Saving my sanity

There are 2 things that are currently helping greatly in the daily struggle to maintain a few shreds of sanity, and even help me to get slightly organised (shock, horror!).

Motivated Moms is a printable jobs list for around the house. My bloggy friend Nikki at Nikki's Notes mentioned it to me a few months ago, and it has since become my lifeline. It is a series of weekly check-lists, that help to get daily, weekly and occasional chores, all scheduled in.

I feel like it is a safety net, for jobs that I know I should do, but never really get around to scheduling. I never think to clean out my car. But about once every 6 weeks or so, my Motivated Moms list tells me to do it, so I do -- and I get to tick it off the list! My car has never been cleaner!

I never thought that having a check list would give me such a feeling of satisfaction, to have something to look at and feel like I HAVE achieved something that day.

Oh, and I bought the version that has a schedule of daily Bible readings as well - I have always wanted to be more organised about reading my bible. Now I have a set reading each day, which will get me through the Bible in a year. And, you guessed it - each day I get to tick it off the list!

For the princely sum of US$4.00, this has been the best investment I have made in a long time.

The second thing that is helping me out is my Hands On Homeschooling folder, for 2 year olds. I am sure I have mentioned Terri at Hands On Homeschooling before. She has fanastic 'curriculum' folders for ages 2, 3, 4 and 5. The folder is packed full of fun learning activities - 3 activities per day, 5 days a week, for a whole year, in fact!

I don't pretend that Naomi isn't in a tough stage -- she is such a busy-minded child, but socially and emotionally very dependent - not good at entertaining herself for any length of time.

This morning she was really acting up. Naomi just wanted to watch a dvd - again. I needed to get some things done. We were at an impasse - until I remembered Hands On Homeschooling. The activity for today was to cut out and colour in a star shape, in any yellow colour. Naomi loved doing that. Then she asked what else we could do with it. So we used it as a template, to colour around for other stars. Next, she asked what else was in the sky with the stars - so we talked about (and drew) moons, the sun, clouds - even birds, planes and kites! Before I knew it, we had passed a very pleasant hour of time, with not one whinge, or request for the tv to be turned on.

And this afternoon we are going to tie a string on our star and hang it up in her drawing corner, to show Daddy when he gets home from work.

I can't recommend these 2 products highly enough. They are certainly saving my sanity -- which is a very impressive feat!

Do you have anything that you feel is a great aid, whether in organisation, child teaching / entertaining or any other area?