Little Town Mayor: Order in the House!

Steps so far to bringing order to "my house"

1. Working on my home organization steadily, I continue to find balance for a new life. Somewhat following this blog, I plod on daily. The difference, I believe, is that I have occupied this structure probably as long as this competent blogger has lived. She has great ideas, so I have adapted her ideas to my home. The big difference? I have taken fourteen months compared to the fourteen week challenge. I enjoy a process!

2. My friend Sammy introduced me to Fitbit Flex, a wireless activity and sleep band. The Flex tracks my activity and sleep, as well as syncs my stats wirelessly (number of steps toward a daily goal of 10,000, calorie intake from my food log, calories burned, and sleep patterns). I like that the Flex provides real-time progress with graphs and charts, while allowing feedback from fitness partners. My biggest challenge has been to put it back on when I have my hands in water (Flex is waterproof, but I do not want to test it). Thanks, Sammy! I needed to be accountable to someone concerning a creative way to get back to healthy lifestyle habits.

"I will reward myself with new colors when I reach certain goals."

3. Want to revisit my family cooking project? After about two weeks, I needed to cook again. I shopped on senior day at Publix (Wednesday), got the crock pots going for overnight (being thrifty by considering Peak Hour Energy times), and then spent about four hours on Thursday morning preparing and cooking our meals to divide.

[Recipe links are at the end of this post.]

I had spent the weeks since last cooking by putting together a method for my visually learning brain to plan menus. I created a personalized magnetic "Pinterest" board of my recipes. My daughters had a chance to choose what they liked, and I created a "balanced" plan for the month. (I guess that I missed creating my back-to-school teaching tools. Yes, I do have my own crafting laminating machine. Is that too strange?)