The Kitchen: The Heart of the Home

The point of this series is to help you (and myself!) get to be the most organized we can be.  Why?  So that the routine things of your day are second nature which then allows you to spend more time, and brain power, on other more important things.  If you can routinize most of your day then you won't feel quite so exhausted by the end of it...unless of course you fill up all your new-found free time with other exhausting activities!

So today let's talk about your kitchen.  I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of my day in the kitchen. Three meals plus snacks to prep and clean up equals a lot of time.

When I moved into my first home as a married woman and had a kitchen that was all my own, my mom came over and gave me the heads up on how to arrange things.  At that point, I honestly don't know if I would have thought of some of the things she told me, but now whenever I set up a kitchen, I use those original ideas as my guide.

Every kitchen is unique, but basically I look to do the following:

1.  Place the plates, cups, mugs and eating utensils as close to where the table is as possible, but not too far away from the dishwasher/sink.  Sometimes our kitchens have been so small that this wasn't a problem, but other times we've had larger kitchens so this took some thought.

2.  Place the pots and pans as near to the oven/stove as possible - usually not too hard to do.  

3.  I like when I can have a spice cabinet near the stove.  Right now the two cabinets that flank my stove hold spices in one and teas in the other.

4.  My hubby (and all but one of us, really) like coffee, so we try to have a coffee center set up.  In one small cabinet I house all of the coffee beans as well as a sugar bowl and the coffee mugs we like to use.  On the counter below this cabinet is the coffee grinder and coffee maker.

5.  My favorite section of the kitchen is the baking center.  I have a drawer with all of the measuring spoons and cups, a cabinet with all the flours and sugars, another cabinet with baking spices and extracts and such, and the mixer and baking utensils on the counter by these cabinets.  This alone makes baking things so much faster and more fun!

6.  We happen to have two separate pantries in this house, so canned goods are all in one and boxed goods and miscellaneous items are in the other.

Really thinking about the layout of your kitchen can save you so much time and extra work.  The idea is to get in and get your work done in there as easily and quickly as you can; or at least that's my idea!  Even if you like to spend time in the kitchen, having an organized one makes the time spent there all the more pleasant.

The question for today, then, is:  Are you happy with the organization of your kitchen?  If not, go find one area and try to fix it.  Work on small sections when you have time and pretty soon it will be the way you want it to be.

God Bless!

Organized Prayers

Since today is Sunday, let's talk about prayers.  Is your prayer life organized?  Do you wonder if it should be organized?  Well, I say yes, it should.  If you don't set up certain times during your day to pray then chances are you will never get around to it.  I can say, however, that even when you do have set times there will be days when you get to bedtime and remember you never even said your morning prayers!

Yesterday morning was a prime example!  It was Saturday, which lately means soccer day.  I got up a bit later than I had anticipated and, since none of the kids were up, instead of spending that quite time with my morning prayer routine, I spent it chatting with my hubby.  Well, before we knew it we were really running behind schedule and had to rush around to get ready so I skipped my morning prayers, only to find out 15 minutes before leaving that soccer had been cancelled due to rain.  Oh well.

I'm a big fan of St. Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises and he recommends the following in the way of an organized prayer life:

15 minutes of meditation per day
Daily Mass
30 minutes of Spiritual reading
The daily Rosary
Mid-day particular examination of conscience
End of day general examen

You can use this as a good outline to get your prayer life organized.  Shoot for specific times every day to pray:  morning, mid-day, evening.  You can start out small and once you get into a routine you can increase the amount of time and the number of prayers you say.

I truly believe that this time that you set aside to pray, no matter how busy you may be, is the best thing you can do for yourself and for your family.  Really, having an organized prayer life is what keeps me sane and this family running the way it should.

Have a restful Sunday!

God Bless!

Meal, Meal on My Grid

Yesterday was grocery shopping day - my favorite (not) day of the week.  Some people hate laundry...I hate grocery shopping.  Well, maybe not the shopping so much, but the planning.  However, that being said, I truly believe that meal planning is essential to running an organized family.  I've included an entire chapter about it in my book, "A Plan for Joy in the Home", but I will highlight the important points again for this series.

