Sorry it's been awhile...I've been taking a break from certain areas of the internet lately to kind of re-evaluate my priorities. I've been hanging out on Facebook, but that's about it. No groups, no tons of blog reading...maybe a few blogs here and there that I'm really wanting to keep up with, especially MckMamma's goings-on with baby Stellan. Please keep this family in your prayers if you feel so led.
For now, I just want to talk about how God has led our family down some incredible paths lately. I can't really talk about everything here, but just know He has released us from a TREMENDOUS burden that was weighing us down big time. And, as usual, it was all done in his perfect timing! I cannot tell you how freeing it is to just be able to trust in the Lord and let Him take care of you! Yes, sometimes it is SO hard to wait on His perfect timing (and trust me, in this case it WAS really hard!), but, oh, the blessings He will pour down on you when you just submit yourself to Him and His will and His plan. So many times in these last couple of months, we were so sure that OUR plans were the right plans, and even what the Lord had wanted for us, but we never really, truly can see the BIG picture...GOD'S picture. Yes, God is truly good, ALL THE TIME!
So, I'm am working to try and get blogging regularly again...about being a mommy, about being a housewife, about being a child of God...not necessarily in that order! ;) Plus, blogging kind of holds me accountable in a way, and I so need to get some accountability back here! I've gotten better over the last week, but man, for awhile there, I was really letting things go around the house just from a pure lack of motivation from the stress we were under. Thankfully, with the way I had things going before everything happened, it hasn't been like pulling teeth to get back under control again. So, look for our daily goings-on and maybe even a photo house tour soon!
Lisa
Lisa's Homemaking Corner
Friday, July 31, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
S.H.M.I.L.Y. 30 Days of Prayer for our Husbands
Amy over at Dandelion Seeds has organized a group over at Facebook for using "The Power of a Praying Wife" to pray for our husbands during the month of June. She already has over 600 wives committed to praying for their husbands, including me. :) Won't you join us?
Lisa
Lisa
Thursday, May 21, 2009
What a day! Whew!
First, as part of my internet de-clutter, I will soon be permanently closing my other blogs. That means I will be copying posts from those that are important to me over here. Last night, I reduced the amount of blogs in my reader from 86 to I think 23. Wow! It feels nice to not feel "obligated" to read so much. :)
Second, I spent some major time in the Word today. I read all of Ezra and am about halfway through Nehemiah. I have obviously been thirsty for the Living Water! I have been working on reading through the bible from cover to cover, and I can't tell you what good it's done my soul to just spend so much time getting to know my Lord better!
Also today, we started our first major project around the house. TOYS. I was listening to a CD by Michael Pearl recently, and he was talking about how we always want our kids to "have it better" than we did, but a lot of times, we do them a serious injustice by making things *too* easy for them. This is evident in my own family. Our boys have so many toys, so many that they don't even play with. I know that having clutter around all the time definitely affects my attitude, so, it has to be the same way with kids, too. Plus, our (as in, mine and dh's) kids have no idea what it means to work to earn things. Dh and I accept full responsibility for this. It shows in my oldest when he whines every time we give him something to do that's "too hard."
So, I came up with a plan. We took every single toy out of the older two boys' room today. I did leave ds3's teddy bear and a couple of stuffed animals ds8 likes to have for bed time. But everything else went.
See the empty bins? Everything except for ds3's books are gone (we didn't take ds8's books, they're just kept on the shelves in the dining room with the school stuff).
This was not done as a punishment. I had already gone through about a month ago and culled a bunch of toys. I still felt they had way too much, though, but couldn't figure out what to get rid of (mostly due to feeling guilty because most of them are gifts from relatives). So, I thought I'd combine a lesson in getting them to work for what they have (thus, they will be able to appreciate it better), and figure out what they *really* want, and what they don't really care about. I moved all the toys to our laundry room (and they KNOW not to touch them!).
I will randomly ask each boy which toy they would like to earn. They will each pick one toy (or set, for instance, Legos, or something) and we will put it on the kitchen counter. Depending on the toy, I will choose a job for them to do (*outside* of their normal chores and duties) to earn it. For instance, the bigger or more complex (or in real life, more expensive) the toy, the bigger job they will have to complete to get it back. The boys know (um, obviously I'm not doing this with the 10 month old LOL) that I will *not* keep nagging them to get the job done, they cannot whine, complain, or anything else, they have to work nicely together (if I have them working on the same project), and the job *cannot* be done sloppily, it has to be done right and to my (or hubby's) satisfaction. Hubby and I haven't set a time yet, but after a certain amount of time (2 weeks? a month?), whatever's left in the laundry room goes.
