Prepping For The Week-end

I love facebook.  Most of the time.  Did you ever notice on Fridays, how many post "TGIF" or some status about how glad they are that it is the week-end?


That is not me.


Don't get me wrong, I love the week-end!  But where so many of my friends view the week-end as a rest from their work week, I view it as the most chaotic, busy, messy, three days of my week.  Yes, three days.  Because my husband works 3rd shift Friday night, his week-end is more of a Saturday night through Monday.  But I have teenagers who, along with their friends, observe the more traditional Friday through Sunday week-end.  And I'm so thankful that I am able to stay home and accommodate that mix of schedules. Don't get me wrong, I am very, very thankful. I'm often also a bit tired.  :-)

This week-end adds in the time change, which is just... oh lets face it, it is miserable.  We lose an hour on Sunday?  But I am WAY overbooked for Sunday, I need an extra hour, not one less!


So how can I eliminate the stress and enjoy the week-end?  I plan.  I prepare.  I treat our week-ends like we are going away on a vacation.  I plan meals, I plan outfits, I clean & pack the car, I make snacks, I go over the budget I post itineraries...  today (Friday) is all about getting ready for the trip - and our week-ends sure can be a trip!  

This is what my list looks like (except in Evernote it is a checklist..  not sure where my check boxes went when I copied it here)

Planning For The Week-end

Things that need done EVERY Friday - 

quick clean the house top to bottom

work ahead in F, A, T

work ahead in BSF hmwrk

read ahead in b90days

check kids school work, make sure they are completely on track and caught up for the week

go over the week-ends schedule

go over the week-ends menu

go over the week-end budget

make sure camera battery is charged

check the weather forecast for the week-end - how does it change/effect our plans?

On the Go This Week-end:

Men's Breakfast

Latte Ladies 

Work Day at the church

Prom dress shopping

SS, Church, Youth Group

Coffee Connection (our turn)

Youth Group Snack (our turn)

Nursery duty (yep, all 3 things just happened to fall on the same Sunday this time around!)

GAB mtg

J.s family over to feed calves

Choir practice

PSSA's (remember, my week-end encompasses Monday)

Biking Bike Path

For Men's Breakfast:

Remind Dan to invite B.

Are boys staying for work day (does M. have a ride home?)

Budget:

For Latte Ladies:

What time is S. meeting me here?

Put together my recipes & print copies

pick up flowers to thank P?

Have M. look at menu online before we go, for faster ordering

Budget:

Prom Dress Shopping:

Are we taking 2 cars?  Where all are we going?

google options

Budget:

SS, Church, YG:

Do I know my memory verse (our SS teacher has been challenging us - very cool)

Pick out my outfit, make sure it is ironed, hung all together

Check the kids outfits

For Coffee Connection:

I know I can count on cookies from Mrs. F.

make mint meltaways

make lemon cookies

make mini pb eggs

buy danish

make labels

GAB Mtg-

add brochure to my bag for church

mark areas with questions

get sand cup recipe from T.

Youth Group Snack:

ask kids - what to make? 

Family Over to Feed Calves

confirm time, tour dairy barn during milking?

footwear

Choir:

check website, what are we singing this week?

listen to cd with Meg, practice!

PSSA's - 

What to take?  Calculator?  Snacks?  Water bottle?

check weather - bike path during test?

check historical society hours

check local find a grave requests, print

gym? Discuss w/ Dan

Planning the Week-end Menu

Then based on this, I adjust our menu for the week-end.  Fridays are traditionally pizza night here.  Often I will make calzones or Stromboli instead of pizza - but something "in the pizza family".  Sundays are traditional Sunday dinners.  Ham.  Turkey.  Roast.  Pork chops and stuffing.  With a lasagna in the rotation...   Sides are instant (I know, I know, but it is Sunday, week-ends are super busy, and Idaho makes a good instant potato) mashed potatoes, a vegetable, a salad, and applesauce or fruit salad.  When we have lasagna, we skip the mashed potatoes.  :-)  

Sunday after church we always have hotdogs & popcorn and sometimes ice cream.  The traditions - Friday night pizza, Sunday dinner, Sunday night hot dogs - keep my menu planning simple.

The next step in menu planning for the week-end is to see who will actually be here.  In addition to the schedule above, I now need to look at the kids work schedules, and remember that our oldest has sound team this month.  (That means he has to be at church an hour early - his brothers like to go along with him, and they go to Dunkin Donuts on the way to church, no need for me to make them breakfast)  I always make enough food on Sundays for an army, so we can invite extras at a moments notice..  but I know that this week our regular Sunday teenage guest is grounded and probably won't be here. 

