******Disclosure: This post does contain affiliate links. When you purchase through these links, I will be paid advertising fees. All opinions are my own.*******

When I started my blog, in 2008, I was only in it to provide news of our family to my husband while he was in Iraq for 15 months straight. Blogs provide the perfect spot for photos, stories, and videos, without bombarding your Facebook friends with such a vast amount of footage!

It wasn’t until 2013 that I decided to set the blog to public and go for it.  I was already spending about 7 hours/week on my blog, might as well make a little money off of it, right?

The thing about blogging is that it’s one of those jobs that did not exist yet when I was in high school, or even in college. You couldn’t major in blogging.

Once you begin to blog for profit, you need skills, or people who have skills, in the realm of writing, computers, marketing, and design. That’s an elephant-size amount of skills to learn! And I still have a long way to go!

Learning the ins and outs of blogging, without spending much money at all, has led me to a few inspiring bloggers.

The one who I have learned the ABSOLUTE MOST from is Crystal Paine of Money Saving Mom and YourBloggingMentor.com. That’s the perfect name for that website because she is literally my blogging mentor.

Allow me to introduce you to my favorite blogging celebrity: Crystal Paine

My Fan-Girl Confession…

Now, first of all, I have to admit to you that I have never actually met Crystal Paine. I’ve seen about 15 or 30 of her videos (YouTube & Facebook), so I feel like I know her…..the celebrity effect….but in reality she only knows me as yet another obscure little blogger who emails her a lot….

Yes, I admit it. I have emailed her about 20 times over the past few years. Yeah. In fact, I’ve emailed her so much that recently I am getting replies from her people rather than from Crystal herself…

I know. You may be shaking your head at me right now and thinking this sounds awfully stalker-like. I promise I’m not a stalker.  I prefer the term “fan-girl”.

Hello, my name is April, and I am a Crystal Paine fan girl.

I subscribe to two or three of her newsletters, I’ve taken about 4 different online courses that she’s taught, I follow her on ALL of her social medias, AND I’ve read several of her books.

One time, I even got to be on her website. You can see that here: Making Over Your Morning as a Night Owl.

WHY I’m such a Crystal Paine fan girl

You see, in a world where no one teaches you how to be a blogger in school, you have to go hunting down that information for yourself. Crystal has proven to be an excellent resource this past year, as I have attempted to take my blog to the next level.

I love how her blogging products offer practical, actionable advice.

But even before I sought to learn from Crystal as a blogger, I was already an occasional reader of her website, Money Saving Mom. I enjoyed her videos because she pours her personality and work into them.

The biggest reason I am such a fan is that she seems to possess all of the exact skills that I struggle to acquire, and she teaches her strategies in a fun, easily accessible way that I can truly relate to.

Plus, we have so much in common! She’s a writer, a mom of kids similar in age to my own, a Christian, and she strives to live a healthy lifestyle.

My Favorite Crystal Paine Books and Classes

She has so many more than just these. These few are the ones I benefitted the most from because of who I am as a person and where I was in life at the time. I’m also super-stoked to read Say Good-bye to Survival Mode and listen to her FREE WEBINAR about that!

By the way, huge deal alert: Say Good-bye to Survival Mode is only 99 CENTS for Kindle for a limited time!!!

Crystal wrote a book about living a disciplined life! I scooped that up in a heartbeat!! Having a plan and a schedule is this huge struggle for me. It’s something I have to work hard at and learn from people like Crystal.

My default is to wake up, tell everyone to leave me alone while I drink my coffee, get the boys ready for school, then tackle my day with little to no plan at all.

Yes, I know. A failure to plan is a plan to fail…yada yada yada. We are trying, okay. There are four growing boys here. It is a j-o-b!

I cannot explain to you how hard I struggle to keep all the balls I juggle up in the air!!

All the kids….the house cleaning….the cooking…MOPS leadership….volunteering at school…teaching Sunday school…..and oh yeah!! The blog!!!

