Quick Takes (41): Organized or Not So Much?

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I don't know what it is, but I'm an organization junkie wanna-be.  I love to organize.  I love how things look and feel in a home when everything is neatly organized and put in its place.  I always have so many organizing ideas, but I struggle with the follow-though.  If you saw our home, you'd doubt my love of organization.  So I'm sort of stuck between what I would love to be and the reality of what I really am regarding organization.

Anyways, that's a little background information.  Onto Quick Takes...

Organizing my time: I've been thinking a lot lately about how much time I waste each day doing unimportant tasks and how I feel like I never get things done around the house.  Therefore, I'm going to try a weekly schedule for cleaning and tasks that are important to me.  I'm still working on the daily details, but I hope to share it with you soon and get ideas for what works/doesn't work for you.

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Organizing our spiritual growth as a family: In line with the weekly schedule, I've also been thinking a lot about starting some sort of family Sabbath time.  DH and I are still talking about this one, so it's not quite as far along as the weekly schedule, but we are both getting burned out on work.  It seems like every day I have a to-do list for him and I, and there's not much time left to grow as a family spiritually.  Yes, we attend church on Sundays, but I'm talking about beyond that.  After we get home from church, it's often straight into work mode, NFL football, or something else.  Therefore, we're thinking about a time where we can invest a few hours (hopefully working up to a day...maybe?) in growing our family spiritually.  This probably won't happen on a Sunday given a variety of factors, but we're still talking about what to do.  We're calling it our family sabbath time because it'll be a time for us to rest (no to-do lists), enjoy each other's company, and grow in our faith together with each other.  I'd love suggestions or ideas if you already do something similar!

  

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Organizing our gift giving: I recently joined a Melissa and Doug co-op in this area.  I'm not sure how I found out about it, but I was able to order almost any product listed on their website for 50% off!  Sweet, huh?  R has a few Melissa and Doug puzzles, and that's our only exposure to M & D, but everyone loves their toys, so the co-op was a good chance for us to stock up on Christmas and bday gifts for the kids in the family and our Godchildren for the next 10 months or so.  Talk about feeling super-organized.  Hardly any gift shopping left to do.  That is sweet.  I've never been that organized before!  I can't wait for the stuff to arrive in a few weeks.

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Organizing R's sleep schedule: It looks like we are fast approaching the "transition from 2 naps to 1 nap" time period with R.  Goodbye, mostly predictable nap schedule.  Hello, uncertain nap schedule.  Most days it's a fight to get her to take 2 naps, even though she still shows signs of needing two.  I'm uncertain if I should just jump in full speed ahead and make the transition to 1 or continue going back and forth between 1 and 2 each day given what she shows/needs.  All the uncertainty can drive me crazy each day, but I think this is pretty common at this stage.

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Organizing our food stash:  It's been hard to build up our pantry and freezer supply since we've been here because we never knew when we might be moving from the rental.  Now that we know we're in our home for awhile, it's time to start stocking up on deals.  First off, Zaycon chicken.  I've done this one before, but it was in our previous state.  I'm happy to report Zaycon is in our new state as well.  This is the company where you buy various meats that are free from hormones, additives, and preservatives for a reasonable price (1.84/lb for chicken) but in bulk (40 lbs of chicken).  We're splitting the order with a friend, but are still excited about having 20 lbs of chicken in our freezer soon!  DH has been severely meat-deprived (it's been hard to find good deals), so after the chicken comes he's going to stake out beef deals.

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Organizing my health: I made a decision on the Napro Dr debate I mentioned in my last email.  I scheduled an appointment with the closer doctor (who knows Napro but isn't up to date on it any more) and will see what I think when I meet her in person.  I like that her new patient appts typically take 1 to 1.25 hours!  That impressed me and the staff said she would be willing to work with me if I still wanted to chart Creighton, the Marquette model (which she focuses on now), or some combo (I did take my BBT while doing Creighton charting).  So we shall see.  The appt. isn't too far away, so I'm already getting a little worried about even going back to a doctor to discuss my health.  Ahh.

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Not so much organized: So we finally got our claim settled from the moving company that moved us cross-country in January!  How's that for not being organized?  I will put the blame on us for taking awhile to submit our claim and then the moving company for not reading our information carefully and making us send a rebuttal back.  Ugh.  That company (Stevens Van Lines) was awful to work with.  I can assure you we won't be going with them ever again should God decide we need to move.  I don't recall how much I talked about the horrible experience we had with the packers, movers, driver, and contact person, but it was horrid.  So many of our things were damaged because of their poor packing, and we hardly got compensated.  Ugh.  So frustrating, but we did get some compensation and are going to leave it at that. 

And somewhat related to the move but not organizing...the rental home is under contract already!  The homeowners put it up on the market shortly after we moved out and had it under contract within a few days. Someone wants to buy that awful place for the same price we paid for our current home!  I can't believe it.  My jaw nearly dropped when I heard the news (we have a mutual acquaintance that told me).  I'll be anxious to hear what happens after the inspection...

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