Friday Night:

Calzones, Salad, applesauce

Saturday: 

Breakfast - No cooking - Boys at Men's breakfast, girls at Not Just a Bean for latte ladies

Lunch - No cooking - no one home/full from a big breakfast

Supper - early, the boys will be "starving".  Steaks on the grill, baked potatoes, salad

Sunday - 

Breakfast - No cooking - leave a little early and stop by DD ourselves (love their egg white & veggie on flatbread!)

Lunch - Pork chops and stuffing (layered in the crockpot)

Supper  - hot dogs in sauerkraut (put them in the crockpot before we leave for youth group) popcorn

Monday - 

Breakfast - smoothies, sausage, eggs,

Lunch - grilled chicken, salad, potato salad

Dinner - leftovers

Now that I see the menu - back to the to do list to add the following:

Have boys sweep deck, get patio cushions from garage (maybe eat out side this week-end?)

Check with D., do we have enough gas for the grill?

make potato salad on Friday while baking

marinate the meats for the grill on Friday while baking

get sauerkraut out to thaw for Sunday night

make up a large bowl of salad

make stuffing ahead (use up the rolls the kids left the bag open on so they got stale...) for Sunday

It all sounds a bit nuts, doesn't it?  My week-end certainly will not look like the photo above.  BUT, if I get all of that list done today, it will be a great week-end.  I get to go out to my favorite coffee shop with a group of women that I love, and after I sit and talk with them over coffee and the best bagels around, THEN I get to go with my best friend, her daughter and my daughter, prom dress shopping (father daughter banquet dress shopping for my daughter - but she'll be wearing a "prom style" dress).  After that steaks on the grill, hopefully supper on the deck, here at home with my husband and kids.  We might even saddle up the horses and watch the sunset from horseback?

Then Sunday we get to attend  a church that we not only love, but that is truly a family for us.  I love our turns at the coffee connection - because I get to talk to everyone as they come through for coffee and cookies.  The GAB mtg will be quick, and I'm really excited about the ladies conference we are planning!  Then a normal rowdy Sunday dinner where I hear all about what my kids are up to, usually followed by a hand or two of Phase 10, or Skipbo.  After that "city" friends coming over to see the farm and bottle feed the calves.  That is going to be so much fun - I love to see young kids visit the farm!  Choir practice, youth group, and home to watch the Amazing Race before bed Sunday night.  A family tradition, we eat hot dogs in the living room, while watching tv.  :-)

Monday we'll have time to do our regular Monday chores, have lunch togther, and then go for a 15 mile bike ride while our youngest takes his PSSA's.  Most likely that will just be me and Dan, on my favorite bike path - and this is my idea of a perfect date.  

It's busy, no doubt about it, but it is relaxing too - once I get past all of the prep work.

Tyranny Of The Urgent

On Tuesday mornings at our church,  we are doing the book Faithful, Abundant, and True

I have done Kay Arthur Studies before.  I have done Beth Moore Studies before.  I had never heard of Priscilla Shirer, and was nervous about her section in this.  (I lead the Tuesday morning group)  Wow.  Apparently she is the daughter of Dr. Evans (Sorry, I really don't know who he is either) and her brother was on the tv show The Voice just last week?  Others in our group knew this.

What I know, is that she has an amazing gift for speaking to moms.  We just finished the 4th video segment, so next week we move on to Beth Moore..  and I'm actually really sad that we won't be hearing more from Priscilla next week, as much as I love Beth Moore.

She shared from this book in her first video segment.  I went online and downloaded the book to read - it is awesome.  Now any of you who know me know that I use my phone for EVERYTHING (well, except phone calls..  I really dislike phone calls!) and it is always with me.  For me, it wasn't the phone that is the "urgent" in my life..  I still believe my phone makes my life run so much smoother.  I struggle more with the cleaning and day to day running of this home (and farm) being the "urgent".   And it was a confirmation for me, a reminder, that I want to spend more time with people this year.  It was my goal last year, and I made progress, but even more so this year, I want to invest my time with people, not just in keeping the house from being condemned.  (It's a mystery to me how 4 teens can make so much mess when they are all hardly home any more!)  

Any way, how it all applies in my life is irrelevant - you should read it for yourself.  It's really a fantastic book!  The version I linked to below has questions at the end, I am working on them today.

Tyranny Of The Urgent PDF:
http://my279days.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Tyranny-of-the-Urgent.pdf

"Gordon Govier, a journalist working with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship wrote, "When Charles Hummel wrote his classic essay 'Tyranny of the Urgent,' in 1967, he identified the telephone as among the worst offenders against our peace and complacency. And that was before we carried the offending instrument with us everywhere and embellished it with email, computers, cameras, downloadable ring tones and music files.


