Routines, When You Can't Sing...Yodel

I had planned today on writing about how sometimes plans go awry as they've been for me lately. And that one way to make your home sing is to roll with the punches and if you can't sing, yodel.

MomsTheWord actually had the same idea this week, so I'm going to change my topic and instead I'll talk about how to survive that upheaval by the doing the opposite of the chaos...having routines.

I have a morning and a night routine. In between I put the daily activities that I would like to do each day, my "to-do" list, but my morning routine and my night routine are the same every day and they help me to keep on track no matter what is going on.

When you make a routine, you go on auto-pilot, which is the beauty of making a routine. It becomes a habit. This past week I had to change my routines a little bit, to accommodate my son's injury. My auto pilot needed On-star, let me tell you! But even when the routines are new, they still become habits. It just takes a few times doing them the same way to get there.

My morning routine looks like this:

Get J (my husband) off to work (lunch and stuff)
kids awake to get ready for school
washer started
Get myself ready
Help Dillon get dressed and ready
breakfast and meds
bible study/morning prayer (I do this while everyone is eating/getting ready)
laundry to dryer
drop-off at school
blog linkups as needed
email and reader
prep for dinner (as needed)
clean kitchen from breakfast

I know it's a little long, but it's the morning routine that I have and it's on auto-pilot...well, mostly. I'm just adding the taking the kids to school because I can't make Dillon ride the bus on crutches...I just can't do it. Also, I didn't have to help my 15 yr old get ready before last week, but it's a little hard to get yourself ready when you can barely move. So I took the new circumstances of our family, and I adjusted the routine accordingly. As the routine is already in place, those few little adjustments were easy to accommodate.

The night routine is a lot shorter:

Clean kitchen
To-Do board (I like to mark my to-do's off on a white board in my kitchen...so I write the next days on each night and then mark them off all day long as I do them)
shower & PJ's for me and Abby
Help Dillon get clothes for morning (he can't go upstairs where his room is, so I bring out choices for him to wear tomorrow)yes, he's on the couch until after the surgery and healing...probably most of the summer :(
Help Dillon with his shower
quick pickup
night meds
post blogs

I've obviously added three items to the list due to the accident, but having this little routine certainly helps me to get everything done each night.

If I did nothing else but the morning routine and the night routine, things would hold together in our home. That's basically what happened last week as I was getting used to the constant care Dillon was taking and all the phone calls and doctor visits that we made. The morning routine and the night routine kept the household going until I could get back on track (hopefully this week!)

If you don't have a set of routines that guide you, I would definitely recommend them. After they've been done for several weeks each task becomes automatic. As your life and circumstances change, you just rearrange or add and subtract items as needed.

This is how I make my home yodel when things are chaotic. And this is the baseline to make my home sing when things are going a little bit smoother. How do you make YOUR home sing?

For more Home Sing Monday's, check out Moms The Word