Can I get an amen here? Are there any of you who are just in this ultra-busy phase of life? Sometimes I just want to shut it all down and say, “Nope. From now on, I enforce rules and cook dinner. That’s it.”

That’s why I love Crystal’s books. She is juggling so many of the same things I am, but she brings time-management and discipline skills to the table that I KNOW I can learn from.

Alan is a fan too!

 
When Alan and I got serious about getting out of debt (car payments) back in 2009, we bought the book, The Money Saving Mom’s Budget. I found it quite helpful, and not only that. It was actually realistic!

But my favorite Crystal Paine moment was this….

Our Family’s Major Life-Changing Routine Inspired by Crystal!!!

Do you remember when Alan took over the laundry at our house? That was because of a YouTube video of Crystal’s that I watched where she talked about the strategic ways she and her husband divide up the work of managing their household.

I know. You want the YouTube link so you can show it to your husband too, but I have no idea which video it was!! I’m so sorry! It might have actually been part of her blogging class a while back that is no longer for sale…

I told Alan about it, in a very light, kind way, and I asked him what thing he’d like to make his responsibility. In a perfect world, we’d have a maid and maybe not have this problem, but in reality we can’t afford one right now.

I said something like, “Hey, honey. You know how sometimes I’m bad about not planning through everything? It occurred to me that I’ve never actually asked you what you would like your chore to be at the house. You do a lot, but nothing is like divided up and assigned to you except trash and the lawn. We need to have very specific jobs assigned to all 6 of us in the family to make this work.”

At first, Alan was very deer-in-the-headlights. He apologized, and we agreed that ALL the jobs can’t be mine alone now that there are four children. It’s not possible.

My husband’s decision

Alan thought about it long and hard, and he chose laundry, which was perfect because my doctor had just told me a few weeks ago that I did not need to be carrying baskets of laundry due to my low back and hip arthritis.

Spending less time on laundry was life-changing for me!! Plus, Alan usually does a better job of keeping up with it than I ever did.

Thank you so much for that, Crystal and Alan!!!

My Work Mentor

I enrolled in a one-time blogging course she did last fall where I learned the importance of doing Facebook Lives, which turned out to be an amazing way to grow my Facebook following.

Then this year Crystal opened up a whole new website for bloggers. If you blog, you have to check it out: YourBloggingMentor.com

When Crystal launched the “5 Days to a Successful Blog Launch” course a couple of months ago, I decided to read it. I didn’t think I needed it since my blog was obviously “launched” a long time ago, but eh, why not?

Oh, y’all!! I could write an ENTIRE POST on all the things I learned from this simple little 5 day course.

Spoiler alert: Some of the 5 days have way more practical ideas than you can implement in only a day. I have this huge list that I made from Day 5’s assignments that is going to take me all of September to get through.

So don’t let this fool you. It is not just for blog babies.

If you need to improve your blog traffic, take this course whether you already have a blog or are just starting one.

Link to Blogging University: Blogging University

Ya’ll!! I can’t tell you how much I have learned!! But this article has run long, so I’m going to save all of that information. Look for a future post in September, dedicated solely to how much I’ve changed my blog since taking this simple, inexpensive 5 Day Blog Launch Course!!

More good news!

I noticed that she is currently running a special FREE webinar for beginning bloggers, and I could not recommend that highly enough. Here’s the link if you’d like to try it out.

Now I’m just holding my breath and waiting for the intermediate course. You know she will probably do one before the year’s over!

So what about you? Are you a member of my Unofficial Crystal Paine Fan Club?? Do you read MoneySavingMom.com?? Which of her books would you like to read? Leave a comment below to let me know I’m not alone in my fan-girl-ness!

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The post Why I’m Such a Crystal Paine Fan Girl appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Was I always a little flaky? I don’t know. For years, I could get away with being very loosy-goosy with my planning because I was a stay-at-home mom of preschoolers. We moved all the time too, so by the time people developed expectations of me, we were off and away to the next town.

