Making My Bed

My life often seems hectic and a bit out of control.

There's constantly something on my checklist that needs to get done.

As I begin to feel overwhelmed, there's always one was to calm myself.

Making my bed.

I have not always been a bed maker.

It just never seemed that important.

Now, I understand the power that comes from having a made bed.

For me, seeing a made bed in the middle of all the other "to-do" things brings me peace.

It lets me know that I have at least accomplished that much today.

Making my bed is a little thing.

But, "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass". (Alma 37:6)

Gathering Scattered Israel

I took the time this morning to watch some of BYU Women's Conference.

As I was listening to Sister Bingham talk about gathering Israel, I had a thought come to my mind.

Gathering Israel means coming to Christ and bringing others as well.

Am I scattered?

Unfortunately, many times, yes!

There are many times when I am focused too much on life and all the things that need "doing".

And I forget that my main focus should be Jesus Christ.

When He is my main focus, the other things in life get done as needed.

This COVID-19 time is an opportunity to gather myself.

To remember what is most important.

As I focus on Jesus Christ through deeper scripture study, praying with more intent, and listening to His voice, I am gathering my scattered self unto Him.

Zone Cleaning

I'm pretty sure I've talked about zone cleaning before, but here what is working for us now.

Since I have four kids at home, I have divided the cleaning areas into 4 zones.

Right now the zones are: Kitchen, Dining Room, Front Room, Cats/Sweep

Each area has at least one daily job and then there is also an extra job every day.

We rotate weekly through the zones.

Kitchen zone requires putting away dishes every day and clearing/wiping the counter.
The extra jobs are: wipe appliances, clean out microwave, wipe down garbage can, empty garbages throughout the entire house.

Dining Room has to clear the table each day and then they also clear off the information center, organize the coloring shelf, clean off the bench seat, dust and wipe down chairs.

Front Room is in charge of vacuuming every day. They also straighten the bookshelves, the front closet, the top of piano, dust and clean under couches.

Cats/Sweep are in charge of feeding and watering the cats daily as well as sweeping (we have wood laminate all upstairs). Then they need to clean the cat's water bowl once a week, empty the litter box, and vacuum the outdoor/indoor rug by the back door.

After quiet time, the kids work on their zones so they can have a snack.

My kids are motivated by food and we've been doing this long enough, that they know the routine.

Any jobs that didn't get full attention during the week are taken care of (or done again) during our regular cleaning day on Saturday.

Saturday is also the day we vacuum bedrooms and clean bathrooms.

Fortunately, our kitchen has been staying pretty clean even though everyone is home.

That's because the kids are in charge of getting the whole kitchen cleaned every night (dishes, table, food, counter) before they can watch a show or movie.

Sometimes I worry that maybe there is too much screen time going on, but a clean kitchen at this time is worth it!

Family Scripture Study

Oops, looks like I skipped over our family scripture study.

The thing is, I am definitely not an expert in this.

We have tried LOTS of different ways to do this.

For sure, morning time works best for us.

By night time, my mom hat/patience is almost gone.

I just want everyone to go to bed.

And I am a believer in letting kids sleep as long as possible.

So, I put off doing early morning scriptures for a long time.

Notice I said "kids" in the previous sentence.

Teenagers are not kids!

When I had kids start high school, we started doing scripture study at 6:30am.

We do that all during the school year.

And then I've always struggled where to fit scripture study in during the summer.

I usually get up and exercise and go to work for a short time and the kids sleep until I get home around 8:30.

Though there have been some summers when I still woke the kids up at 6:30 so my husband could join us.

Ha! There was some rebellion.

Now, that there is not a school schedule to adjust to, I decided to do the 8:30 time.

But, I wake the kids up 30 minutes before for breakfast and getting ready.

Our scripture study goes much better when they are awake.

That being said, what does it really mean that scripture study goes better?

We go back and forth between taking turns reading out loud in chronological order and trying to have kids read before and then having a discussion.

Having the Come Follow Me program has helped us a lot.

I'd love to say that every scripture study is spiritually fulfilling.

But the truth is, I probably only feel the spirit during scripture study hopefully once a week; maybe less.

To me, the important part of scripture study is developing the habit.

I want my kids to know its important to me to make it a priority.

And maybe when they are older, they will remember the importance and make it a habit in their own families.

Exercise

Exercise.

It's important.

The end.



Ok, I'll say a little bit more about this.

(I mean, I did get a college degree in this subject.)


I am a true believer in exercising.

You know how most mom's have that one solution for any problem?

My solution for almost any problem is, "maybe you need to exercise?"

That, and "how much water have you had today?"

This COVID-19 came at a pretty tough time.

Our little town was just barely coming out of the long sleep of winter.

We've been stuck inside because of the cold for at least 4 months already.

And now that the snow is starting to melt and the temperatures are getting above freezing we can't go outside?!

I started a couch to 5k program about 2 weeks before quarantine.

Most of my runs were on an indoor track.

Luckily, there's been some nice enough weather (above 20 degrees) where I have been able to transition outside.

And more importantly, my kids need to get outside.

They're not toddlers anymore, but they still have energy that needs to come out other ways than yelling at each other.

Here's a list of some of the exercise activities they've been doing every day:

Biking (just up and down our street and maybe around the church parking lot)
Walking (up and down the neighborhood not getting close to anyone)
Exercise bike (inside)
Fitbit App workouts
Just Dance (wii)
Sword fighting (you know, the usual)

I have been doing Yoga on the days I don't run.

Yoga used to make me dizzy, but I've learned to only focus on myself and not doing it exactly right and that seems to be helping my head.

I love it!!

Anyway, exercise is important.

Just do it.