Electricity!

Ontario Hydro has been working away these past couple years installing what they call 'smart meters'.  They ready exactly how much energy your house uses and sends it directly to their offices.  You see the way it worked before is you would get an estimate bill that would look at past data and estimate how much you would be using then every few months you would get an actual reading and you would be billed accordingly.

Now everything is actual.  The wrench that they threw into this system though is now we have different rates for different times of the day and days of the week.  Ontario Hydro Rates are seen here at their website. 

Basically it means that it is most expensive during the weekday day at 9.9 cents/kWh and between 9pm and 7am it is the cheapest at 5.1 cents/kWh.  Oh and they gave us weekends and holidays at the cheap rate as well.  That was nice of them.

So it is a beautiful Sunday afternoon here and what am I doing?  You guessed it laundry and dishes so I am not up on weeknights doing it until 11pm or later.  So much for organizing a laundry schedule.  I may have to figure something out to remind me if I am doing laundry at 9pm to change it into the dryer.  We use a clothesline in the summer which will be SO much nicer and easier.  But for now I will take the new Hydro rules as a challenge, they will not be charging me extra for regular energy use! 

Photo Friday

The wee ones are now old enough that they can go to the barn without the fear of them getting into trouble.  I mean, sure they are kids so that means they will find trouble somewhere but not eating the cow patties kind of trouble!  It is great now because when my partner goes out to the barn to work, he can bring the kids.  Yeah for Momma! 

It is so true that kids will find 'play' anywhere they go.  The barn has no toys, no computers, no books but yet they can spend hours out in the barn 'just playing'.  How much fun is a make-shift slide?  Well the wee ones spent a good 2 hours, yes 2 hours, climbing and sliding on these boards.  Of course they had a few stops to play with the barn cats and talk to the baby calves in their pens. 



WHHHEEEEE!!!! We just found another outdoor activity for the cold winter months here in Canada!  And the night wouldn't be complete without a nice warm cup of hot chocolate once inside.

To special moments and cherished memories.

Time's Up

As I sent Sadie off to school today I thought what am I going to do today.  I have the whole day with nothing scheduled, I could accomplish so much.  But then I started wasting my time, we all do it, you know you do!  I checked my email, then checked some of the blogs I follow to see what was new, then I checked to see if there was anything on tv, phoned my mom, etc etc etc.  Then I realized I needed to start checking my time.

 

So I decided to make a chart of all the household chores that have to be done and how long it takes to do them.  That way when there is 20 minutes in my day I can empty the dishwasher or change the sheets on our bed.  No more excuses about how I don't have the time.

So I got my watch out and started timing everything that I did.
Empty Dishwasher - less than 5 minutes
Load Dishwasher, put recycling in bin, and wash a few dishes in the sink - less than 4 minutes
Change/Make our bed - 6 minutes

I couldn't believe it, 15 minutes to do 3 chores!!  That's not too hard.  It really motivated me to keep going and do more chores plus take a few minutes for myself without feeling guilty.  I will keep timing and keep you updated on how long each job takes.  I should let you know that I was moving a little faster because I knew I was timing it but it shouldn't take that much longer.

I realize this is pretty basic but with work and school and activities and family functions it will let me figure out a schedule that works for us.  I knew that this was going to be the year!

Start timing yourself today and then stop making excuses.  Find that extra 15 minutes!

Still Working

Yesterday I helped celebrate my parents 45th Wedding Anniversary.  I look at how happy my parents are after 45 years and can't even imagine what spending 45 years together would include.  It truly is a lifetime.  I am very blessed to live only a short drive away from where I grew up and have seen my parents marriage through many different views.  First as their child and them solely as parents, then as support as I moved out on my own and was struggling through school.  Then as I entered my first serious relationship and really had my first look at what my parents relationship was and lastly as a parent myself, looking back at all the decisions they had to make as a couple that was best for the family.  It doesn't happen very often in this modern world where couples can say they have been with one another for 45 years, so congratulations to mom and dad!

On a similar note, I have left my camera over at their house and didn't want to venture out in our -35C weather to get it, so no new pictures.  I have started decluttering my desk however.  As an early childhood educator I have stacks of paper everywhere that has songs, activities, crafts etc all in a big jumble that is the history of what I have accomplished with the children.  I am trying to plan educational activities for my children though and get easily frustrated with the mess and not being able to find a theme/holiday related activity. 