Over the years, I have slipped into a routine of planning as little as I can get away with planning. I’ll procrastinate decisions until they are made for me. Yep. Guilty of that. Sometimes I get this fear of commitment. If I sign up for things, I’m going to have to figure out how to actually accomplish those things with toddlers in tow.

And I never knew when my husband would be here or not be here, so making plans felt like shooting darts– real darts–in a room full of people, blindfolded.

No thanks.

So friends, that is how I became the version of April you have today.

April, are you going to the yada yada yada meeting?

**Total deer in the headlights**

Ummmm. Uhhhhhh.  Umm, yeah, you know, I might…

(Inside my head I’m thinking……IF all 4 kids are well, IF Alan is in town, IF I have energy left that day…..IF I am not supposed to actually be at Dan’s tee-ball game or some Army function that I can’t remember the exact dates for…..If, If, If…..)

I love to rock me some babies. Go away, world, until I finish this.

Actually, for the past 11 years those were all perfectly good reasons to be flaky, indecisive, unprepared, uncommitted, and unsure. Did I shut the world out a little bit? Yes, yes, I definitely did.

In fact, I had to google the word “twerking” not too long ago. I’m so out of touch with pop culture, and I kept hearing that word. All I can say to that one is ew, girl! Ew. Somebody get that poor girl a sweater and some capri pants.

But things keep popping up on our calendars, and I’ve re-entered the world of work with my blog. I actually HAVE to FORCE myself to plan and be less free-spirited, more grown-up like.

You people who have a plan amaze me, and I mean that in a good way. You totally have my respect.

You know when you are going on vacation. You’ve actually committed to specific dates, and you probably even know how you are gong to pay for that.

You have a budget.

You know when people’s birthdays are, and you plan for that accordingly.

You keep some sort of planner or calendar.

 
About that….Y’all! I have purchased TWO different “planners” this year. They are both mostly blank. I have a calendar hanging in my kitchen too, which makes 3 planners, really. All I’ve written on that one is what the kids are doing for lunch and when their dentist appointments are.

I even downloaded an editorial calendar plug-in to try and start planning my blog posts. (It’s actually extremely helpful, fellow bloggers, check it out. It’s called “editorial calendar.”)

Only I’m so anti-structured in my thinking, I can rarely bring myself to write about what I’m ‘scheduled’ to write about.

I also have 2 different e-books I’ve written half of, and now they are just sitting on my hard-drive taking up space. My hard drive is so full, my computer has actually stopped letting me download or upload new things.

And suddenly I find myself wanting to change.

See, I bought all those planners. That’s the first step. I WANT to do the right thing and be all responsible again. I always was one-half responsible and one-half not at all, even back in high school and college. I used to make myself plans and stick to them, sort of. Well, I used to make plans. Maybe I never did really stick to them. I almost always turn in everything on time, actually, but I live in fear of signing up for extra things.

So I decided to pray about this today.

And this was my answer:  If you can plan out each day by making a list and crossing things off, then you can apply that same strategy to weeks. Then apply it to months. Then do that for years. Do it at the start of each week, each month, and each year, just like you are doing now for days.

Huh. Brilliant. Maybe even doable?

My planning tends to never go past the day that I’m on. This is the typical extent of my planning.

What I do now for each day is this. After I have safely delivered all of my children to school, I come home and have a little time for Bible study and prayer. You have to pour inspiration in to yourself if you expect to pour any out, right?

I close with prayer, and I ask God to help me make my to-do list for that day. I write the list out on the wipe-off board in the kitchen. Then I mentally prioritize the things that HAVE to get done.

That’s why I usually cook supper in the morning, by 12:00, because I know everyone HAS to eat, and I don’t want that task hanging over my head. Also, I have no energy left at 5:00pm.

I see no reason why this method for planning each day could not be applied to my weeks, months, and years, with one of the 3 planners I’ve purchased laying open on my lap.

