1 Thing to Make Life Easier After Baby; Preparing for Baby {HomeLife}

Something about the impending arrival of a brand new baby can send the minds of adults into a tizzy. And, rightly so. Babies require so much work to take care of and often the regular needs of a house can get set aside. At least, they do in my home. There is nothing like having your 8-year old coming up to you all stressed out, while you are nursing a baby because he has no clean pants. Or combating ants in the kitchen because you have not had the energy to stand and sweep or do the dishes after every meal. I mean, taking care of a baby is extremely exhausting, not to mention time-consuming. Who wants to do dishes and laundry?!

There has to be a few things that can be done to make it easier, right?

At least a few things?

Maybe?

I have no idea with laundry and sweeping. I am not going to wear baby just so I can sweep the floor (a suggestion amongst several bloggers). It's hard enough holding him, throwing in sweeping the floor and my back is sore afterward. I'll fit it in when I can. When I don't have to hold the baby.

I am going to give myself some grace when it comes to the floors. And the ants? They were looking for water so were over the sink instead of the floor. They've since left, thankfully. Hopefully, they don't start coming to the floor. I'll just continue asking for help until I can actually sweep again. Since no one else sweeps, it'll remain a mess.

My main concern for after the baby came was food. Goodness knows I was not going to want to cook dinner. The MOPS group is amazing with setting up a meal train every other day for a week, and I'm blessed with some amazing friends bringing meals too. And when Brandon went back to work, that was a definite lifesaver. But for the other nights, I needed to have something.

The one thing I would suggest to do to prepare for a baby? Get some frozen dinners ready to go.

Seriously. Frozen home prepped food is going to save your sanity.

At least what little sanity you will have left after lack of sleep and feeding a newborn will take from you.

What did I use for our frozen dinner recipes?

I shared with you 5dinners1hour.com (not an affiliate! I don't get anything if you sign up!) when I talked about meal planning back in June (you can read that here). And it has still been an incredible element to our dinner planning. I saved favorites and went back to see which ones could be frozen. I prepped several of those for our freezer and for my mom to have when she took the kids the nights we were in the hospital.

Here was just a few: (chicken for tacos and burritos (feeds for 2 nights), meat mixture for tater tot casserole, 2 bags of spaghetti sauce (that feeds us two nights in a row, so 4 nights)

I also had 2 enchilada dishes and 2 lasagnas(my own recipe).

Actually, I still have 1 meal in the freezer still (1 lasagna)!

With having food ready to go, it helped free up so much time for other things (like sweeping that darn floor, or the laundry)!

We started prepping meals again about a week ago. Little man has been here almost 2 months and we are now starting to get back into routine having eaten almost all the meals. Between friends and freezer meals, the 2 months have been incredible. You don't realize how much time a day you spend on prepping and cooking food until you really don't have time and can't.

I have to say I am so thankful for 5dinners1hour.com. It makes the week go so much smoother (especially with the new baby). I originally signed up for meals to use and stash in the freezer when the baby came, and I am planning on sticking to it because it makes life THAT much easier.

Sure, now it takes an entire day to prep 5-7 meals. I gotta stop to feed my constantly hungry baby. But it makes the rest of the week run smoothly. I can focus on homework and reading with the older kiddos.

So? Expecting a baby? Prep some freezer meals. You won't regret having that little bit of free time to sit as you recuperate.

Already had a baby? What have you done to make life easier after a baby arrived?

Living Intentionally: My Planner Set Up

My New Year Resolution is getting my life organized for living intentionally. You can read about that here! I shared my brainstorming start to setting up a planner with some resources that I was using to help me get the set up going, here. And after some searching for printable options and reviewing the cost of buying pages for my planner, I decided it would be much easier to make my own that buy. I also said, in that post, I was going to share my set up once I got it figured out. So here I am sharing my set up with you!

The Binder
I am using a Compact Franklin Covey binder I had purchased from Target about 10 years ago when I went back to college. I was lucky I found it during the books/paper KonMari Purge. I found it with my day timer, which was sadly falling apart. So I purged the day timer and kept my Franklin Covey.

I still love the color of the binder. Brown and pink go so nicely together. The front has a pocket, but I haven't used that yet.

The size of it works for about 2-3 months of daily sheets at a time. Other than that, it would be too full. HA!

The front is supposed to be a card holder, but the glue has worn a little. It makes a great place to put my pens. I'm surprised how quickly my brain accepted the color coding per person! Plus it makes it easier to fit the highlighters in the little zip pocket I have in the back.

I love it so far. The compact sizing of it makes it hard for pages though. I could not really find any printables for the size (probably because it's just an odd sizing). 4.25x6.75 isn't an even ratio of your typical 8.5 x 11 paper size. It took multiple printings of free versions for me to decide to make my own.

The Set-Up & Organization
I have it divided into sections.

In the front Is the yearly and monthly calendars. I found them for free from Scattered Squirrel. I also keep my list of birthdays and anniversaries on a sheet in the current month (I want to start sending cards).

