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Elizabeth
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The thing that strikes me is that even the 'simple" routines or schedules are thoughtful. They might not be elaborate charts hung on a wall, but if you were to write them out, they would certainly illuminate the fact that MOm has thought through the how the day and the week need to go in order to function. Since I tend to think in writing, I had to do that in print before I really could consider it done. Now, I think it's important that said narrative remain mine alone. I know it's there, offering a framework for our days and holding me accountable, but my children don't need to see the complexity of it all. They just need to know that life has rhythm  .
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Erin
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By nature I am not a list maker and was never one to 'schedule' things. Quite frankly the MOTH book was NOT for me. Liked some of the ideas but I only lasted a few days.
Despite the fact that I like to 'fly by the seat of my pants' as I have had more children I have bowed to the inevitable and (made some lists)  Surprisingly my life does now run smoother  Although I have managed to find a balance between necessity and my own nature.
We have a chore list that rotates weekly, a routinue for lessons with room for variation (I've instilled my habits, they don't like to get stale mmm....) And the best thing that I ever did was type up a master grocery list and menu plan. 
The one thing I did not do was write up one of those schedules with mum getting up before 7am No thanks.
Yeah I like the word rythms. Something that helps but I'm in control not my lists.
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Erin
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cathhomeschool
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Okay, in discussing OCD with my husband, his comment was, "If Elizabeth is asking if anyone else is like that, you better speak up!" He wants me out of the closet! I'm definitely a planner/scheduler to the max, and also stress about what would happen if I suddenly died. Can't wait to catch up on this thread and start working on our routines for this year.
Elizabeth, I've read the first few posts and LOVE the idea of having EVERYTHING in one document... Sure hope you explain this later in the thread or upload a sample of some sort!
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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JennGM
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Elizabeth, do you still use a planner? Is everything written in there? Or have you moved it to the computer?
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Elizabeth
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jenngm67 wrote:
| Elizabeth, do you still use a planner? Is everything written in there? Or have you moved it to the computer? |
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This week-long write-every-little-thing-down plan is on the computer. I'm still using a planner right now. I guess this could make it obsolete--have't really gotten that far yet...
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Meredith
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Allright, well, since I see we're all being so honest here, I'll admit it too, I am definately OCD about schedules, or at least I USED to be . With baby number four I'm trying to heed my husband's advice and *take a chill pill*. (If only there were non-narcotic substances) Think I'll just stick to daily prayer and exercise 
Anyhoo, the rythym concept is near and dear to my heart as it seems to be the way things are starting to head with a larger family and all.
I too have a master grocery list and Costco list so I don't duplicate in bulk  and I've tried long term menu planning, but we seem to be the most spontaneous in this area, especially during the summer months, it's really just a question of what kind of salad or BBQ item to have. I'm much more organized with meals in the winter when I can pull soups and stews from the freezer or do the make ahead batches for freezing.
Enjoying this thread. I'm feeling more organized already
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Meredith
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mrsgranola
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Ya'll are cracking me up... at what point do you suddenly become organized... which number child??? I'm still waiting after #5. Master grocery lists??!
I have alot to learn. I'm definitely one that flies by the seat of my pants most the time. I looked a MOTH and it was like a crucifux to a vampire... I just had to get it out of my hands b/c it was SO not me. I wish it were! I guess this past year of upheaval has brought out the gypsy in me. I really do want to get better.
I'm reading MROL, Homeschooling with Gentleness and Happy are You Poor right now... maybe all those will help me get back on track this year.
JoAnna <-----whose baby boy turned 3 today!
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Molly Smith
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mrsgranola wrote:
| Ya'll are cracking me up... at what point do you suddenly become organized... which number child??? I'm still waiting after #5. |
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I recently asked a friend this very question! It does make you wonder, huh? My 5th is fast approaching his first birthday and is independent enough that I can do more than just the basics around the house again, so I feel like "Okay, now I can get us organized again!" However, all it will take is another dear addition to the family or some much lesser event to throw us off.
I'm glad you're not as uptight, er, OCD, about it as some of us, JoAnna !! Imagine all the energy you save on something that's not ever going to be done anyway ! I'm going to keep trying, though, because I need to--the OCD in me needs to .
