Scheduled Day

Day one (again) of trying to have a more planned-out schedule for the entire day, both for myself and the kids. So far it seems to be going pretty well, actually.

We just finished spending 30 minutes on chores, and now the kids are exercising (walking the dog and going up to the end of the driveway to meet our neighbor at the school bus stop and get the mail) while I take a bit of a rest break. I've been sick for the last several weeks with a respiratory and sinus infection that's been sapping my energy and putting me into a flare-up, but after 26 days it finally seems to be in the process of getting better, hopefully.

We had a hot breakfast (side pork, home-grown fried eggs, and bananas) and the kids are mostly done with school (7yo still has some to do later during her scheduled free time, because she wasn't diligent during school time, but AJ and M&M got done early enough to have an hour of extra free time).

Dinner is well underway--soup is put together and simmering on the stove, and I'll probably make biscuits or muffins to go with it. The main part of the soup is legumes--quinoa and a variety of split legumes--red lentils, matpe beans and pigeon peas. I added homemade broth (from simmering the bones from a chicken and a rabbit we raised and butchered and had for dinner earlier in the week); some fresh carrots, tomatoes, onions, garlic, sweet potato and a tomato; celery, chickweed, dandelions and deadnettle from our garden and fields; and some Himalayan pink salt and black pepper. So far it's looking and smelling very flavorful. I have some additive-free country-style breakfast sausage that I may cook up and add for flavor, perhaps--or maybe I'll just add a pat of butter and garnish with sour cream. If I don't add the meat, I may try blending up the soup with an immersion blender before adding some frozen sweet white corn just before serving (yes, we can have fresh corn now!). We'll have a green salad alongside, with some more wild greens added to the store-bought salad mix to add interest and nutritional density.

Now it's time for the next thing on our list--working on caring for the animals, cleaning out cages, etc. We'll have about an hour of family fun time together after dinner.

I'm using The Confident Mom Weekly Household Planner, a system my mom discovered and started using, that I decided to try too . . . it incorporates elements from Sidetracked Home Executives, Flylady and similar systems in a way that seems to be a really good fit for me. The lady who wrote it has chronic health issues (lupus) and it is designed in a way that seems so much less overwhelming and easier to do than other ways of organizing household tasks I've tried.

The tasks are divided up in a really incremental, manageable way, and I can just tell the kids to pick a job off the page posted on the refrigerator when it comes time to assign chores. It's pretty flexible, and at this point I'm just doing what I can and not worrying too much if it doesn't quite all get done.

* Full disclosure: After writing this post, I decided to look at see if TCM happened to have an affiliate program. They do, so I set up an account and edited the post to include my affiliate link. The link above will give me a kickback of any sales initiated through that link.