The business of being domestic

School's out and so I begin my adventures in being a full time domestic goddess. In the fall all of my classes are online and I will be homeschooling Cole in pre-k.
I have the entire summer to try out new things and figure out an at home schedule that works for us!

I'm going into this with some goals and I just need to figure out what's going to work for us. I have a few things to consider as well. Two big considerations are -adjusting to life with another body in the house and
-my health. There are days when I just am not able to do much and I get up and I pray and I know that as long as I give my days to God then he will let me get done whatever it is that HE wants me to do; if all I get done is taking care of my family then I will do it for his glory and the housework can wait.

A few things I want to explore and implement for myself are:

• advance food prep- things like cutting up snacks in advance and getting dinner items cut up in advance.
• nutrition and menu planning- I when it comes to giving my kids the right things to eat ALL the time! I buy fruits and veggies and often times they just sit and rot. using my advance food prep goal I'm hoping to make use of what I buy and give my family better snacks. I also rarely stick to a menu and I want to follow through for more than a couple of weeks with my menu planning.
• cutting the grocery bill - I want to learn to use coupons and to plan my menu around the store sales to cut my grocery bill.
• housework- do different things on different days and sticking with it!
• quality time- with the kids and husband every day. This mean purposing to plan an activity to do with the kids each day and making sure husband gets undivided attention.
• exercise- get in 45 minutes of physical activity for myself each day, I even have a gym membership and I admit that I don't use it as often as I could especially given that I live very close to the gym. Yes, I'm 9 months pregnant but as soon as I get a solid routine going for feeding the baby I'm going to make sure I get to the gym regularly, for now I have prenatal yoga DVDs and after the baby is born I have other exercise DVDs to help me out with this goal.

I am not able to just overhaul my life and make all these things suddenly work overnight. I don't know about you but I'm not some super robot who can just reprogram myself and work more efficiently. I have made some changes successfully; the kids are sticking to their jurisdictions and life is easier when then know what is expected of them. I am doing fairly well (though still a work in progress) on the whole laundry thing and have also started menu planning! I suck at menu planning though so I need to figure this one out some more but at least I'm working on it ;-)
I figured I would break these goals up into phases which will help me out especially while life is so unpredictable while we wait for the baby to make her grand entrance and adjusting in the first couple of weeks after she's born.
Phase 1- advance food prep, menu planning, some housework, and quality time.
I'm going to stick with my laundry and finish getting through all my purging and organizing. I'm going to make a menu and stick to it, this might be made a bit easier as I try to prepare some things in advance for Faith's arrival. As for food prep; I bought tupperware containers and have done some research as far as what can be done in advance and how much to do. Today I cut up carrots and apples for our snacks. I should have a couple of days worth of carrots now in the fridge while the apples will probably be gone by the end of the day and for sure by tomorrow. I'm going to sit down with the kids today and find some ideas for things for us to do everyday, we can make a binder and store our ideas.

As I write this I see several other blogs posts in our near future.

Phase 2- Housework, exercise, and couponning
I really think this is going to happen as I get into a routine feeding the baby.
I can start couponning first and try to get the hang of how all these people do it. I have made a couple observations about using coupons already. There is a difference between what I call practical couponning and extreme couponning. Extreme couponners don't buy their whole grocery list at once and save all that $$$. They buy things in bulk as they go on sale and build up a stash of stuff. I don't have the space to have that big of a stash or the funds to build it up while still buying the practical things we need. Also, I don't really ever see people buying fresh healthy foods when they go on the coupon binges. I want to find a balance and cut the grocery bill.
I will make a list of our household chores, as we get into a routine we can work things in where they fit.
I will start making time for exercise as soon as I'm able to. Being 9 months pregnant doesn't work so much with Jillian Micheal's last Chance Workout. Right now I do my yoga though so that's a start!

Like I said, I see a lot of potential blogs as I figure out what works for us. Keep an eye out for kid activities, homeschooling adventures, coupon tips, and menu ideas!