How to keep your home company ready, without stress

So today we're going to talk about how to keep your home ready for unexpected company. 

First thing in the morning you need to lock the children in their rooms.  Insert food through slots in doors.  Make sure you have a little potty seat in there for those times that they just have to go.  Voila.  Company ready home.

Seriously people, I clicked on a link on pinterest to a blog post titled how to keep your home company ready without the stress and well, we don't get unexpected company often but when we do you know it's at the worst possible moment.  So I'm ready for this stress free company ready plan.  I click on over there and begin to read.  The pictures look like they're from a magazine.  And ya know, that's great, I love beautiful magazine ready homes as much as the next person but the only magazine my home would ever consider being in is something along the lines of "toddlers live here today!" 

So I continue on, hoping that even though I am super skeptical THIS will finally be that one thing I've been missing all these years.

Guess what people??  Her secret?  She has NO toddlers.  In fact all of her kids are my oldest sons age and older.  Of course she can engage them to tidy the house and keep her own stress lower.  When my kids are those ages I should be able to as well.

I felt lied to people!!  There is no stress free way to keep your home company ready when you have young children.  Especially when you have young children AND you homeschool.  It's a deadly combination to the company ready concept.  If I have three days notice I can have my home in okish shape for visitors.  If you stop by unexpectedly then you get what you get. 

My key is only making friends with other moms.  Other moms have been there.  Other moms don't care what your house looks like.  At least I hope this is the case.  Of course other moms are also not terribly likely to drop by unexpectedly because they are busy being moms.  See?  Now THAT is the key.  And hey it's no stress too!

Winding down the school year and some new plans

So it's May 1st.  The end of our school year has been kinda blah.  Kayd finished his math curriculum in February and I had the epiphany that spelling is mostly pointless with him.  He inherited a natural spelling ability from both of his parents, poor kid.

So for the rest of the week and through next I plan to finish our read aloud unit of Charlotte's Web and continue letting the kids play with educational apps on my kindle.  And then we're calling the school year officially over.

We're going to be trying something new this year.  I have always liked the idea of year round schooling but we hadn't really had a reason to give it a go.  Until now.

You see come the end of September and what would for "normal" people be the end of the first month of school we will be welcoming a new student.  Of course our new student's coursework will look a lot like nursing and sleeping and numerous diaper changes.  But as anyone who has ever had a baby can attest they do take a bit of time to find their rhythm and routine in the family.

And so I thought it would probably be good if a portion of our school year were finished before the baby comes so that we can enjoy our new bundle stress free.

So the kids will have a four week break for "summer vacation" for most of May and the first week of June.  My overall intention was to do six weeks on and two weeks off but something came up for two weeks in July and so we'll do three weeks on, two weeks off, three weeks on, one week off, six weeks on, two weeks off, six weeks on, Thanksgiving holiday off, a special three week holiday unit, two weeks off for Christmas and New Years, six weeks on, two weeks off, six weeks on, two weeks off, six weeks on and ending the school year at the end of the first week in June.  That would make 39 weeks of school in total.  We generally do four days of school a week.  The built in time off allows for make up days if necessary and also allows me to do my lesson planning in three and six week chunks instead of trying to do a full year at once which frankly overwhelms me.

So we will give this a try for the 2013 to 2014 school year and see how we like it.

Kayden was definitely reluctant about it when I mentioned that we weren't having a full summer break this year but I showed him a calendar and how it would work with the intermittent weeks off and he seems pacified enough for now.

I LOVE my kindle!

I love my kindle, yes I do!  I love my kindle, how about you??

So first I finally got the kindle because I really wanted something more portable.  I use recipes and sewing tutorials from blogland a lot and having to print things off constantly was a real pain - not to mention a major cause of clutter.  And have I ever mentioned how disorganized I am with paper?  So I knew that the kindle would allow me to have my sewing tutorial open right next to my machine and my recipe open in the kitchen.  I also knew that I could have the fitness pal app and thought that it would be more convenient for tracking my food.  On top of that I thought it would be great for educational games and apps for the kids as well as e-readers.

