Monday Q&A | Routine Baking, Whole-House Decluttering, and Habits
How often do you bake bread and make yogurt and any other foods that you make on a regular basis?
I bake rolls and breadsticks and such on a very haphazard basis, depending on what we're having for dinner. There's no rhyme or reason there!
I do have a routine for whole wheat sandwich bread and homemade yogurt, though...I make 3 loaves of bread and a gallon of yogurt on Friday mornings. Generally speaking, that lasts us about a week (well, the yogurt usually does. Sometimes we run out of bread and I have to bake more midweek).
I saw that you did a whole house declutter last summer. This is in my plans this summer and I was wondering how you went about deciding what to do first. I tend to get overwhelmed with the scope of such a project. Did you come up with a plan? Did you do one room each day? How deep did you go? (drawers, under the beds etc) Now that we've been in this house 6 years, my lack of deeper decluttering is starting to show. I told my husband that either I needed to set aside time to declutter the attic or we needed to move!
-Leigh Ann
I'm planning to get this done over the summer again just because I like to start the school year with a freshly decluttered house (I definitely don't have time to do deep decluttering when I'm homeschooling).
When I do this, I go pretty deep...drawers, under the bed, in the back of the closet, and so on. I manage to stay fairly on top of the shallower decluttering around the year, so the summer decluttering needs to be deep.
I make a list of all the zones in my house that I want to attend to (each bedroom, the storage closet, the linen closet, the laundry room, etc), but since each area is so different in size and scope, I've never specifically planned out an amount of time for each zone. Some take a day and some take a few hours.
I think it does help to tackle only one zone at a time...it seems less overwhelming to me, at least! On that note, this summer I'm planning to tackle one zone a week. That way I can keep at it without decluttering for days in a row.
I've started using the FlyLady system to get control over my house again when I realised something. Her system teaches you how to establish and keep habits. You have a very organised approach to every day life; you consistently post to your blog, take photographs every day, and even go grocery shopping on a set schedule. I never managed to learn this from my mom when I was growing up, and I'm only now getting them in place at the ripe old age of 37.
(This isn't in any way meant to minimize my mom - she's fabulous! It's just that she did things on her own schedule and it was never the same from day to day.)
As you do these things every day do you find that your children are learning these habits from you? Are they establishing their own habits that you help them to maintain and that they'll (hopefully) take into their adult lives?
-Kathleen
I hope they are, at least to the extent that this habit of being habitual is helpful (being TOO attached to habits and routine has its downsides!). My mom is a pretty routine/habit oriented person, and so my childhood life was mostly predictable. I think that's at least part of why I tend to be so routine, though of course, some of that is just my personality (my sister grew up in the same household as me and she tends to be much more spontaneous).
Joshua, who tends to have a not so routine approach to life, is hopefully picking up some sense of habit that will stick with him (I have him make his bed every morning, clean his room every day, practice the piano every day, & take a picture every day, among other things).
Lisey, on the other hand, tends to naturally be quite routine oriented, so I probably will be able to take little credit if she turns out to be as steady and reliable as I imagine.
As any of my real-life friends can tell you, I always say that there are upsides and downsides to each personality type.
I'm very good at getting things done and being steady and predictable, but on the other hand, I have to really work to have a cheerful attitude when Mr. FG suggests that we do something spontaneous ("You want to go out for ice cream tonight?? You should have told me 3 days ago so I could plan for it!")*.
*this may be a slight exaggeration
I also have to remind myself of the importance of park/pool type outings because my natural tendency is to stay home and get things done.
So, I can learn from those of you who are naturally fun and spontaneous, and you fun, spontaneous people can learn from me. And hopefully, by the grace of God, I will manage to teach my children to find a balance between spontaneity and habit.
_______________________________
As sometimes happens, most of these questions are about what I do, so it's not as easy to open up the floor to everyone else. But I am curious to hear your thoughts about routine/habit vs. fun/spontaneity, and I'm sure my readers would benefit from your whole-house decluttering ideas!
Your (hypothetical) response to an unplanned outing made me laugh--I'm just that way with my husband. I keep a running list in my head and plan everything out mentally ahead of time. WAY ahead of time. Unfortunately, my husband is not privy to my inner to-do list, and any suggestion that throws a wrench in it will be met with negativity unless I consciously stop myself from displaying that sort-of crazy side of my personality.
I always have fun when I jettison my mental list in favor of a trip to the canal to fish or going down to the beach to make dinner over the bonfire, it's just that initial mental adjustment that seems to induce some kind of weird panic.
And on that note, I must go stake my tomatoes--it's next on my mental list. 🙂
Kristin (& Kristen), I'm exactly the same. I moan about not being prepared for something and am always glad when we did something spontaneous - or I ditched the scheduled laundry/houseclean morning and we laze away on the front porch with the kiddie pool instead.
