Well Planned Day

Are you all ready for Fall to start and ready for everyone to head back to school? Soon will be gone the care free and easy Summer days! I am in no way "ready" but I have been praying and making lists and have my planner ordered and ready.

I know that I have told you before about the planner that I LOVE LOVE LOVE. 

You can preview the planner HERE

I have a confession: I am not a very planned out/organized/secretarial person. AT. ALL. I'm pretty much a hot mess with piles of receipts and pockets full of crunched up dollar bills. But with 5 kids in 4 different levels  and a home and family and......I NEED help keeping it all together.

This is my third year using the Well Planned Day Planner and I have another confession. this planner is so beautiful and so well organized that my first year..now don't laugh..I didn't write in it. I was afraid of interfering with it's organization. How silly is that? The best thing about having a well planned planner is that it is a tool for you to use for YOUR life.

Not being a super organized person I really need the help BUT I dont need the pressure of feeling like I have to conform to being someone I'm not in order to thrive.  I found so much grace in the Well Planned Day planner.

It's helpful assets include:
-Full Year Planner: July 2012 - June 2013
-Home Management Helps with weekly cleaning schedule, monthly projects, greeting card registry, and monthly budgeting.
-Holiday Organization Section: Greeting card registry, activities and event schedules, gift giving, around town shopping, and internet shopping.
-Organization and planning for up to 4 children (I photocopy and add more)
-Four Student Class Plans: Schedule each student's class assignments.
-Four Student Time Schedules: Track each day by the hour.
-Weekly Schedule: Organize your week with class assignments, weekly priorities, prayer requests,  dinner menu, and notes.
-Month at a Glance: Plan field trips, enrichment activities and books to read
-Semester Attendance & Progress Reports
-Perforated Report Cards
-Menu Planning: Plan weekly meals and conveniently shop with perforated shopping lists.
-Family Worship: Read through the Bible in a year.
-Insightful homeschool articles and tips to inspire you throughout the year.

 
I don't use all of those features. Maybe I should but that's another post. I use what I need right now and do what I can do right now. Maybe in July of 2013 I will start using a new feature (like the Bible memory verses) and that would be great but I'm not obligated to. There is so much in there that everyone can find what THEY need help with organizing in one place.

***disclaimer: I was given a planner to review but was in no way influenced on what to say--all opinions are my own and should be considered just that. Links in this post do contain affilaite information and if you choose to buy through those links I will be reimbursed.

Parenting is so humbling

 I have been worn out and spread too thin for awhile now. It has boggled my thinking. I want to fix it. I want to find the right book or the right advice or the right Biblical wisdom and have everything returned to joyful. That isn't happening.

I have grown up without a mother, without parents, without family. I am fine. I beat cancer. We survived having no income for over three years. We have home schooled through it all, thrived as a family through it all. Things are great right now. From the outside looking in we are picturesque at the moment:  great kids, great life, husband working full time, living in a mansion while many are losing their homes. So why is it hard for me now? Why is it now that I feel a true struggle?

I sat down desperate and in tears and tried to figure out the "problem." I have a headstrong teen who will be a great leader someday but right now I really don't appreciate his strong personality. I have two preschoolers who need to be watched. Every second of every day. Except for two in the morning when the teens need to talk. I have a young girl who a few months ago was a sweet sweet girl and is now trying to figure out what being a young woman is. That is heavy stuff. There is no problem to fix or a person to eliminate. It's just all too much all together. It's not that I don't have time for each of my children or the laundry and meals for 7 people and cleaning a 3,500 square foot home, and planning, and replanning and praying over the education for 5 people. ALL of my time goes to these things. I don't want a "break" from it all. This is my life. The life I have prayed for, the life carved out for me.....Then why is it is tiring and confusing and draining? Am I doing something "wrong" if it isn't simple and easy and there aren't fireworks whenever people look in on our lives.

I don't need strokes and affirmation from outside people. I'm not looking for it. Yet, people sure like to offer their opinions. I have NEVER claimed to have this together. Why must people point out to me that I don't? You need to tell me that my 14 year old son isn't mature because...you think yours is? You haven't noticed the binge drinking and casual sex in the Facebook pictures of your own but can see every flaw in mine? I will revert my eyes back to my own issues and be quiet.

Sometimes I do long for someone else as involved in and invested in my children as my husband and I, to bear the "burden" and share the praying. The people who want to jump in really dont know what they are jumping into. No my kids aren't perfect. I need to stop pointing that out to people. This is their story too. Parenting is so humbling.

I have good kids. No major sins or law breaking. Yet there is so  much to be worked on. My olders know. They have been taught right from wrong they know what they should be doing. Yet they are children and I find myself following them around and managing them. We somehow get this false idea that if we just train our children properly and follow some formula everything will be perfect and joyful. But really? The kid in Juvenile Hall wasn't told to share and not steal? My child just hid and ate all the ice cream for my birthday because we didn't have proper rules in place? Maybe. Maybe Not. These kids are flawed and sinful and will make mistakes, some can be blamed on me some not. They have been taught and trained by sinful and flawed parents. They have seen the Grace that God has offered those parents too. I can only trust that God has a plan for them and a plan bigger than their flawed character.