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mamakay

managing a household of 10 by the grace of God

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Fall

Reflect on What I Learned This Fall ~ 2019

December 3, 2019 by mamakay 2 Comments

reflect on fall

I believe that taking time to reflect regularly on our lives is vital to good mental health. Emily P Freeman offers the opportunity to join her and others do just that every quarter. I am linking up with her once again to name what I learned this fall.

  1. Quiet is good but I get antsy if it is too quiet. I also am more overwhelmed by the noise levels when everyone comes home.
  2. I need more active steps in my life. Now that the weather has changed going for walks doesn’t work out so much for me and I have already become more sedentary. I made it a baby step goal to stop at the gym after dropping off my preschooler and do a mile on the treadmill at least 2 days a week. It takes less than 20 minutes so I still have time to do other things but at least I get some movement into my day.
  3. Some friends introduced me to Marco Polo and I love using it to keep in touch with my sisters. We had been texting but I just love getting to see their faces and their lives since we live so far apart.
  4. I need accountability! When I signed up for the Monetize Your Blog course I paid extra for a one month long accountability group. I made more progress in that month than in the 6+ months before that!
  5. Monday mornings at home are necessary for me to get my act together after the weekend. I use that time to regroup, do laundry, do dishes, meal plan and check in with our budget on YNAB. I also get a lot done on my blog work. Mondays are my most productive day of the week.
  6. I prefer going to the morning Ladies Bible study instead of the evening one. Driving in the dark has always been harder for me so the mornings work out much better. I can run a couple errands in town afterwards. Plus it is just much less stressful than adding one more thing into our busy Wednesday schedule.
  7. I’m not there yet and that’s okay. I always want to rush through the hard parts to get to the finished product but I’m an enneagram 9 and slow is a fact of life for me. I am working to be content plodding along. As I reflect on this, I just need to stay consistent and keep moving forward especially when it is taking longer than it is fun.

Do you take time to reflect regularly in your life? What have you learned this fall?

MamaKay

Past Link ups for What I Have Learned: http://mamakay.com/WordPress/category/whatilearned/

Filed Under: Blog, Fall, Seasonal Living, whatilearned Tagged With: reflect

Back to School Checklist

July 23, 2019 by mamakay Leave a Comment

We are in the dog days of summer and although it might seem too soon to talk about it the kids will be back to school soon! My kids start back in less than a month. I have found that if I spend a little time now making a checklist of our back to school needs I can work through it a little at a time instead of going mad that last week before school starts to get everything done in time.

Here is what is on my list:

1. Clothes Inventory

I like to spend some time going through each child’s clothing to see what they already have and what they are going to need to go back to school. I like to do this 1 or 2 kids at a time on their laundry day. I have them work with me to pull out anything that they have outgrown or that has holes in it. Then we make a list of what they still need. Once we have the list we shop our bins of hand me downs and if we don’t have everything then we add it to the shopping list.

2. Buy the Needed Clothes

As much as possible we shop thrift stores followed by Target, Old Navy and Ross. Clothes shopping is my least favorite activity. But it has to be done. I only take 1-2 kids at a time to make it less overwhelming.

3. Lunch Boxes

It only takes a few minutes to gather up the lunch boxes and containers from prior years but it helps so much when the kids are ready to go back to school to make sure they have what they need! The last couple of years we have gotten lunch boxes from Costco that have lasted really well. They come with ice packs and containers.

Costco Lunch Bag

4. Backpacks

What says back to school better than a new backpack? I am always hopeful that at least some of the backpacks are still usable the next year but it seems like most of them have a broken zipper or seam by the end of the year. We did get a High Sierra backpack from Costco last year for one of our daughters and it stood up well and she can still use it this year! We are definitely going to buy more of them for this year.

5. Shoes

Do your kids always grow over the summer too? Now is a great time to find sales on shoes and make sure everyone has shoes that fit well to go back to school!

6. School Supplies

Now here is my love language! Give me $100 to spend on notebooks, pens, pencils and all the school supplies and I am a happy girl! I like to stock up on things I know they will use throughout the year because it costs so much more later in the year but sometimes I stock up too much on a particular thing. So before I go shopping it’s helpful for me to double check the supplies we already have on hand. I know many schools don’t give you lists until right before school starts but it helps if you get the basic needs and only have to shop for the couple of extra things at the last minute. Everything gets picked over if you wait until the last minute and it is so much more stressful!

7. Restore Good Bedtime Routines

Over the summer we are a little more lax on bedtimes and our normal routines. I find it helpful if a couple weeks before school starts we slowly move back to earlier bedtimes and wake up times so it doesn’t come as quite a shock when school starts. One of my favorite tools for helping with this is our Echo Dots. We set daily reminders to help us start our bedtime routines, brush our teeth long enough, turn out the lights and alarms to wake everyone up in the morning.

