Weekly Wrap-Up: Back to School!

New to Mom Seriously? Welcome! You'll find tons of great parenting articles, homeschooling encouragement, and every day, a Mom's Tip of the Day. Enjoy!

Hey Everybody,

It has been good for me to post about routines and "flying" this week because it has really helped "up my game" around here! I totally needed a shot in the arm to start off the new year, and it's been great to revisit FlyLady. I hope it's helped some of you find some relief and structure, and I hope you'll check back at her site often for motivation and encouragement!

I got to meet the FlyLady in person a few years ago. She and Leanne Ely came to do a weekend workshop for the military wives at Fort Campbell, KY. At the time, I was leading a moms' group at the hospital on post, and so I got to help with some of the arrangements. It was VERY cool! She was just terrific. She had a bunch of her resources out on a table, including her very own, actual, live-and-in-person morning routine check-off list. You would have thought it was the Holy Grail! LOL! Ladies were walking by oohing and ahhing, gently reaching over to touch it. "Oh, that's hers!" they clamored as they gathered round. "That's what she really uses!"

It actually was very inspiring! And it made all the difference to hear the FlyLady strategy taught by the one who developed it, and lives it, every day!

I guess it's good for all of us to go "back to school" and revisit concepts that may have gotten old to us, or overlooked--buried under the carpet, so to speak! LOL! I haven't really considered the New Year to be a time of thinking "back to school" thoughts, but it really is. My boys have had about a month off, and they dug in this week, revisiting those familiar books and concepts that have been gloriously overlooked during our break! But it is definitely a good thing to get back into our routine, back into the books, and back into life as lived the other eleven months of the year!

Speaking of "back to school," there's a great conference coming up in the spring that is geared expressly for bloggers who are homeschoolers! There's always so much to learn about both subjects, and this conference seeks to enlighten and inspire us in both those callings. Check it out HERE and see what you think! I'm going, and I would love to see you there!

Check out all the Weekly Wrap-Ups at WeirdUnsocializedHomeschoolers.com!


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How Perfectionism and Procrastination Affect Your Relationship with Jesus

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It has always boggled my mind how good habits are so difficult to develop and bad habits are so easy to acquire! Maybe it's because bad habits "happen" to us, but we have to "happen" to good habits in order to make them stick! Author Marla "FlyLady" Cilley candidly admits her routines took months to become habits. Perhaps that's why so many people love the FlyLady and her wonderful website! She isn't ashamed to share that her good habits took a great deal of effort, and therefore, a great deal of time.

Unfortunately, our culture places a premium on speed. The battle cry is, "Get 'er done!" When our homes or our schedules don’t fall into perfect order immediately, we are quick to declare ourselves failures. But the truth is not everything can be popped in the microwave. Good habits will not be had at the drive-thru window. Nope...sometimes we are going to have to find a place to park before we go anywhere else!

Did you know your relationship with Christ can suffer from that same perfectionist mentality? Oh, believe me--it can! See if this scenario sounds familiar: You decide that you want a deeper walk with the Lord. So you begin reading God’s Word, praying more, and looking for ways to serve Him. After a mere few days of this resolve, you still aren’t the Christian you want to be. Life crowds in with its dirt and clutter: secret sins, favorite hurts, and familiar fears. Your resolve is shaken, and once again, you find yourself feeling defeated. What then?

Or this scenario: Trying to establish the habit of a daily quiet time. Dear readers, not only does this take daily determination, it must stand up to daily interruption! Whether it is your kids, your husband, or simply your own wandering mind, this is where the enemy will fight you the hardest. Will you fight back? Or will you say, "Well, there's no way I can have a decent time with the Lord today. There's too much going on. Or, I need my rest. Or, The kids are already up and going crazy. Or, I'll do it later."

When I battled perfectionism with my quiet time, the Lord reminded me of one boy, two fish, and five barley loaves. I hate to think if I had been there and had anything to do with that day! I would have immediately dismissed that child's lunch because it wouldn't have been enough. But not Jesus. He knows it is never going to be enough. That's why we need Him. When it comes your quiet time, there will never be enough time. There will never be enough energy. There will never be enough focus. There will never be enough holiness. That's why whatever we bring to Him is just loaves and fishes. He does the multiplying. He makes sure there is enough.

Maybe the tendency to perfectionism is rooted in not fully understanding the Grace of God. But we don’t have to be perfect to please Him. He loved us first! That undeserved love washes over our sin with the grace of forgiveness and the healing power of a Father’s favor. Whether it is our homes or our hearts, there is nothing we can do without Him. Surrender your imperfections to the power of the perfect Savior. He will strengthen your weak resolve, heal your hurts, and dismiss your defeated mindset. Give Him your loaves and fishes: Got 30 minutes? Great! Only got 5 minutes? Give them to Him anyway!

The FlyLady says, "Housework done incorrectly still blesses your family." So then, it makes sense to me that a quiet time done imperfectly will still bless your heart. :)

Posts in this series:

• Do Your Routines Work for You and Your Family?
• Three Steps That Will Take You from Wanting to Be Organized to Actually BEING Organized
• Simple Routines for Kids (That Really Work!)
• How Perfectionism and Procrastination Affect Your Relationship with Jesus

Don't miss any great parenting info: Subscribe to my daily email newsletter! Click HERE.

Three Steps That Will Take You from Wanting to Be Organized to Actually BEING Organized

New to Mom Seriously? WELCOME! Be sure to sign up for my daily email newsletter, full of practical tips for purposeful parenting!

Part of Marla "FlyLady" Cilley’s charm lies in the fact that, while her routines are in place today, she remembers all too well what it was like to live in CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome). She's been there! “I was miserable,” she recalls. “I wanted to be a good housekeeper but had no clue where to start.”

