What Works for Me: Flexibility

Just in case you don’t know this about me (which probably means you’re a new reader!), I love organization. To-do lists are my friends. Schedule and routine make me happy. Knowing what to expect gives me security.

And now you can just go ahead and laugh, because we all know how often life allows organization, completed to-do lists, uninterrupted schedules and routines, and fulfilled expectations. It just doesn’t happen.

So, how does a structured person maintain an attitude of flexibility and still stay sane?

Plan for it.

I know. That sounds odd. How do you really plan for flexibility? Well, as I take into account my personality, my family, the needs of homeschooling and ministry, and the typical flow of life in our household, here are some things I’ve discovered:

1. Planning is good. It really, really is. Believe it or not, our family stays more sane when we have a disrupted plan than when we have no plan. That goes for a menu plan, a school plan, an chore schedule, a typical daily routine, and on and on.
   
   
2. Never plan in ink. Okay, so I do use ink. But it’s erasable. (Frixion pens are my friends!) The point is that I have to plan to be flexible. Plans change. So, in my head, I need to allow opportunity for the change from the very beginning.
   
   That’s hard. But it’s possible. For instance, I do a lot of my long-term planning on the computer. Right now I’m using My Well Planned Day - a great resource for homeschool and life. If we need to adjust a lesson plan, all I have to do is click to change the date. Same with menu planning. It’s all in there, but it’s flexible.
   
   Once a week, I put everything on paper for the upcoming week (in erasable ink, of course!). I’ve planned long-term, but I can easily adjust on a week by week - and even day by day - basis.
   
   Now, I need to go ahead and take a moment to share a couple of things here:
   
   - As happens with most of the lessons I’ve learned in life, the root of this one is spiritual. You see, I have this tendency to be ruled by my plans or my to-do list. But the Lord wants me to be ruled by none other than Himself. To be centered on Christ, no matter my plans. I have to be open to the Holy Spirit’s nudges throughout the day, and if I’m so stuck to my plans that I HAVE to complete them at all costs, then I’m not being sensitive to the Lord’s leadings. So, He’s had to work hard on me to get me to throw away the ink pens and adopt a more flexible approach to my plans and lists.
   
   - The second thought is just as important. Being flexible does not excuse me from being reliable. I always need to be ready and willing to receive and extend grace when plans change. But, I also need to honor my commitments, choosing not to use that handy eraser, even when it’s inconvenient or difficult to stick to the plan.
   
   
3. Don’t make a big deal about changes. Yes, I often process through changes verbally with my family. But we don’t make a big deal about it. We just make the changes. It wasn’t always this way for me. There was a time when any change in plan threw me into a tizzy, and I would make it clear that my plans were being disrupted. That only causes tension. It’s so much better to just go with the flow!

There’s so much more to being a flexible planner, but most of the “much more” branches off of those three practices. So, now it’s your turn. How do you handle either being a structure person needing to learn flexibility or a flexible person learning to honor the fact that working with others requires planning?

When You Hate to Cook

Okay, so I can’t say that I absolutely hate to cook. I really don’t. But, picture this scenario:

I have just wrapped up the “together” school times with each of my children and have moved to the next stage of my day, either writing or school planning/prep. I really enjoy teaching my children, writing, and planning, so my morning usually flies!

Suddenly, I look up and it’s noon - or after! I know I need to get lunch on the table by 12:30 because Doug and I both have a tight lunch window.

Thirty minutes, at the most. That’s what I have, start to finish, to get a meal on the table. There are plenty of things I can cook in thirty minutes, but suddenly I am paralyzed. I can’t come up with a single idea. Or, if I can, it’s something we don’t have the ingredients for. Or we had it yesterday. Or it’s another chicken dish, and our red-meat needing family has had chicken three days in a row and just can’t do it another day without throwing us all out of whack.

So, the minutes tick by and I’m thrown into a tizzy.

My amazing hubby works best in a situation like that. He starts grabbing ingredients from here and there and produces an amazing meal.

I, on the other hand, freeze up.

So, how do I combat this problem? Well, I have several tricks up my sleeve.