So, I set them to work on their first job this evening. Ds3 barely got started when he decided he didn't want to earn his toy. So, I put it back. Then, when ds8 was almost done with the job, ds3 decided he wanted to go back to work. I told him no, he would have to wait until I gave them another job, that it wasn't fair that ds8 had to do most of the work and for him to get the same reward. He was not happy about that, but oh, well! It's teaching him that if you don't work, you don't earn the things that you would like to have.
In other news, I felt like the worst mother in the world with what happened after that. I realized that we were almost out of milk, so we had to run to the corner store to get some. As we were leaving the house, I checked to make sure the kids were clear of the door, while holding ds10mo. It didn't do any good though, because as soon as I turned and shut the door I heard a blood-curdling scream. Ds3 had grabbed the door frame as he was walking down the steps and got his hand stuck in the door (the other side from the handle). The knob was already locked, so I had to unlock it to get his hand out. :( Poor thing. The fingernail on his middle finger was purple, so I got some ice for him and we headed off to the store (it's so close it took less than 10 minutes there and back, and I just had ds8 run in to buy the milk) after a few minutes of hugs and kisses. Luckily, when we got home, I observed that it wasn't swollen, just very purple. So, I kept it on ice and gave him some infant's Tylenol to help out with the pain. He's sleeping now, but he is going to be so sore for the next couple of days. Poor guy. :( If you think of it, please keep him in your prayers for a speedy recovery.
Yikes, this post turned out longer than I expected! I will continue to post updates on our journey as I have time. :)
Lisa
Second, I spent some major time in the Word today. I read all of Ezra and am about halfway through Nehemiah. I have obviously been thirsty for the Living Water! I have been working on reading through the bible from cover to cover, and I can't tell you what good it's done my soul to just spend so much time getting to know my Lord better!
Also today, we started our first major project around the house. TOYS. I was listening to a CD by Michael Pearl recently, and he was talking about how we always want our kids to "have it better" than we did, but a lot of times, we do them a serious injustice by making things *too* easy for them. This is evident in my own family. Our boys have so many toys, so many that they don't even play with. I know that having clutter around all the time definitely affects my attitude, so, it has to be the same way with kids, too. Plus, our (as in, mine and dh's) kids have no idea what it means to work to earn things. Dh and I accept full responsibility for this. It shows in my oldest when he whines every time we give him something to do that's "too hard."
So, I came up with a plan. We took every single toy out of the older two boys' room today. I did leave ds3's teddy bear and a couple of stuffed animals ds8 likes to have for bed time. But everything else went.
See the empty bins? Everything except for ds3's books are gone (we didn't take ds8's books, they're just kept on the shelves in the dining room with the school stuff).
This was not done as a punishment. I had already gone through about a month ago and culled a bunch of toys. I still felt they had way too much, though, but couldn't figure out what to get rid of (mostly due to feeling guilty because most of them are gifts from relatives). So, I thought I'd combine a lesson in getting them to work for what they have (thus, they will be able to appreciate it better), and figure out what they *really* want, and what they don't really care about. I moved all the toys to our laundry room (and they KNOW not to touch them!).
I will randomly ask each boy which toy they would like to earn. They will each pick one toy (or set, for instance, Legos, or something) and we will put it on the kitchen counter. Depending on the toy, I will choose a job for them to do (*outside* of their normal chores and duties) to earn it. For instance, the bigger or more complex (or in real life, more expensive) the toy, the bigger job they will have to complete to get it back. The boys know (um, obviously I'm not doing this with the 10 month old LOL) that I will *not* keep nagging them to get the job done, they cannot whine, complain, or anything else, they have to work nicely together (if I have them working on the same project), and the job *cannot* be done sloppily, it has to be done right and to my (or hubby's) satisfaction. Hubby and I haven't set a time yet, but after a certain amount of time (2 weeks? a month?), whatever's left in the laundry room goes.So, I set them to work on their first job this evening. Ds3 barely got started when he decided he didn't want to earn his toy. So, I put it back. Then, when ds8 was almost done with the job, ds3 decided he wanted to go back to work. I told him no, he would have to wait until I gave them another job, that it wasn't fair that ds8 had to do most of the work and for him to get the same reward. He was not happy about that, but oh, well! It's teaching him that if you don't work, you don't earn the things that you would like to have.
