kept everybody home on Friday and an unplanned trip to visit relatives for the weekend, just for grins.

It was a crazy week. But the thing is, none of this was all that earth-shattering. It certainly wasn’t enough to reduce a normally competent adult (or so my friends tell me) into a quivering mass unable to make the smallest decision. So what on Earth happened?

I was tired last Sunday night. I didn’t feel like spending an hour or two on schedule wrangling, menu planning (let alone grocery shopping), or resetting my household systems to get ready for the week. The result? I spent the entire week making it up as I went along. Unfortunately, that’s an exhausting way to live! Trust me. Maybe it works for some people, but for me it’s a one-way ticket to mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion. I didn’t get any more than the bare minimum of writing done either.

So last night, I hit the reset button, and that’s the whole point of this post. I’d like to share with you how I pulled out of the beginnings of a tailspin.

First, I know that I have four major responsibilities in life (all of roughly the same importance):

• Writing
• Homeschooling
• Running a household
• Maintaining a healthy marriage

I set out a separate piece of paper for each category, then listed out everything that I knew I needed to get done for that category, including the raft of things from the week before that I didn’t accomplish. I find it helpful to break things down further into subcategories - fiction and nonfiction, each subject we cover in homeschool, etc.

Once I had all that down on paper, I could start to feel my head start to clear. Sure, I had a full week’s worth of tasks laid out on each of the four papers, but I’m good at ignoring trivial little details like that!

Next, out came my daily planner sheets. I’ve already got sections laid out for each of my four major categories, so I know that I have blocks of time set aside for each broad area of my life. Then it’s just a matter of fitting everything on my master to-do lists into the available time chunks on my daily planner sheets.

Sometimes it doesn’t all fit, so rather than kid myself into believing that I’ll somehow accomplish 6 hours worth of work in 2, I have a few blocks of time in my schedule that I can use for work if I have to. I’d rather not - I really don’t like working late at night, but if that’s what I have to do, that’s what I do. It’s the price I pay for not getting anything done last week, or for not working efficiently during my normal working hours.

Finally, I looked around the house and decided what absolutely had to be done in order to have the family functioning for the beginning of the week. The living room (where we do homeschool) had to be tidied and vacuumed. The dishes had to be done and there had to be clean laundry for everyone for Monday.

All told, it took me about 2 1/2 hours yesterday to get the schedule figured out, a menu and grocery list, and to do the minimum housework required to keep me sane on Monday. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday evening, but it feels so good to wake up Monday morning without that knot in the pit of my stomach wondering how on Earth I’m going to crawl out from under the massive pile of backlogged work.

So here’s to a week of fresh starts - if I can do it, so can you!