10 ways we got ready for the first day of school this weekend

Posted on by

0

I really should plan ahead more for the first day of school, but I let it get to the weekend before school starts before I’m willing to get myself in gear.  Every year!  Never fails!  So, on Friday, I finally decided that we needed to put a plan in action!

Every year, I feel the need to get life as much in order before school starts as possible!  Now, I’ve never actually achieved the feeling of complete order, but I try.  When Caleb started Kindergarten, the twins were 6 months old.  So that year, my standards were very low!  He had clothes, a lunch, a few pictures were taken, and he was on time which equaled a success for me!  But every year, I up my game plan of getting this place in order!

Here’s what we accomplished this weekend:

  1. On Friday night, the kids cleaned their rooms.  Already, I felt better!  We were getting somewhere!
  2. Also on Friday night, I did a ton of laundry.  The pile of clothes that seems to constantly live on my bedroom floor was gone, clothes were all put up and I was pretty proud of myself!
  3. At some point on Friday, I started reading my book club book that had to be finished for my book club meeting on Monday night.  And let me tell you!  Book club is some serious business!  We are hardcore!  We expect each other to finish the book in time for the meeting, and if you don’t you will be given a hard time!  But then also given grace and peace! 🙂  But still, you finish the book!!  So, I read a whole book in 2 days – Friday and Saturday!  BOOM!  Take that, book!
  4. On Saturday afternoon, I took Caleb school shopping.  Yet another thing I should think about and do weeks ahead of time and never do!  But we had a successful trip, and he has clothes to wear for yet another year!  And he was a happy shopping buddy!
  5. Today we spent a TON of time organizing Caleb’s room.  His room had gotten completely out of hand and was needing quite a bit of special quality time to get it all back to where we could at least see the floor!  It was horrible!!!  So, Chris worked with him for a while on it while I did more laundry.  Then later, I joined in on the fun.  It’s in decent shape now.  We just have bags of clothes that we need to throw up in the attic.
  6. And as mentioned in #5, I did more laundry today.  Not just some…a bunch!  Where does this stuff come from?!! 🙂
  7. I decided this afternoon that Sadie and Luke needed a few clothes items, so I headed out to get some stuff at Carters.  I love Carters!  But I’m sad that my kids are finally to the point where they are aging out of the sizes of clothes there.  I’m going to have to find a new favorite place to get stuff for them.  I feel like I got them pretty settled on a few outfits for school, etc., and then I headed to…
  8. Wash the van!  I’m pretty sure we hadn’t cleaned out the van all summer.  It was nasty!  Trash and dirt everywhere!  This week is my turn for carpool, and I was not going to let someone else’s kid in my car in the condition it was in!  Talk about embarrassing!  I take it to a place where you go through the car wash, and then you have to (get to?) vacuum your car out yourself.  I seem to always park my van full of trash next to a fancy car where the guy is lovingly wiping, cleaning and oiling every inch of the car!  I think to myself, really?!  You have time for that?!!  I’m doing good to get the dirt and Cheerios out of the seats as quick as I can when I go.
  9. Chris said he wanted to go to the grocery store, and I remembered that I had a link of cool lunch stuff that I wanted to talk to Caleb about to see if he would go for changing up lunches this year to include different stuff and more healthy options.  So, I sat the boy down to have the lunch talk.  One look at the website, and he was like, NOPE!  He just wants Lunchables and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again this year.  I asked if we could at least throw some grapes in there, and was told no again.  The kid just wants junk.  What am I going to do with him?!
  10. And last on the list for tonight was to eat leftovers!  Time to clean out the frig!  Caleb pulled out leftover pizza, the twins wanted soup, I was about to pull out food for me when my mom called asking if Chris and I wanted to go on a date.  So I quickly put my food back in the frig!

Of course, there were things on my list that didn’t get done.  I tend to make unreasonable to-do lists.  But I feel better about the start of this school year than I have any others so far, and that’s a pretty good feeling.

