A Truly Great Resource

For those of you who have not found their site yet, I wanted to take a moment and recommend Vision Forum to you. They are a great resource for any family regardless of whether or not you have children or how young they may be.

This summer we listened to their Family Strategies messages. They provided a must needed practical boot camp for parents to make wise and informed decisions about their families goals and future. The church today too often neglects to equip parents by teaching on practical subjects, like parenting and how to deal with everyday life situations. Doug and Beall do this in a fun and informative way, while providing plenty of examples of how you can make these strategies work in your family.

They also have a wonderful collection of Christian books, some you can't find any where else. Some of my personal favorites are:

Beloved Bride

Killer Angel

The Family

In addition to books, they have videos, CD's and MP3's, all designed to encourage your family to press on and fight the good fight of faith.

So head on over and see all the wonderful resources they have to offer! :D

Adoption

~No Longer An Orphan~

I read this story for the first time last night. They are family to a very dear friend of mine and I wanted to share this story with you in the hopes that you will pray for this family as they are trying to bring these sweet little one home to love and care for them.

I am so blessed to be an adopted daughter of the King and I pray that God will soon bring these little ones to their home too.

Good Stewardship in the Home part 2: Use it Up, Wear it Out...

In the first post of this series, Good Stewardship in the Home, we talked about using our time and talents in raising our children.

This time we are going to talk a little bit about stewardship of time and finances, which takes us to one of the biggest buzz words in the blog world: frugality.

Frugality, to me can be summed up in these words from an old New England proverb: Use it up, Wear it Out, Make Do or Do Without. It is a mindset that says, I will find a way to make the most of what I have and wear a smile too.

An hundred years ago, no one had to tell a housewife to be frugal. Frugality was a part of life, very survival for some. You used what you had, you made do or you simply lived without. When was the last time we reused something rather than buy new? When did we do without something rather than going to the nearest store and buying something new? We are so used to consuming that we have forgotten the roots of frugality. We feel like we are being frugal by only spending $20 on a $100 sweater. We forget that sometimes we could do without the new sweater. Now I'm not saying that you didn't get a great deal and only you know if you really needed that sweater, but my point is that some times frugality means you make do with what you already have. And let's face it, dear friends, we have plenty!

 For those of you who maybe short on ideas of how to practically make this a part of your lifestyle, here are just a few ideas to get you started thinking:

Re-purpose those old towels as burp rags, cut up old blankets and make dolly blankets, turn old pillowcases into nightgowns, old button up shirts into dresses/jumpers.

Find ways to use less disposable products: try cloth diapers (or be really brave and make your own), cloth menstrual pads, sandwich bags, even something as simple as using a hanky instead of tissues.

Some times frugality also means we do without. Our grandmothers did without almost every modern convenience we take for granted, all while raising several more children. For example of what this might look like, my dishwasher broke today. Now I could call someone to repair it and spend the money or I may decide that I really don't need it and wash my dishes by hand. I did it growing up, I have the skills, there is nothing stopping me from taking this as a sign and saving not only the money on the repair bill but also all that hot water that won't have to be heated to clean my dishes, which I could do in less than half the time. There things we can do without. Does it make it easier to not have to wash dishes by hand with three little ones under foot? Yes. Can I live without it? Also yes!


Now if you are looking for ways to save money on groceries or diapers or find freebies of various kinds, there are many great articles already written and I don't need to re-write them. My favorite site for those kinds of posts is Money Saving Mom but there are plenty of others. Just do a quick search and you'll see what I mean.

What I thought I would do instead is share a few posts that I have really enjoyed recently, that share a little different take on frugality. 

This one speaks for itself, 3 Ways You Can Save Money Without Changing Your Spending.  Anything that saves you money, without having to spend any, is a blessing!

For a bit of historical perspective and encouragement, I love this one, Despairing over Household Allowance. Sometimes we get tunnel vision, thinking we live in such difficult times but you can see examples all throughout history of women dealing with similar or even worse economic situations and smiling through it!

Of course, the best place to find DIY projects and new ways to reuse and re-purpose what you already have, is Pinterest. If you haven't found this gem yet, you'll thank me later. :D You can find my pins here.

A little bit of time spent deciding what things you need to change in your home to make these kinds of adjustments, and a little research on how to make it happen, will go a long way to making a great difference in how you run your home. 