So I have taken all my papers, put them in a pile and am putting them on my computer, in an organized fashion.  I know this will take me many nights but I think it will be worth it. 

Since no camera is available I thought I would draw me

with my stack of papers that I have to organized and type out! 

 I think it really is that big!

On another note, I have gone through hats, mitts etc and have decided that our children each need, 3 hats, 4 pairs of mitts, 2 scarves and one pair of boots.  They have 2 jackets, one good, one barn and one pair of snow pants.  Everything else must go.  Which leaves me with another bag of stuff to go to Goodwill!!! Yeah!!

It feels so good to organize and get some control back.  I am starting to plan more and more things to get done around the house and do away with the things that are slowing us down.

What are some ways your getting control?

Photo Friday

Seth catching snowflakes on his tongue.  I'm so glad we live in a climate where my kids can experience this.  I remember when I was little it was so much fun to watch the snowflakes floating down from the sky and then trying to catch one on your tongue.

Seth and Sadie were having a great time throwing snow, making snow angels, and just being kids with an unlimited amount of snow to play with.  When we came in we were soaked right through our snowsuits, our fingers and toes were cold and our socks were stuffed at the front of our snowboots but no one was fighting or complaining.  Just back to the basics fun.

What a magical night it was. 

Clay Pot Monsters

When I started this blog I started with changes that I can make to my life that would organize and therefore would make our day to day routines run easier.  So far everything that I have tried to change has gone relatively well. 

One thing that I did notice about my house that isn't organized well is my 2 children.  They are almost 3 and 4 years old and it is time for them to start carrying some of the weight, so they say.  I realize that they are old enough to tidy up their toys when done, if they make a mess while crafting they can clean it up, and if their toys, art supplies and treasures are organized it will make their life easier too.  I have found if the kids know where things are suppose to be put away then it makes tidying up quick and easy.

So I started with organizing their markers, crayons and pencil crayons.  This is a craft that you can do yourself or with your children.
What you will need:

• 3 clay pots (you pick the size)
• acrylic paint and brush
• 6 white pom poms
• black felt
• sealer for the paint

Start with your clay pots.



Pick your paint colour and paint all 3 however you want.  Then glue 2 pom poms on each pot for the eyes.
Cut out 6 circles from the black felt for the eyes and glue on the pom poms. Cover with your sealer, I use a spray one that I got at Walmart but there are tons out there.  Put your markers, crayons and pencil crayons in and your done.

The kids just love them and I love that the kids now never leave their drawing supplies laying around.  They know exactly where to put them and where they are when they want to create.

How are your kids organized?

Photo Friday

 A Little Distraction...

I know I said "photo" Friday but I just had to add these 2 pictures of our new extended family.  We picked up 'puppy' tonight and are giving him as a gift to a family member.  What a cutie he is!  He is staying in his box right now cuddled up next to a little stuffed cow that we gave him AND he is sleeping without a sound which will be fantastic if he keeps it up all night! 

There is just something so magical and peaceful about a little puppy.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today my kids and I woke up and at 8am sang Happy Birthday to one of the most important people in our lives.  My father, Gary, was 66 years old today. 

Christmas 2009

The 13th holds a special place in our family as my brother and my son were also born on the 13th but of different months.  My brother and son are also named after my father.  They also all look rather similar to one another as well.

My dad has made good choices in his life and has been a huge influence in mine.  I didn't realize until I had kids of my own just what my father had done for us all those years growing up.  He worked a full-time job but was laid-off in the winter and also had a beef farm that usually had around 25 cattle.  My mother and him have been married for 45 years and they still love each other as much as the day they met. 

My dad is one of the most hands-on people I know and can solve any 'real world' problem with some patience and time. He might not have always been at our birthdays until supper, gone to school events or went grocery shopping for us but he was always there to listen and provide for our family.  No matter what, we always knew that we were loved.

Now he passes that on to my children who definitely know that Grampa loves them and would do anything he could for them. 

Happy Birthday to one of the greatest men I know.

