Time

To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose
under the heaven:
Ecclesiastes   3 : 1

I try to get up before my children and
have my quiet time with God. If I omit this time my day never
seems to go so well. When praying I almost always pray asking
God to help me to use my time wisely and to know best how to use my day.
Before baby I use to combine this with exercise and walk a trail near my house.
I’ll share two videos with you at the end of this article so you can see how beautiful
it is. It also helps me to focus on God being out in His creation.
Once baby gets more settled into a sleep routine I will be getting back to this

I don’t have time to cook three course meals or even to cook things that put me
in the kitchen for an hour. I will make more elaborate things for special
occasions but for most days I spend about 20 minutes
on breakfast, eat leftovers for lunch and spend about 1/2 hour (or less) on dinner.
(i.e prep time not counting cooking time).

My daughters are ages 11,5 and 2 they are able to do alot .
They have jobs that they are expected to do each day
and then they also help me with other chores or projects.
Something I do that helps my kids to be more eager to work is to have a pep talk of sorts
at the breakfast table. I will outline all the things we want to get done
that day and then the reason we want to get it all done
(examples: to go shopping or go to the park or to get ready for company,  etc.)
. If your children know the reason to work hard they do it much
better and feel they are part of the team.
We also try to reaffirm this during Friday night Family Worship as much as possible,
the idea of being part of a team and the importance of family

I love doing this, I feel so productive when I can get several
different things done at once. Here are some examples of how I multitask:
I clean the bathroom and watch little kids in their bath, I check emails,
facebook or read while I breast feed,  while I visit with company,
read or ride in the car, I listen to audio books  while doing other things like ironing,
I wash dishes or sweep or fold clothes while talking on the phone,
I help my daughter with  Word Building or other similar schoolwork
while working in the kitchen or folding clothes
and I get my exercise by running up and down the stairs during my daily chores.
I also like to get my washer, bread-machine and dryer and oven all going early
in the day and then it really feels like I am getting a lot done at once.
I write fifteen minutes a day for this blog and pull it all together
to publish on a Tuesday. I shoot my you tube videos when my children
are away or sometimes I include them.

It can be a drain on your time and money. You might want to know more on this which you can visit these two post to find out why.
The Truth Behind Make Up . The other is entitled What about Jewelry and Make Up .By doing this I am honouring God and my husband.
Not to mention how much healthier I will be avoiding that stuff.
I can only imagine how much time and money that I have saved by making that choice.
I also have chosen to be natural so I don’t have to go to hair dressers every 5-6 weeks for
touch ups  you can click here to find
out about my natural hair care . I have found it very liberating.

We have a daily routine that we follow when we are home.
Children thrive on routine and so do I, we get through days much easier
if we know what we are doing. I also find having a schedule written out helps
me to accomplish more. I don’t spend time trying to decide what to do because
I already have it written out. I love making lists Even more than that
I love ticking stuff off my list.An important thing to have
Is a good calendar with lots of writing space.

This allows me to shop ahead of time and saves me money.
I stick to what is on my shopping list and I don’t impulse buy.
Therefore food doesn’t go to waste and have to be binned
(I do my main shopping only every two weeks though I will
go to the store to catch a good sale)
also I don’t have to spend time every day wondering what we are going to eat.
I like a menu but I am not a slave to it, there are things that will
come up and will change things, but I still appreciate having the menu
for most of the time.I also double up sometimes when I make pies or soups
and freeze them for one of those days when you are out late or fall sick.
I also did this recently for this last pregnancy in my week 39 video. see below

Have Children get things for themselves.

This is something I have especially done with setting the table for meals.
We have cups and plates on a low shelf so that even the 2 year old can reach.
We also are training them to be independent in many other areas.

I have recently decided to do cloth diapering so its not that big
of a deal as it is already part of the routine. Other ways that
I save time on laundry is by sending things that need ironing through
the dryer and pulling them out while hot and hanging them up.
I do very little ironing that way but we don’t walk around all wrinkled.
Another way to save time is by re wearing clothes.
Especially with pants and skirts and sweaters, they are often not
visibly dirty so we wear them another day. This saves on laundry time.
We also only wash towels and beddings once a week .

We didn’t have one for three years and we got on just fine.
We now have  one but it isn’t freeview we have dish that only picks up
Christian television and the news. Sometimes we will play wii fit on
the weekends or if we have friends over Henceforth we don’t waste time
sitting in front of it. My husband watches it some in the evenings but
generally not very much as he is busy working on his computer or spending time with us.

I have young happy children but I
do not spend my day entertaining them. They work with me or play around
me or play with and entertain each other.
They don’t expect me to be the entertainer. I do read to them
(and now my oldest will read to the younger ones)
and I visit with them a lot while I work. We do also do fun stuff together
like take walks, go to the library, ride bikes etc after our homeschool day is complete by 1:15pm

These are some methods that have worked very well for me to be able to be productive each day.
I am sure I have forgotten some
bits but it is all I can think of at the moment
I hope that some ideas might work for you as well. I would love to hear ways
that you save time or are able to get more done each day.May God Bless you as you make your homes a place where angels can dwell