• Menu plan. That, really, is the best trick. Plan a month at a time, go grocery shopping for as many ingredients as we can possibly store for that length of time, and have the hard part done for me. Even on the days when I don’t want what’s planned, I at least have a plan. It’s much easier to change the plan than to not have one.
  Unfortunately, I am not always diligent to menu plan. In fact, I don’t have a plan more frequently than I do. So, while planning is best - and is always my intention - I need a few more tricks.
  
  
• Buy meats in bulk and cook ahead. Meat is usually cheaper in bulk. It takes a little shifting of the grocery budget, but it can be done. When we return home after a bulk shopping trip, we subdivide the meat, freeze some as is in meal-size portions, and prepare the rest for specific meals.
  
  Here are are few of our favorite preparations:
  - Pre-brown ground beef with favorite seasonings for making quick spaghetti, tacos, or other such meals.
  - Cut up chicken breasts into bite-size pieces and fry up some homemade chicken nuggets. About the same price as a bag of processed nuggets, and MUCH better.
  - Flay some small chicken breasts, place a small piece of Swiss cheese and ham inside, fold it over, dip it in flour/egg wash/bread crumbs, and bake at 350 for 40 minutes (flip halfway through). Cool, wrap each breast in plastic wrap, seal in a freezer bag, and pull out, thaw, and reheat for a great chicken meal!
  - Boil or crock pot a whole chicken. Debone and divide into 2-cup portions (standard recipe amount for most cut/pulled chicken meals) for freezer storage.
  
  
• Double cook as many meals as possible. Making a lasagna, spaghetti, pot pie filling, chicken & dumplin’s, soup, or any number of other meals.? I go ahead and make enough for two or three meals. I used to buy disposable pans to place in the freezer. Then I snagged enough glass baking dishes that I could freeze those instead. But, as my plastic storage containers started falling apart, I needed the glass baking dishes more and more for other things. That’s when we switched to just storing meals in freezer bags. 
  
  When we have an exceptionally busy day (or on a Sunday), we just snag a bag from the freezer, fill the crock pot with water, and let the meal defrost and reheat right there in the bag. Quick, easy, no-mess meal.

Do these tips always help? No, they don’t. Why? Because every last one of them requires at least a smidgen of planning ahead. And I don’t always do that well. But, when I do, it makes all the difference in the world!

What Works for Me: Something Normal

Chaos comes in so many forms. Disrupted schedule. Illness. Trips. Major events. And, for my family of late, moving.

One thing I’ve noticed about chaos is that it leaves us feeling like we have to tackle the big in-your-face obstacles before being able to devote any time and energy to the little normalcies of life. At least, that’s how I feel.

In this move, I’ve felt driven to attack the big things. The packing and cleaning. Now the unpacking and setting up. And, specifically, tackling the big unpacking. Those things that make the biggest dent in the chaos. The little things – those little normalcies of life – seem to get pushed aside. I’ll get to those when these big glaring boxes are taken care of.

And all the while, the chaos chips away at my peace.

This morning, I realized something. Sometimes, taking the time to go ahead and welcome even just one of those little normalcies back into my life makes the big chaos less disruptive. So, today, I have embraced a few normalcies.

1. Writing. This is my second blog post of the day – one for the family blog and one for here. I’ve put writing on the shelf for a long time because of chaos. First, it was the busyness of a particular season. Then it was a major project that took a great deal of time and energy. And now the move. There is always going to be something disruptive. If I allow one bit of chaos to chip away at my writing time, I will never come back to it. So, I’m coming back to it now. Today. Yes, before I even have any idea where my desk will go.
2. Calendar. I was in the middle of unpacking boxes when the thought of our big, dry-erase family calendar came to mind. It’s one of those things that typically would be saved until last. It’s not critical, because we keep up with crucial events elsewhere. But, it’s something homey. It’s something we enjoy having. So, I stopped what I was doing and went to hunt down that calendar. It is now on the wall, ready to welcome the activities of our new life, church, and community. Yay!
3. Play & Snuggles. We have been on tight deadlines for several weeks now, and our moments of snuggles and play have been far too brief. We’re all taking turns with bouts of tearful homesickness for the loved ones and home we left behind. This morning, each of my girls had a turn, and they needed snuggles. We curled up on the couch and cried and chatted – for as long as it took. No rushing back to HEDUA work or cutting the snuggles short so I could dive into another box. Just snuggles.
   
