Filed under: Uncategorized
I found this because of my cousin (Troy), and I thought that it was just a genius principle, because it is all about being more effective.
The 5 S principle is a Japanese principle that is probably something like Feng Shui, because it’s about using your space effectively and being a more productive worker.
Anyway, I’m going to copy from here.
Sort – (Seiri), The first S focuses on eliminating unnecessary items from the workplace. An effective visual method to identify these unneeded items is called red tagging. A red tag is placed on all items not required to complete your job. These items are then moved to a central holding area. This process is for evaluation of the red tag items. Occasionally used items are moved to a more organized storage location outside of the work area while unneeded items are discarded. Sorting is an excellent way to free up valuable floor space and eliminate such things as broken tools, obsolete jigs and fixtures, scrap and excess raw material. The Sort process also helps prevent the JIC job mentality (Just In Case.)
Set In Order (Seiton) is the second S and focuses on efficient and effective storage methods.
You must ask yourself these questions:
What do I need to do my job?
Where should I locate this item?
How many of this item do I need?Strategies for effective Set In Order are painting floors, outlining work areas and locations, shadow boards, and modular shelving and cabinets for needed items such as trash cans, brooms, mop and buckets. Imagine how much time is wasted every day looking for a broom? The broom should have a specific location where all employees can find it. “A place for everything and everything in its place.”
Shine: (Seiso) Once you have eliminated the clutter and junk that has been clogging your work areas and identified and located the necessary items, the next step is to thoroughly clean the work area. Daily follow-up cleaning is necessary in order to sustain this improvement. Workers take pride in a clean and clutter-free work area and the Shine step will help create ownership in the equipment and facility. Workers will also begin to notice changes in equipment and facility location such as air, oil and coolant leaks, repeat contamination and vibration, broken, fatigue, breakage, and misalignment. These changes, if left unattended, could lead to equipment failure and loss of production. Both add up to impact your company’s bottom line. [Obviously, keeping the home shiny is similar but not exactly like keeping up a business. You should take pride in your home even more than you would take pride in your workspace at work.]
Standardize: (Seiketsu) Now that the first three 5S’s have been implemented, you should concentrate on standardizing best practice in your work area. Allow your employees [family] to participate in the development of such standards. They are a valuable but often overlooked source of information regarding their work. Think of what McDonalds, Pizza Hut, UPS, Blockbuster and the United States Military would be without effective work standards. [I don't think you should be militant with your routines, but you should at least have some.]
Sustain: (Shitsuke) This is by far the most difficult S to implement and achieve. Human nature is to resist change and more than a few organizations have found themselves with a dirty cluttered shop a few months following their attempt to implement 5S. The tendency is to return to the status quo and the comfort zone of the “old way” of doing things. Sustain focuses on defining a new status quo and standard of work place organization.
I think this is a lot like FlyLady’s attitude, but it’s just a streamlined version of keeping things in order. I am working on lots of different rooms right now, and I am going to start trying to implement this system in my daily routines, in conjunction with FlyLady’s routines. The two are more of a complement to one another.
Filed under: President Obama
I’ve been reading a bit today on the order to close Gitmo. I know it was one of Obama’s campaign promises, and I’m actually glad to see that it is taking place. In spite of the fact that many people are angered by this decision, I think it is a step toward justice.
The question posed in the title, when do we start to pardon injustice, has been weighing on my mind in this media storm, because I know that the people who are angry believe that Obama is going to set the guilty parties free. I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure that he isn’t going to just send them all home with a farewell gift. That would not be justice any more than the torture that many of them probably have endured in the prison.
Certainly there are guilty people being held in Guantanamo, but there’s a chance that not everyone being held there is actually guilty of anything. And this country has a long standing, little upheld rule that people are to be considered “innocent until PROVEN guilty.”
Is it justice that our government has broken the Geneva convention out of anger toward a shadowy enemy? Is it justice that people have been held indefinitely without trial?
See, when we have been hurt, we feel that we need to blame someone. Certainly there are people to blame, but more often than not, our finger is pointed in the wrong direction, not out of dislike for a real person, but out of our own bitterness and anger and wanting to see “some punishment!”
I watched CSI: NY last night, and this very thing happened. A couple of boys trying to discredit a coach inadvertently got the coach murdered by one of their own fathers. The father didn’t want to find out for sure if the coach was innocent or guilty (plus he was an officer of the court), so he took the law into his own hands and murdered an innocent man, a man who was actually a good coach who had simply displeased a team member because of an unpopular decision.