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Molly Smith in VA
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Elizabeth
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I don't have anything to contribute to the conversation--I just had to because I've been up writing for an hour or so and wishing someone would WAKE UP and talk to me and then I saw something jump on my screen and my first thought was, "Must be Molly; she's the only one ever on before 6 ET." And there you were!G'morning , Molly!
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Erin
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Ya'll are cracking me up... at what point do you suddenly become organized... which number child??? I'm still waiting after #5. Master grocery lists??!
Joanna I would have to say that it wasn't until number six that I finally HAD to do something. I am soo proud of myself these days. I'm like a reformed alcoholic.
I was the person who always got to events late. Guess what -these days I'm on time
And I do my dishes before I go to bed and no longer have mounds of folding to do I'm just a new woman.
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Elizabeth
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Tell me about your laundry, Erin. What's your routine? This is the thing that really gets me. FLYlady can have her sink. I really think the smooth running of my household hinges on my laundry being done promptly.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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lilac hill
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Schedules-I love them, even if I do not follow them.
I find scheduling settles me when I feel overwhelmed about all that needs and all that I want to be done. It also helps me get through the things I dislike doing. Afterall, once the paperwork is done for the week, I do not have to tend to it for another week.
Laundry has been a changing routine, depending on our well and the ages of our daughters. Because our older girls do most of their own laundry, I leave the laundry room to them on the weekend. Mondays and Thursdays are my big laundry days. (During the summer anything goes-I schedule more around good clothesline drying days) I try to iron the few ironed items on those days too.
With 6 children, my Mom did laundry everyday, very early in the morning. The folded laundry was waiting on the kitchen table when we arrived home from school. We put away our own laundry, but I am sure she tidied it our drawers afterwards--neat drawers were important to Mom. I am embarassed to say I never did laundry until I went to college. Sometimes when I see my daughters' disarray in the laundry room I can understand why Mom needed that bit of order and control.
We designed a great laundry room after the fire. We have a stacked washer and dryer and between the appliances and deep sink there are 2 long counters. The top counter is for folding--of course it holds a variety of odds and ends alot of the time. (No matter where we lived, Mom always had a long table in the laundry room, but did her folding on the kitchen table--had to put away the laundry if we wanted to eat!)The bottom shelf holds a laundry basket for each room, a good place to stow belongings found around the house and laundry. On the floor under the basket shelf are crates and baskets that hold rags, beach towels, back pack and bags, and cleaning buckets. Utilizing that folding shelf is my challenge. Right now there is laundry folded on the couch and Maggie left the ironing board and iron in the middle of the keeping room.
Time to get to work
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Erin
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Lets see.
Mondays I wash towels.Plus there is a usually about 2 loads of clothes on that day as I try not to wash on Sundays.
Tuesday I wash sheets, (only half the family's, on the alternate week the other half) Plus of course a load of clothes.
Everyday I would have a load occasionally enough to split into lights and darks. I am very slack and will often throw them in mixed. I don't get hung up on things like that.
My routinue is, every morning one of the children is assigned to bring down the washing from the bathrooms. I then throw it in the machine after breakfast, before we start lessons. If there is more than one load I try and duck back and put the second one on before morning tea. During morning tea I run out to the line and hang it. Takes about 10 minutes or less.
What gets me are my bathrooms. I have just not got disciplined there yet. Ant the toilets. Any ideas?
Then I don't think about it again until just before dark when I bring it in (or one of the children does). Whilst tea is cooking I'll fold it onto the bench so the children can then take it straight away. One obvious point for some I know but not how I was raised is as I fold it I put it in individual peoples' piles.
Before I became more self-disciplined I used to have baskets overflowing that was commented on by visitors and very embarassing That was with only three children. My friend calls her laundry (she has 10 children ) Mt Never-Rest
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Meredith
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Elizabeth wrote:
| FLYlady can have her sink. I really think the smooth running of my household hinges on my laundry being done promptly. |
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Oh Elizabeth, this is SO TRUE. The *sink* thing used to really get me...like who REALLY cares if the sink is shiny My children were way too little to appreciate it AND further more I was becoming more OCD than necessary about the SINK! SO what about the laundry??? Erin we're all anxiously waiting....oops, I see I needed to read ahead Boy do I feel sheepish...more coffee and then on to Laundry land...