Just remember that what ever you do to use it up, wear it out, make do or do without, is for a purpose. The more frugal we are with our resources, the better stewards we are being of what we have and the more we will have to use for what God would have us to use it for. We are not good stewards if we use frugality as a means to waste resources or spoil ourselves. We do it to serve the Lord and others. This is probably the most important part in living a frugal lifestyle. Know why you are being frugal. If you are doing it because everyone else is doing it, chances are you will just waste your time and money on something else. You must have a goal, a vision for what to do with every excess you have. You must have a plan to reinvest it in something of real worth. Otherwise you could find yourself, when the Master returns, with only one talent and no excuse. Let's be stewards with a plan for maximizing our investments for the best possible return.

And the winners are...

Congratulations to Erin, Debi and Cassandra! Your free codes are on their way to your email.

Thanks everyone for entering!

Just in case you were wondering...all winners were chosen  and posted by Rafflecopter via Random.org.

New Deadline for Christmas Card Giveaway!

In case you tried to enter the Christmas Card giveaway and couldn't, we had a miscommunication with the site and it is now fixed. I added an extra day just in case you missed out because of this, meaning that the giveaway will now end Midnight November 1 EST. You still can enter to win here.

I'm so sorry if this caused you trouble!

Good Stewardship in the Home, Part 1

This is something that has been on my heart for a while. As wives and mothers, we are sometimes swept away with the minutiae of the home; dishes, diapers, baths, floors, etc... and we forget to be good stewards in what we do. We ask, "Is this a good use of our time?" instead of, "Is this the best use of our time?"

There are many ways we can exemplify good stewardship as Christian women. Matthew 25 is all about preparation and stewardship; first, the story of the wise and foolish virgins. Some who are ready, having bought ahead in preparation for the arrival of the Bridegroom and some that didn't think past the moment and the excitement of the future to actually plan ahead for it. And then the parable of the Talents, where Jesus instructs us to use whatever we are given to invest, looking forward to the time in which we will have to give an answer for what we did with what we were given. Every one has something different that God has given them and expects them to use wisely. For some, God  have them money and they will be responsible to God for how and where they spend it. For others it is freedom, and God will expect to have it used for His service and not frittered away.

We as wives and mothers are held responsible for how we and our children spend our time; whether we invest it in kingdom work or whether we squander it on harmful or even "just" silly things.

We are responsible for our resources; making sure our pennies count, to maximize the funds our husbands give us in trust.

We are responsible for using our gifts; hospitality, mercy, teaching. It does not matter whether we have little or much, we need to use it. Invest it. Make sure we are getting a return on what we are putting in.

We need to ask ourselves daily; what am I investing in? And what kind of return can I look for from this? Can I invest in something that will bring me a greater return? Can I increase my return by investing more in this? Our lives must be active. We can not afford to be passive about how we spend our time or our talents.

Today I want to pose some questions to think about. Are we being active participants in life? Are we evaluating our days with the thought of making the most of it, in the light of our Master?

We can not be passive about how we direct our children day in and day out. Because we know that guaranteed, if we don't direct them in the way in which they should go, someone else will. And when God asks us what we did with the children (talents) He gave us, we can't sit back and say, "Well, I was afraid to invest them" or "I invested in the best education and a great church with an on fire Sunday School/Youth Group for them". The buck stops with you. God holds you responsible. And if we are not constantly evaluating how we spend our time, talent and resources, they will be gone before we know it and so will our children.

A little here, a little there...

I have been pondering ways to save a little money in the grocery department. I know, I hear you...use coupons. Okay, I do, but I buy natural, organic, bulk, make-from-scratch kind of stuff and these are not normal coupon items. Now I will use them for treats, toiletries and diapers but that is about all I find useful in the coupon world on a regular basis.

Another idea often suggested is that you stock up on items that will last when you find a good deal, but often I find that I have done my shopping for the month when I find such deals, meaning that there is no more budget for such things. And today it hit me: I should set aside an amount each month for just such items. (For those of you who have been doing this for a while, tune me out but if you are like me and this is a new revelation, feel free to read on...)