Popularity is not what being president is truly about. Sure, it helps, because an unpopular president won’t last. But the president is supposed to UPHOLD the laws of our great nation, not make policies that make innocent people suffer. His job is about justice and doing right by the most people possible.
Just to be clear, I probably won’t agree with some of the things our new president does. But this is one decision I’m glad that he made, and one promise that I’m glad he kept.
Filed under: flylady
Okay, I’m not talking about our new president, just so you know. I did watch the oath of office and his speech, but I couldn’t deal with the media spectacle and had to stop watching when that was all over.
Anyway, I’m talking about what I did today. Considering that I’ve been really lazy, any actual cleaning is some kind of progress. I worked in the kitchen today, even though technically I think I’m supposed to be in the master bedroom–which doesn’t need as much rescuing.
The things I did today were all the dishes that I could find, including the pans that have been soaked and waiting to be washed since New years–they were the only things left from that night, just so ya know.
I also cleared out the leftovers from the fridge, and cleaned out the freezer, which was in desperate need of cleaning, mostly because I am pretty wasteful and there are things that I should have used up long ago.
Anyway, it got me to thinking that I really need to watch what I make, and try to use what I buy, because I think I threw out two bags filled with yucky food that couldn’t be eaten. Not pretty, when you consider how much we probably paid for some of that stuff.
I’ve been bad about posting a menu, and we had a bad weekend because we ate out quite a bit, but the only fast food we had (not counting Chipotle here) was Arby’s. We went to Pizza Hut yesterday for lunch, because we had a free day with Sam, which is really rare, so we took advantage. But as far as eating at home, we’ve done really good about the evenings, except on the weekends–darn those weekends.
At the moment, my other project is that I’m knitting something special for my nieces, and I really hope they will turn out cute. I won’t say anything more right now.
So I think my progress is going well, because I’m learning not to put things off and take a few minutes to do something rather than be lazy and not do anything.
Filed under: parenting
I was up way too early this morning for a holiday. Nour and Alex both invaded our bedroom at 7:00 this morning, although Alex may have been up for a while, but our door effectively blocks out noise, so I wasn’t jerked out of my sleep until Nour opened the door and I heard him yelling. As I rolled over to Sam, I said “we’ve been invaded.”
Of course, all this to say that I could have been up earlier, but was trying to sleep in.
Nour hasn’t been sleeping well, and she has been getting up a lot and turning on her bedroom light at night, or coming in to sleep at our feet like a puppy. She has become afraid of the dark recently, and isn’t quite sure how to deal with this troubling fear, so last night I taught her to pray “Dear Jesus, help me not to be afraid.” I don’t know how much it helped, but she did manage to sleep through the night with her light off (in my defense, she DOES have a night-light), but she still woke up pretty early, of course, that could have been her brother.
We’ve actually had a hard time with the night-waking recently, because it only started in the last month or so, yet Alex has been sleeping through the night for months, so I guess I’ve been pretty blessed there. At this point, I know it’s not a discipline problem, she is genuinely afraid of the dark.
Which brings me to another troubling issue. She is growing into this older child and has begun to show us that she doesn’t trust us. It’s not even in big things, but, for example, she kept begging me for a piece of candy the other day, even though I told her repeatedly that it was all gone. I know she didn’t believe me, because she kept asking. It’s stuff like that. Now, let me reassure you that we don’t lie to her. Okay, she believes in Santa, but we don’t tell her that there’s none left when there really is some left. She has just begun to question everything. I suppose in some ways this is a really healthy thing, though it can be quite annoying when she doesn’t believe anything we say. Sometimes, I think that she is intelligent and advanced, but lacks the maturity to deal with it, but I’m not going to try to grow her up too quickly.
Anyway, that’s just a glance into my life as a parent. Alex bit me twice today, and now he’s eating cheerios, because it seemed like he really just wanted to bite stuff. And he’s wearing cute baby leg warmers that we got at Target. I’m going to have to force Sam to take a picture of him.
This is what Nour says every morning as Sam is leaving for work. It’s so cute, because she is, of course. But it’s really a reflection of something that has been happening for far too long in our culture.