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Willa
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Elizabeth wrote:
| The thing that strikes me is that even the 'simple" routines or schedules are thoughtful. They might not be elaborate charts hung on a wall, but if you were to write them out, they would certainly illuminate the fact that MOm has thought through the how the day and the week need to go in order to function. |
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This is a nice point, Elizabeth...
I'll dust off and air out my OCD dark side Honestly, I really have to struggle against it because for me, compulsiveness is an early symptom of defeat.
Here's how it goes -- I see an organizational need and plan out a system -- then the system takes over and becomes more important to me than meeting the original need. OR sometimes, there isn't even a real need -- I take someone else's system just because I so admire order and neat little boxes -- then get frustrated because up-keeping the system makes life so much more complicated than it was before... then I let it drop and feel like an organizational failure.
Realizing that about myself, I try to avoid the "super-size" A plus mentality and try to figure out the simplest, most natural solution to meet a real need. ... a "good enough" solution. Does this even make sense?? I'm on Benadryl for hives right now!
When I had to fly up to Alaska by myself to visit my ailing father earlier this summer, I wrote out a whole chart on how to take care of the "babies" -- my delayed 6yo and lively 2yo. I have 5 older kids, so I assigned one older and one alternate to each "baby". THe primary caretaker was constantly responsible for the "baby" but could sub-let the responsibility to the secondary caretaker so he or she could take showers, help cook or whatever.
DH works at home and so was constantly available and so does 19yo son but this was so they could work during the day and not have to worry about the babies. I had 6yo's med regimen and seizure protocol all written out, etc...
It probably LOOKED really OCD but was just so I could feel OK about leaving and so no "baby" would fall through the cracks so to speak, and so no one would have an unfair share of the caretaking.
But under normal circumstances there is no need to regiment everything this way, and to do so would stress me out.
I don't do the shiny sink except on Monday morning -- because 5 minutes after I've done it it's got dishes in it again, so what's the point? My "shiny sink" is making my bed, wiping the toilet daily and keeping up a laundry routine. I try to vacuum the downstairs daily too. But if I miss a day it's not a disaster.
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
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Elizabeth
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WJFR wrote:
| Here's how it goes -- I see an organizational need and plan out a system -- then the system takes over and becomes more important to me than meeting the original need. OR sometimes, there isn't even a real need -- I take someone else's system just because I so admire order and neat little boxes -- then get frustrated because up-keeping the system makes life so much more complicated than it was before... then I let it drop and feel like an organizational failure. |
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It makes perfect sense to me and I think this is what Lissa was getting at when she told me the schedule had to be "invisible." You can think it through and even write it down, but you can't let it run your life. How is that for paradoxical: write a schedule so as to better run your life but don't let it run your life. Still, I think we understand what I mean.
WJFR wrote:
When I had to fly up to Alaska by myself to visit my ailing father earlier this summer, I wrote out a whole chart on how to take care of the "babies" -- my delayed 6yo and lively 2yo. I have 5 older kids, so I assigned one older and one alternate to each "baby". THe primary caretaker was constantly responsible for the "baby" but could sub-let the responsibility to the secondary caretaker so he or she could take showers, help cook or whatever...It probably LOOKED really OCD but was just so I could feel OK about leaving and so no "baby" would fall through the cracks so to speak, and so no one would have an unfair share of the caretaking...But under normal circumstances there is no need to regiment everything this way, and to do so would stress me out. |
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This is pretty much what I did when I went to Chicago. For my Paddy, who was my medically complicated child at the time, I had a full page of the regular asthma regimen and then all the contingencies. It was like a flowchart. I thought it was pretty OCD but it bought me peace of mind and it was necessary as his coach, with whom he was staying, really didn't know the routine or the contingencies. But it got really funny when my eldest went to watch Paddy play that weekend. His coach had taken my chart (with all warning signs, etc) and copied it for every mom on the team . Michael said that every time the child so much as took a deep breath, five moms would alert the coach. . When Michael called and told me that, I felt even that much better--we knew we left him with someone as OCD as me!
