Quieting Your Schedule

You've heard more than you probably ever wanted to hear about Slow Day at our house - but even if you don't have a regular day like that, try taking at least one now! A day with nothing scheduled, a day to just be or catch up on something at home at a more relaxed pace. What would help you in quieting your schedule?

When we hit a busy season like this, I love to take a whole week and clear the calendar - it can be hard to do and I get that. There is beauty in scheduling nothing for a week when you are overwhelmed and have time to do things like read a book, make a pot of soup, try a new dessert recipe, take a nap!

I love to fix a hot breakfast so that is always a treat on a slower day - to take the time to enjoy the blessing of sharing a meal together and the creativity of preparing and serving. If you need a new idea - Pumpkin French Toast for the win. My kids LOVED it!

Rabbit trail here: I love to buy marked down loaves of French Bread. I have had pretty good success finding them on Saturdays at Wal-Mart in the back by the dairy section, they are about 0.60/loaf. I will buy all they have usually and slice/freeze it in Ziplocs.

We usually clean our house on Wednesdays also - which is our Slow Day! I make it part of school but not in place of it. Sometimes I will put all the jobs in a jar and we'll draw out a few each and just complete them that way and this week we had a little meeting in the living room and I told what needed to be done and had my kids volunteer for which things they wanted to be in charge of. They each had a small white board and wrote their jobs on that. Mixing it up seems to be the success, but they also each have things they like to do and things they'd rather not do - just like me! Last week we were preparing to have a missionary couple stay for us so we had more to do than usual.

This goes along with quieting your home, but once the clutter is tamed, cleaning can bring another layer of quieting. We are big fans of the Fly Lady and her Home Blessing Hour concept so that is our typical cleaning plan and the one I've had the most success with for the longest amount of time. 

How would quieting your schedule and staying home help you? Pick a day and make it happen!!! If you need a reminder about what Slow Day is - read this.