8. Plan a Fun Activity

We love to plan a fun activity to signal the end of summer. It could be a trip to the ice cream shop, a camping trip, or a water park. Having markers to signal the change of a season really helps with transitions and is a great way to make memories that will last a lifetime.

If you would like to print out a handy checklist just sign up below:

Filed Under: Blog, Fall, planning, School Days Tagged With: Back To School

What I Learned This Fall 2018

November 30, 2018 by mamakay Leave a Comment

  • Treadmill
  • First Day of School
  • One More Time

Emily P. Freeman encouraged me to link up for her quarterly what we learned series.  Instead of waiting for the end of the year she encourages us to reflect on the season as it is winding down and this provides a great opportunity to share! So here is my list for this fall:

  1. I am a Writer! I need to consistently write for my own mental health and then I can share with others as well.
  2. Public School may actually be the right thing for our family this season. This has been such a huge shift for our family and has taken me a lot of time to adjust too. But it has been a good thing for us so far.
  3. Going one more time is such a gift! We went to Yellowstone National Park for a third time in September and it was such a lovely experience. No stress to see all the things, just a bonus to experience the area one more time.
  4. Cancer Sucks! We lost my stepbrother and our family dog to cancer this fall and it is just so terrible!
  5. Stories don’t have to be tied up with a happily ever after to be good stories that we can learn so much from. There is a trend in books right now that is showing vulnerability as a worthwhile endeavor and I am here for it!
  6. Oh how I love paint! It had been so long but it is amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for your spirit and your feelings about your house. So wonderful!
  7. Plan to Eat has an app for your phone now! I have used the computer version for many years but found out there was an app now and that made it so much more usable for me! (If you hurry their once a year sale for 50% off is still on through December 2.)
  8. Now that my youngest is almost 4, I can actually get up an hour (sometimes more) before the kids get up! Sometimes I sneak a trip into the gym while they are still sleeping or spend some extra time enjoying a warm drink and doing some Bible study.
  9. I am not sure it really qualifies as having learned or not but I have been a mom now for 20 years! It still catches me off guard and I’m not sure how I feel about it but I’ve been doing this a long time and I still have another 14+ years of having children at home. I am in this for the long haul. I’m learning how to do this differently. It is a marathon for sure.
  10. This has been a season of surrender for me. Surrender of my expectations, plans, hopes and even some dreams. It has been refining and it has brought some clarity for me although I am definitely still a work in progress!

How about you? What have you learned this fall? I would love to hear!

Filed Under: Blog, Fall

Leaves of Gratitude

November 27, 2018 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Would you like to create a family tradition to help your family focus on gratitude leading up to Thanksgiving? I have created this Leaves of Gratitude printable to make it simple for you to enjoy this tradition. Just sign up below to have it sent right to your email box.

Family Traditions

Family traditions are so very important to me. My family of origins pretty much disintegrated soon after I left home for college. So when we started our family we decided to start from scratch. I wanted to be sure that our family had strong traditions we could rely on to tie us together and help us remain strong whatever may come.

We started slowly and have added in many things over the years. For at least the last 14 years as the month of November rolls around we practice giving thanks by creating a Thanksgiving Tree. Each year I draw a tree (even though I am NOT an artist) on a large pieces of paper and we cut out leaves. Each day everyone writes (or dictates) something we are thankful for and then we glue the leaves on the tree. By the end of the month our tree is filled with beautiful leaves and reminders of all the blessings in our lives. We call these Leaves of Gratitude.

Our Thanksgiving Tree

Thanksgiving Tree
Thanksgiving Tree

As you can tell, I am not an amazing artist by the greatest stretch of your imagination but part of what makes this tradition so sustainable to us is that it is simple.

Free Printable

This year I created a printable for you so that you can create your own Thanksgiving Tree if you would like to do this with your family! You can print the sheets on colored paper, have the kids color them as they go or just leave them white. Just click on the link below to sign up and I will email the link to you.

Filed Under: Blog, Fall, Thanksgiving Tagged With: gratitude, Leaves, Thanksgiving

September: the New (Old) January

September 13, 2018 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Happy New Year! 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!

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Filed Under: Blog, Fall, New Years Tagged With: new years, Reflection, seasons

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So glad you stopped by. I am a Christian wife and mother of 8 in the middle years. My kids are aged 4 to 20 and just about every 2 years in between. I write about our life as a big family, what God is personally doing in my life, food and books.

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