Mas y mas

If you're not a foreign language buff, that's Spanish for "more and more." It's basically pronounced "moss ee moss." And for those of you who would notice, I'm sorry that I don't know how to add the accents over the a's, so if you do know, feel free to let me in on the secret.

Okay, scheduling is supposed to be helpful in managing and running a household, right? Well, when I realized recently that I was truly in need of help with creating a workable schedule or routine for our family, I went to the web. Just so you know, I had done this many times...looking for some kind of wisdom for dealing with a largish homeschooling family. But this time, I prayed about it and left it at that. So, the next day, I came across the Maxwell family's website. I was just surfing around on some blogs that were participating in something called Keeping It Real (more on that in another post, perhaps), when somehow I found myself staring at the very thing I'd been looking for.

Teri Maxwell, homeschooling mom of 8, put together this book called Managers of Their Homes. It was affordable, and came complete with a color coded kit for making it all happen. Now, usually when I attempt something new, I get caught up in completing the task at hand and tend to plug away at it bullheadedly. I skip meals, stay up super late, neglect to vacuum or dust, refuse to read to the children..."Mama's busy. I'll read to you when I finish this project, okay?"

One of the most basic recommendations that Teri makes is having assigned amounts of time to work on all tasks, dropping them and moving on to the next thing, and picking them back up at the next scheduled time slot. Great. Here's a little insight into how my brain processed this wise little bit of input. "That's fantastic advice, and I'll work on that as soon as I figure out how to fit everything into this nifty little color-coded schedule."

So, after working on the thing all day for two days, I finally realized that maybe she meant to start that now. Oh, there it is, right there in the instructions: work on this a little at a time over the next week or so. Must've glossed over that part.

My house now looks like messy bears should be moving in soon, and the inside of the van is waist high in the stuff that tends to grow up in there unless I'm extremely diligent to keep it mowed down. Have I learned a lesson? Sure. Scheduling is for the birds.

OK, OK, I'm not giving up on the schedule. The truth is, I understand that our family will never be able to accomplish all the things that we want or need to do unless we schedule them into each day. You don't have to read many of my posts to understand what I mean. Oh, BTW, Loren and I are the new Children's Church Pastors for our preschool ministry, so tack all that on as well!

What I've really been learning is how to let go of my expectation for getting it all done NOW, and to settle for doing a little today, a little more tomorrow, and a little more later. It seems to be a recurring theme for me lately, that I tend to gather little nuggets of wisdom here and there and stash them in my pocket with the intention of cashing in on them later. Foolishness, I know.

So my goal for right now is to practice doing less and less at one time. Thirty minutes should be enough for most missions, and if I do that every day, I'll start seeing results, right? Anyway, I've just spent almost an hour working on this post (well, there've been interruptions, you know!), and I'm off to the church to work on setting up our new little sanctuary! Feel free to send any little nuggets my way. I'll try to remember that wisdom is for today!