The Power of 30 Minutes

 During the summer, I always have these grand plans about things I'm going to get caught up on in my house and in the yard. However, I run into the problem of balance. If I spend too much time cleaning and doing yard work, I start to feel like I'm getting ripped off. If I don't do it, I feel like I'm wasting all this extra time I have. 

A number of years ago I decided I would do a load of laundry every day. It changed everything when it comes to laundry. I still do it religiously every single day. The loads are never very big, which makes it easy to wash and dry and put away each day. Sometimes I even have to look for things that I should wash - but not that often. Bedding, towels, etc make up the lulls in empty baskets. The nice thing about it is that I never have baskets and baskets of laundry to fold and put away and I never have piles of laundry sorted on the floor waiting to be washed. It's just become a quick and easy thing that gets taken care of each day. 

I decided to implement this strategy for my housework and yard-work goals this summer. I committed to 30 minutes a day for each. It's amazing how much gets accomplished in 30 minutes! This morning was a great example. I have mostly been working in the front yard but now things are mostly caught up and it's hard to find 30 minutes of work to do each day so I decided I should venture into the back yard. It's been something I've stayed away from because we are working on building a new fence and a new deck and there is a lot going on back there. However, today I decided maybe what I should do is tidy up the pile of boards that have been left for a couple weeks from fence work. Imagine my surprise when it was all taken care of in only 7 minutes?! I went from this:

to this:

So then I had to figure out something to do for the last 20 minutes. See all those shoots around the lilac bush? I decided to get to work on them. It's amazing how much of that was taken care of in just 20 minutes! 

One of Gretchen Rubin's secrets of adulthood is that nothing is more exhausting than a task that is never started. That is so true! I looked at that pile for so many days and hated it....and it was so easy to look after! 

Master Mind Group

For about a year now, I've been meeting with the most fabulous women once a month. We get together and talk about how our last month went and how we did on our goals and what our goals are for next month. I've been so inspired by them. It has been a wonderful experience.

Each year, each of picks a word of the year. My word this year is revelation because I want to get better at receiving and recognizing personal revelation. Laura made stitchery samples for each of us with our word of the year. Isn't that wonderful! I love those ladies.

Happy Birthday? Wait. Happy New Year!!

 Not just a happy birthday, but happy new year!!

Last night my sister came over and we visited for a couple hours, then I went to bed. My family, on the other hand, attempted to stay up all night, I think. It was a rough day for them today. Good thing staying up all night is really only something once a year.

The parties weren't a big hit. Jill went to the YSA dance and she gave it a "meh". Although, she did run into a missionary friend, so that was really fun. Peirce went to a party at a friend's house which ended up not being that fun because they played drinking games and got throw-up drunk. Blech. Tony and Zoe went downtown for dinner and saw fireworks. Their report was the most positive. Allen stayed up for all the reports. Personally, I'm fine waiting until the next day for the updates.

But, the happy birthday part. What is that? Well, thanks to Dale Shoults, we learned that today Allen is 18,000 days old! Isn't that something?! Happy birthday old guy!

My favorite picture of our family

Everything is cuter with Frank!

Learning From a Master

I've been visiting the hospital almost every day over the break. There is an old lady (83!) in our ward who fell and broke her ankle. I figured over winter break I have nothing but time, so I volunteered to visit her on quite a few days. I've known her for a number of years. I have always enjoyed visiting with her because we have a lot in common. She loves to read and she was an elementary school teacher. She's always super smiley and has positive things to say. Today when I visited she got talking to the husband of a lady in her room. It was amazing to watch her work her magic on him. She engaged him in conversation and was super interested in learning about him. She would ask him questions and compliment him and smile and ask him more questions. It was something to watch! It really made me think about how I engage people in conversation. Her conversation was really positive and kind. That's the kind of person I want to be.

Outer Order Inner Calm

I ordered a great book by Gretchen Rubin the other day that I'm really excited about. It's called Outer Order Inner Calm. I can't wait to get it!

I read her other book, Better Than Before, and I found it changed my life. It helped me realize what works best for me and to embrace that. I've always been a follower of Fly Lady but I found some of her ideas just didn't work for me.

