Blogging through Large Family Logistics, Part Two - Chptrs. 18-27

I'm blogging with the 4 Moms again. They're all unique and I really enjoy their blogs so be sure to visit them. Such interesting things. I confess that I have gone from reading 0 blogs to reading these 4 the last few weeks since KimC came up with this "blog through the book idea". I did read blogs in the past but somehow the last few years I have gotten too busy. Something to do with the number of children, high school age kids (covering all the bases before they're gone), a preemie (now 4 years old and doing GREAT!), a goat dairy (32 milking does), making cheese (every other day and going to multiple farmer's markets), college age kids (and you thought that young children were exhausting), and my sister getting married at our house (!!!!), and life in general (laundry, cooking, cleaning, homeschooling) --I find it hard to sit down (and lest you think that all we do is work work work - we do play as hard as we work). Anyway, these blogs are fun and inspiring.
Life in a Shoe  Kim has a new blog design and a new pic of her kids. Cute cute cute
Smockity Frocks
Raising Olives 
The Common Room

On to blogging through the book...
I thought that I should preface this part of the book with a most important underlying philosophy.
A Godly Work Attitude
must be part of our lives every minute of the day.

 

Colossians 3:23-24 says

Whatever you do,

work heartily,

as for the Lord and not for men,

knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. 

 You are serving the Lord Christ.

I can’t say it more clearly than what the scriptures do. This is to be our work attitude. Think of every work that you set your hands to do as unto Him.

 

Work is scriptural. God placed Adam and Eve in the garden to tend it. Work precedes The Fall. The Fall made our work more difficult to do.

Organize your life and your home for efficiency.

 

Think Ahead – what is happening tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and plan your days accordingly. 

 
Plan your work-

Plan when you will do what.

       i.e. Exercise early in the morning so you don’t have to dodge the children and can get a shower in before they rise.

 

Plan the steps that you will take and the things that need to happen for each step.

 

This is making things more efficient and you will be able to move through the task much more quickly than if you have to constantly stop and find something. Order builds on order. Step by step.

 

Plan your meals –
At the very least have a pantry full of things you use for your family’s favorites. Planning meals ahead relieves so much stress for you. You don’t need to worry and stress about what’s for supper, you know already. If you can’t remember, you can look at your plan. And because you have planned, you have the necessary ingredients and can make it with ease of mind.

Plan your rooms-

• Paper belongs at the desk, not all over the home.
• Music books belong with the musical instruments.
• Children’s books should be at the location you read them to the children.
• Bedrooms are for sleeping.
• The kitchen is for food preparation.
• What purpose does a room serve? Remove the unnecessary from that room.
• Plan your cupboards and drawers -
• Your kitchen knives should be at the location you do your cutting.
• If the children unload the dishwasher or set the table then the dinnerware should be placed at their level.
• Eliminate unnecessary steps by placing things where they will be used, within reach.
• Rarely used items should be put in the out of reach places.

Plan your home to be hospitable.
Get enough chairs around for meals, they don’t have to be beautiful. An assortment of folding chairs is fine. A piano bench can seat three little children. Hospitality is an attitude of love but it takes thought and preparation to show that love. Keep some things on hand for quick appetizers and drinks. Have a plan for games or activities for children to do together.


Order Your Week

This is what Chapters 18 through 27 are about.
This is something women of the past did. They had specific days for specific work. Unlike us though, some of their work literally needed a whole day for the process. Think about laundry. On their laundry day they had to heat water over a fire, soak the laundry, boil the laundry, beat and rub the laundry, rinse and wring out by hand, and dry in the air. Doesn’t sound like something you would want to do in the winter does it? Which helps explain the need for spring cleaning, eh?

I remember loving to do laundry with my grandmother and her wringer washer, which was a recent invention of the 20th century. My job was to stir the rinse tub with an old broom handle. She wouldn’t let me put clothes through the ringer because many children have had their fingers crushed in them. She didn’t have a washing machine as we know it until she moved to a cottage in a retirement home community. Laundry for my grandmother was assigned a day of the week and she hung everything out on the clothes line.
She also had a Cleaning Day and a Baking Day (oh, she was a wonderful baker!). I don't recall if she ordered her other days like the women of yester-year. She did sew her own clothes and she made beautiful quilts so she must have had a day that she focused on her sewing.


Grandma Stoltzfus coming out of her chicken house.

Classically, the days went like this: Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Sew on Wednesday, Market on Thursday, Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday, Rest on Sunday. In the name of liberation we run around like headless chickens. Headless chickens don’t get a lot done.
Order your days to suit your life. You can't escape Laundry Day and Cleaning Day though. Or Market Day.
And what do you do about this age of technology and paper? I have an Office Day. Grandma had it easy in that regard.
The point is to live in an orderly manner.
 
You will get more hours in your day and your week and you will have more time to enjoy your family.
You know what you're doing and when you're doing it.
And if it doesn't get done this week (cause we're always interrupted) that same task will come around next week.


Laundry Day



Kitchen Day



Home Office Day

Town Day

Cleaning Day

Gardening Day

Day of Rest

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