Work Life Balance Hacks for You Homeschool Mom

I am a paper calendar kinda gal. This is so cool! I love this idea, I do not like to program my phone or add events to program my calendar. Can't wait to try this.

Homeschool Mom's need to be constantly watching that calendar because things can get out of control!
What do you think? Anyone know what HACK means? lol...sometimes I'm slow  :O)

What a great suggestion from an M.D.

~Let's Get Cooking Series~

During my Let's Get Cooking Series, I plan to beebop and hop around the net to some blogging sites that I frequent and give you some tips and tools to find great gluten free recipes to make your home life easier in the kitchen. As a wife, homeschooling mom, daughter of a Mother who lives nearby who needs constant care, I lead a busy life. I know that your life never stop either!

All the recipes in this series can be made either gluten free or with gluten, so don't run away if you are one of my readers that is NOT gluten free.

So the Let's Get Cooking Series is kicking off today with some AWESOME recipes from Lynn's Kitchen Adventures. Hop on over and check her out! Tell Lynn that Moe sent you from Adoptive Mom Home Schooling An Only Child blog.

40 Ground Beef Recipes
Lynn's Kitchen Adventures has some wonderful meals that could be easily made gluten free. Stop by her blog and  check out the 40 recipes that she has on there.


Taco Soup photo from Lynn's Kitchen Adventure blog

We are pinching penny's right now in our household due to my husband being hurt at work and ground beef tends to go a long way in recipes. I plan to make a number of these in the near future.

Many of these recipes look like they could be easily changed to gluten free and also look freezer friendly. Easy swap outs would be regular noodles for gluten free noodles. I think that these recipes will be easy enough for a Gluten Free newbie to try out and enjoy.

Lynn also has a Gluten Free button on her site for more recipes. Always check your ingredients and make sure that you are using gluten free.

Warm up with a nice hot meal on the cheap!
Moe


 Lynn's Kitchen Adventures

UPDATE The Comfort Zone, Getting Organized in 2014: Living Room

Well here we go! The moment we have all been waiting for. Several days of organizing, cleaning and getting this decluttered. This is what we came up with. Our living room is VERY narrow, so it is easy to get cluttered up.

Wow!! That was a lot of work, but it sure does feel good to have it done. It is almost like walking into a hotel room or a bed and breakfast, very relaxing and enjoyable. It is hard when you actually use your home 24/7, 365. We are always here and it's so easy to make messes.

Next area is a big blue tote (love the color of this tote) of papers and miscellaneous stuff from when I was ill last year. About 3 months of papers, junk mail, magazines and general clutter got dumped into this tote. I am starting to view Rough Totes and Sterelite containers as a big NO NO for my house! lol. They just don't ever seem to want to stay empty. One of my favorite stores to go to is the Container Store...lol...keep me out of there!

 

YEAH, that is right, there are a lot of paper trails in here!

Here is where I plan to get rid of most of the paper trail.

Basket #1 taking to next homeschool meeting

Basket #2 important papers that need kept (receipts, tax stuff etc)

Basket #3 trash

 

In the come coming days we shall see how this all pans out. I have started working through the basket a bit, but have a lot more to go. Due to the weather my wonderful husband was able to come home early from work. So while I worked through a small section of the blue tote, he was gracious enough to unload and load the dishwasher. A double blessing is what I got.

 Check back next time to see where we are and what area we plan to work on next. Remember our theme for getting organized in 2014. Romans 14:13 "Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." Is my method of being a keeper at home causing my homeschooled young man to stumble? To learn messy ways? To try to take the easy way out? Am I teaching my homeschooled young man to be a Godly husband to my future daughter in law? Am I teaching my homeschooled young man what a Godly wife and mother is like?Galatians 6:9 "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

Ok, Homeschool Mamma's (and non homeschool mamma too, I know several that read my blog) out there how many of us can relate to the second half of this verse? LOL...yeah, most of us are ready to faint at any moment! But we need to look at the first part of the verse, obviously the Lord knew that we would be weary and ready to drop over in doing well (His idea of well and not the world's idea of well! REMEMBER THAT!)

Share your own favorite ways to get organized in the new year.

The Comfort Zone, Getting Organized in 2014: Living Room

Getting Organized in 2014: Living room.
Well here we go, a picture of our living room. The homeschooled young man was working on taking down the Christmas tree and putting away the ornaments. Then some how, for some reason, why I have no idea, the homeschooled young man STOPPED...lol and left it like this.

the after Christmas mess...


So as you can see clutter starts where we stop. I see school books, boxed up ornaments, a Christmas tree, photo packets, wrapping paper, wooden craft decorations and Sunday school materials. Just dropped and left. So let us see what we can come up with.

