To Do Lists

“But, Mo-om, I don’t know what to do!”

February 16, 2019February 16, 2019 playwithyourfaith

It’s been the winter of never-ending snow days here in Kansas City. We’ve hardly had any snow for the past several winters and Mother Nature is trying to make up for all of that right now. Between regularly scheduled days off from school and unexpected snow days, I don’t even remember the last time my children had a full week of school. November?

We’re all in survival mode right now, so the screen time flows abundantly around this house, but I do make my children alternate between “screens” and “not screens” at regular intervals throughout the day.

Somehow my children always know exactly what they want to play with during screen time, but when it comes to “not screens,” my smart and creative six-year-old suddenly acts like he’s never played with another toy in his entire life.

“But, Mo-om, I don’t know what to do!”

My most frequent response? “Well then be bored.” Boredom is great for kids, as it turns out, so I still maintain that this response is totally legit. But, at least in my house, this phrase doesn’t quickly inspire my children to the kind of independent play that allows me to return to my own work (or much-needed alone time, depending on how many snow days we’ve had in a row). Verbally listing off options has the same (non) effect.

But a few months ago I made these “activity option cards” and they are somehow the magic tools to remind my children how to play. If I tell them “play with your cars” I frequently get back arguments of “I don’t feel like it” or just grumpy stares. But if the CARDS suggest they play with their cars, suddenly it’s a good idea.

A hastily written list also worked pretty well for my six-year-old, but since I also have a preschool daughter who can’t read, these picture cards allow her to use them, too. Plus the visual and reusable nature of these cards appeal to both of my children, and to me.

Obviously, the cards I made are very specific to the ages of my children (3 and 6), and their particular interests and toys. My very literal preschooler does best when the photos are of the *exact* toys that we have. Older children may do better with more “symbolic” photos. Still, I am happy to share the document I made in case you are able to easily print and use some of them, or maybe they just inspire you to make your own version!

DOWNLOAD THE ACTIVITY CARD PDF FILE HERE!

Once you print the cards you can just keep them in an envelope (we move ours from the green to the blue envelope when the activity has been completed), hole punch them and keep them on a binder ring, or even put them in photo pages for easy viewing.

Depending on your child’s personality, you could use the cards in a variety of ways:

Let the child pick out 4 or 5 cards at the beginning of the day to act as a checklist. Once they complete an activity, move it to the back of the pile or into a separate envelope. Repeat until all the cards have been completed. Repeat if necessary.
Choose one at a time. Whenever it’s time for a new activity have the child pick a new idea card from the stack.
Limit options by having an adult pick two or three cards and then letting the child pick from just those activities.
If your child likes surprises and spontaneity, or has a hard time with choices, make it into a game and have them blindly choose a card from the stack. Whatever the card says goes! (Maybe consider giving them one or two opportunities to “pass” if something just really doesn’t appeal.)
Use the cards to earn screen time! Set the number of activities a child needs to do (be sure and set a minimum time for each, too) and then have your child turn in the completed cards in exchange for a screen time allotment.

You know your child’s personality (and your own) the best! Do whatever works best for your family. Whether you are trying to survive snow days, sick days, or just the weekend, I wish you the best of luck, friends!

Organization, Recommendations, To Do Lists

How Did I Live Without This? (Trello Edition)

January 23, 2018January 23, 2018 playwithyourfaith

I love a good recommendation. I love it when friends and family recommend awesome things to me. I love getting to recommend amazing things to my friends. It’s just such an easy way to spread the love and make everybody’s life a little better.

Got a favorite recipe? Tell me! Tried a new fantastic restaurant? Do share! Know a secret Microsoft Excel hack? Send it to me right now! Found an amazing new podcast? I’m already mad you didn’t tell me sooner. Gotta tool that’s helping you simplify and organize? Do not wait one more second before telling me about it!

And when I get a recommendation for something that’s an immediate game-changer? Now you are speaking my love language. All the heart eyes for the person who shared it with me. And then you know it’s only a matter of time before I’m gushing about my new-to-me, life-changing discovery on social media, and in person, with, well, everybody.

And guess what? That time has come. I’ve got a recommendation for you! My new favorite organization tool is TRELLO! I first heard about it where I hear about A LOT of the awesome new things in my life–The Sorta Awesome Show podcast. First from Laura Tremaine, then from Meg Tietz.

Laura described Trello as the Pinterest of organizational tools, and I think that’s pretty accurate. Trello describes itself by saying “A Trello board is a list of lists, filled with cards, used by you and your team. It’s a lot more than that, though. Trello has everything you need to organize projects of any size.”

In Trello you organize things by Boards (think a virtual bulletin board). Then each Board contains Lists (think pieces of paper pinned to the board). Each List contains Cards (think sticky notes stuck on the papers). You can drag and drop cards and lists around easily as needed. And each board can have it’s own background color or image (with hundreds of gorgeous photos to choose from!) which makes Trello especially visually pleasing.

Trello is FREE for the basic version, and so far I’m completely happy with it as is. It is fully functional and doesn’t feel like a “lite” version of an app at all. With the free version you get one “Power-Up” (bonus functions like syncing with your Google calendar or Drive, adding polls or surveys, or even GIFs) per board. If you upgrade the the Gold (paid) version you get to add multiple Power-Ups per board. (I haven’t tried that yet, but I can see how that could be useful!)

