Us teachers have been back to school this week preparing for the students' return next week. (Grammar check- I'm wondering if I should have written "We teachers....") Thanks to my two wonderful parents, who understand the amount of work it takes to get ready at the beginning of the year, I've been working full days this week. I've been missing the boys, but I'm also excited to be back at school. Plus, the boys love spending time with Eric and my parents, so I know they're in good hands. I think I'm especially excited because for the last couple of years I've been focusing on surviving. This year, I'm ready to thrive. I have a few exciting changes I want to make and will keep you posted once school starts.
One of the things I struggled with last year was the added responsibility of having to make sure everything was ready for me AND the boys. I really found very little joy in mixing bottles for the boys the night before school. It was especially bad when I had finally gone to bed and realized I had forgotten to make the bottles. I'll be home before lunch this year, which will help the evening prep work, but I still was concerned about keeping myself better organized. (Another side note- I'm sharing my room with a teacher new to our school this year. I'll teach in the mornings and she'll have it in the afternoons. She told me that someone said I was the perfect person to share with as I'm so neat and organized. Ha ha. I told her I only manage to keep that guise up at school. While we don't live in a pig sty, I don't exactly do a great job of getting ride of stuff and always putting stuff away at home.)
Back to staying organized...
So, I stumbled on this iphone/ipod app called HomeRoutines. I've already used it two nights in a row and I really like it. Hopefully I'll stick with the routine. So far, I've set up a list of school night tasks. Every time a task is completed, you can tap on it and you receive a gold star.
This is a picture of the main screen. You also have the option of adding items on a to-do list, which you don't need to be reminded of on a regular basis. One-time tasks. You can also use a timer option if you want to make yourself tackle a certain task for a set amount of time.
This is the main screen scrolled to the bottom. You'll notice there is a list of zones. Apparently, a popular way to tackle cleaning is to clean a different zone each day or each week. They provide examples of common zones, but you can also edit them to suit your fancy. I think this is where maybe Eric and I can collaborate and come up with some zones that we'll both tackle on a rotating basis. Maybe we won't feel so overwhelmed trying to clean everything all at once and instead spread it out a little bit more. Or maybe we can hire cleaning robots to take care of it all. We'll see.
I think the nightly task list will be most helpful. I forgot parts of my pumping gear enough times last year that the ladies in the front office were starting to recognize my parents who came to deliver the goods to me. Reminded me of when I would forget my P.E. gear in junior high and would rush down to my dad's office to see if he could run home to get it for me before my last period P.E. class.
I was little nervous that this post would only consist of one picture of me and Eric and some images of to-do lists. Something tells me that's not why most of you come to my blog. Luckily I found these gems. Eric and the boys were making funny faces, poses, and noises the other day. I resisted the temptation to take a picture of Eric being goofy, but think of some of Pee-wee Herman's poses and you'll get the idea. They love their daddy!
A few final items. I've mentioned what good running buddies the boys have been this summer. I felt bad that I hadn't taken them for our usual morning run yesterday, and thought they would enjoy going out after supper. I told them "If Mama goes to change her clothes, do you guys want to go for a run?" At this point, the boys had been busy pushing their cruisers around. Reid immediately stopped on a dime, tossed his cruiser to the side, and toddle-sprinted over to the gate by the garage. I couldn't believe he actually understood what I was saying. Especially since it wasn't even our usual time of day. We've enjoyed post-supper runs the last two nights which have included stop-offs at Grandpa and Grandma's house on our way back home. I think their favorite part is how surprised Grandma is to see them at her front door. Overacting is popular with the 15-month crowd and she puts on a great show for them.
I thought of my good college friend, Janina, when I downloaded the HomeRoutines app. We worked for the freshmen orientation program after our sophomore year of college. They had us take a Myers Briggs personality test. When the woman was explaining our results, she said that some people are very good at keeping detailed lists. Everything gets checked off when it is accomplished. Anything which does not get accomplished is moved to the top of the next day's list. That's Janina. She said the other type of person finally gets a list made. Loses the list. Finds the list and is pleased to discover everything has been accomplished. That's me. Hopefully I can be a little more like Janina.
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