Is it everything I thought it would be when I purchased it?  Oh so much more than I could have dreamed possible!

I've had it for one month now.  Now I got the regular kindle fire with the 7inch screen.  Nothing overly fancy here.  But it has been phenomenal.

I have my facebook, pinterest, and email accounts linked to it.  I found a great feature through flylady - the cozi family calendar, and since I created my account through flylady it has the daily zone tasks auto programmed into it which I LOVE.  I do have the fitness pal app but I'll be honest in that I don't use it.

I have downloaded a number of free apps and games and tried several list making apps, grocery shopping list apps etc.  I find that I prefer Cozi for pretty much all of that.  I can make unlimited lists on it and I like the way it works, it's really easy to use, in my opinion anyway.

And then today, today I did something that I had no idea my kindle could do.  Something that will completely revolutionize our homeschool.  My life has changed.  Today I found that I can in fact put pdf files on my kindle and read them!  This is amazing to me because several of my teacher manuals are pdf files on my computer and this means I can have my manual right there are the table as I teach!  I don't have to print it out and use all that ink and paper and I am in LOVE.

Oh and did I mention the freebies??  I have gotten so many free kindle books it's crazy. There are several bloggers out there that post freebies or low cost e-books.  The ones I read are geared towards homeschoolers and I've gotten a number of easy reader books to work with Colton with and that has been an amazing resource.  I've also gotten some free books for myself or books that I think we might use later as reference books. 

Seriously, if you have ever considered it I highly recommend a tablet of some kind.  We haven't once regretted our kindle purchase this past month and it has really streamlined a lot of stuff for me.

*This post is not sponsored in anyway.  I'm just a normal person who found a product she loves and is happy to tell people about it.*

If you give a mom

If you give a mom a sense of discontentment about how cluttered her house always feels she will tell her sister about it hoping for some tips or input that has as yet escaped her.

If a mom talks to her sister about how cluttered her house is it will cause her to think about how nice it would be for her oldest son to have his own room.

If a mom decides to give her oldest son his own room she will feel highly motivated to declutter the room he will be moving into.

If a mom begins decluttering the bedroom her son will be moving into she will realize she needs a new home for her craft stuff.

If a mom realizes she needs a new home for her craft stuff she will realize that she needs to move the tv off her desk upstairs and into the kids' room.

If a mom realizes she needs to move the tv she will realize that the stand is in corner not remotely close to a single outlet.

If a mom realizes that she needs to move the tv stand she will realize that with her oldest son getting his own bedroom there is room in the kids' bedroom to put their dresser.

If a mom realizes that she can move the dresser from the landing to the kids' room she will then realize that she can move her desk onto the landing creating a craft area for herself.

So here's a warning, if you are a mom, perhaps you should reconsider giving your oldest son his own room.  Otherwise you might feel a sudden undeniable urge to clean through EVERY room of the house.  Of course that could be a good thing.  I feel like a mouse with a cookie, only I don't have a cookie!  Bummer.

A discovery

This morning I made a horrible discovery.

Well I guess technically I made the discovery yesterday morning.  I woke up yesterday at 4:45.  I needed to pee.  Thanks fifth baby.  But once I was awake I had heartburn.  Then I had a few things on my mind and thought maybe if I jotted them on my to do list on my kindle that it would allow me to let it go and get back to sleep.  But alas, an hour later at 6:06 I was still awake and decided to just get up.  I promised myself a nap later.

See, I was excited about getting started on cleaning out our school room because we're transforming it into Kayd's bedroom.  Kayden, as a firstborn, is a little bit too much like his mama.  We need our alone time and our space of refuge.  Sharing a bedroom with your brothers and sister can make that hard to find.  I've struggled for a while considering that Kayd would probably do better with his own room because while *I* personally think our house is an adequate size for our family it can be hard to find space.  We homeschool here.  The kids and I are here nearly constantly through the week.  We have toys and school books and art supplies and the clothes that go with four children.  So I knew two things.  One, I NEEDED to be able to keep the bulk of our homeschooling stuff on the shelves in the school room and Kayd's desk needed to remain in there also.  Two, Kayden needed his own room.  I wouldn't normally say that a child NEEDS their own room.  I do think that in large part having your own room is a privilege and generally a want.  But I have the exact same personality and need for alone time.  I spent hours alone in my room as a child and so I do consider it a need for Kayden.  See the other three would be lost and despondent if I gave them all their own rooms.  They thrive on each others' company.  Kayden though has been sneaking away during their playtime to do his own thing upstairs in their bedroom.  Which is fine.  But I have a toy ban on their bedroom so I really cannot imagine what he's doing up there.

