“A successful morning begins the night before”
I can not tell you the number of times I have heard that little quote. I used to hear it all the time when I was in high school.
I heard it again in college as I was pulling all-nighters trying to get through semester after semester.
Once I was married and working as a full time preschool teacher I heard this quote time and again during staff meetings and teacher training times, reminding us that we need to prepare ourselves the night before to be on our toes with lots of little ones in our care each day.
And then I had children. And again I was reminded that to be on top of my game with my own kids I need to be prepared before I got to bed the night before.
And I have been HORRIBLE at that.
I do really well for a few days, then something, usually the weekend, gets in the way and I get off track.
Normally by the time 7:30 hits I am just done. The only thing on my mind is getting whatever activity is taking place (usually dinner) wrapped up and getting the kids in bed so I can go “off the clock” (as if mom’s ever go off the clock!) at least for a few minutes.
Tuesday, after a fairly long day, something just clicked on in my head. As the day was winding down I just stopped and took a breath. It was then that I made the decision to begin establishing a nightly routine for myself and the kids. It was time to get our evenings in order.
I just love how God works. Just 24 short hours after I made the decision to begin a huge change within the atmosphere in our home Crystal Paine’s “Make Over Your Evenings” 14 day online course went live.
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| Photo Credit: Money Saving Mom |
Not only did it go live, it was on sale!
I jumped at the chance to gain access to these amazing resources for such a low price!
Back in February I went through her “Make Over Your Mornings” 14 day course and it was wonderful. While I haven’t managed to get all the principles put into practice, my mornings go much smoother when I get at least part of them in place.
This morning I dove into Day 1. Today’s lesson focused entirely finding the “Why” behind the “What”
Just like exercising, going back to school, or learning a new skill you have to know why you are doing something if you are going to be 100% committed to it. If you don’t know why you have set out on your journey you won’t know where you are going.
Crystal asks 5 basic questions to get you thinking about why you want to change the direction your evenings are going.
All 5 questions focus on identifying why you are frustrated and what challenges you are facing that has lead to enrolling for the course.
For me my biggest frustration is waking up feeling like I am already 10 steps behind when I have to come down the stairs and clean the kitchen before I can even think about cooking breakfast. I also hate that I have to scramble to make things presentable when anyone knocks on my door because we all just dropped things in the middle of what ever room we happened to be working in.
My Why can be summed up like this:
My “Why” for taking this course is that I want to establish easily manageable routines for me and my family that allows us all to maximize our time together each day and helps to set a more peaceful tone throughout our entire house.”
Right know our evening routine looks something like this:
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| Yes she is upside down in the picture. That is how she was laying next to me on the couch. |
We start with some evening snuggles while we all wind down for the evening after dinner.
Once our show is over we make our way to the bathroom for face and hand washing and brushing of teeth. We also take the time to do any last minute picking up of toys from the living room and making sure all the dishes are in the kitchen.
Once we are done with that we make our way upstairs for a quick devotion reading and bed time prayers.
Once that is done I tuck each one into bed and I tell them both the same thing every night.
They repeat it back to me and then we hug and kiss and it’s lights out.
I make my way back downstairs where I either sit and work on homework OR I clean up the kitchen in preparation for the next day.
Now let me tell you, this is only a week into this routine but so far I am already feeling like things are calmer in my home and the tone is a lot less demanding. We are all getting the time that we need to wind down and mentally prepare ourselves for bed. I am looking forward to diving further into this course over the next 2 weeks. Check back next week to find out how the course is going!
Talk to me…
Do you have an evening routine or something you do to wind down for the end of the day?
Have you ever taken any of Crystal Paine’s Courses? If so, which one and how did you like it?
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Published by A Wise Woman In Progress
Wife, Mom, Daughter of the King spending each day striving to be a Wise Woman in Progress
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Once our show is over we make our way to the bathroom for face and hand washing and brushing of teeth. We also take the time to do any last minute picking up of toys from the living room and making sure all the dishes are in the kitchen.
A Wise Woman in Progress 
This is a wonderful post!!! Somehow in trying to get my mornings on schedule I've totally lost how important it is to start in the evenings.. and come to think of it, I spent my time this morning sweeping and mopping lol! I'm working hard on my mornings, and I believe that if you put these principles into place mornings would be nicer! Thank you so much! I've thought several times about purchasing the make over your mornings, and this one seems great also!!! Thanks for sharing, keep doing so, I could use all the tips I could get!
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