In other news, I felt like the worst mother in the world with what happened after that. I realized that we were almost out of milk, so we had to run to the corner store to get some. As we were leaving the house, I checked to make sure the kids were clear of the door, while holding ds10mo. It didn't do any good though, because as soon as I turned and shut the door I heard a blood-curdling scream. Ds3 had grabbed the door frame as he was walking down the steps and got his hand stuck in the door (the other side from the handle). The knob was already locked, so I had to unlock it to get his hand out. :( Poor thing. The fingernail on his middle finger was purple, so I got some ice for him and we headed off to the store (it's so close it took less than 10 minutes there and back, and I just had ds8 run in to buy the milk) after a few minutes of hugs and kisses. Luckily, when we got home, I observed that it wasn't swollen, just very purple. So, I kept it on ice and gave him some infant's Tylenol to help out with the pain. He's sleeping now, but he is going to be so sore for the next couple of days. Poor guy. :( If you think of it, please keep him in your prayers for a speedy recovery.
Yikes, this post turned out longer than I expected! I will continue to post updates on our journey as I have time. :)
Lisa
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
A New Journey
I will not be spending nearly as much time on the internet as I have in the past. I really need to re-examine and simplify my life. It's not just the internet, but I realized when we got back from our camping weekend just how many unnecessary things are cluttering my life and taking away my focus from God and family. I will be updating my blog periodically on my journey to a simpler life, but I will not be spending so much time reading about others. You see, in my attempt to live a Christian life, I became too focused on reading about how others live theirs, and less focused on what GOD wants *me* to do.
So, here's the start of my journey. I cut my yahoo groups by more than half and went to "no mail" on the ones I've kept. I am about to go through and cut down BIG time on my Blogger reader list. While I'm not completely going to be off the internet, from now on, I will only be on when my little ones are napping/sleeping and all my chores are caught up. I'm also going to be doing things like my to-do lists with plain old paper and pen. Usually I put them on Word, but checking my list will make it too tempting to "just check a few a few things while I'm at it."
Well, now I'm off to do a little de-cluttering. ;)
Lisa
So, here's the start of my journey. I cut my yahoo groups by more than half and went to "no mail" on the ones I've kept. I am about to go through and cut down BIG time on my Blogger reader list. While I'm not completely going to be off the internet, from now on, I will only be on when my little ones are napping/sleeping and all my chores are caught up. I'm also going to be doing things like my to-do lists with plain old paper and pen. Usually I put them on Word, but checking my list will make it too tempting to "just check a few a few things while I'm at it."
Well, now I'm off to do a little de-cluttering. ;)
Lisa
Monday, May 11, 2009
Menu Plan Monday--Simplify, simplify, simplify!
My menus are going to be dramatically simplified, hopefully from here on out. A couple of different factors have influenced this. 1) I'm trying to cut down on our energy bill. And, 2) I'm trying to cut down my time spent in the kitchen. Having the daily menus for every meal is great, but it seems since I started doing them regularly, I'm spending way more time in the kitchen than I should. Don't get me wrong, I *love* spending time in the kitchen! But, between meal preps, actually eating the meal, and cleanup, it's cutting into my other housework, homeschool, and family time more than I like it to (yes, even with the kids helping!).
So, I've made a decision that all week, we will have only one choice for breakfast and one choice for lunch (plus the option for leftovers, if needed). Dinners will be planned as usual, but I am going to try to use my crockpot as much as I can. If I do have to turn the oven on, I want to be prepared to make several things at once.
So, this week's breakfasts will be cereal and yogurt. Lunches will be PB&J's and soup.
Dinners:
Monday-Crockpot rosemary chicken, rice, and green beans.
Tuesday-Crescent roll-wrapped hot dogs, chips, raw carrots and cukes. Since I have to turn on the oven, I will also make an artichoke spinach ring and plain crescent rolls for leftovers.
Wednesday-Crockpot chicken and wild rice (with leftover chicken from Monday), crescent rolls from Tuesday, and veggies.
Thursday-we will be trying to eat as many leftovers up as we can, because...
Friday-we are going camping! We keep our meals as simple as possible here, since most of the time, we're using the fire. Eggs or pancakes for breakfast, sandwiches and chips for lunch, burgers or hot dogs with baked beans and chips for dinner. Friday morning, we'll stop and get breakfast on the road somewhere. It's a tradition. ;)
Lisa
So, I've made a decision that all week, we will have only one choice for breakfast and one choice for lunch (plus the option for leftovers, if needed). Dinners will be planned as usual, but I am going to try to use my crockpot as much as I can. If I do have to turn the oven on, I want to be prepared to make several things at once.
So, this week's breakfasts will be cereal and yogurt. Lunches will be PB&J's and soup.
Dinners:
Monday-Crockpot rosemary chicken, rice, and green beans.
Tuesday-Crescent roll-wrapped hot dogs, chips, raw carrots and cukes. Since I have to turn on the oven, I will also make an artichoke spinach ring and plain crescent rolls for leftovers.
Wednesday-Crockpot chicken and wild rice (with leftover chicken from Monday), crescent rolls from Tuesday, and veggies.