I have heard it said that years ago in this country, men typically worked in the home in some capacity, or there was a family business in which all the children assisted, and usually the young boys apprenticed. Carrying on the “family business” was about family pride and survival. This time was also one before schools were widely available, so children were educated as much as time allowed, and children like Abraham Lincoln were smart enough to go out on their own and do “research” beyond the scope of the family’s knowledge.
The trend, the shift in culture has been slow and subtle, and here’s what it is: Men go out to work, women stay at home with the children. But, and I might anger some people by saything this, but the woman staying home to educate the children is a rather feminist idea.
First of all, in most societies, even today, women are uneducated, illiterate, and not allowed to do a whole lot, mostly because of the way that they are treated like second-class citizens who are undeserving of an education. But somehow in America and the western world, women have gained first-class citizenship, which includes entry into schools, elementary through college and even graduate and post-graduate education. Women have been given the freedom to learn, read, and grow on their own, to make their own choices about husbands, to even think for themselves regarding what they believe the Bible says.
And women like this are even staying at home to raise and school their children. How amazing it is that we live in a culture where women are allowed to gain enough knowledge to be able to teach their own children that same knowledge! How feminist of us to give women the right to read a book for themselves and then turn around and teach the information in it to their children!
I’m not being sarcastic here, but I’m considering the notion of turning the “stay at home mom” mentality on it’s head. I am a stay at home mom by my own choice, not because anyone told me that is what God commands or “calls” me to, or even because my husband wanted me to do it. And I’m an intelligent woman by that same choice.
I believe it blesses God when we want to learn more about Him, even as women, and when we question the things we have been taught. I don’t believe that the man of the house has the final answer on what God says, because I’ve personally known a lot of men who just didn’t really have a clue about what the Bible really says, and yet were highly arrogant about their beliefs, even though they were clearly, dead wrong.
In all actuality, women who work outside the home are following the same trend as the men, just a few years later. It’s not that men are supposed to go out and work and women aren’t, or that women are supposed to stay home but men aren’t. It’s that our society has changed. And guess what? The Bible doesn’t really address cultural shifts. The Bible addresses REAL, unchanging issues, like justice, righteousness, and faith. These things stand the test of culture wars and societal shifts. In fact, I think it is safe to say that though things changed from the time of Abraham, to David, to Jesus and even, yes, to Paul, God’s word never changed and still hasn’t, because the things HE says are relevant to all people at all times, rather than forcing people to remain in a culture box that he never intended for us.
So, back to the idea of women staying home and men going out to work. There are a lot of people who think they are against the feminist movement because they work in the home with their children, and their husband goes out and works a paid job somewhere. This goes along with the attitude of “stand by your man,” but doesn’t address the real issue. Any time when a woman is in charge of a part of her home, this is a feminist act. If she gets to decorate the way she desires, it’s feminism. If she gets to make her own schedule to stick to, it’s feminism.
Feminism isn’t about one-upping the men in our lives, it’s about not being oppressed. It’s about the freedom to make choices for ourselves, to think for ourselves, to get an education for ourselves. And it’s been going on for a lot longer than the last 150 years.
I laugh to myself when I think of a woman who is against feminism but loves the idea of the Proverbs 31 woman. This woman was an ancient feminist. She was not a stay at home mom in the least. She was an entrepenuer, a servant of the community, a hard worker in all she did, and she is more, far more, than just a wife and mother.
I also appreciate the women who loved Jesus, particularly Mary and Martha. Martha was a feminist in her own right, trying to boss others around (even Jesus! *gasp*), and yet she was the typical “homemaker” that a lot of women strive to be, the Martha Stewart of ancient Judea. Mary, on the other hand, was constantly praised by Jesus because she sat at his feet, she learned from the Master himself, and she strove to serve him because of the change he brought to her life. She was a feminist, too, because she chose for herself what was best for her. She would be criticized in modern conservative circles for trying to be “like the men” in that she was constantly seeking knowledge from God, rather than from a husband or pastor. She went directly to the source. Not only that, but she obviously wasn’t the best homemaker, like her sister, because she would rather hang out with the men in the living room than do “women’s work” in the kitchen.
We can go back and forth on the meaning of feminism all day, I’m sure, but truthfully, the Bible doesn’t really allow for this, because it is not about issues of gender roles so much as it is about who God is and what His plan for ALL of us is. While salvation is individual, the Body of Christ is about ALL of us working together for the salvation OF the individual. So out in the world, we are all lost individuals, but when we come to Christ, we become a part of the whole body, the Bride of Christ (feminine, always.).
