A successful day starts the night before. It really does. Realizing this truth and putting it into action has been life-changing for me. At the end of last week, I started to look over the previous week by asking “Did I meet my goals for the week?” I answered no to that question several times as I looked over my weekly goals. It was a busier week but I also realized a pattern. I did not plan my days the night before. This impacted how my week went.

Are you one of those people that love a clean kitchen? Does it energize and empower you? Me too.  When my house is out of order, I feel like I am out of order.  The other day my kitchen counters were cluttered with papers that needing to be filed, thrown away, and mail that still needed to be read.  The pile of dirty dishes had grown out of the sink and invaded the remaining counter space.  The dried on food mocked me from between the plates.  Once again it was out of control…I felt defeated even before I had begun to fight back. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to clean because it’s only going to get messy again. Oh well, here I go. It has to be done. I rolled up my sleeves, dug in and whipped that kitchen into shape.  The counters sparkled from the wash down, the dishwasher hummed quietly and no papers cluttered my counters. Yes! I had achieved a sense of calm once again.

The third workshop I attended at the Hearts at Home conference was called How to cut your grocery bill in half. It was hosted by Crystal Paine. She is the founder of Money Saving Mom. We began the workshop by figuring out how much we spend per person, per week on groceries. It was very eye-opening for us all. Crystal then shared several tips on how to cut your grocery bill in half. It was very helpful. Here are the tips with my notes under each.

The second workshop I attended at the Hearts at Home conference was called "To Every Season, there is a thing." It was hosted by Rhonda Rhea. She began by sharing that each season of life has it's own unique crazy. Rhoda shared she wouldn't trade one second of any of the seasons of life.

Monday morning is my time to make homemade bread. Last week when I made it, I forgot the most important ingredient- yeast. You can imagine how flat my bread was. The funny thing is that I was so excited because I put the bread in before getting the kids off to school so I felt super accomplished.  I LOVE to accomplish tasks. In fact, a good day for me is when I have crossed of lots of things off my to-do list.