Check back next time to see where we are and what area we plan to work on next. Remember our theme for getting organized in 2014. Romans 14:13 "Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." Is my method of being a keeper at home causing my homeschooled young man to stumble? To learn messy ways? To try to take the easy way out? Am I teaching my homeschooled young man to be a Godly husband to my future daughter in law? Am I teaching my homeschooled young man what a Godly wife and mother is like?
Galatians 6:9 "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

Ok, Homeschool Mamma's (and non homeschool mamma too, I know several that read my blog) out there how many of us can relate to the second half of this verse? LOL...yeah, most of us are ready to faint at any moment! But we need to look at the first part of the verse, obviously the Lord knew that we would be weary and ready to drop over in doing well (His idea of well and not the world's idea of well! REMEMBER THAT!)

Share your own favorite ways to get organized in the new year.

FREEBIE!! FREEBIE!! FREEBIE!

This is an awesome freebie for teachers and homeschoolers!
I am printing like crazy as we speak...lol...

Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus click there and check her out! She has got lots of goodies and some great homeschool information. This is just a sameple of one of the cover pages that you can use for your personalized school planner. LOVE IT!

Tina has a cool process to making her planners, here is what you get for FREE!

Step 1. Choose a Pretty Front & Back Cover

Step 2. Choose Calendars/Appointment Keepers

Step 3. Choose Goals and Objectives

Step 4. Choose Lesson Planning Pages

Step 5a. Choose Unique Forms JUST for You

Step 5b. Choose MORE Unique Forms Just for You.

Step 6. Personalize It

Step 7. Final Step. Organize it/Shuffle Sections/Print your Tabs before you take it to be coil bound.

Please go check out Tina's cool homeschool helps today.

Enjoy!

3 Reviews in 1 Just For You!

 

What more could I ask for than to be able to review an awesome product from Simplified Pantry!The  Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Simplified Pantry is available for purchase.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this PDF file, there are so many tips and tricks for the gluten free and dairy free lifestyle. For those of us that live this each and every day, it's been a blessing to find some new recipes to add to the weekly menu plan.

Lots of slow cooker or crockpot meals for the coming hot summer days to keep your home cool, yet get good quality foods on the table for your family. No fancy ingredients, but lots of pantry items in these recipes. I love how there is a Master Pantry List.

 

An entire page of marinades!! Perfect for summer grilling.

 

How many of you say that you want to eat more healthy fish, but are not sure how to cook it? YUMMO!! 3 fish recipes.

 

Pasta on a gluten free diet? YOU BET! Some delicious looking recipes in the Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Simplified Pantry recipes.

 

Looking to add more fiber? They have bean recipes just for you!

 

Mexican they got that too!

 

Nice hearty Soups & Stews, 4 pages worth.

 

Full meal salads, side salads and veggie dishes too.

 

Desserts like Peanut Butter Cookies, Berry Sorbet, Chocolate Mousse and many more sweet treats.

 

And last but not least a menu planner! LOVE that! Though I wish that I could type in the PDF menu planner, that would be a wonderful added touch. I could type my menus and print it out.

 

My only complaint about the Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free Simplified Pantry is that it suggests using frozen meat in your crockpot/slow cooker, I DO NOT AGREE WITH DOING THIS. NOR DO I ADVOCATE DOING THIS.  I will admit to having done this in the past before I took a food sanitation class and learned that the meat ends up being 3 different temperatures while cooking in the crockpot/slow cooker. Some of the meat it hot, some cool and some warm, which ends up being a hot bed for bacteria growth. So each time you are doing this you risk harming your family with food poisoning (that flu bug that everyone seems to get can actually be caused by food poisoning).

 

This is for any level of cook, I did not come across anything at all that was too hard or had any weirdo ingredients. I printed out a copy of the PDF and took it to one of my gluten free cooking classes that I teach at our local college for the students to look it over. Many of the people commented that the recipes looked easy and doable.

The Simplified Pantry Blog has a few other products including a regular meal planner, Simplified Pantry. That has similar recipes to the gluten free/dairy free version. I did see some that were clearly gluten containing meals, but they could all be pretty easily converted to gluten free/dairy free recipes.

 

You will also find available for purchase the Paperless Home Organization ! This is awesome and works as a binder system in a digital age. Organize everything on your Apple and Android devices!!! Both PDF and Kindle versions are available. This homeschool, unorganized, computer no-nothing Momma...lol. Loves this. Step by step instructions on how to set it all up. This has come at the perfect time for me. I have some summer free time to play with this and have it all up and running by the start of school. This is SOOO COOL!!! I totally recommend this. 

