Without Order the Family Perishes

So, there is a lot to juggle around here. Ellison just got out of school last week for summer break but in just over a month we’ll have 2 kids in separate schools 5 days per week getting out at different times each day. We’ll have 2 adults trying to learn German full time with a private instructor and independent study time each day. In addition to our instruction time and study time we are required to have built in speaking time with partners as well. It is also recommended that Ellison has a partner. We are looking into easy activities that our kids can do to help enhance their German and culture learning as well.  On top of it all there are other commitments with our interning church to factor in. When you throw in keeping the house clean, keeping everyone fed, and ministry work it makes for 2 tired people at the end of the day which doesn’t make for a healthy family at all.

One of the toughest things we’re having to figure out is who does what, when, where, and how. Learning to say no to good things is a very close second for us and that is a whole ‘nother post in itself. By nature of our lives we have to take things one day at a time. Each day just does not look the same for us which is really really hard for me. I know that it’s impossible at this stage of the game to have it that way. Now that all of the boxes are out of site, it felt like the right time to bring some order.

This weekend while Ian was away, I was happy to have spent lots of time organizing our lives on paper and making plans (Hallelujah Chorus is still ringing in my head). For over a week I’ve been on Pinterest swooning over the wealth of creativity in organization plans and charts. I tried to scale back and go with simple to jumpstart our efforts. Thanks to my time online, I created a cleaning schedule, downloaded some chore charts for the kids, and started an organization board for the family that really was the springboard for a lot of this. Take a look at it if you can. Doesn’t it just say order :-)?? I found some old wood in the back of our place so it felt like a sign to try and create one…right.  I also took a look at our ministry organization system (yikes) and I revamped some of our personal organization stuff as well.

Ahem…Now I’m fully aware that my laid back, down to earth husband will return tomorrow and let me give him the grand tour of our orderly lives and then he will help me scale back just a bit. But for now, I feel so much better with some order in place and I’m praying that it will help our family succeed in our goals for this season.