Then I have
Tasks - Weekly docket and daily pages (2-3 months at a time). I had originally tried a 2 page daily spread but it was too much. So I took from each page what I liked and put it on 1 sheet. It uses less paper that way. It took me a while to figure out printing too. I print the pages on the booklet setting and it works great for the order I want it in and printing front and back (which my printer does on it's own, it's awesome!)

Weekly docket I use to fill in general to do's for the week, appointments and things I don't want to forget when doing my daily planning. So far I almost forgot an event and was able to not miss it because it was there! I was so excited!
The parts are:

• Daily slots for events
• To do's
• Phone Calls/emails
• appointments
• Goals
• Blog

Parts of the daily sheets:

• timed spots for the day
• water tracker and daily meals
• House keeping
• Blog/sewing
• goals
• family
• to do
• notes

Personal - I have tabs from my day timer I kept and use for this. In the front is my debt tracker. It is a goal for the year! It is top priority so goes first! I have my budget binder That houses the rest of the financial stuff. I have sections for:

• Reading - I keep track of suggested books, books chosen for book club, and the books for the BookRiot Reading challenge.

• Blog Planning - I had a separate binder for this, but didn't use it. Here I can include blog posts in the calendar and turn to this section for post planning, and I have created a sheet for tour planning, notes and brainstorming ideas (this post would have happened sooner had I not been sick all weekend)

• Menu planning - still a work in progress. I might put dinner ideas here, but I am thinking a separate binder with my cookbooks of favorite meals will help keep this planner from becoming overstuffed!
• Party Planning - I have my printables that I am going to condense into compact sizing to use here for birthdays
• Holiday Planning - Halloween Costume Planning, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Those go here.
• Sewing - I have created a smaller size to my measurement tracker sheet and have that here. I am including project sheets here too from my Boys and Girls capsule planners.

I'm thinking of changing/adding the Konmari Checklist somewhere in here too...

Goals - I have my Goals and resolutions in this section. I have my list of goals, and then breakdown of each goal listed in order with long term and short term deadlines. I refer to this when filling out the monthly, weekly and daily sheets that are in the front.

Addresses - I have misplaced addresses, or discarded random papers (party planning) that had addresses on them and I needed them in one spot, easy enough to update when needed and accessible when planning events and get togethers; or just sending invites and cards. 

I use a photo/card holder for appointment cards and a pocket for highlighters and a pencil.

So Far

I love it! I have been using it for several days and it has helped so much! It fits perfectly in my Ethel! I used to carry just a clutch/handbag, but now I have reason to carry her and I have to say I feel better about my day. At home it sits open on the table and I can refer to it/check off items/adjust as needed. 

I have everything in one place and I love that. It makes things easier that way, and the color coding is awesome as I can see it from a glance. I have MOPS, Quilt Guild, the blog, appointments, everything. Seriously, so exciting. I understand why people become addicted to their planners! 

Now for the next step in my Living Intentionally goals, to just work on scheduling in those days for personal and family time. I went to book club this month and Husband said he needed to start scheduling stuff with his friends too. I told him he should! I think it might start to become easier to schedule in a set date night too... That is if we can ever get anyone to watch the kids! Ha!

I have noticed that it helps with cleaning out my purse every day too. In the KonMari book, she mentions to empty your bag at home. Granted I don't have a station to put the stuff (yet), but taking out the planner pushes me to take out everything else too.

I'm Curious

How do you organize your time, if you do? What planner do you use?
Have you thought of getting a planner, or tried it and it didn't work? 

Living Intentionally: My Start to Getting a Planner

I have no idea how these last few months have flown by. Halloween, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years... It's all come and gone in a blink of an eye and it takes everything from me just to keep my eyes open and not fall asleep on the rocking chair in my living room. But with everything going on, the constant theme is that I am flying by the seat of my pants and end up stressed because of it. I described in my Goals and Resolution post, I needed to be more intentional with my day, with my kids, with my husband. Just intentional about living...

This last year had every intention and possibility of being great. But, my lack of organization and intentionally getting things done prevented a lot of the greatness. It was still great, don't get me wrong. This last year has been fantastic! But, there is always room for improvement. Always room to make it better! 

I decided to take the Best Year Ever mini course that was offered by Living Well Spending Less and the first day was what got me realizing that I really needed to plan: Intentionally planning for intentional living.  

Do you know how many planners, planner inserts, pages, printables, etc are out there? Tons! A little overwhelming. I am still overwhelmed. And, it probably doesn't help that I really have no idea what I need in a planner! I dug out my old FranklinCovey compact (I had discarded an old classic, shouldn't have) and am working on looking up different ways to organize the pages. I think I am going to start saving for a classic and try to get the hang with what I have now.

These so far are my favorite binders:
FranklinCovey Striped Binder

FranklinCovey Gold Dots Binder

FranklinCovey Confetti Binder

Are you like me, do you need some help too?
So far I have found these sites that seem really helpful ... From basic type to scrappy... In organizing your planner...

A Bowl Full of Lemons: My Planner Set Up

My Life as a Teacup: 2015 Filofax Setup

Creative Homekeeper: Setting Your Planner Up

Cocoa Daisy: Setting Up Your Planner

I like this printable, but I am not sure how to get it to work with my compact planner... 