Hope you enjoy these products, I sure have. I really enjoy being a part of the TOS Review Crew, but this review really WOW'd me, it was something fun for me as the Momma and I learned some new menu tricks that I have enjoyed implementing in our home. Thank you TOS!!

  

 

Book Review TOO MUCH STUFF

Too Much stuff
by Kathryn Porter

Well this book was a real eye opener for me. So much of what I have read before on this subject talked about being born a certain way; organized, messy, etc. Now I see that all those labels are just excuses for the way we act.

The book is set up for general reading or a group study format with questions at the end of the book for each chapter to learn more and for reflection.

Not once during the reading of Porter’s book did I feel shameful, beat up or paralyzed. It’s easy to be overwhelmed when reading a book on the topic of clutter, but Too Much Stuff made me look at my “stuff” in a whole new light. No Rough Tote or Sterelite container was ever going to solve my clutter problem! Our 12 year old son went through the book with me. Unfortunately he has picked up my clutter habit over the years. Reading the book together has been a turning point for both of us . My son would give a shout out at the start of each chapter as to who had what clutter issue, him or me. We use to love to go to yard sales, now every time we pass by one he yells out

“CLUTTER SALE!” Once while we were traveling we saw a really neat looking shed with collectibles and such for sale. We both wanted to go in and look around, but he said “Mom, I really want to go in there, but I think that place is full of clutter!”

A quote from the book that has stuck with me is, “But this is why: when you cling to your possessions, you hoard your heart from others. You bury it in the stuff around you. Loved ones believe the stuff is more important to you than they are. They wish you could love them as much as you love the clutter.” WOW! That statement says so much.

Thanks to Kathryn Porter and Too Much Stuff, my son and I are now official CLUTTER Warriors. We still struggle with “Drop it” and “Leave it,” but it’s coming along.

Too Much Stuff will help you to answer some of life’s nagging questions such as:

“Can I get rid of gifts that loved ones give me?” “How do I get paper clutter under control?” “What collections can I keep?” “Why can’t I keep a clean house?”

“How can I get beyond the saboteurs?”

Check out Kathryn Porter’s book Too Much Stuff: Winning the War Against Clutter

published by Beacon Hill Press.

As a side note here, my son and I were able to toss out, give away and sell more than 30 bags of our clutter!! We have a way to go, but it’s been a very freeing experience. The hardest part of all of this was letting go of cards and letters from loved ones. I finally tossed out all the condolence cards that were sent to my parents upon the death of my sister Coreen 43 years ago. I was a toddler when she died suddenly and for me those cards were the only tie I had left to her. But really what were they doing for me? Nothing but taking up space. For my son, it was gifts. He kept every little thing that was given to him, for fear of offending the giver if they asked him about the gift. He even kept little trinket items. He is learning that if someone gives you a gift, you can do whatever you please with it. If you can’t use it, then pass it on to someone who can be blessed by it. It’s a daily struggle for both of us, especially walking in the door from a long day and just doing the “Drop it” and “Leave it” cycle.

I hope that you will be blessed by reading this book and I would love to hear how you have grown through reading the pages of Too Much Stuff.
Moe

I received a copy of this book from the author in order to write the review.

LOVE THIS!!

I just came across this and it looks really cool!!

I've been doing some home organization and de-cluttering this week, so I'm looking for ideas to use the space that I have been blessed with.

I know as homeschoolers our kids do not have lockers, but boy this could work really well in a small space with a closet. Hang up your school supplies and books, all hidden away in a closet!! It's affordable too. Around $25.00.

 

 LockerWorks Hanging Locker Organizer

 

Comes in several different color choices and Amazon.com sell it. I'm an Amazon.com junkie! lol.......LOVE that company. It does have a lot of good reviews.

Thinking that if I come across some extra pocket $$$ I will have to get one of these.

 

Have a great week!

 

What is a Workbox?

Now that back to school is in full swing for most of us. I get asked questions about how I handle homeschool organization. Well here goes. WORKBOXES!! Love the idea but I refused to pay the high prices for the actual Workbox system. So off to Hobby Lobby I went with 40% off coupons in hand. I bought these bins and they have worked well for us for a few years. And so why change a good thing! Plus having a small home it works great in keeping clutter down and things in their place.
I used my Cricut machine to label each drawer. I like to have about 6 weeks of material ready to go (I know in a dream world that always happens....lol). Things are in a disarray around here right now as we started school and then our son's birthfamily came to visit for 5 days, so we had vacation time from school. I'm needing to get a planning day together and get organized.