Due to time and budget constraints, I have to shop one week at a time.  I tried shopping for two weeks and it just meant that everyone ate more during the first week and then we were out of food.

I shop every week on Friday since we have a light school day and it is the day my dh gets paid.  I think setting aside a specific time to grocery shop makes it much more manageable and much more likely to get done!

Every Thursday evening, I sit down with my menu grid and plan out the meals for the week.  Since we've started Trim Healthy Mama, this means planning out breakfast, snacks and dinner for those of us on the plan.  We eat the same breakfasts and snacks every week, which makes planning and shopping a lot easier.  Lunch is up to the individual and dinner is planned by me and is based on how much time I'll have to cook that day.

Once the meals are in place, I take my pre-planned grocery list and mark off all of the items I need to buy for the week.  My store of choice is Wal-Mart, so my grocery list is organized by aisle for the layout of the store I go to.

Lastly, I take the sale papers from the week and sit down to price match with the food that is on my list.  This price matching is one reason why I shop at Wal-Mart; I can get the sale prices without having to go to multiple stores.  Now with their Savings Catcher I've been doing even better at saving money there.

With any luck I get this all done on Thursday night (ha, yeah rarely) and then I can go right away Friday morning and get this deal done.  If not, then I come home from Mass on Friday and try not to get distracted by Facebook get right to the task so I can be back before lunch.

This is how I save myself the agony of 1. having to decide what to eat each day and  2. having to run to the store multiple times because I don't have all of the ingredients I need.

If you are not meal planning, then I really think you need to make it a top priority.  You will be amazed at how much sanity it brings to your life!!!  Also, copies of the forms I mentioned above are available in my book ;).

affiliate links included.

God Bless!

Shoes, Shoes Everywhere

Nine people (6 of which are girls, ahem)...that makes 18 feet.  1 shoe per foot x 3 (at a minimum) pairs of shoes per person makes... A LOT of shoes.

Over the years I have struggled with that.  The level of neatness in the shoe department that I have tried to maintain has been determined by the door that was the most used as the in-and-out door and where that door was located.

Currently our most used door is the back door because that is the one that leads to the area where most of the cars are parked.  That means that rain/snow or shine, all shoes get dumped in the back hallway.  We must walk through this hallway to get outside as well as to get downstairs.  I cannot tolerate tripping over shoes so I needed to find a suitable solution.

Since we rent, something permanent (which is my dream solution) is not feasible.  I would absolutely LOVE to have something like this in my house.

photo from houzz.com

  But, since that isn't an option here, I went with one of these nine-bin storage units that I found at Target.  I was so excited to find one with nine slots!  

This works great for our family as it holds a lot of shoes, looks pretty decent (I mean, as decent as a shoe rack can look) and allows my hubby a place to come in and put his "stuff" on (which is better than on a counter in the kitchen, or the shelf in the schoolroom, or the top of the fridge...well, you get the idea!).

The only time it doesn't work well is when people are in a rush; and then this is what it looks like (this is an actual photo.  Not one shoe was staged for this photo op):

At least it is easy to clean up.  

I've also seen these types of shelving units in other sizes so if you don't have as many feet as we do you can buy on a smaller scale.

Of course, this doesn't eliminate the off-season shoes that are shoved stored in other closets, but sometimes "out of sight out of mind" works for me.

Having shoes organized is an important thing because it makes running out of the house when you are late to yet another event/appointment that much speedier.  I have to say it has definitely lessened the "lost shoe" syndrome that inevitably happens when you're pressed for time.  

So, how do you deal with your shoes??

God Bless!
 In case you'd like to see all the posts in this series, you can go here. 

The Central Command Post

I thought I'd start the series by telling you about the main thing I use in our household to attempt to keep everyone on the same page:

This is it; the center of our lives, the place where every movement is recorded, hopefully ahead of time, so that we all know where everyone is at and where everyone is supposed to be.

