How I Plan My Perfect Day

 Hey there, lovely readers! Today, I'm excited to take you on a journey into my world of planning. Grab your favorite notebook, pen, and a cozy drink of your choice (I've got a steaming cup of herbal tea), and let's embark on a day filled with purpose and organization.

Step 1: Morning Mindfulness

I start my day by setting the right tone. I find a peaceful corner in my home, light a scented candle, and take a few moments for mindfulness. This helps me clear my head and set positive intentions for the day ahead.

 

Step 2: Brain Dump and Goal Setting

My trusty notebook is my confidant for this step. I do a brain dump, pouring out all my thoughts, tasks, and ideas onto the page. It's like a therapeutic release. Once my mind feels less cluttered, I set clear goals for the day, both big and small.

 

Step 3: Prioritization Power

Now, I turn to my goals and decide which ones are most important. I use colorful pens to highlight my top priorities, making them pop off the page. It's a visual reminder of what truly matters.

 

Step 4: Crafting My Schedule

With my goals in mind, I open up my digital calendar. I block out time for specific tasks and appointments. I've learned to be realistic about time estimates, and I always include buffer time for the unexpected. It's all about balance.

 

Step 5: Breaking It Down

Big tasks can be intimidating, so I break them down into smaller, manageable steps. This approach not only makes them less daunting but also allows me to celebrate small victories throughout the day.

Step 6: Creative Flourish

Now comes the fun part! I use my collection of stickers and colored markers to add a creative touch to my planner. It's like a mini art project that makes me smile every time I glance at it. A little visual flair can go a long way.

 

Step 7: Accountability Squad

Sharing my goals and plans with a trusted friend or family member is a game-changer. We hold each other accountable, and it's incredible how motivating that can be. We celebrate our wins together, no matter how big or small.

Step 8: Reflect and Adjust

At the end of the day, I set aside some time to reflect on what went well and what needs improvement. It's a chance to learn from my experiences and make adjustments for tomorrow.

Step 9: Self-Care Serenity

Every plan needs room for self-care. Whether it's a brisk walk, a warm bath, or simply curling up with a good book, I make sure to schedule some "me time" to recharge.

 

 Step 10: Counting My Blessings

Before I close my planner for the day, I jot down a few things I'm grateful for. It's a beautiful reminder of the positives in my life and helps me go to bed with a smile.

 

So, there you have it, my day of planning bliss! It's not about perfection; it's about progress and making the most of each day. Join me in making today amazing, one step at a time!

4 Simple Ways to Clear Counters

We have all seen them, those neat and tidy kitchens without a stray spoon or spatula in sight. Here are 4 simple steps to clean counters that I swear by:

4 Simple Ways to Clear Counters

1. Completely clear your counters. Remove everything and place it on your kitchen or dining room table.

2. Wipe your counters with your favorite cleaner ( I use a solution of 1 cup vinegar to one cup water with a 5-6 drops of Dawn dish soap), or you can use a sponge with warm, soapy water.

3. Look at your appliances that you placed on the table-- is there anything that you don't use daily that can be put in a different place, or in a cabinet or pantry? Is there anything you can donate or give away? Before you move everything back, take stock of your counters for a few minutes. If you only use your toaster or blender once or twice a week and if you have limited counter space (like I do) maybe it would be better stored someplace else. A little space on the counter is a good things, there is no need to clutter it up!

4. Now, put the remaining items back on your counters and think about zones as you are returning the items. For example, it you keep your baking goods (like flour and sugar)  on the counter, put them where you store your mixer and measuring cups. Put your coffee maker by the mugs and so on.

Once you have returned all of your items to the counters, make a conscience effort to keep them clean. After every meal put things back where they belong, don't pile dishes on the counters and empty your sink and/or dishwasher (if you have one). My number one suggestion to keeping your kitchen clean and your counters clear, is to develop a kitchen cleaning routine. This will help immensely and you will feel much better in the morning when you wake up to clean counters.

 

 

5 Things I Do at Night to Set Up My Morning for Success

I am a creature of habit. I could easily eat the same thing for lunch every day (a tuna salad sandwich, Doritos, and grapes) and I would be completely satisfied.  In addition to being a creature of habit, I can get completely overwhelmed at the length of my to do list. Because of these two characteristics, I tend to rely on my routines. My routines tend to make me feel safe and they give me a sense of security. They also help me know what to do next so that I do not get overwhelmed. The routines that I follow are: my morning routine, my afternoon routine, and evening routine. I also have my Sunday routine or my GYST day routine.