I apologize if this seemed like a bunch of thoughts pieced together. This is a blog, not a book, but I hope that it at least made sense. I may expand on this idea later, too.
Filed under: deep thoughts
I’ve been reading a lot of different blogs lately, and yesterday I came across one that made me want to gag. I mean, literally stick my finger down my throat and force myself to throw up. I won’t give the link, just cause I don’t want the owner coming here and belittling me for disliking her blog. Let’s just say that she is Martha Stewart on No-Doze.
The blog I’m talking about had lots of “crafty” ideas for using old boxes, so I have to admire the fact that she was repurposing things that would have gone to the dump, but the stuff she was making was sickly pink and frilly. Anyway, it was the kind of thing I might have liked 15-20 years ago during my “girly” phase, but that I don’t really like much now, because I’m a simple girl who doesn’t need a lot of frills, and prefers to wear jeans rather than a jean skirt.
On to the confessions I’m talking about. I don’t want to be like this woman. While some may admire her for her talent at creating things like this, I’m thinking, who has the time?? There were dozens of ideas on her blog for little pink paper books and tiny boxes covered with flowery papers, but I wondered why. I wondered why anyone would waste their time making these kinds of crafts when there is work to be done. And I’m not just talking about housework.
I’m guilty of one of the worst sins most days, apathy. I just don’t care about the people around me (not my family, the world). I don’t think about how they need a Savior, I think about how much they annoy me. I don’t think about how Jesus could be a light to them, I think about how they do stupid things that make me cringe. It’s not that I hate them, it’s that I, apparently, don’t care about the state of their souls. I don’t really think about it much, but reading that blog made me realize that I am a lot more like the woman writing it than I am like Jesus.
I’m no supermom, but my children aren’t the only people in the world that need to be taught about Jesus. I have been thinking about how the people in my community and beyond need Him a lot, and the fact that I need Him every day.
I’ve thought about my passion for things like the environment, etc., and how they fit into my Christian life. I’m not a “typical” conservationist, because I look through the lens of Christianity. I have to realize that everything I believe MUST fit into my Christian life, not the other way around. If my belief in God conflicts with my political leanings, I must change my political leanings, not what I believe about God.
What I’m really realizing is that my roles as wife and mother are secondary to my role as a child of God and His follower. While my family comes first physically, God’s work should always come above everything else. That’s why it’s important for me to show His love to my family in everything I do, which is a great task, but doesn’t really involve making frilly books out of cereal boxes. In fact, while it might be wonderful to have the time to do crafts, this should be something that comes second, third, fourth or 100th in line to serving the people around me, and not just my family, but everyone I come into contact with.
Now, I realize that some people might say that these frilly crafts might be a service to others, and may bring light to other people’s day. I don’t know anyone who would be particularly blessed by these objects, but that’s not to say they aren’t out there. But really, a woman who is in a shelter needs her physical and spiritual needs met, not her decorative “needs.”
I love what I’ve read about service today, and about how being in a Christian marriage means tring to out-do one another with service, rather than the power struggles we often spend our lifetimes on. While I do a good bit of serving in my home, I’m not always doing it in love or with a kind spirit (I’ll admit that!), and really, a lot of this is an attitude thing.
Anyway, I think my husband would probably choke if I filled our house with frilly stuff.
I have been making nearly all of Alex’s baby food, though I have had to used Gerber food occassionally, and whenever I get it from my mom, I use that as well. I have been pretty good about not buying it, and since we’ve been shopping at Aldi, I haven’t really had the opportunity. One of the hardest things about making your own is when you just don’t have the food in the house. Alex really likes sweet potatoes, but I have to buy more and cook them, because we have run out. I like them a lot, too, so I might just buy extra.
But the point of this is that he is nearly 9 months old, and is about to start eating meats and yogurt, and hopefully some other things that go along with that. I’ve been pretty careful about giving him just fruit, veggies and cereal, mostly because I didn’t want him overloading on food that doesn’t have as many calories as milk and formula. (Both average 20 cal/oz, while food is between 5-15) It’s been more important to get enough milk/formula into him each day than it has to make sure he’s eating 2 meals, but the transition to toddler-dom is about to begin, and he needs to start eating 3 meals a day.
