organize | Simply Faithful

It’s not that I have an overly complicated life. Its just that I need a new perspective — and I want you to help. I’ve been thinking about rearranging my schedule, but I keep coming back to what I’ve used in the past.

So, here’s the deal. I’d like to tell you the main things on my schedule and have you tell me how you’d arrange things. Are you in?

Here are the basics:

I work from 8:30 to 5 and my commute is roughly 30 minutes each way.
The boys are in bed around 9 p.m.
I do freelance work and blogging on the side. I’d love to dedicate eight to 10 hours to that each week.
Getting up before 6 a.m. is difficult, but I could try to do it if that turns out to be the best way to rearrange things.
I like to watch “Castle” with my hubby. That comes on at 10 p.m. Mondays.

What I’d like to work into the schedule:

I’d like to stop piling up housework for the weekend so I can have more time to relax and enjoy my family.
I used to do freelance work in the mornings but I think my oldest son would enjoy it if I had breakfast with him and visited.
I’d like to make one-on-one time for the boys, but it needs to be scheduled so we don’t ignore it if we get busy.
The boys like it when I plan special adventures and fun food. That means time on Pinterest and other blogs to get ideas, though.
I’d love to improve my family’s social life. Maybe we could have people over more often?
I thought it might be fun to have a family devotional after dinner or schedule time to send cards and make gifts for folks.
I also like to craft, but it seems I’m always too busy.

How do I fit those things in — should it be before work? After the boys go to sleep?

What works for you? What things do you make time for?

It’s true that pride comes before a fall because I was pretty smug about having my entire family take showers on Saturday night and pick out their church clothes for the next morning. This was going to be the week, the week that we got to church on time.

Usually my goal is arriving before the nice, organized family with 10 kids, but I’d been dreaming of going beyond that, of actually being seated before the songs started. So, I was taking action, that is until our 2-year-old yelled, “No pants! No pants!”

“You absolutely have to wear pants to church,” I explained as I wrestled to slip the right leg on before he kicked off the left. Then, our 10-year-old walked into the room wearing a striped polo that was on backward and baggy camouflage pants that I’m pretty sure he had played in for two days.

“Is this OK?” he asked. I suggested different pants, perhaps solid-colored ones, but I did not say a word about the fact that his shirt was facing the wrong direction. And when he came back wearing slacks with one leg tucked into a white tube sock, I still said nothing. Time was slipping away from me – and so was his bare-bottomed little brother.

Somehow my husband and I dressed, let the fluffy dog out and got the boys in the car, only to discover we didn’t have diapers with us and that we hadn’t fed our family. Fifteen minutes and one fast-food stop later, we arrived at church. Late.

Our oldest son, who had switched his shirt around by this time, headed to children’s church, but the youngest screamed when we got within five feet of the nursery. The three of us settled into a pew near the back just in time for a prayer and just in time for the little guy to say, “Mommy poopa pants.” Loudly. More than once. I was never so glad to hear an amen.

Maybe it was grace, but the rest of the service went smoothly, and we laughed all the way to the car. “Jesus cool,” we heard from the toddler in the car seat.

Success, after all.

P.S. I actually wrote this article a couple of years ago. Since then, we’ve added one more son and I don’t remember ever making it to church on time.

Boss me around: Organize my life

The trials and tribulations of getting to church on time

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