A Little Update…

Hello!

It’s been (again) several months since my last post. I have such good intentions, but I just haven’t had the free time to work much on the blog or my YouTube channel. I’m hoping to make some changes that will allow more time for those hobbies, because I miss them! I’m working on this blog post while the daycare kiddos are napping, and will probably finish it tonight after they’ve gone home. Or maybe it will take me a few days….Sometimes they stay asleep, and sometimes they don’t. 🙂 

Although I haven’t been cataloging my adventures here on the blog, I have certainly been busy!

What have I been up to?

• Growing my family child care business
• Paperwork and bookkeeping as a business owner
• Receiving a grant and building a fun outdoor play area for my daycare kids
• Remodeling my bathroom
• Working on a new budgeting and time management system
• Organizing inside and outside the house

Daycare

Being a family child care provider takes up the majority of my time. I have children for around 10 hours a day, and then there is cleaning, planning, meal prep, paperwork and other tasks that I complete in the evenings and on weekends. By September, I will have six children enrolled (two full-time, and four part-time) all ages 3 and under. 

I find myself procrastinating about paperwork and bookkeeping. This aspect of having a family child care has turned out to take a lot more time than I had anticipated. But I’m using a new planner system that I think is working well helping me prioritize and not feel like I have to have everything done “right this very minute.” This helps me to not feel overwhelmed to where I don’t even start. I’ve been assigning myself little tasks throughout the week and chipping away at what needs to be done. I’m a list maker, so usually if I put something on a list, I get it done. My new planner is helping me be more productive with non-daycare-related tasks as well.

One thing that has taken up a lot of my free time this spring and summer is the planning and installation of our outdoor play space. The kids are having so much fun! I received a grant, and the outdoor play area was the main improvement that I made for my daycare. I installed playground barriers and rubber mulch, and a small climber with a slide and this cute caterpillar. It would have taken me forever to save up enough to make such a nice play area, so I am very grateful.

 

Bathroom remodel

I started on the bathroom remodeling project months ago and haven’t really made a whole lot of progress. I do have the new vanity mirror put up, and I’ve started working on the area around the bathtub. Slow progress is still progress. Grampy has been having trouble with his knee, and I’m just getting over a cold and cough that lasted over three weeks and really cut down my energy, so we have not been operating at our full capacity lately. I’m pretty much back to normal, other than tiring quite easily, so hopefully now that the playground is all finished I can get back to some indoor DIY projects.

Budget and Life Planners

I’ve been watching the YouTube channel called “Raising Wildflowers.” I am amazed at how low she can keep her family’s expenses! She shared the budget planner she uses, and I decided to try it. I’ve tried many systems. I’ve made up my own paper systems, which worked well, but I thought they were too time-consuming. I’ve tried apps and spreadsheets and have found that I like budgeting on paper the best.

This planner seems like it is going to work so well for me. I’ve shared it with my daughters and they are starting one as well, to help them meet their financial goals. We are going to start having a little budget meeting twice a month (with tea and snacks, of course!) for accountability. Making a budget is the easy part. Sticking to the budget is a lot harder! We are going to encourage one another. 

Honestly, entering into my second month with my budget planner, I’m feeling quite surprised. I had no idea that we spend as much money as we do each month! I haven’t been focusing on our budget for a while, and it shows! But this does give me motivation to find ways to minimize some of the unnecessary expenses that we have. (Like that storage unit of stuff I need to sort!)

My daily planner is from the same company (Clever Fox), and it is working well for planning both business and personal things. I’m hoping that I can use it to get my time well-organized enough that I don’t feel so behind on everything. 

Still working on organizing…

When our daughter and the grandkids moved out, we gained a lot of space in the house. I was able to turn the tiny playroom into an office, and my daughter’s old room into a sitting room. I’m planning to make a YouTube video when I’m finished redoing the sitting room. It is so cozy and relaxing! I spend time there in the early mornings and late evenings enjoying my tea, reading, and the quiet house. Tater Kitty is my teatime companion.

Since I now have the sitting room, I don’t need a she-shed as much. I’ve turned my she-shed into a place to store teaching materials for my daycare, and kind of a project workspace. I still have things to sort from when we moved. It’s been kind of an “out of sight, out of mind” thing. But every once in a while I get out there on a Saturday and do a bunch of organizing, so I’ll get it done one of these days.

The weather has been very hot here, so I’m looking forward to fall and cooler temperatures. Organizing a shed when it’s 90-plus degrees isn’t enjoyable at all! 

Hopefully I’ll be making time to post more online, both here on the blog and over on YouTube. As the weather cools off, I’d love to share some recipes. I’ve tried several new ones that we’ve really liked. And, of course, my usual DIY projects and efforts to save money. 

See you later!