I didn’t have as hard a time with Nour on this, because she was eating 2 of her meals at day care before the age of 1, and sometimes 3. The difference is now, I’m not only responsible for preparation of the food, I’m responsible for getting it into his body. I have found that one of the greatest challenges of being a stay at home mom is having the motivation to get moving. In reality, staying home doesn’t mean laying in bed all day, but it also doesn’t mean the house will be spic and span every night. Often, caring for Alex has taken my entire day, except for naps, and then I feel that I have to spend some time with Nour as well, so she doesn’t get neglected, which means that I have little time for housework. I’m not a great manager of my time, so I’m pretty sure I could do better, but I’m a work in progress, and I am trying to take the little victories, like the fact that I’ve been able to make dinner each night, and that I’ve found time to get the laundry done in the midst of Alex’s most challenging week since the week he was born.
Overall, Alex has been eating a pretty varied diet of fruits and veggies, but there are limits to fruit, and since he’s got issues with bananas right now, the most fruit I’ve gotten into him in the last week is a couple of apples. He does like mixed veggies, though, and I found out what it would look like to give him corn and peas (processed, of course) when it came out the other end. Not a pretty sight (as if it’s supposed to be?). I also attempted to give him cut up toast yesterday, and apparently he’s not quite ready for the size I gave him. Oh, well, just cut it smaller the next time! Considering that Nour didn’t get her teeth until much later, she was far more advanced in her food choices and ability to mash up bread than Alex at this age. We’re working on it, though. I know that it takes time.
But I wanted to share this last thought. If you have a baby, or are about to, and want some great ideas on what to do when the time to feed table food comes, this site is a really great help. It’s got tons of recipes and information, and it’s really been my savior when it comes to ideas for Alex:
Filed under: blogging
I’ve started another new blog about our life in relationship to plans to move to Egypt. It will mostly chronicle the things that have to do with Egypt and where we are at present. For those of you who come here as out-of-town visitors, this is where you might learn a little more about me if you really want to.
Eventually, it will become our blog about Egypt when we move there, but for now, it is about how we got to this point, and when we travel to Egypt this summer, we’ll talk about what it’s like and how we are doing. It will read something like a book, I hope. And I’ll eventually be putting the link in my sidebar, too.
That was a super-long title, but it kind of negates posting much more.
I spent about 2 hours cleaning the office last night after a frantic search for our insurance cards because they got moved from where I *knew* they were on the desk. I don’t have a before picture but it was pretty ugly, even after I had worked on it last week for awhile. I spent the evening cleaning while watching/listening to one of my top favorite movies, The American President. I don’t know why I like it so much, probably because it’s so quippy. Anyway, I think I would have done my mother and the Flylady proud because I took several breaks when it got frustrating, I focused on one area at a time, and I didn’t have anything to put away when I was done (because I cleaned it all!). I got the filing done, mostly, but I think there are stray pieces of mail scattered around the house, and I managed to get everything put into areas that need to go to other parts of the house.
Also, I started working in the bathroom upstairs for the zone work, and found that magic erasers work wonders on soap scum on the sides of the tub. Without cleaners. Of course, it might work better with a cleaner, but it didn’t take much to get it off without. I don’t think our tub has been scrubbed in months, I can’t remember the last time, actually, but that means that it’s got a load of grim around the sides that comes off if you scrape it, but comes off a lot better if you scrub it. The magic eraser thing is a temporary solution, as I don’t think it will last very long if I do it that way every time. The piece I used is already ripped to shreds and I’m going to finish it off until it is in tiny bits or unusable. But the tub is looking a lot better in places.
The kitchen kind of fell apart this weekend, as in, it was going well until Sunday night, then I had to soak two pans that still hadn’t been washed, and they are still sitting in the sink, though I did dump them out yesterday. That’s something that is still a major work in progress, though I’m doing okay, considering that I’ve been keeping everything else fairly clean.
One of my greatest victories over the last week was that we had friends over on Sunday night, and Sunday morning before church (it starts at 11:30), we were able to get the entire downstairs (except the office) cleaned in roughly 20 minutes. It wasn’t a big mess, but there was stuff everywhere. Nour cleaned up her messes, Sam helped in the kitchen, and I put everything else away. It was pretty neat how the place didn’t look the same afterwards, and it only took such a short amount of time to do it.
My goal this week is to keep up with the kitchen, but do the zone chores for the bathrooms and office, while also getting the laundry done that piled up last week.