This year  I decided I will commit to her idea of zone cleaning. I have one area of my house that I work on all week long for 15 minutes each day. It has already made me so happy! Today it was my bedroom. I tidied up, dejunked, dusted and cleaned up my shelving unit in my room. It's amazing what you can do in 15 minutes a day.

It makes me happy every time I go in there!

Almost at One Year

On June 10, almost a year ago, I made a decision to exercise every day. I'm coming up on the one year mark and want to do something to celebrate. Any ideas??

 

Seeking Balance and Good Mental Health

In RS we have been doing pursuit of excellence. I've realized that I don't have a very balanced life. Much of my time is spent doing things for my kids to help them have a balanced life....and that is ok. I have decided though that I need to try to do more things for my own enjoyment as well. Last week we had a great RS activity. We had a psychologist come and talk about mental health. One of the things she talked about was mindfulness. It was a great message on how important it is to be in the moment and focus on what you are doing now.

With that in mind, last night while our is were busy with their Halloween activities, Allen and I were free to do whatever we wanted. We thought about the usual, go get something to eat....but instead we decided to go visit some friends. In our busy frenzied life in Calgary that just doesn't happen that much. They were thrilled that we would think of them. We had a great visit. When I left I felt that feeling I don't get that often that I had really enjoyed myself. I did something I wanted to do that was just fun for me, rather than something I had to do.

How weird is it that that is such a big deal? 

I think I will do that more often! 

I also have decided I need text back to more blogging....watch for it! More blog posts to come.

Fourth 100 K month

Did it again!! 

We bought another car yesterday. Now I will be able to walk to school less often because I will have to drive kids more often. This is where the challenge really starts! Must stay focused!

Spring Renewal

I recently read a great historical fiction novel set in World War I time called After the War Is Over. One thing I noticed is that people in that time really had a sense of duty different than we seem to today. People really wanted to help in the war. After the war was over that sense of duty didn't go away:

p. 139:

Had she ever spent an entire day having fun? She sifted through her memories, but couldn't recall a single instance - not when she was at university, not when she was Lilly's governess, not in all the years with Miss Rathbone, and certainly not during the war. There had been afternoons in the park, evenings out with friends, the occasional lazy hour or two reading a book that was entertaining rather than improving, but she'd never felt she could spend a day simply enjoying life.

 

Times have changed. Imagine how they would have liked even a one week holiday earlier in this century? Not we feel like it is our right and we are hard done by if we do not enjoys days of leisure.

 

All this made me think about how I've shirked some of my duty lately. Thanks to a good rest over Spring Break I have a renewed desire to look after things a little better. I plan to get caught up in my house, Fly Lady style. It will take time time - but that's okay. As she says, you didn't create this mess in a day, so it won't take a day to get it all taken care of.

 

I also want to do a better job being supportive in our PFS business. We need to move things up a level, for sure.

 

And then there's my spiritual life. I have been neglectful with prayer and scripture study and a little too cranky about serving. I am going to aim to not be a complainer and just serve happily and refocus on daily prayer and scripture study.

 

 

 

 

UCSC Grand Prix

It has been a busy weekend. Jill and Peirce were both swimming in the UCSC Grand Prix Friday and Saturday. 

Jill is trying to get a Western time. She is awfully close! ......but still chasing. On Saturday she took 3 seconds off her 100 breast though!  

I liked this results sheet.....Jill ranked amongst all the girls from the university.

Peirce took all sorts of time off his races: 13 seconds off 200 breast, 3 seconds off 50 fly and best of all, two seconds off his 200 IM, which means he got his MQT! Yea!! On Saturday he got two more personal bests. He took 4 seconds off 100 breast and 100 back. He also swam 400 free, but didn't get a PB in that. We should have fed him again, I guess.

Mr. MQT!

Silly Jilly.

...check out those quads though!

Walking

I have now walked more this month than any month last year.  

On to bigger and better things!

I have to admit, I am pretty tired. It is been rough going in this snow!

New Walking Goals

And thus we see why I didn't lose any weight in 2014! (That's the way I phrase it without saying I actually gained weight....ugh!). Doesn't matter that this is in miles rather than kilometres. The important number is: I burned one pound of fat. Ugh!