So say you have a month budget of $500 for your family. And you find you can make it on just $450 each month. Then you can take that extra $50 and save it for the time cans of peas are $.50 or when you find toothpaste for $.75 a tube. Or maybe you decide you'd like to buy a side of beef each year, well then that money will come in handy when you need to pay the butcher.

You may only have $20 space in your budget but don't despair, that $20 a month becomes $240 in a year and once you start stocking up at cheaper prices, you can take the money that you would have spent on those items and add them to your stock up budget! Soon you'll be ahead of the game.

Anyone have an ideas they want to share about stocking up? I'd love more tips!

Portraits of Life

A few weeks ago, I won a contest at Raising Homemakers for a 8x12 print of my choice from Portraits of Life. After much deliberation, I chose the beautiful .

Mr. Hoover, the artist behind the photograph, was quick to email me making sure he had the photograph I had selected correct. He shipped it right away and it arrived very promptly, well packaged at my door. The photograph is gorgeous and I can't wait to get it framed, so it can take its new place in my family room.



I would highly recommend you pop on over to Portraits of Life and see all the lovely photographs Mr. Hoover has available.

A Review and a giveaway!

Blogger and I finally resolved our issues so here, finally, are the details for the giveaway!

Last year, you might remember, I wrote about our Christmas cards from Shutterfly, which were a big hit. This year, not only did they ask me to write about them again, they also gave me 3 sets of 25 cards to give away to my readers!!

This year they have new styles. I am loving this one:

And I adore the simplicity of this one:

Of course they have fun and whimsical styles too:

My favorite addition to their collection this year, are the cards that double as Christmas letters. Some are headline types like this one:

And some are closer to the traditional letters like this:

Visit Shutterfly to check out the entire collection for yourself.

While you are there, check out their selection of Christmas thank you cards. Not only will you have thank you's for your friends and family, but they are personalized with photos of you and your family.

They have a great selection of Photo Gifts: traditional items like mugs, but they also have fun ideas like reusable shopping bags. You can browse all their gift ideas here.

I'd love to hear which card you'd choose!

Now for the giveaway fun!! (I tried to make entering easy, but let me know what you think of the new system when you leave your comment.) The first entry is mandatory, just leave a comment on this post. You can earn additional entries by clicking on the read more link. You can become a follower, subscribe and visit Shutterfly and tell about something you like.

I'll be choosing three winners on November 1, so you'll have plenty of time to enter!!! Make sure to leave me with your email address so I can send you your free code if you win.

Best wishes!!!!

Oh and if you are a blogger, you can register here http://goo.gl/DDw7Q for your chance at 25 free cards!

We regret...

I have been trying for the past hour at least to post the review and details of the giveaway as promised...however, Blogger has decided to lose more than half of the post 4 times so I am calling it quits for tonight. I will try again tomorrow, but I wanted y'all to know I didn't forget, I was thwarted.

Good night all! See you on the morrow!

Giveaway coming soon...

It might be a rumor or it might be true, but some one says there will be a giveaway coming soon here...

Read Monday to find out... :D

Remember those in Bonds

Please take a few minutes to watch this video and "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body". Hebrews 13:3

We are all family and they deserve no less.


International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church from Christian Freedom International on Vimeo.

The Top Six Cleaning List

I have been thinking a lot lately about what things I should focus on as far as house cleaning goes. My daughter is getting to the age when we need to start thinking about preschool time being added to the daily routine but I always feel like I just don't have time for that. However, since I must make time, I have been thinking about what I can do to make sure I do enough but not so much that I leave no time for the other important pieces of my work.

As I prayed about it, I realized that while I may focus too much sometimes on keeping things clean (by clean, I mean in tip-top shape, not simply sanitary), I also can't just let things go, both because it drives me crazy but because it drives my husband crazy too. So I decided what I'm going to do is make a Top Six list of the things that must be cleaned to have a "clean house". That way if nothing else gets done, at least we can both be happy with the state that the house is in.

If you want to do this for yourself, I would encourage you to start by thinking about what things your husband always mentions about your home. For example, it could be something that he always notices when you clean it perhaps it is the floors or the bathrooms. Or it could be something that he doesn't like and makes comments about, for instance, all the toys on the living room floor or the stacks of laundry, waiting to be folded. It may take awhile to think of them but if you listen and watch what he says and does when he comes home, you will probably see pretty quickly what I'm talking about. If you are still unsure of what his pet peeves are, ask him what things he would like to have cleaned when he comes home after a day of work. Once you have his Top Three, your list is half way done.

