The Simple Life at Home

One of my homeschool heroines, Charlotte Mason, once said, "Habit is ten natures." She believed, as I am starting to understand, that once you have a habit ingrained in your life that habit is stronger than your own natural tendencies. Unfortunately, my natural tendencies are rather, um, slothful, you might say. I'd much rather read a book than mop the floors. So in an effort to develop the habits necessary to making my home a true respite for my family, I have taken a cue from the FlyLady and set up for myself some basic routines to serve as checkpoints along my day.

Today I'd like to share with you the ideas I have for my daily routines, just basic tasks to have accomplished by a given time throughout the day.


Lori's Morning Routine (Done by 9 am)
· Run washing machine
· Make beds
· Get kids' breakfast & chores started
· Take vitamins/have breakfast
· Check the day's calendar
· Dress to shoes
· Morning walk with kids

Lori's Mid-Morning Routine (Done by 12 pm)
· Dinner? (Defrost meat, make salad or other side dish)
· Reboot laundry
· Kitchen Patrol
· Hotspots
· Focus Cleaning tasks (more on this tomorrow)

Lori’s Evening Routine (Done by 8 pm)
· Clear away dinner dishes
· Load and run dishwasher
· Kitchen clean-up
· General straightening up
· Quick sweep of kitchen floor
· Prepare clothes for tomorrow for myself and hubby
· Load washing machine
· Check tomorrow's calendar

Tomorrow, I'll share with you the day-to-day cleaning routine. And taking a tip from Lizzie I've come up with an 8-week menu plan and created shopping lists for each week that should save me untold hours of menu planning. I'll share that with you on Wednesday.