Dish Duty

Today is week 2 in my journey of blogging and trying to get organized.  I have found that neither is very easy!  I took my parents out for dinner last night and had a wonderful time but found it cut into my blogging time as well.  But not everyone can blog everyday right? 

As for my 'dish' resolution, it is going ok.  I have discovered that doing the dishes at midnight is not a good idea especially when waking up with the kids the next morning.  I am really trying though because when I actually plug through doing the dishes every night as supper it makes me feel a little better when going to bed knowing that I don't have a chore to accomplish first thing in the morning. 

But honestly, this is what my sink looked like last night, yes after only one day.  As I said earlier, I went out to dinner while my partner and kids stayed home and had dinner.  If my partner does not feel like doing dishes, he does not do them and in return this is what the sink looked like.  Did I feel like washing them last night at 11 pm?  NO!  So I took my night off and left it. 

Waking up this morning, looking at my little table with my cookbooks that I had recently organized did make me feel a little better however.

So nice and organized!

So after I sent my daughter to school I got started on the kitchen.  It took nearly 2 hours to empty the dishwasher, clean the counters, clean the clutter off the table and floor and then sweep the floor.  I often wonder how so much clutter and mess accumulate when it seems that I am cleaning all the time.  But then as my son (2 years old) asked if he could have a chocolate cupcake, please!!!  I realized that as I was sweeping chocolate crumbs from the floor for the second time that this was the stage in my life I was at.  CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN AND STILL FEEL LIKE YOU ARE GOING NOWHERE!

But right now I have a nice clean kitchen, well that needs more work and more organizing, but I am relishing in the fact that my sink is dish free.  (for at least 10 minutes)   Now I do understand that the sink looks dirty but that is just the way the old farmhouse sink is, yellow and all!

How is everybody else's resolutions for the year coming along?  What have you organized so far?



Photo Friday

I will post one picture on every Friday.  It can be anything from

anytime but one that I will hold dear to my heart. 

.

My daughter received a digital camera for her 4th birthday.  We went on a walk after supper and she brought her camera to take lots of pictures.  I love this one because it signifies the changing of the season with the leaves on the ground, the rough country roads and her tiny little 4 year old feet!  This is definitely a moment in time that I will cherish always.

I hate, hate, hate doing the DISHES!

I decided that an organized housewife has to start somewhere, so why not where the heart of your home is... the kitchen.

I don't know why I hate washing dishes.  It may have originated from childhood and always being told to do the dishes after supper.  I have come to accept the fact that I will never love doing dishes but have realized that it needs to be done.  Below is a cartoon I found somewhere on the Internet and thought it described my kitchen perfectly.  I always seem to be running out of counter space for some reason....

In the past when supper was done here we would put the "dishwasher safe" dishes in the dishwasher and generally leave the "scrub" dishes in the sink, on the counter, on the stove or even on top of the dishwasher. 

SO my first step in becoming a more organized 'woman of the house' is too get control over the dishes!  I have said it and it is now here for everyone to see.  My dishes WILL be washed by the end of the day in which they were dirtied!  I have kept this up since the first of January which I am actually quite proud of considering it was usually a once a week chore. 

The dishwasher is also included in this task.  If you can't keep the dishwasher going then the lazy bones of the house take over.  So once the dishwasher is CLEAN, the dishes must be put away by nightfall.  It seems quite minimal even while I am typing this but it actually is a challenging task for this family and has changed our kitchen already. 

And so I am not setting myself up for failure and then guilt, I am giving myself one free night a week in which I don't have to do the dishes.  I am hoping however that I will like a clean sink so much that this will change quickly and I will want to do the dishes every night.

Well my rubber gloves are ready to go!

Starting New

I love everything about Christmas.  I love decorating (inside and out), baking, singing carols, crafts, visiting with family and friends and the general joy of the holiday season.  When I was a child we didn't have a great amount of spare money.  We lived well but money wasn't a luxury we had.  But when Christmas came mom and dad would do it up big.  We would pull out the record of Conway Twitty and the Twitty Bird and while it was playing we would decorate the tree and then the rest of the house.  We didn't have as many ornaments as what they have today but to me the house was magical.