The next part is much easier. List the Top Three things that you are always drawn to clean, or what frustrates you the most when it is messy or dirty. This is usually easier because these are the task we get upset because no one does or the ones we find ourselves compulsively doing several times a day.

I'll give you some examples of things I thought of as I was making my list. Not all of these things are on my list but they will give you a good idea of what I'm talking about.

For example, I can't stand walking into my daughters' room and seeing every book, toy and stuffed animal they have all over the floor. So I will call a time to pick up and we will whip their room in to shape together. Now my husband on the other hand would find this problem at the very bottom of his list since he does not have to wade through the muck to get in and out of their room. But to me, it's a big deal.

He is more concerned with the basics; a place to sit or dinner being ready when he arrives, things like that.

I have a friend who cleaned off the top of her frig and discovered this was one of her husband's pet peeves. You can read her post here.

Now you have every thing you need to make your own Top Six Cleaning List. So each afternoon, set aside 15-20 minutes and get those things done. The first time you do this, it may take longer to get things actually clean, but once you've done that, it should be a simple tidy of each area. You don't need to deep clean all the areas everyday, just keep them maintained. Save deep cleaning for the days you have assigned to that room or area.

Trust me, this will go a long way to keeping you sane and your hubby happy! 

Frugal Friday-Ah, the virtues of baking soda pt.2

So I told you last week I would explain why I was reading the baking soda box, and here is the fulfillment of that promise.

Confession: I have always had a hard time finding a natural deodorant that works. I have found a few with aluminum in them that work but no natural deodorant works for me even when reapplied half way through the day. So one day, I reasoned to myself that baking soda is a natural deodorizer so why not try it as a deodorant? It couldn't hurt. And to my surprise and joy, it worked! You only use maybe 1/4 to 1/2 of a tsp. for both underarms and no reapplication is necessary! I have been using it for about 3 weeks now and no troubles. If you decide to try it for yourself, let me know if it works for you!

Happy Friday to all of you!

Frugal Friday-Ah, the virtues of baking soda pt.1

Yes...I know...it is in fact Saturday. But just because the tip is a day later than planned, doesn't mean it is not a good tip! :D



So I don't know how many of you have trouble with this but despite the fact that I clean my children's bath tub every week, I still have a nasty soap ring around it. I don't know what causes it, but it is yucky and I can't seem to get rid of it...until last week. I was reading the baking soda box (read here next Friday to see why I was reading the baking soda box) and I saw it said that you can use it to clean bathrooms. "Eureka!" I thought. I will use this to clean the soap scum. So I did and it worked! It took some elbow grease, not a big deal, but it came off in clumps. I'm so thrilled that now my children's bath tub sparkly, shiny clean! I even told a friend about it and she tried it with the same results! Hurray for baking soda and another great, frugal solution!

Contentment

Frugal Friday: Cloth Diapers and Wipes

I have come to the conclusion that I blog better when I have a deadline. I'm sure I am not the only one who feels this way but I love blogging and I just don't find the time unless there is a goal in mind. So with this thought as motivation, I am starting a Frugal Friday post here. Each Friday I will post something that I have found to try to be more frugal and usually more natural too. Some of my posts maybe things I have tried, some will be things I would like to try. But I will have one each Friday, Lord willing!

So, today we are talking diapers and wipes. There has been a lot of talk about how much it costs to use cloth diapers and whether the impact on the environment is any better when you use cloth over disposables. I can't answer all those questions since I am not an expert in statistics or anything like that. I can just tell you what I know from my experience.

Using this calculator, I figured out it cost me about $1.60 a load to wash my diapers once a week. (I wash them twice, once in cold and once in hot. The first time, with cold, I add soap, borax and bac-out. The second round I use just soap and hot water.) If you add that up, it costs about $6.4 a month to wash diapers. Then you have to add the cost of the diapers. Even if I had to buy them every two years (which is crazy...) it would cost me $5 a month. So all together, that's $11.40 to cloth diaper one child every month. When you figure the best price you can find consistently to buy disposables is about $22 on Amazon, cloth diapers sound pretty good. :D (There are situations make cloth diapering difficult or next to impossible, but again that is beyond the scope of my blog today.)