"The issue," Hummel said, "is not so much a shortage of time as a problem of priorities." Or, as a cotton mill manager once told him, "Your greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important."  "


There is another book by Hummel - Freedom From The Tyranny of the Urgent, but I have not yet looked at it...

BSF Seminar - Becoming A Servant Of God

I usually attend the BSF seminars when they are offered, they are often VERY informative.  I signed up for this one not really knowing what it was, and when I heard what it was...  I almost didn't go.  But I had committed to going with a friend, it was her first seminar..  so I was "stuck".  I'm glad - this turned out to be my favorite seminar so far!  (Homiletics would be my second favorite)


It was 20 minutes in group, and hour and a half of personal quiet time, 10 min group closing. Not a normal BSF seminar. And group quiet time made me nervous- I didn't know what to expect.

But I should have known BSF would do it well. We each received a 4 page hand out for our quiet time, and it took me an hour to read all the scriptures, answer the questions, do the personal reflections, and pray on the specifics. The last half hour I spent adding some of the verses to my flashcard app for memorization, cleaning up the titles on some of my you version bookmarks, and reading this weeks regular BSF lesson notes.

The topic today was on being a servant of God. Specific categories included:

-what the bible says abt servants- 7 verses, find 1 word from each verse to descibe a servant

-attributes a servant should NOT have (5 verses)

- what may be required of a servant (5 verses)

- whom are we called to serve? (4 verses)

- what specific goals does the bible tell us servants should have? (6 verses)

- what results does the bible say I may expect if I serve God? (6 verses)

As I went through these, I highlighted all the verses in a pale green/blue and labeled them servant in my youversion app, and I titled each bookmark based on my answers. I love that feature of youversion!

The last 2.5 pages of our work was personal evaluation with questions regarding our biblical education and training, our regular communication with God (quiet time), our spiritual gifts, places of service God has prepared for me (prayer, then questions about areas where I may see a need), ending with what my response to God is and 5 more verses to examine to help guide us in how to pray to be a servant (fruitful service is preceeded by fervent prayer)

It was so practical, and applicable- I absolutely loved it!

Some of My Favorite Books In 2011

The end of year book survey didn't feel like it did my reading list justice.

Some of my favorite reads in 2011-

Gripping - Hard to put down - 

The Room by Emily Donague

Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson

Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares (Yeah, not what I expected at all!)

Night Road by Kristen Hannah

These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauff

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

GOOD Mysteries

Now You See Her by James Patterson

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

Learning To Swim by Sarah Henry (follow her on twitter too)

If Books Could Kill by Kate Carlise

Love You More by Lisa Gardner

Just Plain Fun Reads - 

The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean

My Life In France by Julia Child

Moonwalking With Einstien by Joshua Foer

Books That Inspire Me to Be Better

The Whole In Our Gospel by Richard Sterns (about World Vision)

Little Princes by Connor Grennan

Choosing To See by Mary Beth Chapman

Reshaping It All by Candace Bure

Run Like A Mother by Dimnity McDowell

The Final Summit by Andy Andrews

Out Live Your Life By Max Lucado

Series - 

Cedar Cove by Debbie Macomer.  Light, sappy, reads.

Michael Bennet Series by James Patterson - one of my favorites

Private London Series by Patterson- another favorite

Womens Detective Series Book 10 - good

Sara Partetsky's VI series, Body Work - good

Flower Shop Mysteries By Kate Collins - Light reading, a bit like Stephanie plum

Stephanie Plum 17 & 18 by Evanovich.  Good. Not great like the early ones, but good.

Books I wish I hadn't bothered with - 

The Postmistress

A Stolen Life

A Year of Fog (possibly the most tedious book I've ever read)

Turn Of Mind

Clan Of the Cave Bear by Auel

2011 End Of Year Book Survey

1. Best Book You Read In 2011? 


To try to decide, I logged into goodreads and sorted by rating. I gave 14 books 5 stars this year.  Looking them over, I'm not sure I still feel 5 stars strong about some of them..  but my favorites definitely include- 


     

• Learning To Swim By Sara J. Henry
• Reshaping It All by Candace Bure
• Room by Emma Donaghue
• Little Princes by Connor Grenanan
• Choosing To See by Mary Beth Chapman
• The Hole In Our Gospel by Richard Sterns

2. Most Disappointing Book/Book You Wish You Loved More Than You Did?

reversing the ratings sort  - I hated A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard.  As I said in my review, it's her story, and how do you say it's a horrible book when she is simply telling her story..  but it's a horrible book and I wish those things had never entered my head.  It is horrible that she had to live through all of that.

  

The Year of Fog, The Postmistress, and Lowcountry Summer are all ones I felt wasted by time.  Sometimes I should just stop reading a book and not feel so obligated to read something that I obviously do not enjoy.

