Sep 13, 2010

Transition Time: First day of school & more

This is a big transition time for us - it's Alex's first day of kindergarten, and my first day of not going to an office to work. We now have to work out a new daily routine - and I need to work out a new routine for myself. I operate best when I have some kind of rhythm to my life, so I look forward to establishing a new one - one that's not so chaotic, but more relaxed and focused on the things that are really important to me.

I realize that it's going to take some time for me to get to that place. For one thing, in getting ready for my last day of work, I utterly neglected much of my regular upkeep at home. I have a huge stack of papers that need to be filed, bags and boxes of stuff that used to be in my office that now need a new home, and tons of stuff that need to be donated. My to-do list is more than a mile long.

So for this week, I am going to skip the weekly starter drugstore deals. For Walgreens, I'll direct you to Wild for Wags, who has a great moneymaker scenario that I wouldn't have come up with myself (Christie's obviously a Wags expert!).

I'm thinking of joining in with I'm an Organizing Junkie's Menu Plan Mondays. Because of my work schedule, it used to be that I would start my weekly menus on Fridays, but now I think the Monday-Sunday thing might work out for me. And regardless of whether I'm posting my menus, you can definitely look forward to a lot more recipes and food posts since I plan on spending a lot of my time home in the kitchen.

A few months ago, I'd gotten into the FlyLady routine, but about a month after that, things got incredibly crazy and stressful at work and I got out of the routine. (And yes, that stress definitely contributed to my decision to quit!) Now I'm going back to reading the daily emails and cleaning slowly but surely, because as my favorite quote from her goes (and I'll have to paraphrase because I don't have it right in front of me), Housekeeping done imperfectly still blesses.

But, it's important that I be kind to myself during this transition process. Driving myself nuts trying to do everything all at once isn't going to help anybody. My plan is to have a manageable to-do list every day, with one major non-immediate task (sorting, cleaning, etc.) and something of a daily routine - exercise, laundry, dinner prep, and so on. I'm hoping to get on some kind of freezer-cooking day schedule, a cleaning routine that adapts FlyLady's system to work for me, and of course, a blogging schedule that works for you and me.

So, as I work things out during this transition period, I'd love for you to tell me what you like or don't like around here, what you'd like to see more or less of, and so on. I can't satisfy everyone, but I'll do my best - for example, I get mixed reports on the Morning Coffee posts. Some readers love them and some say they'd rather have me post less frequently but more thoughtfully. What I've tried to do in the last few months is keep the Morning Coffee but write more thoughtful posts as well, to hopefully make as many people as possible happy :)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love it all!

I'd like to think that there is a simpler way than FlyLady. I'm lucky if one third of the things that she suggests gets done in my house in a given week LOL.

I'd love to see your menus though. I always get a kick out of looking at what others eat.

How was Alex's first day?

Thabal said...

Congratulations on the BIG announcement. Wanted to comment on Friday, better late then never ;) Anyways, I love your morning coffee post. Keep that coming. If I do not have time to check my reader, I go for your post the next day so that I can catch anything important I missed.

On another note, do you remember the 2 cents deal for Orange County Register that you posted? I did that and I started receiving them from yesterday. Oddly enough, there are no coupons in them. Hmm.. Will wait for another week and then call them.

Camille said...

So I'll throw the question back at you -- what kind of posts do YOU enjoy writing? Go with that. This should first and foremost be about what you love. The rest will follow.

That said, every single recipe you've posted that I've tried, I've loved! So I'd love to see more of what you are doing in the kitchen. But if you don't like posting that, then skip it!

Rebecca said...

I love the morning coffee posts...I actually read them during my morning coffee before getting ready for school and they are perfect! And I'm excited that you will have more time to find more great deals for those posts :)

I will also love to hear about how you are managing your finances during the transition to one income.

flybigd said...

Please keep posting about Amazon sales on children's clothes and shoes! Best shoes my kid has ever worn I got after reading about a sale on your site.

Aviva said...

I love the Morning Coffee roundups. Thoughtful posts are nice too, when you have time.

I'm not much into menu planning (but wish I were), but I'd LOVE to see what you pack for lunches for each kid each day. We're new to the lunch packing thing for my daughter (my husband has brownbagged his own lunches for almost a decade now), and we're finding it complicated by a)the school requirement for what's essentially a vegetarian diet (although it allows for dairy, eggs and fish) and b) the fact that my kid does NOT want leftovers unless they're disguised into something VERY different than they appeared as for a dinner.