I just need to keep reminding myself that there will always be laundry - although it doesn't take much reminding - but there won't always be perfect sunny summer mornings with two happy little ones.
Yes, that mental adjustment is so hard...I'm much more likely to happily go on an outing if I know about it ahead of time.
This is exactly how I am! (Although I have to admit a healthy dose of procrastination also goes hand in hand with my obsessive planning side.) I am always planning in my head, and when hubby spontaneously suggests something it can take me down the crabby lane pretty quick! Never mind that he doesn't even know I had plans that he is now throwing a wrench in 😉
Maybe it's a Kristen thing, as I have been known to respond to my husband's spontaneity in the same way! 🙂 I've been trying to learn to be spontaneous...can we learn that? Routines and lists work for me. I know that's one of the reasons I need my husband, because he balances me out.
LOL! If it is a 'Kristen' thing I shall have to change my name! I am the same way about spontaneous 'let's do this, right now' from my husband, and have to remind myself to count to 10 before responding! He still kids me about an incident years ago when I nearly had a panic attack when he drove the 'wrong' way to our destination. An uplanned detour to the 'scenic' route was more than I could stand 😉
Definitely not a Kristin/Kristen thing - I'm the same way! I thrive on an organized schedule. When a wrench of change is thrown into my routine, I have to sort out how to make everything else work - even if everything else is trivial!
Once when my husband suggested a spur-of-the-moment outing I told him, "If you want to be spontaneous you're going to have to plan ahead." LOL!
My parents were so tied to their schedule that it ruled their lives. After Dad retired, it really didn't make much difference if laundry was done on Monday or not, just because there was so little of it (they raised 7 children). Grocery shopping could be done on a different day, or at a different time (they ate out almost once every day - big treat for them!). But they just couldn't bring themselves to throw caution to the wind and veer off their schedule.
It made me realize the importance of having a flexible schedule. Stuff happens, you have to deal with, so why stress that you are now off-schedule. Sooner or later, everything will get caught up.
Yes! Me too! And as Kristin @ going country said, I have everything planned out in my head and I forget my husband can't hear my internal commentary or see my lists I keep in my head. So when he suggests something not in the plan I have to try hard to remember he's not intentionally trying to derail my plans (although secretly I think he does like to ruffle my feathers a bit since he knows I have so much planned in my head).
He can tease me about my plans and lists and organization all he wants, but I'd like to see him run this household!!! 😉
Oh, and thanks for the inspiration on deep decluttering! I've been wanting to get rid of all the unnecessary stuff sitting around our house, I think I'll make this part of my summer plans. I'll map out my plan of attack this afternoon!
I am much the Same. I make a general outline-type list and try to stick to it. It's very satisfying for me to cross the items off my list as they are completed. Goofy, I know. I usually try to tackle one big job (organizing an entire room, etc) and a few small jobs (organizing my laundry cart, refilling spice jars) per week. I find that if I keep up on things and handle them before they are a mess (my kids closets) that I am much happier and more organized. I actually make a list on notebook sized paper and include everything for the week on it- grocery list, tasks, notes, people I need to call, etc.
It works for me.
Ooh, I love to cross things off of to-do lists. Soo satisfying.
I'm slowly learning to just roll with things. This does not jive with my type A personality. The baby is teaching me each day. She doesn't care if Saturday morning is cleaning day when there are bubbles to blow in the yard.
It's funny what we crave though isn't it? My sister feels stifled by a routine and I crave it.
I'm lucky that my fiancee is pretty good with spontaneity although I am more the planner in the relationship than she is. The only thing is that sometimes she's all set to stay in for the rest of the night and I get the "I've worked all day and I'm tired so let's go for a drive" mood.
I too am going to start my decluttering soon. In fact, tonight my plans are to get my office started and cleaned so that I can finally bring my scanner to the apartment. It's been a year and I haven't been able to scan any of the photos (slides) that I've taken since last year so I haven't been able to share them with anyone. That needs to be rectified.
I have recently started following your blog and have been inspired to be more intentional in how I save money and made decisions. Thank you! I have a 9 month baby, and after seeing how expensive baby yogurt is (!) I decided to try your homemade yogurt recipe. We love it! I made some unsweetened and plain for the baby, and vanilla for my husband and me. We also made several batches of strawberry jam (a church friend has a strawberry patch), and to use up some of the plain, unsweetened yogurt that was approaching its time, we decided to add some of the strawberry jam to the yogurt. It was a winning combination! 🙂 Definitely better than any strawberry flavored yogurt from the store.
I shall howl! The computer ate my decluttering suggestion list while I was working on point #9. Hmmm ... it occurs to me that the leadership might be grateful for this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/homeandgarden/organizing-the-attic/051508.html
This is the report of an 11 week project to clear out and organize an attic. Many useful ideas.