The two bonus items of the night were going on a quick impromptu dinner date (thanks mom and dad!) and praying with the kids before bed.  I’ll be honest, I don’t do this enough!  When it’s the kids’ bed time, I’m normally ready to do whatever it takes to get them in bed and settled as quick as possible!  But it’s the beginning of the school year!  Time to start and renew things around here.  To get a little more organized and have a little more routine and structure up in here!  Time to dream about what lies ahead for the Carroll family over the next year!

And I’m excited!

What all did your family do to get ready for school?

New is hard

Posted on by

0

Wouldn’t it be nice if new things came easy? I like the idea of trying new things. New is exciting!

But more often than not, new things are hard. And even kind of scary! It’s sometimes hard to decide to change and do something new. For some people, change is about the last thing they want. Change is not something I typically get excited about. Well maybe eventually after I have my chance to worry.

Our family has had a number of new experiences lately that have reminded me how hard but also exciting new things can be.

We got a new kitchen table. I had to clean the old table like crazy to get it ready to sell. Hard work! Especially since it’s had 8 years of little kids eating at it! Then it was a little sad to get rid of the only table our family has ever known. But also very fun to get a new one!

Chris started a new job in January and also started his masters degree. It’s a ton of work for him, and it was scary making the jump to completely change careers, but it’s a good change for him and our family. Especially as we look to the future.

I went for my first run last night in my plan to get back in shape. It was no fun at all, but it will be worth it a few weeks from now. At least I hope so. I don’t look forward to what it’s going to take to feel better, but I know it needs to be done.

Just a few examples.

New things and change can be hard, but they’re also worth it.

Change is healthy. A lack of change is not.

I read a quote a few weeks ago that went something like: “If your organization is not constantly changing, you have a problem”.

And that goes for our individual lives too.  Change is constant.  Change can sometimes be a not-so-good thing, but the vast majority of the time, it is a good thing.  It stretches us.  Helps us learn.  Helps us rely on God. Can help to get us outside of ourselves.

My friend Lindsay and I discussed this morning that we might as well embrace change.

What if when we felt the fear creeping up inside of us over new things, we leaned into it?  Pushed past the fear and met the new experience head on.

Change will always be difficult.  Be we can choose how difficult we will allow it to be.

 

What is new in your world?  

Food Truck Gospel: 3 ways the church should work to operate more like food trucks

Posted on by

2

Embed from Getty Images

One of the keynote speakers at my conference last week, Reverend Susan Sparks, had a great point that I can’t help but share with you!  It really spoke to the room full of church administrators and was pretty convicting.  So here it is:

Churches should learn to operate more like food trucks.

People love food trucks!  They are all the rage these days!  We flock to them!  We get excited when we see them!  We tell our friends about them!  We want more from them!

Susan gave us two ways that the church should be like food trucks, and I’m going to throw one more at the end of my own.

  1. “Churches should go to their customers.”  Food trucks go to their customers.  They are mobile.  They go where the people are!  They meet them where they are!  Woah!  What if we viewed church as a place/people who physically and spiritually went where the people are already?  That met them there. Engaged with them there.  Not forcing them to always come to us, in our buildings, on our terms.
  2. “Churches should share the bread of God in a relevant and intimate way. ” Food trucks have found a way to be relevant to our culture. We love them! And churches should constantly be looking for ways to be relevant to our culture in our current time.  Old ways can be good and meaningful, but often times, things need to change to be relevant, up-to-date and in line with the ways that people currently living, interacting, learning, etc.
  3. Churches should work to be relevant and meaningful to all types of people.  All ages.  All walks of life.  I realize there are different types of food trucks, but they attract a wide variety of people.  Look at a food truck line, and you will probably not see a group of people who look all alike.  (Age, gender, race, etc.) Too often churches look alike.  If you’re different, you don’t really fit in.  This doesn’t happen everywhere, but the church should work to be inclusive of everyone and do what it takes to reach people of all walks of life.

So, how do you feel about this food truck analogy?  What are other ways that churches should work toward being more like food trucks?