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2011?

Learning To Swim By Sara J. Henry 

I don't even remember why I read this one - it was free, or someone lent it to me, and I didn't expect too much..  but it was one of the best books I read this year.

 

4. Book you recommended to people most in 2011?
  

The Room by Emma Donaghue & The Hole In Our Gospel by Richard Sterns

5. Best series you discovered in 2011? 
The Flower Shop Mysteries by Kate Collins.  "Cozy Mysteries" - but a little, little, like the Stephanie Plum series.  Funny, light, implausible.

6. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2011?

 

Kristen Hannah & Kate Carlisle.  

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you?

I read all over the place..  mystery, romance, drama, history, cozy mysteries.. but I don't read science fiction.  I didn't read any this year.. but I think I will try at least one in 2012.
 

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2011? 
The Room by Emma Donaghue 

9. Book you most anticipated in 2011?

 Explosive Eighteen by Stephanie Plum.  Yes, I was a bit disappointed.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2011?

 

11. Most memorable character in 2011? 

Connor Grennan in Little Princes & Richard Stern in The Hole In Our Gospel

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2011?
beautiful...  hmmmm..  maybe Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah.

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2011? 

Starting with The Hole In Our Gospel, Out Live Your Life came next, and then Little Princes this fall..  all three along the same theme.

14. Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2011 to finally read? 
?? I think everything I read was pretty current  - a lot of new releases.
 

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2011? 
I don't  have that kind of memory - sorry.

16. Book That You Read In 2011 That Would Be Most Likely To Reread In 2012? 
The bible.  Pretty much the only book I reread.
 

17. Book That Had A Scene In It That Had You Reeling And Dying To Talk To Somebody About It? (a  moment, an epic revelation, a steamy kiss, etc. etc.) Be careful of spoilers! 
Nothing like that..  but The Hole In Our Gospel made me want to talk to my family right away, about what we could do better.

See what others answered here - 

http://www.perpetualpageturner.com/2011/12/2nd-annual-end-of-year-book-survey-2011.html

Preparing Goodreads for 2012

First I logged into GoodReads, and chose to view my books, All.


Then I chose to sort by date, so I could see which books I forgot to fill a date in for.  I need the dates filled in, so they register for the 2011 challenge.

2011 Reading Challenge

Congrats! You have completed your goal of reading 100 books for the 2011 Reading Challenge!

100 of 100 (100%)

Then beside bookshelves, I chose "edit" and deleted some shelves I had added this year.


I wanted to remove all of the 2011 books to their own shelf, so that my "read" count only shows 2012's books, but I cannot find a way to do that.  Batch edit says it removed them, but it did not actually remove them.  Oh well.  I cleaned out everything in my to read shelf. If I haven't read it by now, I probably will not - some of those books have been in there for awhile!


ADDING NEW BOOKS TO MY TO READ SHELF-
First I looked here for what I might like to read next - 
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/hardcover-fiction/list.html
Then I looked at new releases coming in Jan 2012 (there has to be a better site for this?)
http://bestsellers.about.com/od/newupcomingreleases/tp/New-Book-Releases-january-2012.htm
I want to read some Agatha Christie this year, I haven't read anything by her in many years..  I thought I'd start with her first, and see if I want to work my way through, or not.  I also have never read Dorthy Sayers, so I added one of hers to my to read list - a free one found in Aldikos free books.


I did not read David McCulloughs new book in 2011 - and I love his books. 


And this is where I am stuck. Do I want to make a high goal for 2012?  Is it silly to make a reading goal, when reading is something I naturally love to do?  Will I have time to read 100 books this year?  I did in 2011..  but I cut it right to the wire.  Some months I read a lot, others I barely read a single book.  I don't know what 2012 holds.  


I tried exporting all of my books from goodreads into a list..  but frankly, it's a pain, and not really fun to look at.  You can see everything I read on my goodreads shelves - 
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4380127-heather-truckenmiller  I wish there was an easy way to sort by genre on goodreads.

My most read authors in 2011:

I just discovered the flower shop mysteries this year, and read them all, so that explains Kate Collins topping the list.  They were nice light, implausible but amusing, mysteries.


James Patterson is a favorite of mine.  I don't like his Alex Cross series,but I do like his Michael Bennet series a lot, and have enjoyed the new Private series.


Some of the reason I read so much in 2011 is that I read so many light books like Debbie Macomber & Kate Collins. Fluff.

		author	books read
1		Kate Collins	12
2		James Patterson	7
3		Debbie Macomber	5
4		Betty Hechtman	4
5		Kathryn Lilley	3
6		Janet Evanovich	2
6		Kristin Hannah	2
6		Melody Carlson	2
6		Max Lucado	2
6		Heather Gudenkauf	2