However, my evening routine is the most important routine that I follow every night. Without my evening routine my mornings would be chaotic. Without my evening routine I would be lost and behind all day long.

So, here are........

5 Things I Do at Night to Set Up My Morning for Success

Clean the Kitchen. There is nothing that makes me feel behind in the morning than walking into a dirty kitchen.  Just taking a few minutes in the evening to do the dishes, clean the counters, and sweep the floor can make a world of difference in my attitude and my productivity.  I try to clean up right after supper each night and empty the drainer before I go to bed (I don't have a dishwasher).

Plan your day. This is an important one for me. I plan my day the night before so I don't forget an appointment or an activity that one of the kids has to go to. I even plan the most mundane things like laundry, brushing teeth every morning and every night.


Declutter the living spaces. I cannot go to bed with a messy house, it causes too much stress for me.  It's the one habit from my childhood that I cannot break.  I take 30 minutes to declutter the living room, the kids bedrooms, and to do a quick swipe in both bathrooms. It's alot less stressful (at least for me) to wake to a clean house then to wake up to a messy one. Am I right?


Read. I try to take the last hour or so before bed to read a chapter in the book that I am currently reading. This helps me to relax and actually helps me sleep better at night.


Go to bed early. Finally, I try to go to bed early every night. There are times that this just does not happen, but most nights I am in bed by 930pm.

What things do you do at night to have a successful morning. I would live to hear in the comments below!

 

50 Self Care Ideas That Will Keep You Sane

Self care has always been a topic on the internet, especially now with the holidays fast approaching. During this crazy time I think it's important to take care of yourself and reward yourself for just getting through the day or even the week. So, today I am sharing 50 self care ideas!

50 Self Care Ideas That Will Keep You Sane

Take a bath

Do a face mask

Go for a walk

Try a new workout class

Treat yourself to a yummy holiday drink

Go shopping

Or at least go try on clothes that make you feel great

See a movie alone

Binge a TV show

If you live near it, go to the beach

If you live near it, go hiking

Check out a local museum

Bake some cookies

Rearrange your furniture 

Buy some flowers

Journal

Clean out your closet

Organize drawers

Clean up your house

Listen to a good playlist

Make a new playlist

Go on a solo trip

Make a grateful list

Say NO more

Take a nap and catch up on sleep

Take up a new hobby

Color

Binge a podcast

Go 24 hours without social media

Take a personal day off work

Try a new skincare regimen

Mute people on Instagram/Twitter who make you feel bad about yourself

Get a massage/facial

Go to bed at 8PM every night for a week

Sleep in

Use an acupressure mat

Have a staycation weekend in a hotel alone

Try a new wine

Go to your place of worship

Pay it forward

Go find the perfect lipstick/lipgloss

Have dinner delivered from your favorite place

Dance around your living room to your favorite songs

Get dressed up and sit at a bar and order a fun drink

Stretch/foam roll

Have a picnic alone and read

Reconnect with an old friend

Go to a meetup group/bible study etc

Play with puppies/kittens/your favorite animal

Adopt a pet

What is something you do for self-care? What would you add to this list of 50 self-care ideas?

 

6 Basic Steps Towards Easy Meal Prep At Home

One of the best pieces of advice that I have for people in terms of saving money is to get into the habit of preparing your own homecooked meals at home – Restaurants are expensive. Takeout is expensive. Delivered food? Expensive. Prepackaged meals? Expensive. All of that stuff drains your wallet far faster than you might realize.

So, what’s the argument against cooking at home? Many meals require some degree of skill to make and although that skill level is often pretty low, it’s still present. There’s also the time issue and the energy issue and the equipment issue – each solvable, of course, but they again provide resistance against preparing food at home.

So, here are six basic things you can do to work towards effortless meal preparation at home.

1. Experiment when you have more time in the kitchen. 

The time to learn how to cook is not when you come home from a long day at work and feel absolutely exhausted, or when you just don't have the time and can’t afford anything going wrong. Often, people find themselves in these positions without any sort of cooking skills which makes cooking feel overwhelming or impossible.

2. Plan a little.

While it’s fun to imagine a home chef just throwing things together based on whatever’s in the cupboard, the truth is that it only really works if you have a lot of staples on hand, and if you’re reading this article, you probably don’t have a lot of staples on hand and also probably don’t have any ideas of how to use them.

That’s why, at first, it’s a really good idea to follow recipes carefully. A good recipe tells you what you need to have on hand right at the start, so plan ahead a little and make sure you have all of those things on hand. This will probably involve a trip to the grocery store, but it’s far better to do that before doing anything else.

