I'm reposting this because I've gotten so many requests for it :)

I was reading Ben's blog this morning, and was about to reply to it; but what I had to contribute was much more than a reply.

Time Management is such a pain in the neck. For many, many reasons. For Ben, being a SysAdmin and in his line of work, his analogy of keeping all the plates spinning is very appropriate. He has a billion things going on constantly, and it has been this way ever since I have known him. But perfecting the system of the day has been a long and arduous task which has involved many books by many people who are trying to figure out how to improve their successes throughout the day without losing their humanity and simply becoming a machine. How can you be creative, engineering, visionary and productive...and not get side tracked?

Fortunately for me, I get to ride on the coattails of what Ben has learned. I don't think I have ever looked at a book by David Allen and thoughtfully said, "Why yes, I would love to hear what he has to say," because in my head I'm already screaming, "You have no idea what my day is like! You have a desk, and you have an entire chapter devoted to organizing your desk! I have a HOUSE, and the chances of it being organized are zilch!"

But I know he has the best of intentions, and I have to put aside my pride and indignation and listen to what Ben reports back (I'm not going to read the books, so I get summaries). So I've tried moleskins, I've tried the Covey system. I have a day planner with lots of indexes. That was helpful when I was the Coordinator for a MOPS group, I'll say that; or when I was involved/in charge of other external things. But since we have had 2 more lovely children, and I'm homeschooling 2 kids now, I have wisely decided to not take over external things for now. I'm backing off the Tamarah-Express and staying home, recharging, devoting my time to our home.

I figure it's like this: you go out and buy a Ferrari. I would buy a black Ferrari, to tell the truth. Red is more "Ferrari"-y, but a black Ferrari is just...mmm. Like a black stallion of power. Okay, getting distracted...

So let's say you buy a Ferrari. It's fan-tastic. So you get 3 more, all in different colors (yes, I have seen light blue Ferraris, and although it's an abomination, someone loves it). If you had 4 Ferraris at your house, would you hire 4 drivers to enjoy the cars for you all day? "Here are the keys, have fun, don't drive them too hard. And make sure you tell them I love them while I'm away."

Of course not, that's ridiculous. You'd enjoy each car as much as you could. The black car is your night out car, the yellow car is your shopping car, the pale blue car you take to shows just to get under people's skins, and the red car you take on the back roads.

So why would I have kids and leave them with someone else? "Here is my beautiful Nova. She enjoys telling amazing stories and pretending to be a snorkeling princess. She can figure things out you weren't expecting, but once you realize this has happened, she has moved on and created a world for her paintbrushes and colored pencils to live in harmony together on her pink desk. I am going to be in a gray office all day to miss all these stories, so I hope you enjoy them for me!" Or Glenn: "This is my engineer. He will hear most of what you say to him, but in his mind he is reconstructing your face out of Legos. If you can get him to sit down to work, he will do everything right the first time. But if he didn't hear your instructions, he will be halfway through the paper figuring things out the way he thinks it will work best. He is extremely sensitive, but he is also a robot dinosaur rocketship extraordinaire, so be careful. If he doesn't like you, he'll build a rocket and put you in it with a stegasaurus and blast you to Island 28." or Conrad: "Conrad is smarter than all of our Presidents, combined. Oh sure, he's 18 months now...but I guarantee if you bought him a lock picking set for his birthday, he'd get into Fort Knox in 30 minutes. Maybe 10. It all depends on if he has a full sippy cup of milk or not. But you will see the gleam in his eye throughout the day, and you will realize that he's not smiling because he's happy: he's smiling because he understands." And my lovely Eve: "She is 4 months old now, but she has the strength and attention of a 7 month old. She will not be pushed idly in a stroller where she cannot see the world go by: she will get out of the straps and push herself up, and quietly enjoy seeing what world she has been brought into. She will be the quietly insightful girl of the bunch, so don't underestimate what you say to her. Everything will be logged away behind her sparkling blue eyes, and her smile may vanish."

That is absurd. How could I possibly leave these 4 beautiful Ferraris in the hands of anyone else? We are fortunate to be able to survive in California on one income, and there is nothing that could rip me away from my job here. The time I invest in these children is time I invest in myself.