So I awoke yesterday with a plan of action for clearing the room of unnecessary clutter and couldn't get back to sleep.

Jay left early to go play basketball.  That's another conversation.  He lived through it so I guess it's ok.  So I was all alone in a quiet house at 6am.  Now my kids wake up anywhere between 6 and 7:30.  Sometimes they trickle down one at a time every fifteen minutes and others they wake up in bulk.  I decided to sort through the puzzles and kids games to pare them down.  I put on a show on netflix and began sorting.  At about 6:45 Colton came downstairs.  Thirty minutes later the other three joined us.  They helped me put together puzzles to see what was missing pieces.  It was a really nice way to start the day with my children.

Today I slept until my normalish 8:15.  I woke to my chocolate ice cream completely gone, unwashed strawberries being eaten by the two year old, and well it wasn't a nice way to start the day.

I discovered the benefit to waking up before the children.  In almost eight years of parenting I've NEVER seen any benefit to it but I get it now.  Of course if I'm going to make it a regular thing I'm going to have to go to bed at like nine at night but oh well.

The aftermath and a new normal

So when a couple gets married and starts a life together they have to find a new normal.  When a couple has a baby they have to find another new normal.  There are some things in life that happen that cause a family to have to find a new normal.

Almost three weeks ago Jay had a heart attack.  Add to that the fact that I was still stumbling through the first trimester of our fifth pregnancy and well here we are needing a new normal.

Pre-pregnancy we had a set school routine and I was doing a decent job keeping on top of housework and cooking dinner every night.  First trimester I was barely managing a school routine and thanking God daily that Kayd does most of his work independently and then we check it together.  I also couldn't stand the idea of food so making dinner - well any meal really - was excruciating to me.  Going grocery shopping was one of the hardest things to do the first 13 weeks.  So much food.  So much nausea.

Pre-heart attack I did my best to cook healthy meals but now I feel like there's so much more pressure to make sure their super healthy.

I am very happy to say that I am coming into less food aversion - though raw ground meat isn't something that I am currently able to make myself touch or even look at, and I'm finding more energy - though a daily nap still definitely appeals.  And I wish I could say that I'm super excited to be getting back into a hopping hands on school routine but the truth is the sun has been out the past two days and even though the temps haven't quite reached 50 yet all I want to do is call "SUMMER BREAK!".  Ahh if only.

One good thing that came out of Jay's heart attack is that my grandma's mind has apparently been changed about our homeschooling.  I wasn't sure I'd ever see the day but my great aunt watched the kids two of the days that Jay and I were out of town at the hospital and she bragged to my grandma about how smart and polite they are.  And I am so pleased that all of the kids did very well, all in all we were both gone from them for four whole days and four nights.  Once they saw that Daddy was ok on Sunday they thought that the rest of the time we were gone was one grand adventure, spending the day with this person and the night with that one.  It had been previously posited to me that my children wouldn't be able to be independent because they've been too sheltered never having gone to public school but I say with pride that my children all did well, they had never met my great aunt before the first morning that she watched them and my sister reported that they went right in without any hesitation.  I figure that my children knew that they could trust that we'd be home when we could be and that we love them enough to only let people who would be good to them care for them in our absence.

Ahh well, we'll find our new normal soon I think of course once we get used to that this fifth little baby will join our family and we will once again be looking for a new normal.  Now that I think of it, it seems like life is one long adventure of constantly trying to find our new normal.