Each drawer in my workbox system contains what is needed for each subject. That way things are NOT strewn about the house. (I'm learning a lot of things from reading the Too Much Stuff book by Kathryn Porter). Once Science is done, it goes back in the science drawer or math, it goes right back in the math drawer. If I'm sick or I have to be gone for the day, it's all right there. No comments like "I can't find my history book." "I can't find my math test." It's all right there in the drawer. The 3 middle size drawers to the left of my Workbox system contain flashcards & class games, craft supplies are in the 2 bottom ones. The smaller set of drawers to the left of those contain packages of pens, pencils, markers, sticky notes (anyone else have an obsession with sticky notes? I lol........I have like 10 million pads of those crazy things!).

So that my friends is my Workbox system. Works for us and we love it! Share what works for you!
Have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend!
Moe

LEGOS, LEGOS, LEGOS!!!

Can any child have TOO many Legos? Well with having an only child, I'm thinking that we have too many here! lol.
This week was the 'cleaning of the Legos' here. They were all dusty and really needed cleaned up. Our son likes to keep his Lego creations out on display, well guess what? Dust loves Legos and we have dust mite allergies around here.

So into the bathtub went the Legos.

 Now they are all drying, this is just one small batch......LOL.

Through all this we learned about buoyancy and how things float or sink. We learned just how much dust can accumulate and how dust ends up acting like mud in water.

There are some great learning opportunities for our only children that we homeschool, in regards to Lego products. There are Lego 4-H groups, Lego Robotics 4-H groups, Lego Library Clubs,  and so much more!  There are also some cute builds to make over at Lego.com. Join the mailing list and they will send you a monthly item to build: make sure you print out the instructions when you get them, since the build will become locked after that month and you can't print it out after that. And of course there is the field trip of a life time LegoLand!!!  We have been to one of the LegoLands and had a lot of fun.

How have you incorporated Legos in to your homeschooling? One thing that we have done is purchase one of the Lego Sticker books such as Lego Minifigure Ultimate Sticker Collection.

We then take a notebook and our son puts stickers on the notebook paper and then writes a Lego story about the Mini-figures. It's been a lot of fun for us. And it helps with spelling, handwriting, creative writing and grammar  :O)       All in an easy fun format, it does not even feel like school. Yes, hahaha, it's that sneaky homeschool learning that our kids get in and don't even know it. Sometimes I will just have him grab the notebook and put a few stickers in and take off in the car on a busy day. I don't grade for penmanship on the days he is writing in the car though, as it's hard to write neatly in a moving car. Sometimes the stories conclude that day and other times the stories continue on. Why not write out a Lego lesson plan today! Surprise your child with some Lego fun.

  

Now for the million dollar question, how do yo organize all your child's Legos? We have been just dumping them into Rough Tote containers. But we are looking for something new and different. Our son wants those Lego drawers, but I refuse to pay $40 for them!

I can't wait to hear from you and get some organizing ideas.

Have a great week!

Moe



Book review coming your way soon!

Book review coming your way soon!

I just received a copy of Too Much Stuff from author Kathryn Porter and will be snuggling up with a warm blanket to read up on how I start "Winning the War Against Clutter." Stay tuned for more on this! It was also exciting to find out that Kathryn Porter and I have a lot in common, just a few things are chickens and homeschooling. What a small world.

Have a great week!

Organized bookshelves? Clutter? HELP ME!!

Moody Radio's In The Market Place with Janet Parshall Hour 2 today was entitled "Too Much Stuff"

It made me do some thinking and I even had my son listen to it. I plan to get the book. You can listen by going to Moody Radio. Here is a snapshot of Kathryn Porter talking with Janet Parshall today.

"Clutter expert Kathryn Porter joins us to clean up
our houses, and our hearts. Her popular book,
Too Much Stuff, now has a second edition.
She’ll share how God loves us amongst our messes"

Kathryn also has a website Clutter Wise check her out and see how you can conquer what is cluttering your life and it may not just be stuff that is cluttering it up.

So this brings me to my blog post for today:

I'm in need of some ideas on how to get our bookshelves more organized. I really think that we would use more of our materials if we could find them! lol.  Our son has been bored (we don't use that term, but for lack of another word I will  :-)  this past week and so he started digging through the bookshelves and found some science experiment books. He asked if he could do some and I told him that was fine, but to make sure that he marked the pages so that I could count the hours for the up coming school year ~YEAH for the teacher who has a Thinking Cap on!~ 

I also reminded him what science is all about: (Did I say that I just love this homeschool thing!?)
 *thinking ahead (what is going to happen),
 *thinking about why it's going to happen (cause/effect)
 *thinking about how it happened (process)
 *thinking about the outcome (was I correct in my assessment).