So for me, cloth diapers are the way to go. I wish I could have cloth diapered all three of my little ones but I figure better late than never!

I'm getting ready to start using cloth wipes too for my son. I'll be using the Anti-fungal Baby Wipes recipe from this website to make them. I'll have to let you know how the cost plays out. Right now, I use the Seventh Generation wipes from Amazon. They are only .02 when you use the subscribe and save option, which is pretty good, I think.

Anyway, that's my tip of the day. In the next few weeks, we will be talking about natural shampoos and conditioners, laundry soaps and fabric softeners and others. If you have suggestions, please let me know!

Have a great weekend!

Orderliness

"Let all things be done decently and in order." I Corinthians 14:40


It is sometimes funny how God directs us. I was praying about what to do for school for my 3 year old this year and felt God guiding me to study Character Qualities. You can find the list we are using here.

I thought I would walk y'all through it as we go to give you a picture of what it might look like, that and it will help me keep me on track. :D

Day one we started with a working definition of what Orderliness is: Arranging myself and my surroundings to achieve the greatest efficiency. Then we started memorizing I Corinthians 14:40.

Here's the funny part. When "I" chose orderliness, I wasn't thinking my daughter was particularly disorderly and this would fix it. Nor did I think that I was in need of training in being orderly. And yet, as I teach my daughter, God is showing me just how disorderly I am and how far I have come from His established order. Don't get me wrong. I love to keep things clean but I have always struggled with clutter. Just ask my mom...or on second thought, don't. You don't have that kind of time. Anyway, the point being, that in teaching my daughter these character traits, I am learning things I need to be learning too. I'm so thankful God is big enough to organize all this for me. I am surely not that orderly! :D

Day two we read a few stories that deal with orderliness from Living Like Him (out of print) and worked some more on memorization.

As I am preparing Day three, I found this helpful advice at Lifestyle Homeschool:

We must remember that Orderliness is a character trait - it is not a life’s purpose. Our life’s purpose is to be used by God; bringing our life out of chaos will make us more effective.

~If you think of it – do it
~Create appropriate times for your activities
~Set a timer to keep you on track
~Leave a room better than you found it – this means pick up after yourself and possibly others. See this as blessing others rather than the usual response of “It’s not my mess!”.
~Have a “home” for all your stuff (piles are not homes!)
~Stop a task a few minutes earlier, giving you time to pack away before the next activity.

We have to remember that if we are going to teach things like Character traits, we have to live them first. It is not enough to drill our children in the study of them during the day but not show them by our actions. Honestly, that is the most challenging part of homeschooling; you can't tell your children what should be done and ship them out the door. You have to live it, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day.

So tomorrow in addition to showing my daughter what an orderly home and life look like (or trying at least), I think we will be studying Creation. I can't think of a better example of the importance of orderliness than God's perfect order in creating all things.

Good order is the foundation of all great things.
~Edmund Burke

News

I know, I know...I haven't been posting much. Truth is I have been spending most of my time learning how to do my job better and part of that is spending more and more time with my children and more time keeping my home in order. But now as my home is more organized, not perfect yet but definitely improving, I am excited to share all that I have learned with all of you here!

I will be posting things I have been learning here as well as guest posting on a new site created by my mother-in-law at Proverbs 31 Practical Helps. You can find my posts on the Clean Heart and Home page.

Anyway, I can't wait to get started. We will also be starting a weekly project for all of you to join in on so keep an eye out for that...coming soon!

Blessings to all of you!

Perspective on Children

My mom told me this story today and it has been spinning in my head ever since. I can't help but wonder how many others there are like this older gentleman who may wish they had it to do over again.

After walking in to an office one day with their two young children, my parents were stopped by an older man who told them what nice children they had. He said when he and his wife got married, they agreed not to have children so they could enjoy life; travel the world, have it all. And they did. They saw the world, all of it, soaking in every minute. Life was a constant adventure. They had all the nice things they wanted and enjoyed them too. Then suddenly his wife passed away. Now this poor old man was left alone in the world. He no longer had someone to travel with him. no one to enjoy his things with him and no one to whom he could leave them when he died.

He had chosen the path of pleasure and it left him empty-handed. He would have gladly traded it all for some one to love him his old age.