3. Make a dump meal. 

This is about the easiest thing you can make at home. It basically just requires a slow cooker – it’s really the only kitchen implement you need for this. All you have to do is just put a small set of ingredients in there in the morning, turn it on low, and come home to a finished meal. Some of the ingredients might require a cutting board and a knife to chop up a vegetable or slice up a piece of meat, and you might need a can opener. It can’t get any easier than this – in fact, I find such meals to be less hassle than actually ordering food or going to a restaurant, and they’re cheaper, too.

4. Make macaroni and cheese.

 Almost everyone likes macaroni and cheese. It’s such a simple, pleasant food that can be made incredibly straightforward to please children or fancied up to please almost any palate. It’s also one of the easiest things on Earth to make, so I usually encourage people to make this as one of the first things they prepare in the kitchen. Each of my children – all of them pre-teen – have pulled this off with success.

5. Make scrambled eggs.

If you like to eat scrambled eggs at all, I strongly encourage you to learn how to make scrambled eggs. It’s an incredibly simple and flexible thing you can make for yourself or your family, it works with every meal, you can mix in almost anything savory, and it reheats well if you have extras.
Just crack a number of scrambled eggs in a bowl – however many you like – and beat them with a fork until they’re consistently yellow, a minute or two. Add a bit of salt and beat that in for a few seconds, then let the bowl sit.
Take a teaspoon of butter and put it in the middle of a skillet. Put it over medium heat and let the butter melt, then use a plastic spoon or a spatula to move the butter all over the skillet until the skillet is coated. Add the scrambled eggs and let them cook for a minute, then slowly pull that plastic spoon or spatula along the bottom of the skillet to pull up egg curds off of the skillet’s bottom. Do this over the entire bottom of the skillet, then repeat every thirty seconds until the eggs look like slightly wet version of the scrambled eggs you’d normally eat, then remove from the heat, wait a minute or so, and serve.
You can obviously mix lots of things into this recipe. Almost any savory vegetable works, as do most cooked meats and most cheeses. It all turns out delicious and with such little effort.

6. Handle Dirty Dishes the Smart Way

One of the big obstacles for many people in terms of cooking at home is dealing with the cleanup. If you eat at a restaurant, it’s done for you; if you get takeout or delivery, you can just toss the wrappers and other items. On the other hand, if you cook at home, you have to deal with all of that stuff.
A dishwasher makes it much easier, but even then, there’s some extra work involved. Also, many apartments and some homes (like my parents’ home) don’t have a dishwasher and don’t have space for one.
 Here are a few strategies I know from having lived most of my life in places with a kitchen too small for a dishwasher.

Have good tools. Have a strong scrubbing brush and a dish rag at your sink, along with good soap at hand. If you don’t have those things, it’s going to take far longer to wash dishes.

If you have a two bin sink, keep one sink full of water with a bit of soap in it. Just block the drain, fill it perhaps a quarter full with hot water, and add a bit of soap. Then, put your dishes right in that soapy water throughout the day, perhaps adding a bit more hot water once in a while. Just let the dishes soak. It’ll make it much easier to wash them when the time comes, and the other sink bin will be free.

If you have a one bin sink, get a large plastic bin, put it beside the sink, and keep your dirty dishes in there. This keeps the sink free of dishes so that you can easily start in with cleaning whenever you’re ready. Just toss dirty dishes in the bin for the moment, then wash everything in the bin at once when you’re ready. Since the sink is empty, you can dive right in. If the bin is watertight, you can put a bit of hot soapy water in there to soak some of the dishes, as noted above.

If something has caked-on grease or food pieces, pour a bit of vinegar, a bit of baking soda, and a bit of soap in it and fill it with hot water and let it sit for a long time, like a day. After that, it becomes really easy to wash. This takes care of basically every nasty caked-on grease problem I’ve ever faced.

Wash things in “streak order.” What do I mean by “streak order”? Start with stuff that will show streaks easily – glass items – then move onto silverware, then plates and plastic items, then pots and pans.

Have a drying rack beside your sink to put dishes in to dry, plus a ton of drying towels. Most things can air dry relatively quickly once rinsed, but a drying towel is great if you need something dry immediately.

Buy dish soap in bulk, then have a pump to dispense it. You don’t really want a bulk bottle of dish soap at your sink because it’s heavy and it takes up lots of space and when you pour it, it dispenses large amounts of soap. However, bulk soap is cheap.
These tactics turn hand washing dishes into a pretty easy task, even if you don’t have a dishwasher.