And don’t even say that I should use my phone as my planner. I can’t do it. This falls under scatter-brained people problems. The minute I open my phone to use the calendar or some other useful, productive app, I immediately forget what I was doing and end up reading Instagram or my email or something.

So watch out, world! I now have a plan for how to plan!!!! Who knows? Maybe next week I will make a budget, a meal plan, or catch up on my 2,809 emails…….nahhhhh…

Please share your best planning tips in the comment section! We would love to hear more ideas! Thanks, y’all!

The post My Brilliant Plan for How to Plan appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

First, a few stats from our past year at Stories of Our Boys:

You might have read all 156 blog posts.

You are reading this from 120 different countries.

JenerallyInformed.com was the #1 commenter, followed by McMom. I LOVE my commenters! You add so much to the discussion.

Nonna was my #1 topmommyblogs.com voter and promoter.

Most of you came to my blog via Google or Facebook.

This cute little blog started to make money. Then the home school year took over, and I have been turning away work ever since.

But the greatest thing in the world you give me is when one of you dear friends says, “I like what you said about….” or “I enjoy reading your blog,” or “Your post inspired me to….”

Thank you so much!!!

Biggest observation: The most popular posts are the informational ones. My stories…which are my personal favorite….are much less widely read. Ah, well.

As a blogger, you are who I aim to please. If I were only writing for myself, I’d have a journal, not a blog, so I value your feedback. I’d love to hear what types of posts are your faves.

Now onto this year’s….

Top 10 of 2015

#10 Four Things to Learn From the Duggars That They Didn’t Mean to Teach 

#9. What’s a Jamberry Anyway?

#8. One Simple Lesson That Brought Joy Back to My Life (One of my faves as well!)

#7. Breastfeeding Babies, Strangers, and Airplanes. My, Oh My, Oh My

(So random. I wrote that one in 2013, but it was still my 7th most popular article for 2015.)

#6. How to Build a Family Schedule That Works

This is the only thing I’ve ever written that was a Pinterest hit.

#5. Classical Conversations Cycle 1: Week By Week with Brain Pop Jr.

…because who doesn’t love BrainPop??

#4. Home School Vs. Public School Vs. Private School: Pros and Cons List

I so need to update this post. I wrote this one in 2014, before I ever tried the home school thing.

 #3. Montessori at Home: Brainy Kit Review

#2. How to Make a School Supply Cake

This was published in 2014. According to Google, storiesofourboys.com is the #1 authority in school supply cake building on the internet. Pretty funny when you realize that I almost never “craft”!

#1. Making Over My Morning, Like a Night Owl

…because anything that appears on MoneySavingMom.com is going to get a thousand times more traffic than my norm.

Here’s to the New Year! We’re excited to see what 2016 will bring. I hope it’s a great one for all of you!

The post Stories of Our Boys’ Top 10 Posts of 2015 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I have never been a highly scheduled person. I dabbled with the baby feeding schedules, but for some reason I could never get the babies to understand my plan.

“No, no, no, little one. You see, right here on the 9:00 hour, the schedule clearly states that you are to be asleep.   WHY YOU NO SLEEP?????”

I get it. All schedules must have wiggle room. Life doesn’t go as planned. Ever. Well, sometimes, maybe?

I married into a family of the most scheduled people I’ve ever met. I’m going to tell you a story before I get to my point here because this story is relevant and unbelievable. Seriously.

Nonna and Aunt Janet came to visit us in 2010. Joshua was turning 5, Caleb was 4, and Daniel was in utero.  We lived in Washington, D.C., not in the suburbs, but actually in the city.

Of course, Nonna came with an itinerary for all that she and Janet intended to do during their visit. Upon their arrival, they discovered that our little boys were super sick with strep throat.

Nonna was undeterred. “Okay. So on Thursday, we’ll do the Space Museum. Then on Friday, I figure we’ll be sick with strep throat. We’ll take a day or two off to rest. On Sunday, we’ll hit the Holocaust Museum and Mount Vernon. Monday we’ll see Arlington, and Tuesday we’ll get ready for our trip back.”

