Walking the path of the day, there are times when life is more purposeful, and times when I seem to float wherever the tidewaters take me. In an attempt at
remaining open to God, while still living a purposeful life, an outline can be helpful,
as long as I remember it is only an outline – a reminder of what
might be
next. Last year, I spent some time
working on a
daily docket, along the lines of the one available from
simplemom.net. There are multiple versions of this, including
Ann Voskamp's version, a lovely take on the quotidian. These daily planners inspired me to create my own outline for the day, one that reflected my goals for each day. I created a basic outline, but set it aside and never completed it.
I have lived the past year in a floating bubble of preparing and caring for a newborn, allowing many things to fall to the side in order to fully inhale and experience these fleeting moments. I am loving every precious and beautiful day. I also know that at some point, a new daily rhythm must find itself within our home. The cold, dark days of winter always turn my thoughts to how I can better manage my home, and so I returned to the long abandoned daily outline. I know there is no perfect plan, and no perfect day. Planning must be balanced with flexibility. I also know that without any kind of plan or goal, we remain static;
if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.
In thinking about what to include in a daily plan, I went to
my personal mission statement, inspired by Holly Pierlot's
A Mother's Rule of Life. If you are not familiar with this book, Holly breaks down the roles of a mother's life into the "Five P's" of Prayer, Person, Partner, Parent and Provider. In that order, she looks at each facet of a woman's life and how to find the correct balance of priorities.
In keeping with these Five P's, here is my take on the day's plan:
Primary - these are the three most important things of the day. If only these three are accomplished, the day is a success!
Prayer - the first "P" and the principal thing of the day - here is a place to write down a memory verse, a quote from the lives of the Saints, or other inspiration from morning prayer time. At the bottom of this box is a place for Partner - the third P. Here is a place to write out a reminder of how I will serve my husband today - whether it is praying for him, doing something special for him, or just a reminder of a daily habit to work on in my interactions with him.
Provisions - a place to jot down the family meals for the day - I may eliminate the breakfast and lunch options, since those are pretty fixed around here, but I left them on for now. By looking at that first thing in the morning, any dinner prep (thawing meat etc.) that needs to be done early in the day is not forgotten.
Personal - the second P in Rule of Life, this is the fun part! Here is a place to think about the ways I make sure I am getting what I need to enable me to serve those around me.
Pursuing the creative - my favorite, whether it is sewing, painting or building a new material for the atrium, here is where I note any project for which I want to make time
Pursuing the orderly - a small goal, habit, job to help improve upon or maintain the rhythm of the home
Pursuing the beautiful - a project, moment, idea for bringing beauty into my home and my life
Pruning - an area of personal growth that needs work - a reminder of a character habit to be working on
Also included in the personal care of self is maintaining good physical health, so there is a place for documenting daily workouts and water consumption.
Praises - here
I took a cue from Ann - a place to write down daily thanksgivings, offering praise to God for each gift given.
Planting Mustard Seeds - a place to consciously think about how I am going to participate in the growth of the Kingdom of God on a daily basis. This serves as a reminder that the smallest of acts, the tiniest of moments can grow into a tree that offers shelter to many.
Parent and Provider - the final two P's, here is a place to make notes on anything related to the kids and basic household duties.
Proposal for the Day - a place to jot down when I plan to complete those Primary priorities, and add in other scheduled events of the day
Projects and Pursuits - another spot to make notes, jot down ideas for future projects, make lists of items needed for a co-op project or the latest idea seen on Pinterest :)
There may be a few areas of redundancy here, and this page is certainly a work in progress. With some of the reading I have been doing lately, I have considered shifting this to a weekly planner format. As a new regularity begins to manifest itself to our days and weeks, I will likely make a different plan. Until then, I have to start somewhere! For now, it will serve as a roadmap for the day. A day considered is a day well lived, and I pray that each day may breathe with its own unique life while also maintaining a consistency and direction.
In Katherine's words, "A humble beginning."
This binder contains all of my materials for the period from September 1 and the start of the church year through November 14. 
It contains icon line drawings for coloring, handouts and paper icons,
sheet music printed from here 
and the back pocket contains the Teaching Pics for this season.
Taking a cue from Mary, I have been working on a series of binders to help me remain organized and focused on the church throughout the year. I am excited about this binder, since this tends to be a more chaotic time of year, and I think it will be helpful in so many ways. So, what is in this binder? Well, really right now it is a collection of all the items I have accumulated over the years but never had a proper place to put them. I used to have files in a cabinet to store reference materials for various feast days, but unless I thought about it, then went to the cabinet and pulled it out, I more often than not forgot about the many resources I have. So, I began by pulling out all of the resources I could find that fell into the period from November 15 through the feast of Theophany.
This included everything from sheet music for troparia, and programs for feast day celebrations of years past, to my ridiculously extensive collection of church bulletins with icons on the cover.
For at least 8 years I have compulsively saved multiple copies of the Sunday bulletin. I am finding they come in very handy in so many ways. Laminated, they allow for a far wider range of icons for my kids to see than we could ever afford mounted on wood. Un-laminated, they have been cut up and used for various projects (can't wait to share with you all my Holy Week Project where a number of those icons were extremely useful). I also had several files full of icon line drawings for coloring. I often forgot about them - but now they are all neatly slipped into page protectors and filed by the date of the feast in this binder. I am also trying to list all of the children's books I have for each saint, and individual stories that pertain to that saint from such books as Grandma's Stories.
Finally, I tucked all of the Teaching Pics that pertained to this time period into the back pocket of this binder.
I know it seems early to be thinking about it, but I have set a few goals this year in preparation for the coming Feast of the Nativity. In our commercial world, it can be very hard to immerse oneself in the spirit of the fast. For most, it is a time of parties, Santa Claus, Macy's Day parades, shopping and overindulgence. For the Church, it is a time of preparation to celebrate the incarnation of our Savior. It is considered a joyous fast, as it is in anticipation of Christ's Nativity, but it is a fast nonetheless. I find that this fast can be extremely trying, since the rest of the world is celebrating as we are preparing.
