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