Grandchildren to sit on his knee and listen to his stories.

Someone to keep his memory alive long after he was gone.

This man probably is gone now, since this story is over 20 years old, but maybe his sad tale will helps us rethink what is really important and what our perspective of children should look like.

31 Days to Clean...my way

So any one who has read my blog could probably tell you at least these two things about me:
~I am pursuing a clean house
~I have a hard time following a schedule

Here is my latest way to try to make this happen:

31 Days of Clean

I had planned to start this with every one on the 1st...needless to say, it is not the first. But I am starting and I will try to keep my progress updated as much as I can. But I can't guarantee that I'll be done in 31 days, or even 31 weeks.

Anyway, day one asks us to make a list of why we clean so, for the sake of making you all laugh, here is my list of reasons in no particular order:

Why I Clean My House-
~I hate tripping over clutter
~I like seeing out my windows
~I like using on a clean toilet, showering in a clean tub
~I don’t like my children eating two day old food off the floors
~I can relax and enjoy my free time so much more if I am sitting in a clean house
~I want to be able to welcome company anytime they want to come without having to kill myself before they get here

I'm still working on my list, but one thing I realized is I clean for almost entirely selfish reasons. So what about you? What are your reasons for cleaning? Care to share?

Project:Simplify Week Five Results...sort of

For those of you who are waiting on pins and needles for my before and after pictures, well, I'm afraid that Project:Simplify week five will finish in week six. (Who am I kidding? My mother-in-law knows this already! :D) As I mentioned in my previous post, at least part of my family has been sick for about two weeks now and last week, all of us were down. So needless to say, I did good to keep up with the basics. Anyway, I am still working my area of choice and while I really think I bit off more that I can do in one or even two weeks, I will post the result this Friday of what I have been able to accomplish.

Until Friday then!

Week Five of Project:Simplify

Sorry to be so late in posting this week's hot spot. We have a houseful of sick people and things have been a bit crazy.

Anyway, hop on over to Simple Mom and see what the final week's project is. I'm excited to see what I can get done...as least I hope I get something done...

Project:Simplify Week Four Results

This week was by far the easiest for me. Since I started using the one day/one room method of cleaning, my kitchen has stayed under control. But this did give me a chance to catch up on a few projects and I am pleased the results.

I started with my small kitchen pantry, where I store just enough for a week at a time. I have found that for me, shopping with three children 3 and under, once a month shopping is the way to go. So I store most of my groceries in a closet downstairs.
Before

After

Then I cleaned off the top of my frig, the spice cabinet and the inside of both the frig and the freezer, none of which had very interesting pictures but I am happy to have them tidy!

Finally I finished off Wednesday by cleaning out the oven, which was so dirty that I was too ashamed to take a "before" picture, and organizing my downstairs pantry, which was so messy, I could barely walk in it anymore!
Before

After

All in all, a good week! Only one more week to go!!! Head over to Simple Mom and enjoy everyone else's hard work too!

Week Four of Project:Simplify

I'm sorry for the delay in posted this week's hot spot. This is one I have been working on every Wednesday for a few months now. (I'll try to explain my system soon.) Anyway, I've been so excited about finishing up my simplifying that I haven't posted for all of you! :D

So head on over to Simple Mom and you can get started too!

Project:Simplify Week Three Results

This project was both easy and frustrating. I recently weeded through most of both the boys and girls clothing totes, so there wasn't much to do there, except my younger daughter was ready to move up a size...just a few weeks too early to change to summer clothing. So I will be moving totes up and down the stairs again soon.

And we don't have a lot of toys to cull but we did make some progress there too. So without further ado...

Before

After

Before

After

Before
These boxes are my toy rotation system. This means less stuff we have clean up every day, but we don't have to get rid of good toys, books and puzzles.

After
The box on the right is the remain toy rotation box. Some day I will get a tote for it but for now is a recycled diaper box and packaging tape. (Important so the girls don't get in to it while it's being stored.) The toys on the left are headed to my son's room, since they are going to be his toys anyway. I forgot to take a picture of the things we got rid of, but there was about a trash bag full between clothes, toys and just a few books.

Before

After

Anyway that was my week three. How was yours? You ready for week four already? I wonder what we will be simplifying then...:D

And don't forget to check in at Simple Mom to see what others did to simplify this week!