Final Thoughts 

If you can handle the things above, you’re already well on your way to cooking a wide variety of things at home. Move on to trying other simple dishes – pasta, for example, is incredibly simple – and try variations on the things you already know, like adding tarragon to the scrambled eggs.

 

 

10 Daily Sanity Saving Habits for Moms

Hi Friends and welcome back to the blog. Today's post is all about daily sanity saving habits for moms. Now, some of these I took directly from my mom and some I figured out on my own. Either way all these habits are helpful in saving a mom's sanity.

So, let me share,

10 Daily Sanity Saving Habits for Moms

1. Have quiet time. For me, this is about an hour before my kids wake up. I sit and work on my bible study, answer emails, or just sit and enjoy the quiet.

2. Prepare the night before. What part of the morning is the most stressful for you? Take that one thing you dread and do a little prep for it the night before. Lay out the kids clothes, shower, prepare breakfast, do baths, or just preset the coffee pot. 

3. Do one load of laundry every day. This really helps in keeping "Mount Washmore" at bay. Just remember to fold and put away. Let's be honest, sometimes I forget that step. Don't we all?

4. Clean as you go. Giving yourself plenty of grace, clean up as you go. If you make dinner, wash those dishes right then. If you see a million crumbs under the high chair, grab a broom and do a two-second sweep.

5. Play with your kids. Slow down and enjoy your little people. Offer to play a game or build blocks. Do something that you know will bring a smile to their face.

6. Do one large chore. Knock out one of the bigger chores everyday. Clean a bathroom, vacuum the floors, organize a drawer,..etc.

7. Have kid clean up time. Instead of the house being a tornado throughout the entire day, choose a couple times a day for them to clean up their messes. A good schedule might be everyday before lunch and then again before bedtime.

8. Meal plan. Save yourself the stress of picking meals every few hours and plan them out. Not only will this be a time saver but a money saver as well.

9. Be thankful. There is always something to be thankful for. Let gratitude drive your attitude and actions throughout your day.

10. Have a regular bedtime for your kids. Kids love routine, even if they fight it sometimes. Make your routine as lengthy and as fun as you want, but get the munchkins to bed so you can recoup and have some quality time to yourself or with your spouse in the evenings.

What is an essential daily habit for you?

 

5 Non-Selfish Things I Do For Myself Everyday

I think as moms it can be easy to feel selfish for doing things for yourself. Personally, I  think the opposite. As moms, the ONLY way we can fill everyone’s cups is to fill ours first. There are non-selfish things I do for myself every day that 100% make me a better mom and a happier person which in turn makes my kids see that it’s good to do things for yourself. In today's blog post, I wanted to share 5 Non-Selfish things I do for myself every day that you should consider adding to your list.

 

 

 5 Non-Selfish Things I Do For Myself Everyday

Exercise first thing: Every morning I work out first thing. Moving my body helps me start off my day in the right way.

Read: Reading truly brings me joy. It also provides an escape when things feel heavy and it’s something that settles me. Especially at night.  I will post my book recommendations soon.

Connect with people important to me: This may mean going for a walk with a friend, having a FaceTime chat, or talking on the phone. I need to connect with people daily. It’s so important to me.

Take walks: If the weather allows for it I try to take a walks every day. Always with my husband, or by myself, the fresh air really does wonders.

Take care of my skin: This is a no-brainer. Doing my morning and evening skincare routine every day is a non-negotiable. I don’t care if I am sick, busy, or whatever. I always make time to make sure my skincare routine is done and my SPF is on.

What is something you make sure you do for yourself every day?

 

 

March 2024 Goals

Happy March everyone!! It's hard to believe that it's March already (where did the time go!) and that Spring is around the corner. Since I didn't share my February goals I wanted to make sure that I shared my goals for March.

March Goals

 

1. Read two books book (finish reading (If There Be Thorns and Seeds of Yesterday).

2. Drink 100oz of water daily.

3. Start using my habit tracker in my bullet journal every day.

4. Eat more fruits and veggies (I have been lagging on this and I really need to fix it).

5. Walk 6 days a week and strength train 3x per week.

6. Have at least two at home date nights with the Husband. 

7. Organize the girls' bedrooms (purge old toys and outgrown clothes).

 

8. Complete one bible study this month. 

9. Add more resources to my Teachers Pay Teachers store (have a total of 50 products by the end of the month).

 

What are some of your March goals? Share them below!