These are ornaments that have been passed on from my mom and dad.  The boxes are original but only a few of the ornaments are from the past.  On the box there was a sticker that the price is reduced from $0.79 to $0.49!  Can you believe buying a whole box of quality ornaments for $0.49?  These were purchased about 45 years ago.

This is one of my favourite ornaments for our tree now.  It was purchased as a gift to me from my dad a few years ago.  It is made completely out of glass and has beautiful leaf patterns on it.  I hope to pass this ornament on to my children someday.

So the first thing to getting organized is to have an organized space.  I usually like to leave all the Christmas decorations, tree and lights up until about the middle of January but not this year.  I have been busy putting everything away in their special boxes and spaces and realized that I actually reieved a number of new decorations for Christmas this year.  Now I need to find spots to pack them away, in a house that has 2 closets and a basement that may flood or may be damp and mold items.  But I am making this committment and getting organized (and quickly!) so I have until tommorrow to get all the Christmas things packed and put away. 

We had a gorgeous tree this year.  The kids and I and my dad all went out to his bush and picked it out and cut it down ourselves.  I am well on my way with all the decorations off the tree.  I think that a 'real' tree is so much more powerful and beautiful than an artificial.  Just knowing that it wasn't made in a factory somewhere, using who knows what to make it.  This tree was a part of the earth once and will now be recycled back to mother earth.  Thank you to the earth for providing us with such a lovely Christmas Tree and also the wonderful smell that comes with it. 

What are your favourite memories of your childhood Christmas?

I've Got Pictures

I decided that before I did anymore posts that it was important to learn how to add pictures to the posts.  I love looking at the pictures that other people post and get inspired to go out and try to take as great of shots as the other bloggers do. 

About a 10 min drive from my house.

I am extremely privileged to live on a 100 acre farm, as I live close to my family farm.  I love this time of year where the bush seems magical and peaceful.  I hope that by taking my children when they are young that they will also come to enjoy the outdoors as much as I do.

My father bringing out logs from his bush.

My son exploring the bush and loving every minute of it.

 (and yes I realize he is wearing a pink scarf but we didn't care!)

A tree that had a woodpecker living nearby.  Lots of yummy bugs

must have come from this tree.

This was just too interesting to pass up, I agreed and had

to go and take a look myself. 

So far so good!  I can now add pictures and it was relatively simple to accomplish.  I had a lot of fun walking through some of the bush this morning.  I can't wait to see what other adventures we can get into in the bush.

Do you enjoy walking through nature and what was the most interesting thing you came across?

This is the Year!

I realize people have been blogging for years already but I have really just discovered the joy of reading blogs in the last few months.  I find it encouraging and inspiring to read a fellow bloggers posts and know that I am not the only one out there that has a completely unorganized house, kids that are sometimes out of control, a bank account that is in crisis but also someone that loves things old, that enjoys a good craft and that takes everyday simple things and becomes calm and inspired yet again.

I am starting two journeys this year.  The first is to step into the unknown and create and manage a blog.  I started yesterday with creating, which turns out was relatively easy to accomplish.  I was so shocked by how quick it was I didn’t have a post ready to go!  I will be learning along the way how it works and all the applications that go along with blogging.

The second journey I am taking is one that deals solely with me and trying to become a more organized, less clutter-bound woman. 

My house is FULL of stuff.

My kitchen is always a MESS.

I do laundry when one person runs out of underwear, socks etc.

Our meals are planned MINUTES before they are suppose to be on the table.

My daughters school stuff gets organized the MORNING of when it is suppose to be ready.

I need to lose weight.

 So I am challenging myself to become a less chaotic housewife/mother/woman and become the organized, well planned and functional person I can be.  I am taking control!!  This is the year that I am going to make change happen.  I am not going to kid you, it will be hard but I am hoping that reporting to a bunch of strangers and getting your feedback will help keep me on track and held accountable.

I’m Tanya, I’m 31 and I have a 4 year old and a 3 year old.  We live on a 100 acre beef farm, we have 3 barn cats, 2 indoor cats, a dog and a granny house that we rent out.  The house is old and run down and the yard and barn are in need of tons of work and care. 

2011 is the year for me!  I’m changing and gaining control.  I hope you join me for my journey!