31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 2 Where to Start?

by Kristin

Want to join me on my journey of 31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom? Today I am chatting about where to start when you are feeling overwhelmed with disorganization. In case you missed yesterday’s meal planning post you can find it here.

The Mindset

Grace. It’s a good thing. Moms need to have LOTS of grace for themselves, for their children and for their husbands. I like to be covered in the stuff {smile}. But I think that there can be too much of a good thing and I’m pretty sure that’s why I’m in the disorganized mess that I find myself in today.

Hard Work. It’s not fun but it’s necessary. I’m pretty sure that I thought that I was allergic to hard work for a while. But, as I look around my home and my life that has been pretty “fly by the seat of my pants” lately I see that a lack of hard work has gotten me here. As I wallow in my wondering about where to even start I know that I am dealing with the consequences of not being willing to do some hard work along the way.

Yes, I have 6 kids {and for some reason everyone seems to think that automatically makes me super organized} and they make crazy messes {anyone know how to get melted crayon out of every thing in the wash load?} but there are plenty of days that the hard work of staying on top of everything kept me from doing anything.

So what do I do about a messed up mindset? Have you ever heard that the greatest is the servant of all? I have to put on a mindset that I am here to serve my family. They deserve it. If I am willing to clean up and make amazing meals for guests shouldn’t I do that ALL THE MORE for my family? I love these people {crazy messes and all}. If I fail to serve them and let them know that they are the most important people in the world to me then I have failed as a mother.

Having this new mindset has given me the strong desire to do the hard work. For me {and my peace} and for my family.

It Is Work

I am the one who let things get so out of order. I am the one who was too tired to set a system in place. So now I am paying the price and have so much more work to do to get back on top of everything. And that is okay. I acknowledge this and I stand up and get to work. One thing at a time.

Where I start is with my mindset and my attitude. If they aren’t in the right place then I will fail as soon as I begin.

How about you? Do you struggle with where to start? How can you look at things differently to be able to overcome your obstacles?

Filed Under: Mommy Tips, Organization, Uncategorized Tagged With: organization

31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 1- Meal Planning with Pinterest

by Kristin

Welcome to Day 1 of 31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom. In case you missed the details and the reason behind this series you can find them here. Today I wanted to share with you how I am attempting to get organized with meal planning by using Pinterest. I feel that having a meal plan and sticking with it is one of the biggest keys to being organized. When I have a meal plan in place it brings a whole new level of peace and order to my day.

There are about a million different ways to go about meal planning and I have attempted at least 500,000 of them. Okay, well maybe not, but I have tried a LOT of them. The problem they all seemed to have for me is that my (big) family didn’t care for all of the recipes or they didn’t leave much room for flexibility. Also, if you happen to have anyone on a special diet or with an allergy a meal plan can be tricky.

Enter Pinterest. I started pinning lots of amazing looking recipes on Pinterest but I would never get around to using them because of that darn meal plan or just not remembering them. I use the internet a lot anyway for finding recipes and planning meals, so I thought why not make a Meal Plan Board? Oh my goodness! I get to make meals that I think my family will love every night, plus I get to try lots of new things and can anyone say crockpot? There are about a bajillion crockpot recipes on Pinterest {and yes I did just make up a number}. The crockpot is a busy moms best friend! Plus an amazing added bonus is that you can find recipes for just about any diet or allergy issue. If you are eating Paleo, gluten or dairy free, or low carb, whatever it is, there are lots of recipes to be found for your family on Pinterest.

How does a Pinterest Meal Plan Work?

First I created a board on Pinterest and called it “Meal Plan.” You can call yours whatever you like but distinguish this board from your other recipes.

Next I added the recipes that I wanted to the board by either pinning them with the pin it button {see the pin it button below this post for an example} on a website or I repinned recipes from Pinterest itself {you can search for specific recipes or just see what your friends are pinning}.

