house of order

"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;" Doctrine and Covenants 88:119

If you didn't already know, I've grown to love homemaking--the organizing, cooking, creating, cleaning, and everything. I wanted to be like everyone else and have a cute notebook. But I've never been like everyone else. The stuff in my life is so remote from other women, even other homemakers, that I reinvented the wheel so to speak. Mine looks like a playbook.


Year at a glance calendar This is good for me for two reasons. The first and usual reason, to see the whole year at once, it is easier to plan ahead. But the real reason I have this in my play book is cycle tracking. PMS has been a companion of mine for over 30 years or it was before my transformation. If I was aware of what time of month it was, I was able to cope with swinging hormones and moods. This was a must in building a happy marriage and home, believe me. Now however this has become almost a non-issue with my Eat to Live/Mucusless Diet and herbs to straighten out the problems.

Monthly Calendars When we had children at home, each child had their own color of ink to keep everything straight. Now weeks go by with NOTHING written in them. There is something to be said for an empty nest. No, I liked being a mom of a large family.

Master Home Maintenance In a book called The Pantry Principle is a single page of daily, weekly, and area chores. Keeping us out of a culinary rut, I've modified it somewhat to now to include a sort of master dinner list: S-Soup, M-Mediterranean, T-Mexican, W-Mock Pasta, Th-Pot of Beans, F-Pizza, Sa-Asian. There is no reason to keep a daily planner, where I have to write down the things I always do; it's on the sheet. Planning like this is very freeing.

Menu and shopping list building worksheets. This is a simple document made in Word with a table. It has seven horizontal columns and three vertical-breakfast, lunch, dinner-Sunday-Saturday. Because we were a homeschooling family and my husband worked from home 9 months per year, I needed to have real food on the table 3X per day. This in itself helped me be very organized. I learned to make a dime scream for mercy, while feeding my family very well.(usually) After I decide what's on the menu (now on my master plan) taking into consideration what is in the food storage and garden, what is in season, and what is on sale, I make a shopping list. I shop 3X per week for organic, fresh produce, since our fridge is too small to hold enough for a week. 

Scholar Schedule Since we homeschooled with big goals, I always had a schedule of our subjects and timetable to finish them. I found a great resource here that I've used for a few years now. I love it since it keeps the whole thing on one page per quarter. Now I use this idea to keep my own studies on track. I print this with lines on the back to write down books I want to read and keep a list of books read.


Personal Fitness I don't like to exercise but I love the results. As a boy, Jesus "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." Luke 2:52 Since it's an important part of life, I have a check sheet in my binder from the LDS FHE manual.

Herbal Home I'm taking some classes from HerbMentor.com, where I learned to make some really great cleaners that make the house smell fantastic. I keep these recipes here along with notes from the School of Natural Healing and various readings on different illnesses and injuries and how to treat them. My latest is herbal ideas for beauty products.

Recipes I love to cook, read cookbooks, develop recipes, and write cookbooks. This section has two purposes. It organizes my perfected recipes and gives me a place to keep works in progress. My 3 latest books 50 Ways to Love Your Salad TM (C) , 50 Ways to Love Your Veggies TM (C), and 50 Ways to Love Your Legumes TM (C) have all been brainstormed in the section.

Home Storage Inventory I'm reworking this, since we eat a lot less grain and don't use commercial cleaning products.

Family Birthdays  and other important dates to remember

Contact Information

Family Health Histories

So there we go. It didn't end up looking cute (sniff), but it works for me. Someday, when I don't have anything to study or plant or weed or clean or write or film, I'll take the time to use scrapbook paper and do some cute watercolor to make dividers and a cute cover ala Susan Branch. But I have to learn watercolor first. Did I tell you I have a teacher?