There are a lot of planners here, not surprisingly! My spontaneous best friend thinks it's way to much work to plan a dinner party a week or two ahead of time. I think it's way too much work to suddenly add one in a night or two before it happens--extra trips to the store, mad dash to clean. Guess it's a good things both types are around to balance each other out!
Follow up question:
My husband and I went through a deep decluttering on June. Made a list of each area and then spent some times during the evenings (we work full time) getting through each area. One at a time. We are done...except that everything we decided to get rid of is still in our apartment. Most things are in great condition so I would like for someone to use them. What do you with the things you chose not to keep. I have donated many things already and we managed to do one poorly attended yard sale. We also posted things on Craigslist (free or veeery cheep, $1 items, etc). We haven't had much luck with any approach. What should I do?
My suggestion is to get them the heck out of there. You tried hard to find "perfect" places, now just donate them. Goodwill is the default where I live but many causes have charity/thrift shops that will take the goods.
Oh boy! I continually struggle with sticking to a routine. I'm a roll with it girl and I'm in the process of putting the FlyLady's control journal into practice in our house. I've always managed to have a routine-albeit a loose one. I have to take notes or I can even forget what I just intended to do. I'm finding life is easier with a little more planning than my natural inclination allows for! It's one of the reasons I love this blog-there is hope for me yet!
I recently de-cluttered in preparation for a sale/move. I use the same idea as cleaning: top to bottom, left to right.
I, for one, am just glad to know that other moms struggle with making time for "fun" like the pool and park. I think I sometimes find "getting things done" to be more "fun" for me than pursuits considered fun by others. It is a hint to the extent of my "issues" that a day spent alone, at home, would be dreamy if I could get the house clean top-to-bottom. See, the "nutty" goes way down deep. 🙂
Ohh, me too, girl! When my parents took my kids camping, I cleaned the house first thing. lol
I am current working on the whole-house clutter, but I find it very had to find the time. I have set off a room in the house for all the "stuff", so I can do it at my own pace AND figure out where to send it all when I'm finished.
Organization is key. I plan on buying a paper shredder. That is my clutter paper and junk mail.
I love the feeling after a good spring cleaning through the house. Unfortunatly for me I feel like I do it once a month! haha With dogs, I guess you have to deep clean a little more often, but they are so worth it! Glad you found motivation, I cant seem to find ti somedays.
Fifi
Thanks Kristen! We are just home from being away for a little over 2 weeks! It's given me a bit of a fresh perspective. My friend Jen seconded something I've been considering for the "great summer declutter", start with "my" space first. Usually, I do the most public areas first, but then never get to our bedroom... So, I'm going to start in the back of my closet, that way I can actually put the things that need to stay... away!
My husband is also much more spontaneous than I am, but it seems to be contagious! So keep at it!
Thanks WilliamB for the link, very informative and helpful. I need to do some deep-cleaning too, so I'll accept all inspiration I can find!
Tara, I'm trying to follow FlyLady too... the Control Journal is awesome, now I just need to lace up everyday!
I mostly like the idea of being organized, I'm not always so good about keeping at it... I'm organized in bursts! One of the things I LOVE about your site Kirsten, is your dependability! It motivates me to do better, everyday! Seeing good examples is important, and you are a great example for many of us!
I am working so very, very hard on making routine a bigger part of my life. Don't get me wrong, I am happy with my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants nature and I think it's a testament to trusting my instincts, but I could come a little closer to the middle. Balance is good.
Leigh Ann,
I am a (self=proclaimed) decluttering dynamo. Let it go and enjoy it leaving. Stuff just gets in the way.
I used to throw cold water on my husband's spontaneous outing suggestions "” when I worked five days a week and had only Saturday to accomplish a week of chores. When I quit working outside the home I told him I would stop that negativity and most of the time, I do. Occasionally, I beg "not this time" but not very often.
Ugh... decluttering. The issue with it is that it never ends. You declutter and turn around: it needs it again.
This post made me laugh out loud. When my mother was getting her certification for teaching piano she came home from a class once with an example of a personality type that she said sounded just like me. It was to the effect of this type of personality feels angst if, for example, you made plans to go to an Italian restaurant and then on the way out you declare that you want Mexican instead. I can get over it, but initially that would just get me churning internally!
Interesting to read the comments and see how prevalent this is. When it comes to my husband "throwing a wrench" in my plans, I thought that feeling maybe came from the fact that I married late in life so had plenty of time to be accustomed to making my own plans. However, chances are most of your commenters got married at an earlier age and yet so many of them still feel that way. Like another commentor, I think being away from home about 12 hours a day while working and commuting with only one day to get a week's worth of chores done contributes to my anxiety when he wants to do something unplanned.
I LOVE schedules and routines. But, the thing I really like about them is the flexibility they give you to be spontaneous. Say, what? It's true. If you stay on top of your house hold chores, taking care of the kids, and every other role of being a "traditional" wife, you can jump into an unplanned activity and you never have to worry about what you are leaving behind because it's already taken care of! 🙂