Tue 2 Jan 2007
I have given up writing a post about my 2006 reading list. I ended up reading 66 books last year not counting read-alouds; far short of my goal. I read less in the last part of the year than the first. I thought I would read more while my dh was working in TN but turned out to be just the opposite.
Our house is now officially off the market. We are all very happy about that but we still don’t know what our future holds. The designated husband should be home through April now.
Today is the day I promised to turn into a Prussian schoolmarm and I am trying to keep that promise. Yesterday we took down all the Christmas decorations except the icicle lights around the porch. We will leave them up through January. Our tree had barely dropped a needle in over a month. It was a Frasier fir; well worth the money we spent on it. A few years ago we ventured to buy a different kind of tree from a different dealer. We bore that naked tree out of the house long before New Year’s Day.
We also organized the school shelves yesterday and decided to keep Alex and Andrew’s clothes in big bins instead of dressers. The little boys are hard on dressers as they stuff their clothes in the drawers too tightly. I will let you know if the clothes-in-bins method is successful (give it a month or two). And yes I did throw away most of the socks.
My only real New Year’s resolution is to re-commit to not getting on the computer in the morning until after I have read the Bible. I am also trying to get back to reading 5 Psalms a day in addition to my OT and NT readings.
Now I am off to make breakfast for the designated husband (dh) and myself and hopefully start our Morning Meeting by 8:30.
10 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Isnt that *dear* husband giggle….
*designated* sounds a little mormon
Dana in GA
Comment by Dana (January 2, 2007 @ 11:00 am )
Just a baseball reference, Dana. Everytime I see dh I think designated hitter instead of dear husband.
Comment by Cindy (January 2, 2007 @ 11:11 am )
Cindy,
If the bins don’t work, I have an idea. We stopped using “standard” dressers for our girls about 5 years ago. I bought them plastic drawer sets from Wal-mart and Sam’s. They have seven drawers; 4 of which are small and 3 which are large. It has been a lifesaver for me. With these drawers you can divide things like socks and unmentionables so that they don’t become so messy. You can also put 2-3 of them in the same space as one standard dresser. They have made storing our girls laundry much easier. I can’t imagine using a standard dresser with them… it would be a mess all of the time.
My three younger girls, 13, 12, & 10, all wear the same size shirt (what a blessing!) so for them I just buy shirts of different colors and styles and they share them. Their t-shirt type shirts, of which they have many, are sorted by color and each drawer has 2 colors in it, except for one which had colors we don’t often buy. It has made it really nice when trying to find a shirt to go with a particular skirt…they know which drawer to look in and there’s not much searching for one that matches. Now if I can just get them to stop staining them…..
Comment by Lora K. (January 2, 2007 @ 12:08 pm )
Cindy, what is a prussian schoolmarm? If you want to be one I am almost sure I want to be one as well. Does Carmon want to be one? Oh, maybe I should just link over to her blog, maybe she posted on the same topic today. HeHe. I need some inspiration to get back on the school trail.
Comment by Faith Proctor (January 2, 2007 @ 12:13 pm )
I like the bin idea - it has been sort of freeing for us! May it go well with your bins!
Comment by Jen (January 2, 2007 @ 3:37 pm )
Faith,
I think it is John Taylor Gatto that gives a history of Prussian education in his Underground History of American Education. The Prussian system was very regimented and military-like. I doubt they had schoolmarms though.
Comment by Cindy (January 2, 2007 @ 4:43 pm )
I’m curious; about what size are your “big bins”? We went to bin-in-the-clothing last year and it has worked better than dressers. Little girls “are hard on dressers as they stuff their clothes in the drawers too tightly” too. It has not completely solved the problem however. Also do you have separate bins for clothing items? (i.e. one for pants, another for PJ’s) Sometimes I think if bought a large garbage can and just had them throw all their clothing in there it would come out less wrinkled than it does now. I’m fairly certain my sweet almost five year old daughter would dump all her clothes on the floor and plan in the garbage can all day!
Let us know in a month or two how it’s working for you.
Comment by Lis (January 2, 2007 @ 9:04 pm )
Hey, I’m impressed with the 66 books! What was your original goal? As my daughter gets older, I am reading more than I used to, but still, I only read 21 last year. There were very good ones on the list, but I realize that I don’t start reading until the day is done, which means I fall asleep soon after I find my place. I’d be delighted to hear how you get more reading into a day that also includes homeschooling a large family, housework, errands and blogging.
Comment by Laura A (January 3, 2007 @ 7:02 am )
The big bins are rectangular and about the size of 2 boxes. Tim got red and green ones because they were on sale for putting Chrismas decorations away.
Let me try this again. They are about knee deep and about 2 feet long.
Comment by Cindy (January 3, 2007 @ 8:35 am )
Cindy - I second the request to know how you read so much. I’m embarrassed to admit how many books I started but didn’t finish.
Also, thanks for the inspiration to throw things away. I did that a couple days ago - socks and others things too.
Comment by Meredith B. (January 6, 2007 @ 8:50 am )