Trello can be used individually or collaboratively with a team. (A team could be your family!) You can use it on your computer or via the app on your phone, and the two sync together perfectly.

Here’s some of the ways I’m using Trello to keep myself organized.

1: Daily/Weekly To do List

The pretty photo backgrounds are part of what I love about Trello. But more importantly, Trello gives me an easy way to see what’s on my to do list for today, tomorrow, and the week. The colored-coded labels help me to easily see if this is an item for home, work, my kids, or an errand that needs to be run. Each item is what Trello calls a card and can easily be dragged and dropped between lists (or even boards) as needed. My favorite thing is dragging a to do list item to the “DONE!” list and then archiving that entire list at the end of the week.

2: Meal Planning

On my “Meals for This Week” board I have a list for every day of the week plus another list of favorite meals that are currently in heavy rotation at this house. (Can you tell from the meal list that it is very much winter right now? So many warm comfort foods on there.)

At the beginning of each week I change the top card on each list to reflect the correct date and then either drag and drop meal cards from my favorites list to each day, or add a new card if I’m branching out.

Change of plans? It’s super easy to just drag a meal to a new day, or back to the favorites list for use another time.

3: Organizing Ideas and Projects

Trello is a great place to keep (and organize!) all kinds of ideas, from work projects, home improvement dreams, to lists of future blog posts. Since each card can have a photo or file attachment, its own checklist, or additional notes, it’s easy to keep track of big ideas and tiny details.

Do you use Trello? I’d love to hear the ways you are using Trello, or a similar tool, to keep your life and your ideas organized! Share a screenshot or description in the comments below.

If you haven’t used it yet, give Trello a try and tell me what you think!

*P.S. If you use one of my links above to try Trello it will help me earn a free month of TRELLO Gold (their paid version) to try. Then you can get a link to share with your friends to earn the same. I am not earning any money by sharing this, and this post is not sponsored by TRELLO in any way. They, like the rest of the Internet, do not know that I exist.

Kingdom of God, To Do Lists

To Do Lists, Neglected Plants, and the Kingdom of God

January 21, 2017 playwithyourfaith

In a timely act of kindness, my mother took my kids today for some special time with Grandma and Grandpa, which left me with an unexpected block of time to use however I wanted. Although I contemplated a 5-hour nap, I decided what I wanted most out of my child-free day was to check off a number of those little tasks on my To Do List that had overstayed their welcome by several days, weeks or even months.

You know the kind of thing I’m talking about: those easy-to-put-off tasks like changing the battery in the clock that stopped working who-knows-how-long-ago, putting away the stray Christmas item left behind in the post-Epiphany decoration rapture, or shredding the pile of papers that have been accumulating for the last 6 ~~weeks~~ months. These were tasks that I knew would only take a few minutes each, but somehow kept getting pushed forward indefinitely to the list for “tomorrow.”

Top on my Just-Get-It-DONE list for today was “re-pot plants,” which sounds a lot less urgent than it actually was. What it should have said was “put the plants IN pots.” As in, these two innocent plants had been living in mason jars of ONLY WATER on my kitchen window sill for the last 3 months. (At least. I lost track.) Even my preschooler knows that plants need air, sunlight, and soil to survive, and here I was actively withholding one of these three basic needs for no reason, other than the fact that my plants aren’t able to cry out for food like the rest of the humans and animals in this house. Clearly, no one has ever accused me of having a green thumb.

And YET, here they were, these two little plants, using the light and water they had, and their God-given DNA, to keep on keeping-on, every day. Despite my neglect, despite tiny Basil Plant being munched on every day by the cat, despite the the winter chill that was coming through the window, they survived.

I found so much encouragement and hope in that thought today. Plants are resilient. They grow in rocky soil and in no soil. They re-emerge after forest fires and nuclear explosions. Plants are fighters. And so are Humans. Even when the world in cruel and unfair, when society is structured in a way that denies people the basic things they need and the rights they deserve, it is possible (though not inevitable) to survive. We are stronger than we think, more hearty than we imagine.

But I believe we are made for so much more than survival. I believe in a God who wants every person to experience wholeness that comes from re-creation, and redemption born out of love and grace. I believe in a God who calls us to reality based on abundance, not scarcity. A reality where we make choices out of empathy, not fear. An upside down Kingdom where the last are first and the most energy goes toward caring for the “least of these,” not into catering to the rich and powerful.

I believe in a Faith that compels us to use our voices to cry out on behalf of those who are voiceless, who are being neglected, who are vulnerable or overlooked. A faith that calls us not only use our eyes to see the needs around us and our voices to cry out, “Hey, we need some soil over here!” I believe that living into the reality of a grace-filled Kingdom means we must also use our hands to dig into the ground, getting dirt under our nails, and then we use our feet to bring the nutrient-rich soil to the people and places that need it most.

My plants survived my neglect, but when I turned my apathy into empathy it made growth possible. That’s the kind of home I want to live in–a place where ever person (and even plant!) is unburdened by the weight of mere survival, and is then free to grow into who they were created to be. That’s the kind of community and society I want to live in, too. Most importantly, I believe that is exactly the type of Kingdom that God invites us into every day.