I kid you not, folks, they developed strep throat as scheduled. Poor Aunt Janet, who came down with her sickness in the middle of the Space Museum. Let’s just say that for some people, strep throat is also a puke bug. It was a trip to remember.

Were our travelers caught unawares with this sickness? Heck no. That’s the power of the plan!

My friend Kim convinced me to buy this book:

This came in handy for several reasons:

1. Schedule suggestions
2. THE KIT!!! It includes this sticky tack stuff, which is a must have for the final color-coded-schedule building step.
3. But the amount of priority questioning that has ensued from working on my family schedule still has my head spinning! Talk about staring your choices in the face!

How to Build Your Schedule:

#1. Make an exhaustive list of every single thing that you need to accomplish during the average weekday. If your family has sports 3 nights a week, include that. Don’t forget to include the fact that it takes 30 minutes to get ready for said activities, 15 minutes to drive there, and 15 minutes to get home. All together, one soccer team may actually add up to 5 hours of your week, like Caleb’s team!

Then break that into 30 minute or hour increments. Here’s an example of my worksheet:

my daily activity worksheet

You may find it awfully hard to get everything into 24 hours. Lightbulb moment that you’re trying to do too much….Just sayin’. I certainly have that problem.

That was not my final draft.

#2. Do that worksheet for each family member.

Consult the kids to ask them what is important to them. Make sure they are having time to practice whatever their craft or skill is. I tried to build in time for bicycles, drawing, and baseball in the yard.

#3. The fun part: Get your kit out. Choose 1 color for each family member. Write all the activities on the appropriate size squares. They come in 30 minute squares and hour-long squares.

#4. Cut out the squares, and arrange them on your master schedule: 3 legal size papers with time slots. Use the sticky tac on the back of each square to hold it temporarily in place. 

I did John David’s first. Younger children have the most needs to consider. Older children have harder set times, though. If soccer is at 5, you can’t really move that square around.

Here’s ours:

The morning schedule. This works for 3/5 of our weekdays.

Midday Schedule: Also works for only 3/5 of our days.

Technically, each evening is different for us, so I tried to allow for that with “Soccer/AWANA/Family time”

Now that I’ve gotten all of this done, soccer season is wrapping up, and we switch to the basketball schedule. I don’t think it will change too much, though.

I will warn you. This activity may lead you to question EVERYTHING in your life.

I kept thinking, “Wait a minute. This is crazy. Something more must be delegated!”

Or “Why do I blog at all? Should I drop the blog?”

“How clean does the house really need to be?” *chuckle*  Alan does his share of the cleaning, believe me!

How the schedule has helped so far:

I love that I have a plan in place. Also, I don’t have to be the bad guy with the kids.

“Mom, is this the last thing we have to do??”

“No. Go look at the schedule.”

“Awww man!!”

“Sorry. It’s on the schedule.”

Also, I have gotten more done at school. When the schedule wasn’t written down, by 1:30 I start to run out of energy and say things like, “Eh, you’ve done enough, go ahead.” The schedule holds my feet to the ground with, “Oh, yeah, you really should do handwriting.”

They should. So should I, but that’s why adults get to use computers.

The schedule also helped me find a way to alternate seat work with fun. I don’t know why I’m such a hands-on teacher, but I’ve just accepted that as my teaching style. I’d love to be the mom that has the kids working quietly while I tend to the house, but that’s just not me. I walk them through division, I read to them because I love it, and I hover nearby as much as I can. That’s my teaching style. We talk all day long.

Meanwhile, the schedule says that right now I’m sitting on my porch, when in fact, we are all inside. I’m procrastinating letting JD up from nap while I blog. 

I mean, schedules are a wonderful TOOL, but let’s not marry our schedules.

Hope you all have a good time this weekend, passing out candy to adorable little trick-or-treaters! We will have a Darth Vader, a Boba Fett, a Snoopy, and a Yoda. I promise to take photos, if you promise to do the same!

