Day Three: An Ounce of Prevention

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." ~ Benjamin Franklin

I'm rather of fan of this statement so you're "extra" thing over and above the normal household stuff and your lists today is to go through your medicine cabinet and anywhere else you store your medications.

I want you to do this NOW for multiple reasons.

1. The cold and flu season is now upon us.
2. Midnight runs to whatever store happens to be open might be available in your area, but often those stores charge higher prices and/or may not have the medicine you need in stock.
3. Improperly stored medications have a shorter life.
4. Upcoming refills need to be identified before they are needed.

There's one thing I know as the wife of someone with multiple disabilities who is on a small pile of medications he has to take on a regular basis - NEVER run out of routine needed medications during the holiday season.

So, here's the "game plan".

Go through what you have.  If it's a prescription, figure out how long until you run out of that medication.  If you are going to require a new refill between now and Jan. 15, make a note on your calendar the payday or grocery shopping trip before it is due so you can call in the refill and pick it up while you're already there.

Also, note how many times you will need that prescription refilled between now and Jan. 15.  If you don't have enough refills remaining, let your doctor's office know NOW before they're inundated with kids with the sniffles and the latest strep throat outbreak.

Now onto the rest of the cabinet.  Check the dates of ALL your medications and make certain they are not expired.  Medications do have a shelf life and after a period of time they begin to lose their effectiveness.  That's why those dates are there.  The last time you want to run out of tylenol is when you have a splitting headache because Aunt Ilene just accidentally broke your great grandmother's china.  Check it now and make certain it's all good to go. Add anything expiring or about to expire to your grocery list.

While you're in there, go through a mental list of what your family needs in order to get through the cold/flu/crud season and then make certain you have all of it.  Check not just what you need for you, but for all of your children as well.  3 AM is not the time to find out that you're out of cough syrup with a hacking 6 year old crying because he can't sleep.  Add all of this to your list.

Now, while you're going through that area in your home, let's do a quick run through of the rest of the bathroom cabinets.  Do yours look anything like mine?  Half used bottles of everything under the sun? Gift baskets of "bath stuff" that you never got around to using?  UFOs deposited there by the children, husband, and possibly even you that don't belong there?  Let's take a few minutes and tackle this debacle before the latest round of scents you don't really like from Bath and Body Works show up at your door this Christmas season. 

Pull out everything that's half used, not been touched, hasn't been used in over 3 months, and put it on your counter.  Take a look at it.  Now we're going to categorize.  Yours, each of your children's, your husband's.  Next up?  Put on your lab coat and pretend you are a product tester.

Do yours first.  If you never liked the smell of it, there's a trash can right there, start filling it up.  If you don't like the texture, feel, etc toss it.  If it's changed colors since you put it in there, toss it (this means the "good for you ingredients" are no longer that good for you anyway).  If it's makeup from more than a year ago, toss it (as a general rule, most makeup needs to be replaced at least annually due to contamination and bacteria).

Now take a good look at what you have remaining.  Is there too much of one item for you to use it up within a reasonable period of time?  Start sorting and prioritizing it.

Once you're through it and know what you really want to keep, wipe down the shelves where things will go and then give everything a quick wipe down with a wet rag as you put it back where it belongs and then move onto the next person.

And proceed to follow those steps for each member of the family.  This is also a great time to get rid of that stinky strawberry shampoo you can't stand of your child's and any fragrances "gifted" by well meaning co-workers to your husband that you can't stand.  Once you've gotten first test, then they can check the rest and make decisions.  Mom gets the first veto vote. ;)

Now that there is an IMMENSE amount of room in your bathroom cabinets and your trash can is full, take a deep breath and give a sigh of thanksgiving.  Gather up any special makeup you will need to create "special effects" for All Soul's Day and All Saint's Day costuming (I can make a wicked weeping stigmata after my time as a special effects makeup artist!) and have that ready for Thursday and Friday.

And now, in new and exciting news, we now have a Facebook group to bless and encourage each other as we travel this journey.  If you want to join us, please hop on over to The Blessed Mother's Hangout!

(See the original post for The Era of Preparation)

Day Two - Waxing and Waning

We are in a season of our lives where our oldest (10) is pushing the boundaries of patience and our youngest (18 months) is in the "screeching" phase of life.

I spend a LOT of time praying my Rosary.

Now, let's talk Monday.  How did it go?  Did you accomplish all 10 tasks?  If not, that's okay - add them to today's do list.  We'll have a "catch up" later in the week for when those things happen.  Christ was kind enough to give us the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Penance for our mistakes here on earth - His solution works for us too. ;)  In the meantime I want to talk more about preparing hearts and how we can get ourselves the time we need down the road in Advent.