I do hope to blog more again in my whole new normal of life.  I also hope to blog with some pictures of fun stuff with the kids and home projects.  Oh and sewing projects.  I have a few up my sleeve that I'm hoping to start working on next week.

Life changing moment

It is a life changing moment when your husband walks into the room clutching his chest out of breath and says that he is having chest pain.  It is a life changing moment when you decide that yes, you should call 911 because it's not going away.  It is a life changing moment when the paramedics tell you that he is having a heart attack and they are transporting him to the hospital an hour away where the heart specialists are.

My life was changed this past Saturday when my twenty eight year old husband had a heart attack.  I wanted nothing more than to climb into the back of the ambulance with him but I had our four children to take care of.  KOJ was life-flighted from our local hospital to the bigger hospital.  I had called my mom before the ambulance got there to arrange for her to watch the kids but when I realized they were taking him so far away a voice of wisdom told me that I needed to have someone go up with me.  Thanks Steve.  So I called her back and my sister said she'd keep the kids and then our new game plan was set.  We weren't at home when this emergency happened so we had to stop at home to get clothes and overnight stuff for the kids.  Kayd really stepped up to the plate.  He got clothes for him and his brothers and helped me gather loveys and I appreciated his help.  It felt like it took forever to get the kids to my sister's house.  Then it felt like it took forever to get up to my husband.  His flight only took 18 min.  He was probably at the hospital before I ever even left my sister's house to meet him there.

When I got to my sister's she hugged me and was amazed at my calm.  I didn't have a choice.  I had four kids who didn't need to be freaked out because their mama was.  Being anxious and upset wouldn't have helped Jay anyway.  I'm very logical like that.  It can be a blessing in a situation like this but it can make me seem heartless and emotionless at times too I think.  My mom gathered my four children, my sister's four children and my sister and I in a circle and we prayed for Jay before we took off.  A strand of 11 cords isn't easily broken right?

My mom talked mostly on the way to the hospital and I listened and I didn't think too much about the fact that I had NO idea how Jay was.  When I tried to fathom that he could die my brain wouldn't compute and absolutely refused to have that thought.  Finally we got to the hospital.  Finally we found Jay.  Finally I saw that he was alive, and he was a little bit loopy from various drugs.  I was so happy to see him.  Thinking about it now makes me want to cry but I did not cry that night.  I was just so happy.  We were updated on how he was and what had been done before we arrived.  He'd had a complete blockage in his main artery.  They put in a stint and things were much improved.

Someone told me that I saved his life.  I guess I know logically that if I hadn't called 911 and we ignored it that it could have been much worse, it could have meant death but it feels so dramatic to say that I saved his life because I just dialed a number that anyone else in my situation would have dialed.  It feels overwhelming, I think, to consider that if I hadn't known the signs could mean a heart attack, if we hadn't known that he had high blood pressure and cholesterol which we'd only learned about in the past two weeks, that I could have ignored what was happening and thought he'd be fine on his own.

Lots of people called, "How are you?" they'd ask.  "I'm good." I would say and genuinely mean it.  My husband is alive.  He will come home to our bed again.  He will be here to meet our fifth child.  I am not good, I am great and I am blessed and I give every glory in this situation to God.

I finally returned home Wednesday evening to be with our children and Jay should be able to come home this afternoon.  Friends and family took turns with our children and they had a blast.  Smart move on my part to leave my van with the kids.  That way whoever had them could have the van and all of their seats.  That worked out great.  We've seen God in so many people this week, we've been so blessed.  A friend of my sister, a person I'd never met before, welcomed me to her home down the street from the hospital to shower.  People were asking when they could bring meals.  The friends and family who watched the kids and loved on them while we were gone.  Some anonymous angels came and cleaned our home.  Another friend who had the kiddos cleaned our van.  The blessings have been amazing and so very appreciated.

My life changed on Saturday night.  I became the wife of a man who had a heart attack.  My children now have a father who had a heart attack.  But one thing didn't change.  God was with us.  He was with us in the weeks leading up to the heart attack.  He was with us during the heart attack.  He is with us now in this recovery process from the heart attack.