Week Three Project:Simplify

We are on week three of Project:Simplify. And this week's hot spot: children's clothes and toys. (You can find the post here, Simple Mom~Hot Spot #3)

If you're home is anything like mine, you will probably be spending more than a week on this, but we'll see just how big of a start I can get on it. :D

My words of inspiration for this project:

“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” William Morris (19th century architect)

See you Friday!

Project:Simplify Week Two Results

I've been weeding through the mass of paper that has steadily been over taking my home, well, as long as there has been a home to take over. I remember being a newlywed and going through stacks of paper together trying to figure out what we should and shouldn't save. (It doesn't help that my husband and I both are pack rats. :D)

So when this week's project was announced part of me was wiping my brow relieved to have another fairly easy week. The other part was in a dead panic...how would I solve the paper gather mess???

I spent most of the last week going through our family book collection getting rid of books we don't want or need...most of what I weeded out were old textbooks that are outdated and useless to us. But I digress...The main point in this exercise was to clear out my son's room, so that in about 6 months when he is ready to move upstairs, he can get in and out of his room. It has been our catch-all/storage room for the past 2 years and it wasn't going to clear itself out. But again, I digress...


While cleaning out his room, I found a little shelf I had used in college as a bookshelf. And it hit me (a solution, not the shelf), I could use this to house all my paper clutter!

So this is what I did:

Up until now, my kitchen island instead of being used to prep food or something kitchen-y, has been my catch-all paper holder. You can see the difference that just one little shelf made for me!

Now I can use my whole island without trying to move papers so they won't fall into the food or any of the other crazy things I was doing. I just need to get some contact paper to cover those wipes boxes and we'll be in good shape! :D

The best part is that the whole project didn't cost me a penny! Thank you, Lord!

Hot Spot #2 for Project:Simplify

Head on over to Simple Mom to find out what we are tackling this week...I'm dreading this project!

Project:Simplify Week One Results

So cleaning out my closet this week, I learned a few things about myself:

#1 I don't own very many clothes that fit me.

#2 I own enough clothes that will never fit me again to start a small clothing store.

In case you missed this weeks "hot spot", you can hop on over to Simple Mom and see what we were up against.

Oh and before I begin, I must also add a disclaimer, I am apparently a terrible photographer. Not only can I not hold the camera straight (it doesn't help with the children won't sit still) but I also can't seem to remember to take those all important before shots. So if you see a picture that doesn't have a matching before or you start feeling a bit queasy, I'm sorry in advance!

Before

After

Now before we go on, do you see that blue tote on the floor? Well, that used to be full of sentimental clothes, now it is only 1/2 full. Yes, I'm very proud of that one. I only saved those dresses that my mom made for me and a few others that I wore on special occasions like graduation.

Before

After

Not too much different but then there wasn't that much to get rid of. :D



My Jewelry~Before



My Jewelry~After

Again not much different but I feel de-cluttered now. :D And I managed to weed out a necklace holder full of necklaces I never wear.

So all in all it was a good week. I ended up with about 3/4 of a large lawn trash bag full of things to get rid of. Rather easy for me but I'm sure my Waterloo will come...just wait until we tackle spare rooms...

Week One of Project:Simplify

This weeks target area has been posted over at Simple Mom. Head on over there and get started simplifying your life!

Hymn for Today

This hymn has been running through my head all day today. I hope it blesses you as much as it has blessed me!

Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

Let me all Thy love accepting,
Love Thee, ever all my days;
Let me seek Thy kingdom only
And my life be to Thy praise;
Thou alone shalt be my glory,
Nothing in the world I see.
Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me,
Thou Thyself hast set me free.

In Thy truth Thou dost direct me
By Thy Spirit through Thy Word;
And Thy grace my need is meeting,
As I trust in Thee, my Lord.
Of Thy fullness Thou art pouring
Thy great love and power on me,
Without measure, full and boundless,
Drawing out my heart to Thee.


If this hymn is new to you, you can listen to the tune here.

Project Simplify

I'm always looking for inspiration to clean/declutter/simplify my home and life. So needless to say, I am anxiously awaiting Project Simplify from Simple Mom. It will be five weeks of weeding out and cleaning heaven. Want to join me? Pop on over to Simple Mom's site and let's get ready to simplify!