This large calendar is situated in our kitchen.

The doorway on the right goes into the school room and living room.  The doorway you are looking through leads to the back door where most of the cars are parked.  I'm pointing this out because I want to mention that I have not hidden this calendar.  It is not stuck away in some dark crevice in our home.  

Therefore, when someone asks me what is going on on such-and-such a date, or where someone is, it should be easy to get that info.  This system works, but only if the people who occupy this home actually look at it.  I think sometimes we get so used to seeing something that it becomes part of the background and therefore goes unnoticed.  Fortunately I look at it daily so that I can answer the myriad of questions about what is going on.

Each day has a specific spot for specific information.

College school schedules are in the middle-top location.  Any appointments come either above or below them (depending on where there is room and when I've written them in).  Along the bottom you will notice the words "off" and "3-5".  Each working daughter has a spot on that line where they are to write their work hours so that I can know who will be home for meals.

We've been using this type of calendar for about 4 years now and it really has been a sanity saver.  I have another calendar on my desk that has some of the same info, as well as anything that pertains just to me.

How do you keep track of everyone in your family? 

God Bless!

You can go here for the listing of all the posts in this series!
affiliate link included  

31 Days of Organized Chaos

Welcome to my challenge!  I'm participating in the 31 Days challenge with Myquillin (of "The Nesting Place" fame!).  The challenge is to write a blog post on the same topic for the 31 days of October.

I thought and I thought and decided I would write about how we keep this crazy household of 9 people organized.  I've written a book about how to organize your day, so it only seemed natural for me to write about the nitty-gritty of our day-to-day happenings.

Each day you can check back in and read up on things that we do to help us stay sane:  things that we've tried that have worked great, things that we've done that are a total flop and things I still want to implement.  It won't always be pretty but it will be real (and hopefully a little humorous).

I'll always link back to this post so that if you miss some entries you can find them here, all in one spot (see, isn't that organized? although I'll confess that this isn't my idea, it's just the way they suggest you do it!). 

There are also a ton of other people participating in this, so you can go here to check out other categories and other people.  This is going to be so much fun; as well as a huge challenge!  

So welcome and I hope you enjoy the next 31 days as much as I will!

1.  Well, that's today, and here you are, so there's no link for this one :)
2.  The Central Command Post 
3.  Shoes, Shoes Everywhere
4.  Meals, Meals on My Grid 
5.  Organized Prayers
6.  The Kitchen:  The Heart of the Home 
7.  How Library Books Add Up
8.  Our Personal Library System 
9.  Our Books and Where They Live
10. Conquering the Homeschool Paperwork Beast
11. Highschool Transcripts 
12. Organizing Outside
13. Organized Mail    
14. Personal Paperwork
15. A Mom's Binder  
16. Wanna Party?  In an Organized Way, Of Course!
17. I Love My Lists
18. Sending Cards in a Timely Fashion   
19. Storing Photos 
20. Keeping Your Purse Organized
21. A "Neat" Scarf Solution  
22. Clean Clothing Goes Where?
23. Organizing the Closet Disaster
24. Your Bedroom and Closet  
25. Seasonal Clothing
26. Legos 
27. The Importance of Chore Assignments  
28. What Does God Have to Say? 
29. Can I Learn This? 
30. Wait a Minute, What About School?
31. The Finale 

God Bless!
 affiliate links may be contained in this and all of the posts of this series.  Thanks for helping to support this website!
  

Some Humor for Your Monday

As I was getting into the car this morning with the kids to go to Mass I reminded them that today was the feast day of the Archangels.  The rest of the conversation went like this:

Mr 14 yo:  "Yes, it is also the day that Mr. Bingley left Netherfield."

Ms 15 yo:  "On September 29th?"

Me:  "It says that in the story?"

Mr 14 yo:  "It says he left Netherfield on Michaelmas and that is what today's feast day is also known as so, yes, he left on September 29th."

Oh the things that boy remembers.  

God Bless!