The post How to Build a Family Schedule That Works appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

My successful Mom’s Night was made possible due to the Great Toy Overhaul.

What’s that, you ask? Prepare to be shocked:

Every single toy they OWNED.

This has been bothering me for about 8 years. Five different rooms with toys in them, all reachable by children, all mixed in. Cars in the blocks box, dinosaurs in with the Little People, and basically not a single fun set because what makes sets fun is having the whole set together.

But how???? I’ve re-sorted toys a billion times, and it never stays that way.

So I devised a plan, a brilliant idea in my brain. I did this five days before Mom’s Night, and the toys managed to stay fixed the whole five days!!

While Nonna and DaddyO were still here, I announced, “As you put kids to bed, I’m snatching all the toys out of their rooms and dumping them all in the living room. THEN we are going to give away HALF of them, sort the rest, and store all toys where the boys can’t reach them. From now on, I will set out two sets of toys to play with in the living room each day, and we can rotate them.”

Alan was giddy. “Can we give away all of them!? Let’s just scrap it ALL! Then they will have to do puzzles and read, and that’s it!”

Well, now, let’s not get carried away.

DaddyO put his face in his hands. Was he pretending to be sick to get out of this insane project??  No, but I did allow him to sneak upstairs rather than participate in all the sorting fun. After all, the man did clean my microwave, and he’d spent so much time with JD during this visit that we began to think that JD had stamped DaddyO with his dirt and hypnotized him into being his personal servant. We let JD’s servant go on up to bed.

Dirt boy misses DaddyO.

Nonna and I did the bulk of the toy sorting work.

I know many of you have never met Nonna, so I should explain. She’s like the grand slam hitter of any home improvement task. Want to make sure a job gets done? Who do you send in when the bases are loaded, with only 1 out to spare??? Nonna! She has more energy than Caleb, and that’s saying a lot.

I was rather proud of us.

We gave away the equivalent of 5 diaper boxes full of play things!

We’ve made it through a solid WEEK, and I’m here to tell you that it can be done. The toys are still SORTED! This brought me so much peace!!

Watch out drawers and closets!!! You are next!!!

……..So yes, Mom’s Night was largely a success because we did not need to clean up any children’s rooms. I was able to give them a full house tour. Plus, I taught all 11 of my friends how to play Four on the Couch. Never played? Oh, we must! Next time there are at least 8 of us together, we will be happy to teach you!

Here’s a little of what else has been going on around these parts:

—Joshua is gradually learning how to write essays this year in school.

Therefore, I created a “Whining and Complaining” Chart. Every time a child obeys WITHOUT whining, complaining, or arguing, they get a check mark by their name. Once everyone gets 17 check marks, we are going to have a Friday Fun Day, and I’m going to take them to see a movie.

Every time they DO whine, argue, or complain, I erase a check mark.

Why 17? Because that’s where I reached the end of the poster board.

No, I didn’t put myself on the chart. Let’s not get overly ambitious. 😉 I’m kidding. Now that I think about it, perhaps I will put myself on the chart.

—Caleb made a perfect 100 on his math test this week. We’re talking problems like 86 x3 and 112+130+95. I have not been this excited since Alabama won the National Championship. Forget about Caleb; let’s focus on his brilliant math teacher!!!  🙂 🙂 :)hehehe Just kidding. This victory was Caleb’s. 😉

—Daniel MASTERED bicycle riding, which has created attention overload everywhere Daniel goes.

I think he looks like such a big boy!!

“Look at that. A baby riding a bicycle. Well, I never!” a woman muttered as she passed him.

“Hey, did you see that little bitty kid riding a two-wheeler!?” a bigger girl shouted to her friend as they whizzed by him on their bikes.

Back in our day, a kid would have bragged, “I learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels.”

Thanks to the new glider bike movement, children now say, “I learned to ride a bike with pedals!!”

I pass pre-schoolers on glider bikes everyday, but seeing a four-year-old, and a small one at that, riding a real bike with pedals, is apparently still impressive.  I’ve never heard so many comments.