When I pinned the recipes to my Meal Plan Board I would type “Meal Plan Day 1” and so on before the title of the recipe in the description box. Pinterest doesn’t allow you to order your pins but if you only have only up to 30 recipes on one board it’s not too difficult to find the right one for each day. I created a 30 day board and if I want to do more I will add another 30 day board called “Meal Plan 2.” You could also do it for only a week or two at a time or even 28 days {exactly 4 weeks} if that works better for you.
Once I had my 30 days of recipes I made a shopping list for each week. This takes a little bit of time but if you do it upfront then the weeks that follow will be less work.

When I went shopping I got everything I would need for the week and tonight we are having Mongolian Beef. I can tell you what we are having for dinner for the next 3o days and exactly what I need to get to make it!

A Few Notes:

I made sure to think ahead to what my days are like in a month. On days when we are busier I chose crockpot or make ahead recipes.
You can be as specific as adding a date to the recipe of when you want to have it.
This works for breakfast and lunch as well. I made separate Breakfast and Lunch boards and am still working on completing them for the month.
If you are thinking “but I cannot add my own recipes” this is true but there are ways around it. Since I am a blogger I can add recipes that my family uses and loves to my blog and pin them onto my Meal Plan Boards {and I plan to do this}. You could also search the internet for similar recipes to the ones you know and love {I bet you’ll find something close} and go ahead and pin it onto your board as a reminder that you are making that favorite dinner recipe that day and just make it your own way.

I know the system is not perfect but I think it will be a fun way to spice up the meal planning!

What do you think? Will you give a Pinterest Meal Plan a try? Is there anything that you would do differently? Here’s my Meal Plan Board link of you’d like to take a look at it.

Speaking of Pinterest, perhaps you should pin this post {smile}?

Filed Under: Mommy Tips, Organization, Uncategorized Tagged With: meal planning

31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom

by Kristin

Welcome to 31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom! I have decided to jump on the 31 days band wagon this month and join The Nester for 31 days of posts. I’ve just been getting my feet wet lately with getting back to blogging but I am committing to dive in completely this month.

Why did I choose to do 31 days to Becoming an Organized Mom? Because this has been pressing on my heart a lot lately. I am not writing from the place of having everything organized but rather wanting to get there. There have been lots of babies and toddlers in my house over the past 14 years and life seemed to speed past organized to barely holding on for a while. But I know that being organized brings me so much peace and there is a balance between having grace for yourself and doing hard work. I am desperately seeking the balance.

One day, a couple weeks ago, I was driving in my car and thinking about the guests we would be having over in a few weeks. I was thinking of all that I needed to get done before they came and how much work I would be doing. It would probably mean some late nights and early mornings. All of a sudden I felt very convicted. “Why aren’t you willing to do all of that hard work for your family? Do you realize that the message you are sending is that they are less important than any guest you might have?” Ouch!!

This is the message I have been sending to my precious family for many years. Yes, there is grace…they have TONS of grace for the sleepless nights and jam packed days, but this is not what I want to communicate to my family. They are the most precious people in the world to me and they deserve being my priority and any ounce of hard work that it takes to provide a peaceful home for them.

So I am digging in and getting organized. This month I will use these 31 days to prioritize and organize and share with you here my progress and processes. I know that deep down inside there is a very organized woman who is very anxious to get out. I know this because I had to lock her away years ago after my 4th child was born.

Would you like to join me? I’ll be adding the posts each day to this page so you can read them all.

Day 1- Meal Planning with Pinterest

Day 2- Where to Start Getting Organized– Your Mindset

Day 3- Where to start Practically In Your Home

Day 4- Eliminating Distractions

Day 5- Dealing with Life’s Curveballs

Day 6- Controlling Clutter

Day 7- Don’t Forget to Rest

Day 8- The Voice you Listen to {a.k.a You are NOT Overwhelmed}

Day 9- Analyzing the Problem Spots and Finding Solutions

Day 10- Eat the Frog

Day 11- Planning Ahead