We all have periods where we wax and wane.  For those not familiar with these "old" terms they mean to grow and shrink respectively.  I'm not talking about the weight loss roller coaster - although I'm nearly 100% certain you know that version of waxing and waning as well as I *eye roll*. 

The holidays become a natural time for waxing, particularly when it comes to the "stuff" in our homes.  "Oh what a lovely...it's just so UNIQUE!" over and over and we can't bear to disappoint Great-Aunt Martha so we retain "whatever-that-was" and so on and so forth.

The holidays, for many of us, have also become a time of waning.  A time of waning patience, tolerance, and even sometimes, faith. We become frustrated with the crowds when shopping, irritated with sudden "must do" engagements that weren't on the schedule, and often the more upset and flustered we find ourselves, the further we have walked from the purpose of this season - to prepare for His coming.

While Wal-Mart tries to stretch the period of retail Christmas preparations well into September, the Church was far more intelligent about the average person's attention span of a holiday.  How many times have you gotten to Christmas lunch with an attitude of "Thank God this is almost over!" and collapse into bed that night in relief and exhaustion?

This year it's going to be different and that's going to start right now.  We are going to "flip the switch".  It's time to wax in our patience, tolerance, and faith and wane in the "stuff" department.  We're going to wax in love, joy, and hope while we wane in commercialism and greed.

Back to that day planner we looked at yesterday.  Spend a bit more time with it and look at the "required" things on your schedule already.  Which ones bring you joy?  Which ones are things that you are excited about getting to do?  Which ones make you want to go and hide in a corner?

I can't take away all the bad ones and tell you it's perfectly okay to skip your sister-in-law's annual Christmas Party and pretend I did the right thing.  I can tell you to take the ones that don't need to be there off your list.  I can tell you to find ways to really enjoy the ones that bring you happiness.

As for today, you have a few things you need to get done on the "getting caught up" list and also today I would like for you to take a quick inventory of your situation with towels, sheets, tablecloths, napkins, and any other linens you keep in your home.  Give them a good look - you already know what they look like.  Are they serviceable?  Do you wince when someone spends the night at your house and has to use a ratty towel?  How about those dishrags?  Have they seen better days?

I know the budget is tight this time of year but in all honesty, I'm a much bigger fan of getting gifts I can USE than those that will rot.  I believe the same thing for my family as well.  We're very well known for asking for someone to purchase towel sets for the kids than for someone to purchase toys.  Toys they have. Towels I need.  This year, both our children are getting new "more grown up" bed sets for their bedrooms.  I'm making a quilt for each of them to go along with new sheets, blankets, and pillowcases.  Maybe even curtains.  No, it's not a shiny new iPad but unlike that iPad, it will still be serviceable in 5 years. ;)

Start rethinking what you're going to ask for and what you need.  Start rethinking your budget and  how to manage it for the holidays - and while you're thinking, tackle those "to do" items and get them out of the way so we can start getting to the more fun stuff. :)

(See the original post for The Era of Preparation or go to Day 3.)

June Planners! And a few thoughts on the side...

I've spent much of my time recently in contemplation.  Thinking about my life, my friends, and grace.  Thinking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and where to find them in my world.

I have come to the conclusion that you have to grow where you are planted.  You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Over and over in my mind I keep hearing this:

What house are you building?  Are you planning your curriculum for next year?  Are you working on a better life for your family?  Are you losing weight or gaining strength?  Are you spending your days finding solutions for your future?

Did you include God in your plans?


And now for the planners for June:

5 Day Girls
5 Day Boys
7 Day Girls
7 Day Boys

May Planners!

It has come to our attention that our family's favorite planner is sadly by a sedevancist family.  While we would love to continue supporting them, we didn't feel comfortable continuing to use their products.  We will, however, be praying for them to return home to Rome.

In the meantime, this left quite a void in our family.  We LOVED the layout they used as well as the thought put into it and are seeking to create something similar, but for a family using the current Church's calendar.  We hope to have a Mom's planner in the works in the next week or so, but we would REALLY like your feedback on the Boy's and Girl's Planners we created today.

Our entire family worked on this project together and is very excited about it.  We tested both printed in color and grayscale and they worked well on our printer.  Unlike the original planner, we omitted the pictures since our son has sensory processing disorder and said he found them distracting.  This gave us a bit more space for quotes from Saints in a larger, easier to read font as well as room to write comfortably with his dysgraphia.

This is JUST the rough draft and I hope to be able to keep these free to all of you and available for your use.  I really enjoyed researching the Saints and having fun with the project.

For the families out there, including the Dads, the Saints listed on the calendar are directly from the list at American Catholic.  By clicking on that link you can subscribe to their Saint a Day emails and have pertinent information to share with your child and discuss over dinner as a family!  We hope you enjoy these planners and are blessed by them and we greatly appreciate your feedback as you make try them out so we can make them better for everyone!

Boys Planner - PDF
Girls Planner - PDF