Which gets us back to time management: how does a mother, who was graced with her father's organizational skills (and I use that term loosely), manage a house that will be utilitarian enough to function, creative enough to prosper fruits, tender enough to comfort the souls ...and still have clean carpets? (who invented cream carpets. Seriously)

So I am not a Covey person. I am a binder person. I need it a little bigger and a little less formal than beautiful maroon leather. My binder, which I have named, "Tamarah's Most Awesome House Binder," can get wiped off if coffee or baby cereal gets dropped on it. I can move the pages around, and doodle in the margins (doodling is serious business. Don't fool yourself.)

My big breakthrough was finding this site: Organized Home: Printable Pages I have done AMAZING things since this breakthrough...in the Grocery Shopping tab, I have written everything I normally buy at Trader Joe's and cost-compared it to fully utilize how much I'm spending, and where I can do better. For instance, since I already have everything written down, when I make my shopping list, I can have a good idea of how much I am going to spend at the store. I shoot for $150 to cover a week and a half, and around $200 at Costco for bulk things to cover 2 weeks. This system has helped us save tons of money buying food.

On the Daily To Do lists, I have separated the days into "Kids" and "Me," to make sure I am taking care of what the kids/house needs, but also to make sure I am nourishing myself throughout the day as well. Just as Ben is not an automated robot in his job, blindly assuming all I "should" do during the day is cleaning and laundry is ridiculous. I am also re-reading "Mists of Avalon," "Lost on Planet China," I am learning Mandarin and I just finished sewing a dress for myself this week (it turned out GREAT).

One of the most important things I've learned is how to compartmentalize the house:

The Front Room is the learning center. My sewing desk is in there, the kids' school desks are in there, and school work/posters go on the walls here. This room is for academic activity.

The Library contains the books, school supplies, and two computer desks, along with Legos. This room is primarily for the kids' computer time, and holding supplies.

The Living Room has some toys, the TV and game system. This room is for relaxing and playing.

The kitchen is not only for eating, but is a supplementary academic source for when I need to re-focus the kids with school. Sometimes getting out of the Front Room is necessary, just to not get in a rut. We do science and history projects at the kitchen table, sometimes math when I use dry-erase markers on the windows...sometimes we write stories on the sliding door.

The bedrooms are mostly for sleeping, but occasionally the kids build forts and play in there.

I have found if you put boundaries on the house, it is just as useful as when you put boundaries around yourself (thank you Cloud/Townsend!). It doesn't make any sense to have a free-for-all in a home while you're homeschooling. If there are no boundaries and there is no order, then there is no structure. And that's just silly.

But organizing the day, I go by hours. When you're organizing kids, you really can't say "between 9-12, they will do this," because 3 hours is a long time for little kids. 40 minutes is a good time frame, but I push my kids to work in hour blocks. This is my Daily Agenda:

Time Task

8:00 Breakfast

8:30 Get Dressed

9:00 School

12:00 Lunch

12 - 1 Outside Play

1 - 2 Computer Time

2 - 4 Nap (Glenn) Reading (Nova)

5:00 Bath

5 - 7 TV Time

7:00 Dinner

8:30 Reading Time

9:00 Bedtime

Not *every* day is like this. You have to be flexible for deviations, like Awanas or doctors appointments. My term for how I manage my time is "Organic Organization." Sometimes it isn't perfect, but it's flexible within parameters. That is the foundation for making a home work: you are not Martha Stewart and you are not June Cleaver. No one is writing you a script to follow and no one is polishing your pearls so they look perfect while you vacuum (although I would suggest you vacuum in pearls at least once. I have, and it's fun). You are a real-world mother raising real kids with real situations that aren't going to be solved in an hour with commercial breaks. And if you're reading this, then you also aren't a delicate flower willing to accept reality as you see it: you are a conqueror not only of your day, but also of your destiny.

That's right. I said DESTINY. If you can't say that and summon a gusting wind from the Alps to rush through your hair and lightning bolts to coarse through the sky...then you're not saying it right. Try it again.

Anyway, I think that's a pretty good review of how I organize my home for now. I have to get the kitchen cleaned a little bit so Ben can make us awesome omelettes and cantaloupe slices, and I think I need a new pot of coffee by now.

Enjoy the day!

Since feeding my family is my job, I like to be aware of exactly what I'm feeding them. If you've been following this blog, you've seen the research I've been doing with meat in America. Some has been frightening, some has been refreshing.

But I started to notice that there are food recalls every so often. I started bookmarking the links whenever I ran into them; and I never searched for the articles. If they landed on my news page, I saved them. So here are the food recalls for the past two months:

66,000 Pounds of Bison

Walmart chicken nuggets

380,000 pounds of meat

1,000,000 pounds of ground beef

Half a BILLION eggs

(which are being used elsewhere, even though they're recalled: The producers responsible for a recall of some 550 million potentially tainted eggs have found another outlet for the inventory that just keeps coming: They’ll turn them into liquid eggs used in everything from cookies and cakes to egg substitutes and pet food.