Cilley says it was her perfectionism that was so destructive in her life. She wanted her home and her routines to be in place immediately. Sound familiar? “Our all or nothing thinking keeps us trapped in our perfectionism,” she explains. “We try to do too much, too fast, and as a result, we crash and burn.” Another failed attempt produces a more defeated mentality, and as Cilley notes, “We just give up!” Cilley had to force herself to take things slowly, learning new habits and putting routines in place, one “baby step” at a time. This was how she made the leap from wanting to be organized to actually being organized.

Shine Your Sink. Cilley started with her kitchen sink. Every night before she went to bed she made sure her sink was empty and sparkling, not merely serving as a holding and storage area for dirty dishes. What she found was that a shiny sink not only lifted her spirits, it was contagious and spread from the sink to her counters, stove, and refrigerator! Shining her sink became part of Cilley’s evening routine.

Get dressed to the shoes. Many stay-at-home and homeschooling moms can benefit from Cilley’s advice to get up, get going, and get dressed to the shoes before doing anything else. When she put this new habit in place, it was empowering. “Just getting dressed when I first got up in the morning set me on a positive note for the whole day,” she explains. “I was not ashamed to answer my door. I could run outside at a moment's notice.”

Make your bed. While your home is your family’s haven, your bedroom is your sanctuary. It is a gift to yourself and your spouse when you keep it clean and decluttered. Start with making your bed. Don’t get sidetracked and go overboard thinking you need new linens, paint, and wallpaper! Just make your bed.

A peaceful home serves as a witness to your first ministry, your family. It also serves as salt and light in your community when you are able to open its doors and reach out to others. Cilley believes that new routines can be accomplished fifteen minutes at a time. Consider those fifteen-minute increments a gift to yourself. Take that time to do something that will make you smile when it’s been accomplished. When you think of your routines as a way to worship God, bless your family, and serve others, you’ll find in every shiny sink a reflection of His love.

Posts in this series:

• Do Your Routines Work for You and Your Family?
• Three Steps That Will Take You from Wanting to Be Organized to Actually BEING Organized
• Simple Routines for Kids (That Really Work!)
• How Perfectionism and Procrastination Affect Your Relationship with Jesus

Don't miss any great parenting info: Subscribe to my daily email newsletter! Click HERE.

Do Your Routines Work for You and Your Family?

New to Mom Seriously? Welcome! You'll find tons of great parenting articles, homeschooling encouragement, and every day, a Mom's Tip of the Day. Enjoy!

A new year never fails to bring with it a new resolve. This year I will make sure my laundry gets done! This year I will keep the bathroom clean! This year we will actually sit down together and eat home-cooked meals around the dinner table! Year after year I made lists full of those resolutions with the best of intentions, but year after year, my best efforts quickly fizzled out. My resolutions became guilt-propelled arrows of shame Satan used as daggers in my self-esteem. “This place is a mess,” he hissed. “You don’t know where anything is. What kind of person lives like this?”

Then my mother-in-law introduced me to FlyLady, a website serving tens of thousands of perfectionistic procrastinators (or procastinating perfectionists!) as a virtual mentor. She didn't know that I had been praying for someone to help me with my household duties, but I had been, and FlyLady literally changed my life, and my family's life.

Marla Cilley is the bossy but loveable “FlyLady,” and she believes the enemy wreaks havoc against moms and their families when it comes to home management. “Housework is not pain or punishment,” she says. “That’s just the way the devil turns it against you.” Cilley believes that every woman actually has routines in place--it is simply a matter of whether or not her routines are working.

Think about it: Your routine may be to leave dirty dishes in the sink (presumably “soaking” LOL), to madly search for the car keys every time you have to go somewhere, and to have mounds of laundry to face every weekend. Please don't read judgment in that--for many years, that was the story of my life. If your “routines” are robbing you of peace and tranquility in your home—which ought to be your safe corner of the world--then your routines need to be changed! Until you decide to do something, Cilley says, “You’re depriving your family of a wonderful home, a nurturing mother, and a caring wife.”

I recently re-visited the FlyLady philosophy as I read back through Cilley's best-selling book, Sink Reflections. I definitely need to brush up on several things, but truthfully, just reading back through the book I realize how it changed my life.

I'll never forget my son David's reaction when I first began "flying." He was around 8 or 9 years old, and he had just gotten up and was coming to the kitchen to find me. He eyeballed the clear counters and freshly-mopped floor of my clean kitchen and asked, "Who's coming over?" Huge moment of revelation for me: Did my kids think a clean house was for company only? Shouldn't the house be clean for the family who lives in it every day?

I interviewed Cilley by phone for ParentLife magazine several years ago, and she is just a joy. I told her how she was the mentor I had prayed for, and she got choked up--she truly loves helping people just like me--and maybe just like you! I'll be sharing portions of that interview this week, and I hope you'll join me! btw, if you're already "flying," leave a comment--I would love to know about it!

And if you've got any Christmas money leftover, I urge you to get Marla Cilley's book. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. Don't you want to love the home you live in? And don't you want to get off your own back about it, and actually do something besides beat yourself up over it? Think of it as an investment--in yourself, your marriage, your children, and your home.

Posts in this series:

• Do Your Routines Work for You and Your Family?
• Three Steps That Will Take You from Wanting to Be Organized to Actually BEING Organized
• Simple Routines for Kids (That Really Work!)
• How Perfectionism and Procrastination Affect Your Relationship with Jesus

Don't miss any great parenting info: Subscribe to my daily email newsletter! Click HERE.