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Molly Smith
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Elizabeth wrote:
| It makes perfect sense to me and I think this is what Lissa was getting at when she told me the schedule had to be "invisible." You can think it through and even write it down, but you can't let it run your life. |
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This isn't the quote I want, but it reminded of something in an earlier post from you about not letting your children see the schedule. Why would you not want your children to see a schedule? Do they know the schedule? Or do they just wait for instructions from you? My kiddos always want to know what the plan is for the day, so it would seem to me that having a written plan for all to see (I'm still in "neat little block" mode) would be beneficial.
I so appreciate this thread. You are all challenging me to think outside the box (pun intended ). I wish I had more time to just "think". I guess I keep hoping that I'll find the perfect schedule, and method of scheduling, for my family and then I won't ever have to do it again!! Wouldn't that be great??
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Molly Smith in VA
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Erin
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Molly wrote:
| Why would you not want your children to see a schedule? Do they know the schedule? Or do they just wait for instructions from you? My kiddos always want to know what the plan is for the day, so it would seem to me that having a written plan for all to see (I'm still in "neat little block" mode) would be beneficial. |
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Molly I let my children see the charts. Particularly regards the chore chart. It solves so much hassle and fights by having it written and posted. I just need to ask 'who's on compost?' and they can easily know and say "it's the king cleaner'. (my husband who is more organised prone than me thought up these cute names, kitchen hand ,table waiter, mums helper etc. Each name has a group of jobs assigned to it. Then when they change every week they change to the cluster of jobs, The simplest system I've ever used.)
Regards lesson routines I have that posted on the wall for them to see if they wish. I have one child who trys to make me stick to the plan. isn't too impressed with me when I don't. She is probably good for me, keeps me in line.
My children also like it if I post the menu on the fridge so that they know what we are having for tea. (and have plenty of comments about it.)
Don't think that we are rigid about all this. My motto is 'varierty is the spice of life". So we can change at a moments notice, However it is there for me on days when I am not feeling too creative.
A menu list was a good thing for me. We were slipping into the habit of takeaway when I couldn't think of what to cook. For some reason I found it hard to think at that time of the day. I would ring up my husband at work and ask him what he wanted for tea. He wasn't always impressed
PS Can anyone tell me (I'm clueless) how to get copied print to come up in the yellow boxes?
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Erin
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Elizabeth
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Molly,
This is what I said earlier:
Elizabeth wrote:
| Lissa said something to me the other day that really made great sense. She said the schedule must be hidden. To me, that means that we can think out our routines and we can consult our planners, but to post that chart and start to stress ourselves and everyone else when they don't conform, is really not productive at all. To me, MOTH is a bit strident. ...What one can't see in the detail though is the promise I made to Lissa that the schedule will be hidden. There are charts on the backs of every door in all rooms, detailing what consitutes "clean" and I will be certain that my chidren are aware of expectations and know what's coming next, but I'm determined not to be ruled by little grids .The routine is important because it gives me the security of knowing the chart of the course, but I have learned to approach it knowing that I can be off-course much of the time and still arive at a lovely destination . |
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My children know what to expect when but they don't need to see the detail in my plan. The routine gives them security but I need to be careful not to let it dominate the relationship. Those little grids always backfire on me. I wish I could entice Lissa to this thread becuse her comment was made in the midst of other things and I know what she meant but I'm not articulating it well. I think I just need to remind myself that I'm not married to my planner; I'm married to my husband and my planner exists only to help me better serve him and the children we love. A stressed-out, cranky woman whose goal is to stay on track no matter what, is not the ideal here. But I am so given to planning that if I'm not careful that cranky woman could be me.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Elizabeth
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Erin,
Click the "quote" icon in the right hand corner of the post you want to quote and then edit out what you don't want. The quote fairy did it for you . Next time, you're on your own!
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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4Real Forums : Tea and Conversation
Topic: routines
