large family living

Weekly Planning Sessions

September 27, 2019 by mamakay Leave a Comment

My best days start with a weekly planning session on Sunday afternoon. I gather up my google calendar, my Power Sheets, my bullet journal, my Simplified Planner, my favorite pens, a tasty beverage and I pull up some good tunes on Spotify.

It just takes a few minutes to look over what I did last week and select a happy memory from the week to write in my planner. Then I add any accomplishments to my tending sheet in my Power Sheet workbook. I try not to focus too much on what didn’t happen but just move the things forward that still need attending to and let the ones go that can’t be helped.

Next, I shift my focus to the coming week checking my google calendar and writing any events on the daily pages of my planner and any to dos on the appropriate day. Visualizing the week ahead of time really helps me so I am not caught unaware.

I check through my brain dumps in my bullet journal to see if there is anything I can add to my to do lists for the week. Then I write it down on the appropriate day.

This usually takes me about 30-45 minutes. I come away feeling refreshed and confident about what needs to be done over the next few days. I look forward to this time every week and really miss it when it doesn’t happen.

Afterwards, I like to have a family meeting to spend a few minutes talking about everyone’s plans and schedules for the week. That way we all know what is going on. We add everyone’s schedules to our white board to keep us all informed. My ideal is to have a fun dessert to bring everyone together as they usually aren’t that fond of having family meetings.

Do you have a weekly planning session? What does it look like?

September: the New (Old) January

September 13, 2018 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Fall is by far my favorite season! I love the cooling of the air, the shortening of the days, and the invitation to prepare for winter by preserving the harvest (even if its not from my own garden). It is the time of returning to routines and the home is central to it all. Warm meals and baking are welcomed after so many hot months where the kitchen seems unappealing. School begins and the rhythms of life become more predictable.

Each season brings a time for reflection for me. What is working in our lives? What isn’t working? What can we do differently? How do we want to spend our time during this season? I try to take some time to really think through these things. The last 2 years I have been able to get away for a couple days and it has been such a blessing to have the time and space to consider our lives. We have made some huge changes this past year and having some space really helped me have some clarity.

This year I also started making a wall calendar on a half sheet of poster board for the family for the season. It has been amazing to me how much it has helped us be intentional about our time. Seeing our schedule a little zoomed out has helped us so much as we make our plans.

I have been thinking about how much September seems like new year. It is a time for making plans, lists and preparations for the coming time. And then it hit me as I looked at the calendar. Rosh Hashanah was this week. In the Jewish calendar, September has been the new year all along.

So Happy New Year! May God bless you in this coming year!

MamaKay

The End of an Era

July 11, 2018 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Nine years ago, I was expecting baby number 6 and we outgrew our minivan. The search began and we chose a 12 passenger van for our new to us vehicle. It served us well as we added to our family. It took us on adventures camping, trips to Kansas to see family, back and forth when we moved to Montana, it was great on our trip to Ohio. We could fit all 10 of us plus groceries.

But life has changed. The 10 of us rarely travel together anymore. Our children are growing up and going their own directions. (Half of our family is now drivers! How did that happen?)The gas mileage was terrible, getting 14 mpg at the most. And then there was the winter. Somehow a one ton vehicle with rear wheel drive is ridiculously difficult to get out of the steep incline of our driveway in the snow.

And so it was with a bit of sadness at the thought of not being able to travel all together that we decided this was the year to trade in the van.

While my husband was hanging out at the dealership getting our Kia Sorento serviced he found a 2015 VW Golf Sportswagen. It was one of those cars that got caught up in the scandal. So even though it is a 2015 it only had 160 miles on it when he test drove it. He totally fell in love with it and it brought him back to Geo Metro days only so much nicer! On long trips he has gotten as much as 53 mpg! They gave us a deal too good to resist and so we found ourselves trading in the van.

The Kia holds 7 passengers which is plenty most of the time. The rest of the time we just have to take two cars. And wow, driving the Kia is so nice. I was content driving the van but it was an Econoline, which pretty much means no extras. Now I have so many extras I can hardly believe it! I can talk on the phone or listen to things from my phone using Bluetooth, I have a backup camera, a trunk that opens & closes with the press of a button, heated/cooled seats, all wheel drive and so much more.

The big van was such a blessing while we had it (and a couple of the kids are still sad that it is gone). I feel so blessed that I get to drive such a nice car and it will be so nice not getting stuck this winter.

I frequently find myself thinking that this is the way things will always be but God keeps showing me that I need to open my hands and surrender my thoughts about my life and be ready for things to change. The harder I hold on the more difficult that change becomes. When I can hold things loosely the blessings are so much more quickly realized. I think I am learning!

Is there anything you have had to let go of lately? What are you learning?

MamaKay