Patricia El-Hinnawy, a spokeswoman for the federal Food and Drug Administration, confirmed Wednesday that Wright County Eggs and Hillandale Farms will send ongoing supplies of eggs from laying hens to so-called "breaking plants" to be processed and sold.")

So there ya go. So much waste.

Since my research on this, we have stopped buying ground beef that is not organic and from businesses I can look up. No more processed meat. Lots more whole chickens from Foster Farms (this was just an economic reason: a whole chicken can feed our family, and we make soup from the carcass). Produce from Trader Joes or the local Farmer's Market. Eggs from a neighboring city.

Yes, it's a little more work; but as I said...this is my job. Wouldn't you try to be exemplary for your job?

Plus, if we are going to make a change in a capitalist society, change always begins with the consumer. You don't need to form protests to make a difference: Make a difference with where you send your dollars.

Tonight we had the BEST hamburgers. It's definitely out of the norm for typical houses, but for some of you more experimental foodies, here is what I did (with some philosophy thrown in...that's free):

First you start with "Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods" cookbook. This book is a little tricky, in that the recipes require specific flour blends; such as the "Four Flour Blend," or the "Potato Bread Blend," or the "Featherlight Blend." But you have to make these yourself, and the recipes for these are in the front of the book. I have these in large, labeled glass containers in my gluten free cupboard for quick use.

So, it's a BIT of a hassle. But if you're Celiac, everything is a hassle. And these mixes make a load of difference. Not only do the results *taste* like bread, but they taste like bread the *second day* as well. For those of you who have tried GF cooking, you realize how staggering this statement is. No more toasting everything twice to make something edible.

This being said: I used the Potato Bread recipe and made buns (I cooked it for half the time, so it was only 30 minutes in the oven). For the meat: I used 2 pounds of organic ground beef ($6/lbs at Trader Joes). I used a mortar and pestle (you can get one at Bed, Bath & Beyond for $19) to grind a few basil leaves from my plant with kosher salt, then threw that into the beef before I made patties.

We added lettuce, tomatoes and sliced jack cheese and were completely stuffed after one hamburger. What is remarkable to us (Ben and I) is how significant home made food is, comparatively to store bought food. I bought a Costco pizza this afternoon (it's a work day, so we're hungry and tired), and it was devoured. But one home made hamburger and we all need the couch.

(and for the economists out there: I made 9 patties, about 2 dozen buns...so you figure $12 for meat, about $8 for the buns, and less than $5 total for all the produce...that's about $25 for a full meal, plus leftovers for a family of 5. That's GOOD.)

For me, as the leader of domestic issues and arrangements, making dough from scratch and eating the results is significantly more fulfilling than using store-bought buns. I know this is a small issue in the realm of the universe...but this is my job, and I love my job. I do many things during the day: I homeschool a 2nd grader, a Kindergartener; I tend to a newborn and a toddler; I have my paintings on our walls and my poetry in books and journals on our bookshelves....but I am also in charge of the carpets, the laundry, the meals, the schedules, the dishes, the windows (etcetcetc). And even though any ol' person can do those, they aren't in charge of them in *my* house.

In *my* house, I rule my sphere. Ben is the ruler of the public sphere, and I own the private. This is where I find my identity, and this is where I glean satisfaction in life. When I lay down at night, I think of the adventures we have had during the day, and I think of the plans for the next. We explore so many things every day, I am in wonder constantly. Whoever thinks this job is for the meek is clearly delegating too much of it away.

Great leaders not only lead: Great leaders have visions for leading. This is what distinguishes wives from maids. Anyone can make hamburgers. You could easily get preformed patties and Rainbow hamburger buns. But if you really love your job...if you really love your life, I suggest some artisan hamburgers.

It's your life. Add some basil.

Okay, this blog may have interesting bits, but it's completely unfocused. I've been resisting the compulsion to write about what I do...because there are so many other blogs already which address and explore homeschooling and motherhood.

But dang it: I'm good at what I do. So I'm going to write about what I've found, and to heck with the redundancy.

That's right. I even said heck.

So tomorrow's a new day with fresh outlines! Go me!

Okay, so I like...need to get on this. And I will! So hang in there!