January Experiment (s)..

I know we are already a week into February, but obviously I'm not on top of things here on the blog, so bear with me while I take a little time to get caught up here. I do have a few things to tell you about but first...

Back to what this post is about...I wanted to try some new things around my house to help things run a little more smoothly, and with it being a new month and a new year decided this would be a great time to start. I am please to say that my experiment has been a success!! And I will be continuing to make changes around the house to keep things running better and better...hopefully! (Probably just jinxed myself).

So what did I do exactly??? These are my experiment(s)...
I have set aside 2 days a week to do my laundry, (Tuesday's while watching Biggest Loser, and while Chris is at scouts, and Saturday) all laundry is to be washed and put away before Sunday, anything not put away gets left until my next laundry day to finish...and since I don't want that to happen, laundry's been getting all done by Saturday night! I used to spend Sunday doing most of my laundry and all of the next week trying to get caught up and laundry folded. I now know when my laundry day are and I've been able to stay on top of it. I've been really good at washing and when it gets pulled out of the dryer folding it immediately. What a difference, I don't have piles of clean laundry all around the house waiting to be put away all the time.

Another thing I decided was that if I was making a dish for Sunday dinner that I can put together on Saturday night then I would. I've only done this once so far but was so nice to come home from church throw dinner in the oven to heat and not spend an hour putting dinner together.

I have planned out all my meals for the whole month. I LOVE doing this. I've done a couple weeks at a time, but having the whole month...it's so nice to be able to put together my grocery list for two weeks at a time (only have to go to the store in between for perishables and misc items that we forget) and when I get home from work, look at my calendar and know exactly what I'm making and know I have everything to make it. Now I come home from work, get working on dinner and don't stress about what we are having that night.

Also as soon as we are done with dinner, or any cooking or baking...I do the dishes. This keeps my kitchen cleaner (of course) but then I don't come home from dinner to dirty dishes that I have to do before cooking.

The kids have also been in on this experiment. I have been working to get them to help pick up more. This definitely doesn't always work since they are not always cooperative, but they've been better and are learning. We are trying to get them better at picking up their own this instead of us always doing it for them.

Lastly, before bed each night I go through the rooms and pick up anything that's been left lying around and just do some general pick up.

This experiment of mine has really been great...for me at least. I feel that I am getting the house more organized. I have more time to do things for me (exercise, sewing, etc), and am more patient with the kids. YAY!! It's still a work in progress, things are not 100%, but they are definitely helping the whole family. We have more time together and because I have more time for me, I am a happier mom and wife.