I wish you could’ve seen him teach himself to ride it. He used the bicycle with no pedals for all of three days. By the fourth day, he was sailing by us, feet in the air, all without a wobble, so we bought him his own brand new bicycle. He would not let any of us help him. He stubbornly worked on it until it was mastered, all in a day. We were so proud.

I love having four totally different children. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that I can’t truly take credit for any of their struggles, successes, or failures. Not one boy is the same as another.

JD is still happy to ride his tricycle.

—Last but not least, I have a surprise! Alan is going to take charge of the tribe this weekend while I head off to a women’s retreat! I can barely believe it myself! Have I mentioned how thankful I am for Alan?

Colossians 3:14-15

14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Wishing you all a wonderful week!!

The post The Great Toy Overhaul appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Year 2: Three weeks in. I now have a 2-year-old, which means less nap time. I also added in teaching time for the 3rd kid. That’s right. Daniel was 3 last year, so I wasn’t actually spending much time teaching him.

Plus, we decided to return to kids’ sports. Oh, and I now go to 3 doctor appointments a week. The physical therapy ones last over an hour.

So there’s been this glaring problem.

Chaos.

I have no schedule. Not really. I can’t figure one out.

I haven’t actually told anyone this, but God knew. He must have told my friend Kim because  yesterday she brought me a book to borrow. Kim has been home schooling for like 15 years. I also ordered a copy, and it will arrive soon.

It looks like this:

Link to order one: http://www.titus2.com/managers-of-their-homes.html?utm_source=142&utm_medium=204&utm_campaign=340

I’m in the process of going through this book to build a schedule that will work for this busy time of life. I needed all the help I could get!

This is not a sponsored post. I tried to make it one. I emailed the Maxwells to beg for a sample. They sent me a fiction novel instead. But you see, I need the schedule first so I can find the time to read the novel…..Oh, well! At least I tried! 😉

So this is where I’ve been. I will return to blogging regularly once I have gotten further along in this transition.

I miss reading more than 1 minute of Facebook at a time, reading my favorite blogs, and sharing in your joys and crying over your sadness!!

I do not miss being up on the latest news. Alan told me about the reporter being shot. I happened upon the Josh the Pervert Duggar story, and that’s the extent of my knowledge. All ‘news’ is bad news, and I don’t miss it at all.

Thanks for the support!! I have always said that I have the BEST friends, family, and blog readers.

One funny story for the road:

Daniel was at Cubbies last night, and they had his name written on a chart. He was supposed to put a sticker by his name. He looked at the chart. He said, “My name not on here.”

“Yes, it is,” his teacher said.

“No, it not.”

She showed him his name; it was the first one listed, first and last name, at the top of the chart.

He pointed to the “Daniel” part and said, “That my name.” Then he pointed to the last name and said, “But that NOT my name.”

They explained the last name concept to Dan.

He replied, “Oh. My mom does call me that sometimes.”

Okay 2 stories:

How Daniel said his memory verse last night: “God loves us, and him did send his son!” said with a healthy dose of Ghetto attitude.

Dan the Lovable

I’ll be back to blogging and reading regularly as soon as I get the schedule worked out!!

The post Creating Our Home school Schedule appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

As I mentioned before, I signed up for the Make Over Your Morning Course by Crystal Paine, of MoneySavingMom.com.

I can’t tell you how many of my friends have asked me how that’s going! And some of you mentioned the same misgivings that I felt:
“I saw the part about her waking up at 5:45am, and decided that is not for me.”

Boy, I love that I have friends that I can relate to.

I have friends that are morning people too, and I’m always trying to get into their heads and figure out HOW they do it!

The other day, I asked one of my high energy friends this question– How do you get up so early?

She said, “Oh, I just love getting up early in the morning.”

Oh….

I figured she must have a great deal of self-discipline to make herself go to bed early enough to be able to get up before 6 every morning, so I forged on with my cross-examination:

“But how early do you have to go to bed to be able to handle waking up that early?”

