Schedules and Thundersnows

Here it is, two weeks later, and I must say, I'm doing pretty well. I'm not always walking to the store (who could when it was pouring down rain) but I have made it to the gym to make up some of those days. Subbing at the high school makes it very easy to achieve 5,000 steps before I even leave the building, and some days, half of my stairs as well. But even more importantly (at least for this blog;) is that I have been working on more projects each day, and making progress on each one

The current schedule is:

Sunday: crochet

Monday: cross-stitch

Tuesday: felt

Wednesday: quilting/sewing

Thursday: crochet

Friday: scrapbooking

Saturday: crafter's choice

Now, for this week, Monday and Wednesday fell through. But the rest of the week I have actually worked on each project and made progress. I have progress pics and updates, as well as new plans and ideas, but today I wanted to leave you with something else.

No matter where you live, snow is a beautiful thing. At least the first snow of the season. Then it gets old. But here in the southeast, we just received our first snow. It even made the national news last night. Some places got as much as 6 inches, but we only got about 3 (it's still enough to have cancelled school for the day! Southerners don't know how to drive in the snow.) Where we are, the bulk of the snow came down in the first hour and a half, but we saw snow for about 5 hours. Big, fat, wet snowflakes that covered everything. So I leave you with those pictures. Because it's beautiful, and today, it is melting. So I want it to last.

The Nest Effect January Challenge: Creeating Schedules

If you are following along in the hopes of becoming more organized this year, then you are just as much in love with The Nest Effect's January Challenge as I am! I have diligently been charting along with Tiffany as she organizes her new year; have you been doing the same? Yesterday's post was about creating schedules to help run your life more efficiently. I think the most powerful thing (IMHO) she said, though, was that schedules can be guidelines to help, or scaffolds to hang yourself on. Schedules can be flexible, twisting and turning the same way our lives do. As a substitute teacher, I know this quite well. I can have lists of things planned to do for any given day, but once that phone rings to call me in for a teacher, all plans are out the window. And to be quite honest, that puts a kink in my plans. Ok. I'll be even more honest. It derails them.

But if I remember to be flexible with my schedule, I can more easily make adjustments and still accomplish things. So hop on over to her blog and check out the newest printable, a chart to help us create our own schedules. In pencil (at least for me). Flexible schedules that can shift and bend with new events.

On other news, I have printed out and begun using my own organizing charts, and I leave them here so you can see that even if you can't make them as pretty as Tiffany does on The Nest Effect, you can still have functional lists, charts and checklists to help get your life in order!

One chart, two uses. Regular organizing To-Do as well as a Blog topic list. Yes, I marked it in Sharpie rather than  redesign/reprint.

Weekly cleaning. Your basic, mundane cleaning. Clean surfaces in each room, clean microwave in kitchen, take out trash, take trash to curb, clean mirrors, toilet, shower, clean out the car, etc. Tailor this to your own needs.

Monthly and seasonal cleaning checklists. This is for all those things you do on a montly, every-other-month, 2x and 4x a year. Pet meds, vacuum air vents, empty paper shredder (this might be a weekly item for some), flip and rotate mattresses, change air filters and smoke detector batteries, replace baking soda in fridge/freezer. And these are only a few of the things on my checklist.

Heres's to progress!!

January Challenge via The Nest Effect

I resolved to become more organized this year and to help with that I am following Tiffany at The Nest Effect in her January Challenge: Assessing & Prioritizing Time. It was embarrassing, to say the least, to see how much time I wasted last week. Granted, school is not in session and therefore I am not getting any sub jobs, but really! There was an awful lot of TV and internet, not to mention the sleeping in.

(Don't look too carefully at the chart!)

But yesterday's post is supposedly the beginning of the answer. It is a printable of how I want to spend my time. I still want to enjoy playing on the internet and watching TV via Netflix, I just need to make sure it stays at the bottom of my priorities list. And exercising myself and the dog is becoming a must. The dog is healthy and in shape (unlike me) but he is bored. He used to go to play camp for dogs when I was working, and he got regular exercise and was wonderfully well behaved. Now that I'm not working, he stays at home with me and has begun chewing on everything in sight again. I've already repaired one set of holes in my duvet cover, and now I have to fix another.  I also want to read more and finish more crafts! (And since finishing the crafts is the point of this blog, it is a high priority.) Number one, of course, is spending  more time with my husband and family.

So while I'm rather embarrassed to have posted the earlier chart, I feel like the sun is beginning to peek through the clouds. There is hope for people like me. Tiffany says to check back on Wednesday for the next installment, so that's where you'll see me!

Here's to progress!

#2 New Year's Resolution

Making sure to blog regularly is only one of my New Year's Resolutions. I have actually made three, and as far as I know, my husband has made two. We completely failing at one each, but doing great at the others. (He is trying to help out with the housework by loading and unloading the dishwasher every day.) I have been blogging (Yay!) and the other one I'm working on is becoming more organized in my mind and my house.

I thought that by not working regularly I would do great at keeping the house clean, the laundry done, and the crafts under control. I quit the nanny job at the end of July in order to  become a substitute for the local school system, getting my foot in the door so that when a teaching position opens up I have a better chance at getting it. So far, the subbing has been going great and I really enjoy it. But not having a regular schedule to keep to has turned me rather lazy. Sleeping in, enjoying our Netflix account, working on crafts occasionally. Cleaning in short, small burst that get thejob done, but don't really take for long. Organization is desperately needed.

Enter Pinterest. I love, love, LOVE Pinterest. Don't you? I have added so many new craft ideas to my list, it's crazy. But one of the best pins I've seen recently was for the Home Management Binder Printables on The Nest Effect. Most of her printables are no longer available for free download, although she sells them in her Etsy store. She is starting a new Organizing/Prioritizing challenge that I am following, and her newly posted items are available for  free. But for the others, they were relatively easy to duplicate in Microsoft Excel (they don't look nearly as cool as hers do, but they will serve the purpose. And that's what matters). I don't believe I will use all of her sections in my own management binder, but that's what is so neat about the binder: it's unique to each "home manager" and her personal needs.

So if organizing is on your list of To-Do's (or if you need ideas on what to put on your To-Do list!) check out Tiffany's prioritizing challenge or her home management binder system. Become a better "home manager" this year!!