I really like Polka Dot Posie's Undated Printable Planner, but she has a tutorial here The Polka Dot Posie: Printable Planner Pages
I think I might be waiting to see if A Bowl Full of Lemons comes out with a new one
I heart Planners has a huge selection and I really like the Goals printable.

There is so much to put in a planner. 

Once I get it more figured out I'll write it down to share with you what I end up doing. :)
*update* I've been working on the set up for a week now. I'll have it figured out eventually...

I want to hear from you:
How do keep your day to day intentional? 

If You use a planner, what type and what setup do you use? What resources do you use/have you used to help you set it up?

Happy New Year: Resolution and Goals {Welcome 2016}

First off...

Happy New Year!!!

Last year ended. It was a whirlwind of a year. So much going on, so many new things.. And now a fresh start. A new year to make it better. To make things better, easier, more. A time to plan and prepare and become intentional about living.

I shared last years goals and how I did with meeting them (you can read about that here), and there was a lot I set out to accomplish without success. There was a lot I did accomplish that wasn't on the list, but they were surprises. And yet, with everything that happened last year I kept getting that little whisper in my ear, "you need to be intentional". I didn't understand but as the year progressed I became more aware...

Be Intentional...

Intentional about my time with my husband. We have to schedule the time to be together. We need to remember to be intentional about our love towards each other. Day to day becomes monotonous and we become jaded. We need to be intentional with our interaction with each other and the direction we wish our relationship to go (you know, into old age).

Intentional about my time with my kids. How many times have I set out to start preschool with little man only to have it thrown to the wayside? How many good intentions are cut short only because I didn't make time for it or just let it slide? I love my kids and I know they know it. But I need to be more intentional in my time I spend with them.

Intentional about my time for myself. No more feeling guilty when I ask my husband to watch the kids so I can take an evening out with the ladies. I laugh at that because that is hard not to feel. He says I shouldn't feel guilty. But, I do. I need to be more intentional with the free time I get when I do get it. Scheduling that free time into my day, my week, my months. I need to schedule that time in for Brandon too. A family I look to as a roll model in this takes every Saturday and trades. One Saturday is mom's, next is dad's, then it's the family day and starts all over the fourth Saturday. I love that idea!

This all boils down to planning. I need to be intentional in my planning. Living intentionally requires some intentional planning. A lot of intentions, a lot of being intentional, right? But it seems necessary to be successful. Successful in relationships, successful in meeting goals, successful in life.

So starts my list of goals for the year...

1. Planning. I have a planner. I intend to plan out my weeks and months. I hope that this makes things run smoother, if not easier. At least I can look to what is happening. I am not looking to throw a whole year into the planner all at once, but a few months in advance. With the baby being due in a few weeks and little man starting school, it will be more necessary to keep things straight.

2. Getting out of debt. We want a life without being strapped down by credit. No more credit card bills, no more owing money and having so much of the paycheck go towards things that we borrowed money to buy. Sad thing is? I can't even remember what those things were! Being able to set aside money for the things that are going to need to be replaced soon, like a new dinning table, washing machine, Christmas tree. We can't get those things until after that credit debt is gone. And as my son breaks another chair I can only imagine how much sooner we are going to need another table and what we can do in the mean time while we can't get one...

3. Finish the KonMari Purge. I need to establish a timeline for this one, but I am hoping to finish all of it by August. That gives me 8 months and I am already into the Kimono (miscellaneous stuff). I am thinking I might want to start over with the clothes after the baby has arrived and I have gotten closer to pre-baby body.

4. Establish my Capsule wardrobe. I took some time off the wardrobe because I was limited my clothes once I started getting bigger. I'm down to 1 skirt, 1 leggings, 2 pairs of pants that fit, 4 long sleeve shirts, 2 '3/4' sleeved shirts and 3 short sleeve. This is maternity wear, the leggings don't match a thing, one long sleeve shirt really only works under things but doesn't match with the colors in the short sleeves... My wardrobe is a mess. I may need to start figuring things out for nursing anyway! 4 more weeks!

5. Read. I have totally met a goal of 24 books this year and read 27 (Goodreads is awesome for this). I am thinking of joining the BookRiot Read Harder Challenge this year and upping my number to 30. In 2013 my goal was 20 and I read 23, so I think I can do it! :)

6. Establish a day for family and independent time, like what my friend does. It might take some husband coercion, but even if it takes most the year. I think I need the time. I haven't had a day in a long time. Rushing to the grocery store and back doesn't count.

7. Health. I need to take care of myself better... I need to drink 8 glasses of water a day, sleep 8 hours a night and not skip any meals.

8. Crafting/sewing. Finish a few more of my WIPs! More specifically those quilts taking up space in the craft room what is to be the baby's room. I need to get back into the FAL for next year. There last few quarters have been sadly lacking. You can check out my current list here. If I finish each one in a month, then I can finish by the end of May. I'm thinking more August/September though for the one where the top is started but not finished.

Let me hear from you:
What are your goals for this year?