It's a New Year Filled with TONS Fresh Startness!

OH MY WORD.

The holidays were crazy! It seemed like I was rushing so much that I missed them! I feel bad to say this, but I'm kind of glad to be getting back into a normal routine.

Well THIS family's normal anyway.

I don't do resolutions. I think I have a fear that if I set a goal I won't meet it so I don't set myself up for it. I know it's crazy, it's something I need to work on. Next week.

I might also need to work on my tendency to procrastinate.

And irrational fear of touching raw chicken.

Again ... NEXT week.

But THIS week my bestie and I decided that this is the year of "Not just thinking ahead, but DOING ahead". And in keeping with that spirit I'd also like to be more proactive and take control of things with the household.

I don't want the fact that I remember to pick up the kids at school every day to be the only thing I can say that shows I have it together. Especially since I have an alarm on my phone for that. And I'd be lying if I said that there weren't times it was the only reason I DID remember.

I set the bar high.

But I need more. I LOVE me some routines. I love structure, thrive on it. I can see that my kids do too when we have routines and schedules that aren't TOO rigid, just guidelines. So in that spirit I'm going to share a few links that are TOTALLY inspiring me right now!

Schedules/Routines -

Amy @ New Nostalgia's Morning Routine, Afternoon Routine, and Evening Routine -

I just love her blog. She's currently dealing with cancer but her spirit and her faith is just amazing. She's just inspirational in many ways :)

I LOVE her routines! I love the check lists and the attitude behind it all. She says this in the first post:

"I had to break the "reminder" habit, where I go around asking, did you do your chart? did you brush your teeth? etc. All that was doing was confusing my girls. If mom is going to ask or remind them about their responsibilities, (putting the monkeys back on me), then why would they ever step up to the plate and think or do for themselves??"

It's SO important to think about what we're teaching out kids. We're teaching them something just about every single second and no matter how much that stresses me out to think about, I need to be doing more with these teachable moments, like morning afternoon and evening LOL

Here's another post I found that has more ideas for kids routine/chore charts and I'm ALL FOR CHORES!

Organizing -

I love this post on How Does She? where a guest blogger, Julie, talks about the necessity of a Household Planner. I TOTALLY AGREE AND I'M DOING THIS. I might change up the sections but the over all ideas she talks about make my OCD do cartwheels :)

She has another post that talks about taking the WORK out of housework. It talks about changing your attitude and having more gratitude, I love it. It's such a GREAT way to think about what you have and appreciate it!

This post from Organized Home has more details on a Household Binder and FREE PRINTABLES = w00t!

I LOVE this super cute Birthday Organizer and it too has FREE PRINTABLES :D Last year I took a list of EVERY birthday for the YEAR to the store and bought cards for them ALL. I even got some for Mother's Day/Father's Day etc! I was so far ahead of the game it was AWESOME! Taking something as cute as THIS would make it even better!

This is another smaller version of a Birthday Organizer - perfectly purse size :)

I didn't always remember to give them out ... but now I have them for next year! :D lol Hopefully the binder with help with the remembering part ;-)

I think that's quite a bit to get started on, don't you?! If you have any awesome organizational tips I would LOVE to hear them! Good luck and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!