Organizing My Time

First, the photo has nothing to do with my organizing. It's just one of the many photos I took on our vacation the beginning of the month and we've had it as our desktop wallpaper for a few days. I find the picture so peaceful and I love the colorful flowers against the brown background of the house. And yes, it's another photo of The House of Seven Gables :) I think I've included other pictures from there on this blog, as well as on my new blog, Authors' Ridge.

Back to organizing...

I'm trying to get used to our new schedule and decide what day is best to do shopping, which day to do laundry, which day to do baking and a little extra cooking. Then I also have to add in some other errands, working on my lesson plans and grading papers, and then the two days I'm teaching. It's really not all that involved and I don't have that much to do. I just need to come up with a schedule so I'm using my time a little better. The more I use my time wisely, the more free time I have to work on my stitching and sewing projects, and the more time I have to make Christmas gifts... all the fun things I love to do!

The reason this is on my mind? I planned to spend today at home in my old favorite shorts and T-shirt (I won't even describe this but I've told my friend Vicky about it in the past and it made her giggle, lol). I was going to spend the day doing laundry, grading some papers, and then spending the rest of the day stitching. Unfortunately, last evening a few things were added to the shopping list and they had to be bought today :( I didn't realize I had planned so badly last week... or maybe we just used things a lot faster than normal. In any event, I ended up having to go to the grocery store. Since I was there I decided I might as well do some stocking up for the next few weeks, so I think that's taken care of for now. (And I'm so blessed to have a wonderful daughter who enjoys putting the groceries away once they're home!!)

I decided that since I *had* to go out to the store to buy groceries, that I might as well drive a little farther... you know, since I had to be out anyway... and make a stop at my favorite needlework store. The owner and the other lady who was working there today were in a particulary good mood. They were just finishing up with two customers who bought a lot of items. They asked if I needed any help and I said I was just browsing. It ended up to be quite funny, because they were working on their order for the week. Between my choices and those of the last two customers, we cleared them out of a few items. While the owner was writing up my purchases, she was calling out the various things I bought (where I noticed things were low), and she had her sales associate running around checking items and adding them to the order :) We were all laughing as this took place.

The great thing with a small business like that shop is that the customer service is so personal and they keep up with things. Those items that were low ~ or emptied ~ were re-ordered today, and they'll have them in the store the end of the week or early next week. I always hate visiting some large chain stores where I see the same empty hook or rack week after week. (I know this isn't always their fault since I worked in a fabric store part-time for a few years. We'd be so careful about placing our orders each week, but sometimes the large suppliers just didn't send everything along. It was always frustrating as an employee as I know it was for the customers. Sometimes things were even deleted from our order by the district office. Argh!)

Anyway, during my visit today I found a perfect gift for a friend with a September birthday. I was planning on making her gift, but I've run out of time with my other projects. She enjoys needlework and I found a sweet fall project for her. It's got some autumn leaves around the border, and in the center there's a cute jack-o-lantern charm. The pattern uses cross stitch and some straight stitching for the leaves, and I think she'll like it. I bought a piece of linen to go with it and three skeins of floss for the leaves and vines that were called for (it comes with the charm and some specialty overdyed thread). It feels good to have the gift crossed off my list :)

Back to organizing my time...

I think I'm going to use Tuesdays as my day at home, working on grading papers, lesson plans for Wednesday's class, and catching up on laundry. It's also a good time to do a little freezer cooking if I'm in the mood... or, I can spend lots of time relaxing, reading, and working on projects.

Mondays and Wednesdays are our days to teach. While my daughter is teaching her second class, I've been using that time to catch up on my correspondence, which is very overdue! It's a good time for me to relax and focus on my letters, and I think this will work out well.

Thursdays I'll do any necessary errands and/or shopping, and catching up with laundry again. And Fridays can be another stay-at-home day to use as I see fit. There are always the usual homekeeping tasks to add into these days, but those are flexible.

Now that I think I have a schedule made up, I'm looking forward to getting to work on my Christmas projects. I'll try to include pictures when I can and let you know how things are progressing (especially since many involve stitching or quilting, and I have so many stitching and quilting friends who stop by here to visit).

I hope you're all having a wonderful week and I wish you lots of time to work on your favorite things :)