And that’s the part where she admitted that she goes to bed around midnight but just doesn’t need that much sleep.

Which confirms it. She (and many others of you) is not human at all, but instead she is a super-human and must be of an entirely different species.

And that’s okay!

My body works completely differently from hers, and you know what?

That’s okay too!

Why should I begrudge her the gift of needing little sleep? Why should I beat myself up over my need for at least 8 hours/night? I am finished feeling ashamed that at 7 am, I often look like this:

I get up between 7 and 7:15 these days, but that is not always the case. Right now, Alan is in graduate school, so he keeps later hours than our norm. I’m one of these people who has to stay awake until everyone goes to bed. I can’t help it. I do. Since Alan stays up later right now, I do too.

I’ve tried to build myself schedules that did not allow for my sleep needs. Last year, I thought that in order to be a successful home school mom and blogger, I needed to wake up every morning at 6 am.

And I turned into heavy-eyelids-unhappy-snappy Mommy. No, thank you. I couldn’t even finish my day. I’d spend from 2 to 4 every afternoon just sort of laying on my bed and staring into space the whole first nine weeks of last school year!

Gradually, I realized that if I want to be a good mom, I need to sleep until 7.

Now, I have good news about the Make Over Your Morning course.

One change that she does not say that you have to make, and believe me, I refuse to do it, is getting up earlier.

Some people may genuinely need to wake up earlier, so you may feel lead that way, but that’s not what the course is all about.

So far, I’m only on day 7. It’s been more about reminding you to prioritize your time in order to be more productive, setting ACHIEVABLE goals for yourself, and having good morning and evening routines.

I love the videos of the Make Over Your Morning the most. It’s like listening to a motivational speaker everyday. I particularly loved this You Tube video, which is also referenced in the course:

It’s called “Dispelling the myth that I do it all”. No one does ‘it all’!

Some of you have asked if I made any changes from the series.

Yes! It has been a great reminder about setting attainable goals and breaking those goals into small tasks, but those were things I already KNEW to do. I just wasn’t necessarily doing it.

Here are changes I am making:

1. Spending less time on Facebook. Most of you already know that I spend too much time on there. I was able to cut back by NOT putting the Facebook app or log in on my new phone. I only check Facebook when I’m on my computer now.

So don’t think that I don’t like what you’re posting! It’s just that I’m reading FB a lot less!

I used to enjoy FB, so I spent way too much time on there, but lately it’s been full of extreme political stuff. And all that Planned Parenthood mess? Oh my gosh. That makes me want to throw up. I know the public needs to know about it, but I just can’t read it. I’ve had too many babies to be able to think about it.

2. Setting home school prep goals. I’m knocking them out a little at a time.

3. Getting up earlier plays no part in that!

4. I set a hard “Nap time is blog time rule.” So, at this moment, it’s 1:20, and I haven’t even finished cleaning up lunch, but JD and Dan are asleep, so THIS is the ONLY good blog time.

Also, there are a few advantages to being a night owl that doesn’t wake up at 6!

It’s not unusual to find me at 9:30 pm, scrubbing carpet stains out and vacuuming, something a morning person probably couldn’t do. Have you ever cleaned carpet stains out while the kids are still awake? It’s impossible. They track dirt on top of the wet carpet, making it worse!

I have the energy to clean the kitchen up before going to bed. Many people can’t do that!

I can stay up late making lesson plans without falling asleep. I’m not sleepy, even at 10pm!

We all just have to work within the framework of who we are. No need to try to be somebody else, right?

I can’t wait to finish this series. If you’d like to join me, here’s the link to the Make Over Your Morning site. Just click on the picture below:

Be sure to follow my blog (gettingmyacttogether.com) below and we night owls can encourage each other!

More Productivity Posts Like This:

Are you an Alone Time Hoarder?

The Time Saving Mom Book Review

How to Have a Successful Monthly Planning Session

The post How to Make Over Your Morning, Night Owl Style appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.