   Then my oldest and I took a few minutes to shop on Amazon for something she wanted to buy with birthday money.
   
   This afternoon, my son and I will play together for a little while before I have to get back to either HEDUA work or unpacking. It’s a normalcy. And it can’t wait for the boxes to be unpacked.

As the week continues, I will choose to embrace little moments of normalcy. I will take the time to unpack those things that could wait until later, but would help us feel more at home were I to go ahead and pull them out now. And I will chip away at the chaos by settling in to just living life.

How do you keep your chaos from taking over?

What Works for Me: The Not-So-Great Days

This week is a pretty full one, and I’m tired. I have to be honest, my attitude was not that great this morning. Not exactly grumpy - just tired. And my kids were energetic (and have been all week). And their energy makes me feel even more tired.

I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that it can be hard for me to turn not-so-great days over to the Lord. The really bad days bring me to the end of my rope, and I have nowhere to turn other than to Him. The great days fill me with praise automatically. But these in-between, just tired, not really feeling up to life kind of days are a little tougher.

So, what does it take to get me redirected? It really is quite simple - I just need to know I am not alone in my not-so-great day.

That can be hard to discover, though, because I really don’t like to whine and complain. I want to be positive. I know I’m not always that way with my husband and kids. (Poor things get the brunt of my emotions when I am not having a great day.) But, my natural instinct is to hide the negative from others.

The key, though, is to share without being so negative about it. Adding in a funny or saying, “Who’s with me?” can often work.

Yesterday I got to spend time with some fellow ministers’ wives. We had such a great time visiting and fellowshipping (you do understand that, for Baptists, there’s a difference there - fellowshipping must involve food). But today we are all back to real life. Today we are separated by many miles. Today it would be nice to ditch everything and just go back to yesterday’s visit.

And that, my friends, is just the way I shared my struggle on this not-so-great day. I asked my fellow ministers’ wives if they wanted to join me in ditching the day and just getting back together.

And I discovered pretty quickly that I wasn’t alone.

Suddenly I had someone else to pray for. And I knew how to pray for her because we shared the same struggle. My heart and mind were able to redirect, and, even though the tired didn’t go away, my spirits were lifted.

How do you redirect your focus on the not-so-great days?

Calling All Work at Home Moms!

So, how many of you are work at home moms?

I joined the forces when I accepted a position with Home Educating Family in May of 2014. Oh how I love my job! It transports me beyond the confines of this house or the borders of my small town and sparsely populated county. It connects me to people I never would have dreamed of meeting.

But, it also presents some challenges. It changes the way we have lived life for many, many years. In the early years of motherhood, only naptime and bedtime truly tied me down. Then the school-age years arrived, and our choice to homeschool forced us to make sure that we didn’t allow the wonderful flexibility to keep us from diligently honoring our academic commitment.

Now, though, I must add the work hours into the mix. When I accepted the position with HEDUA, I committed to a certain number of hours per week. I committed to accomplishing certain time-critical tasks each week. And I committed to being a face of HEDUA both online and in person.

Yes, working from home definitely changes the dynamics of a stay-at-home mom’s life.

So, here is my question for you: If you are a WAHM, how do you balance life?

What do I mean by that question? Well, have you figured out that you just can’t “do it all”? (Let’s just be real here, folks!) What have you had to let go of to honor your commitments? You work at home because you don’t want to leave your children in someone else’s care, but how do you ensure that working does not consume all of your attention and energy? How do you actively remain involved in the lives and activities of your children?

Sometimes a brilliant new idea pops into my head (more often into my husband’s, though - he’s wonderfully brilliant and supportive!), answering my own “how can I balance this?” questions or making certain aspects of working at home easier. I hope to share those with you as they come to me.

But first, I want to hear from you. What are your WAHM tips? Share in the comments. Join me on Facebook and start up a discussion there. Who knows? I just might love your comment so much that I have to share it as its own post soon.

Oh, and in the meantime, snag this e-book if you don't already have it:

Balanced: Finding Center as a Work-at-Home Mom

Can’t wait to hear from you!