Got to love homeschooling and how kids love to learn. The teacher even told him that he could write in the book. GASP! In the past I have said "Don't write in that! I'll resell it." Well, I'm changing my tune on that one as of today, why not use it if you bought it. So write away! lol

Ok, now that I have taken us down that little rabbit trail (friends  you know how I am with rabbit trails, I've never met one that I won't follow!).

So on to organizing the books. I'm just not sure how to do it. I've got several different grades of materials and also many subject areas. One of my main areas that drives me CRAZY is the second shelf from the top on the right side. It's all the CD's DVD's, VHS's that are school stuff. What on earth can I do with those to get them orderly? It's just a mess and I try to hide it with my cute little shelf sitters. I have 2 snowman (ya know I can't pass up a snowman.) and a cute little scarecrow girl that falls off the shelf all the time. GGRR!  There is clutter on those shelves too, I have some recipe books and such that has made there way and other misc. items that need homes.

So send me some ideas on how I can get our school year off to an organized venture!  Feel free to post your areas that need some help and we can put our heads together.


Hugs,
Moe

Got clutter? Check this idea out.

This is such a great idea!!! I plan to start this up right away. chores for my ransom box.
$aving Make$ Cent$ website has some really neat ideas.
Thought this might help with the summer messes that kids seem to make around the house. She has some great chore ideas on her blog.

Have a great week!
Moe

Getting It All Done........"I'm behind in our homeschool!"

I know many have contacted me to say that they are struggling with getting the school year finished up and worrying that they will never make it to the next grade level because they are behind. Remember you are NEVER behind in the homeschool, in most states we do not have to follow the public school calendar, which is a blessing since we homeschool year round. I do remember our 2nd year of homeschooling (we had homeschooled preschool and then again in the 4th grade). I would dream that our son was a big tall boy STILL in the 4th grade......lol. I could never get him out of the 4th grade in my dreams, we did tons of school and he was still a 4th grader! It was now October of the following school year and he was still a 4th grader in my dreams. lol. We did end up finishing the 4th grade right on target, but those dreams haunted me day and night.

If you think you are behind, sit down with a calendar and your student books. Look through and see exactly where you are, you've had to make some progress unless you have been laying in bed with a pillow over your head for 9 months!  LOL.  Glance through what is left, most of it could be review, look and see if there are any review items that your child really needs, if they did well on all the areas move forward, skip the review. If they struggled with factoring trees or roman numerals or multiplications tables, (or whatever math you are working on that year) take those review pages and work on them. Work on any new materials and then move on. Don't get bogged down with what the curriculum tells you needs to be done, work with your child on what he needs. I know a lot of material has tons of review days before a test, if your child has that materials down pat, move forward with the test. I usually ask if he is ready for the test and he will either say "YES" or he might say, can we work on a few more problems in the area of XYZ."  Or "Would you go over this section with me again?" So in some areas you can move through several lessons in a day. Also who says school must be M-F from 8:20am-3:00pm? Sometimes we will work on stuff in the evenings, a few math problems or some reading. Some of our best school times have been snuggled on the couch on a Sat or Sun afternoon doing spelling words or working on sentence structure. Learning is what you make of it, if you make it out to be drudgery, then the kids will see it has a hardship.

Enjoy your time with your kids, you only get 12 school years with them and that goes by pretty fast!

Home School Conventions here we come!

Home School Conventions here we come! Now is the time of year to attend a homeschool convention. Get yourself ready for next school year! If you are thinking of home educating your children now is the time to get some good info. Check out this link about how to be organized while attending a convention. the convention notebook

Here are my tips for attending a convention.

Bring about $100 of spending $ and that is all! You can always order things when you get back home. Don't get caught spending tons of money on impulse. Take home catalogs and think things through before buying. Most vendors will give you free shipping the week after the convention if you ask them. Bring a notebook, pens, snacks/drinks and a heavy duty bag to carry all the catalogs in. Wear good shoes for lots of walking. Go early and stay late for the vendor hall, if there is a time slot for classes you are not interested in, hit the vendor hall and walk around. Hit EVERY booth before you buy, since some booths sell the same items at DIFFERENT costs :O) Write down what you find to buy and the booth number so you can go back and find it. Also hit up the used book booths, great stuff is found hidden there. But a set of the convention CD's or MP3's of all the sessions, they are great to listen to through the school year when you feel like giving up. And you can also listen to the classes that you missed out on. Enjoy yourself, conferences are so refreshing!

Post if you get to attend one. This is not looking like a good year for us to attend, I've got something planned every date of a local convention.

Moe