Saturday, June 16, 2007

Thankful for Organizational blogs/ Back to SMART Habit Saturday

I have not always been an organized person. However, for the past few years I have been making it more of a priority. I used to look at my clutter and know that it needs to be put away in a neater and more organized matter, but just didn’t know how to do it. Organization doesn’t come to me naturally, so it has always been a struggle for me. Last year I found some organizational websites which began to help. Then I started blogging and I found Laura the organized junkie and I learned practical ways to become organized and seeing her pictures and reading her posts really taught me how to BECOME organized, not just telling me that I needed to be organized. I learned how containers and boundaries can make a difference in my home and how they can help me to be clutter free and how they help with a sense of peace I can have in my home. Don’t get me wrong, I still have far to go on my organizational journey, but I am so much farther down the path than where I have been. Also just to be clear, I do not judge or think less of anyone else that chooses NOT to have an organized or clutter free home. I respect people’s decision to choose for themselves. The fact is we all have the right to decide for ourselves about our homes. I’m just saying that for me, I wanted things to be different in my home. I was tired of things being a mess, not being able find things, and it always taking hours to clean up to have anyone over for dinner. I find that I enjoy my home and family in a different way. I love the feeling of my home being cleaned and organized.

Also on this journey I found the Flylady who talks about starting out small and setting up routines. She teaches how to become & STAY organized in your everyday life. These principals have helped me to keep my house clean & organized throughout the day, although I don’t follow every single principal of hers.

As I continued to blog I found Lara The Lazy Organizer. She started talking about how smart it is to set goals and form habits. She even started a weekly blog carnival called SMART Habit Saturday, where we choose a new goal or habit to work on each week and post about it on our blog. I started out doing this every week and then I took a break from blogging and stopped posting about my goals and habits. However, these habits have also helped me to have an organized home and have helped me improve other areas in my life. On this journey I am thankful for these ladies that share their experiences, knowledge, and encourage others to better themselves. The knowledge, the habits, and the goals that I formed have made a difference in my life and my home. Therefore, this week I was thinking about things I wanted to change in my life and about my family and thought it would be good to start participating in SMART Habit Saturdays again.




I struggle a lot to get Bethany, my 9 year old, to read books. I know she needs to be reading daily and it is always a battle with her. John and I have been talking about this and discussing ideas of how to get her to read. I was over at Lucy, An Ordinary Mom’s, site and read about her goal of reading to her children and God used that post to convict me to work on that goal with my children. Therefore, I decided that I would make that my goal this week. I am going to go to the Library and check out the Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie, book and I want to have a special time each night before bedtime and read as a family. My thinking is if we try to do this as a family time, Bethany may not fight it as much. Please pray for me I will need it. So this is my goal this week and I will report next week to as how it goes.

Please visit Lara here for more Smart Habit Saturday post.

Until Later,
~Betty~

In my Weekend Reflections I am going to share how my awesome weekend with my husband, celebrating our 12th year wedding anniversary, went from the highest point to the lowest and how we worked it out. Please come back and read my story.

15 comments:

An Ordinary Mom said...

Welcome back to SHS! We missed you. Just recently I was wondering where you had gone :) !!

Good luck reading with your daughter this week. I hope she learns to develop a passion for reading. It is such a wonderful thing.

Happy 12th wedding anniversary!

Michelle said...

Good luck this week with the reading. I bet you'll find you and your daughter both will love it! You can also check your library to see if they have a summer reading program to get prizes. Your daughter may really like that. Have a great week!

Montserrat said...

Little House books are a great place to start with this age group. Other books my girls have enjoyed are:
Caddie Woodlawn and Magical Melons by Carol Ryrie Brink (both based on stories about her grandmother)

The Moffats by Eleanor Estes

The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright

Little Britches by Ralph Moody

Good luck, and Happy Reading!

Oh, and books on tape to listen to in the car are another way to get her interested in books.

Cheri said...

Oh - I read almost the whole series to The Boy - he didn't get bored until the last book.

He just brought home a bunch of extra books from school (his teacher was cleaning out things) and one was Little Hous on the Prarie!

Laura said...

Hi Betty! I am so happy that you have been getting organized and making positive changes in your life. I love that I was able to help you with that!

I love your goal this week. One way I got my daughter so interested in reading is to always stay one step ahead of her with books that interest her. My daughter is a horse/pony fanatic and she loves all books to do with horses. One of her favorites is the Pony Pals series. I purchased the entire set over time through ebay and thrift stores. She reads them over and over.

Have a glorious week!
Laura

Lyndy said...

Oh boy do I need to get organized. I have boxes of "stuff" in the basement that need sorting through.

Great idea for the reading. I love reading and have since an early age.

Can't wait to hear your story.

Hugs, Lyndy

Andrea said...

those are great books to read. hope your week is great!

Robin said...

I don't know how you feel about bribery... at your daughter's age, my mother started paying my sister a penny a page to read. It worked wonders and turned her into quite a reader (and saver). FWIW.

Regardless... great habit and fun book choices.

Have a great week!

Anonymous said...

Robin,

Around here we call those incentives! Anyway, Little House is a great idea. I am reading the series to my daughter now. She is almost 6 and we are in the second book. All my children are enjoying the Trailblazer series. we are reading a few this summer. I had forgotten about Caddie Woodlawn. One great oy of being a mom is getting to re-read some of the great books we read as a child!

I have one son who does not enjoy reading as much as the others. He is 7 1/2 and I am trying to figure out what will help him unlock the joy of reading.

Good luck with your daughter!

Dedee said...

Good luck. You might just inspire me to start Smart Habiting again. Maybe...

Have a lovely day!

Lara said...

I think you'll notice a huge difference in your daughter. We're reading the Little House series too and my daughter especially loves it. I

I think it's important to read to kids even as they get older. My sister is reading to hers every day and they are from age 7-17! I read from a blogger that she reads to her husband every night and I thought that sounded cool too. I tried it with my husband but I couldn't get him to sit still long enough without falling asleep!

Ice Cream said...

I started reading the Little House series with my oldest daughter as a way to bond with her. After we would finish a book we could go on a special Mommy-Daughter date to IHOP. I think she read just for the IHOP.

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