My goal this year is to walk 100 km every month.

Exercise

I follow a librarian on Twitter and his blog as well who is also a runner. He has an amazing streak of never missing a day if running....it is in the 500s or something like that. I see his comments and often think I should do that.

Well, this week I finally started. I am now five for five. It has been tough. Tuesday I went to an exercise class that one of my co-workers runs. These legs haven't done any squats for years. Even though the class was pretty low key, it took me days before I could walk without wincing. I still went out and walked though. I am so proud of myself!! I plan to continue.

I also decided that I will keep a list of benefits of exercise. I decided while I was walking during the lunch hour today that there really are many benefits besides health benefits.

Change

The last couple of weeks at school have been a little stressful for me. The province has decided to do away with the provincial achievement tests of the past for grade three students. They will continue on and next remove them for grade six students. I'm not sure if it is going on to grade 9 or not. In their place they are doing  SLAs (Student Learning Assessments).

It hasn't gone too smoothly at all. From getting registered in the website, to setting up class lists (and being able to edit errors!) to actually administering the tests, it has been painful - from registering ourselves as teachers so we could even administer the tests to evaluating the results. Every step of the way we have had to take a step back and update technology, try different browsers, re- read the 30 page instruction documents, and wonder what exactly the questions are really asking and if all this time is worth the information we are gathering. Thank goodness we have had supportive admin to help us through this. I am pretty sure without them we would have totally abandoned the assessment.

The government website says: 

Alberta wants teachers and parents to have the best tools available for them to help improve student learning. One new tool is the Student Learning Assessment (SLA).

These assessments are digitally based and focused on literacy, numeracy, and the cross-discipline competencies of Inspiring Education. They take place at the start of the school year to enable both parents and teachers to identify student strengths and areas needing improvement.

As I was complaining about this whole process one day my principal wondered aloud what it is about teachers that we don't like change.
I had to chuckle. In some ways, he is right.
In other ways though, sometimes it seems like change for the sake of change.
We have had a change in our school this year. That hasn't been an easy change either. I mourn what we have lost more than looking forward to new changes, it seems.
I have been reading a great book: The Fourteenth Goldfish. That book talks about how important cycles are. Endings are really a beginning of something and should be considered exciting.
It makes me wonder what I need to be doing to make changes in my life more accepting and how to anticipate them with greater positivity.
How do I turn it into something great when it just feels disappointing and like it is all going in the wrong direction?
I don't know.
Must work on this.

Day 3 of of my 51 Days of Summer

I found this great Ted.com video today. I think I will set myself a reminder to review it once a week. This is how I want to be!

Today was the first relaxing day of summer....and it was divine. A little sleep-in time, exercise,  a lot of reading, groceries and a swim practice. Who could ask for anything more?!

Baby Steps

I wrote on my teaching blog about a Nerdlution goal I had set. One of my two goals was to spend 15 minutes a day cleaning, FlyLady style. This means that every day I will spend 15 minutes de-cluttering, cleaning and sprucing up something in my house. I set the goal on January 31, thinking that I'd focus on this for the next 50 days.

I started off with a bang and did nothing on Feb 1 and 2 *Hangs her head in shame*

Today when I got home I decided I could afford 15 minutes and got to work on the back entry. I should have taken a picture.

No I shouldn't have. That would be embarrassing.

Let it just be known that we had piles of shoes, piles of dirt, mismatched mittens, scarves strewn everywhere. I decided I would just work on one corner and aim to get the floor clean. Funny enough, in about 5 minutes it was finished. So I decided to work on the closet floor. Soon another 5 minutes was gone and it was clean. There was still 5 minutes left!! So I did a real good sweep of the rest of the back entry. Then I had a couple minutes left so I pulled out the mismatched sock bucket out of the cupboard and lo and behold I found about 6 pairs I could put together.

Done.

What a difference!

It's kind of embarrassing and rather dumb that I let it get to be such a mess when it's really very easy to clean. I should know better by now. Life just gets a little crazy though.

I think I just might do it again tomorrow.

Imagine if I really did do this every day?? My family is going to be astounded.