2012 Home Goals

The Nester's asking about 2012 Home Goals today. To be honest, it's not a topic to which I've given much thought. I KNOW that we are moving in 7 weeks. I just have no idea where. As in, my husband doesn't have a job in seven weeks, and we are required to move from our current house because it is tied to his employment. He's searching for another job, and we have a back-up plan if one doesn't come through right away, but we're anticipating being in some temporary places this year.

That picture at the top. That's my living room 5 minutes ago. Perfect? No. Lived in by my family? Yes.

With that in mind, here are my home goals for this year.

1) Remember that the primary purpose in any living situation is for our family to learn, love, and grow together. Decorate and organize in a way that supports that purpose. For me, that means less clutter and things that are easy to put away.

2) Help my children learn so that they can take on more of the housework. Not only will this hopefully help them not to leave towels in the middle of the living room floor (!), it will also serve them well when they move onto homes of their own one day.

3) Open up our home to more people in friendship this year. We did far too little of that last year. It was sorely missed.

In short, my goal is to have a home--wherever that may be--that serves my family.

Don't just Pin it--Do it!

I admit it. I love good ideas. When I was younger it was magazines, now it's the internet. I love looking for fun things, but I don't always do them. That's a shame because what's the point of spending your time looking for fun things to do with your kids if you don't actually do them?!?

The other day, I pinned http://pinterest.com/pin/239676011388842921/. (I can't get the embed to work correctly at the moment. In the spirit of imperfectionism, I'm leaving it this way so that I can get this post DONE!)

It's a great idea. Yesterday, I was working on reading with my 5yo. He knows all of his letter sounds, but he's just having a frustrating time making that leap to reading. Instead of continuing on the lesson we were working on, I remembered that pin. I grabbed the back of a game that I'd previously made and a Sharpie. Within 5 minutes, we were working on sight words together. Better yet, he likes it so much that he and his brother played it during free time both yesterday and this morning.

Don't you love it when you just DO something?!? Done really is better than perfect.

Perfectly Pink Cookies

This morning, I had plans to make cookies. I asked my daughter if she wanted oatmeal or snickerdoodles. She replied that she wanted pink cookies. Now, my over-the-top brain started thinking about the fabulous cookies that I could make, but I knew that I didn't have time for anything too-involved. I was about to say "no" because it seemed a big project and a hassle, but I decided to take off the perfectionist hat and look at it another way. 

I decided just to make Snickerdoodles and color the dough pink. She was ecstatic!

Making "perfect" Pinterest-worthy cookies wasn't what my daughter wanted. She simply wanted pink cookies. My own expectations were turning it into a bigger project than it needed to be.

(Yes, her dress is on inside-out. She goes through multiple wardrobe changes a day, so I try to encourage her to do it as much as possible on her own.)

Expectations

Being in control of your life and having realistic expectations about your day-to-day challenges are the keys to stress management, which is perhaps the most important ingredient to living a happy, healthy and rewarding life.

--Marilu Henner