Home Management | Heart of the Matter

Homeschool Is Messy

My husband leaves for work early in the morning, but the rest of us are here all day, every day. Before breakfast, toys are dragged into the living room. I sling bowls onto the table and notice the library basket being...

Teaching Children to Cook (Part I)

Every child loves to help cook and bake. The magic of mixing ingredients together to produce yummy cookies and getting to spend time with mom or dad in the process of it all creates some fun experiences. It can also become...

School Organization for Everyday

One thing that everyone tries to accomplish at the beginning of each school year is to make a system that will work for keeping things organized. We all dream of mornings that are non-chaotic with never a spinny, spin, spin for...

The Dinner Table & the Family Meal

Fixing an excellent meal takes lots of planning and work. There is no getting around it. Anything that takes hard work to accomplish is usually worth the effort. However, the rewards and benefits outweigh the cost of time and...

Become an Action Lister

I was talking to a new homeschooling mom a couple of weeks ago who was in the frantic…”It’s time to get busy”…stage. You know when you have to pull it all together, but have never done it before, and ALL of the...

Get Control of the Calendar

Start 2010 with a new organizational habit Are you ready to flip the calendar? Ready or not, 2010 is upon us. While I am not a proponent of ringing in the New Year with resolutions, I do suggest trying your hand at a new strategy...

When You Are Frazzled…Seek Help From Your Children

Imagine this scenario. The house is a mess, you burned dinner, you have a mountain of laundry that needs to be done, guests are coming over for Christmas dinner, and your nerves are shot. What in the world are you going to do?...

Decorating Your Home: An Optical Illusion

Back in the days when we only had two children, my little family found itself traveling a bit—a homeschool convention here, seeing family there. We stayed in hotel rooms just enough for the two children we had to remark on how...

The Curse of Organization

How many times have you heard, or said, “A place for everything and everything in its place”? You know as well as I that this is a helpful adage. And getting it ingrained in your kids can certainly facilitate an easier...

Doe the Nexte Thynge

What should I do next? That question has often left me in a tizzy trying to figure out which item on my very important list of things to do right now ought to be the next thing to receive my attention. Yes, I’ve read the books...