Thursday-we will be trying to eat as many leftovers up as we can, because...
Friday-we are going camping! We keep our meals as simple as possible here, since most of the time, we're using the fire. Eggs or pancakes for breakfast, sandwiches and chips for lunch, burgers or hot dogs with baked beans and chips for dinner. Friday morning, we'll stop and get breakfast on the road somewhere. It's a tradition. ;)
Lisa
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Menu Plan Monday (on Sunday!)
Monday:
Cereal, yogurt
Leftovers
Sweet & sour meatballs, rice, snap peas
Tuesday:
Chilaquilles
Tacos with fixin's
Cinco de Mayo casserole, refried beans, dessert tacos
Wednesday:
Muffins, fruit
Leftovers
Crustless quiche, biscuits, fruit
Thursday:
Pancakes, syrup, fruit
PB&J's, soup, carrot sticks
Leftovers
Friday:
Cereal, yogurt
PB-stuffed celery, graham crackers with cream cheese
Baked ziti, buttered corn, apple slices
And yes, most of my dinner menus are from this week's basic weekly menu from Menus4Moms. :)
Lisa
Cereal, yogurt
Leftovers
Sweet & sour meatballs, rice, snap peas
Tuesday:
Chilaquilles
Tacos with fixin's
Cinco de Mayo casserole, refried beans, dessert tacos
Wednesday:
Muffins, fruit
Leftovers
Crustless quiche, biscuits, fruit
Thursday:
Pancakes, syrup, fruit
PB&J's, soup, carrot sticks
Leftovers
Friday:
Cereal, yogurt
PB-stuffed celery, graham crackers with cream cheese
Baked ziti, buttered corn, apple slices
And yes, most of my dinner menus are from this week's basic weekly menu from Menus4Moms. :)
Lisa
Last week
Whew! Sorry I haven't been posting much lately! I've been working hard at keeping things up around the house, and it's definitely showing. ;)
Last week was mostly cleaning in the living room, with Friday (the start of a new month) the only day to work on the entrance, dining room, and yard. I didn't really get a whole lot done on the living room (although we did the week before with all the game/puzzle de-cluttering!), but worked extra hard on the front hall and dining room. The desk and homeschool area of the dining room were getting pretty cluttered-looking, so that's where I concentrated most of my effort.
It is soooooo nice to have this done! School seems to flow so much smoother now.
I am definitely excited to be moving on to the kitchen this week, though. It's been kept up, but it's been awhile since I gave it a really good cleaning...and the cabinets definitely need to be reorganized. Not rearranged, though! I'm actually pretty happy with where things are at for now. ;)
I already pretty much have my menus planned out for the week already, so I will probably be posting them later on tonight.
Lisa
Last week was mostly cleaning in the living room, with Friday (the start of a new month) the only day to work on the entrance, dining room, and yard. I didn't really get a whole lot done on the living room (although we did the week before with all the game/puzzle de-cluttering!), but worked extra hard on the front hall and dining room. The desk and homeschool area of the dining room were getting pretty cluttered-looking, so that's where I concentrated most of my effort.
It is soooooo nice to have this done! School seems to flow so much smoother now.I am definitely excited to be moving on to the kitchen this week, though. It's been kept up, but it's been awhile since I gave it a really good cleaning...and the cabinets definitely need to be reorganized. Not rearranged, though! I'm actually pretty happy with where things are at for now. ;)
I already pretty much have my menus planned out for the week already, so I will probably be posting them later on tonight.
Lisa
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Menu Plan Monday
Better late than never, right?
Monday
Cereal, yogurt
Pizza, salad, fruit
Leftovers
Tuesday
Oatmeal, fruit
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup
Spaghetti with meatballs, salad, garlic bread
Wednesday
Muffins, yogurt
BBQ chicken pizza, salad
Spinach artichoke ring, veggies
Thursday
Scrambled eggs, toast, fruit
PB&J's, crackers, salad
Leftovers
Friday
Cereal, fruit
Soup, PB-stuffed celery, crackers
London broil, baked potatoes, veggies, rolls
Lisa
Monday
Cereal, yogurt
Pizza, salad, fruit
Leftovers
Tuesday
Oatmeal, fruit
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup
Spaghetti with meatballs, salad, garlic bread
Wednesday
Muffins, yogurt
BBQ chicken pizza, salad
Spinach artichoke ring, veggies
Thursday
Scrambled eggs, toast, fruit
PB&J's, crackers, salad
Leftovers
Friday
Cereal, fruit
Soup, PB-stuffed celery, crackers
London broil, baked potatoes, veggies, rolls
Lisa
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
A brief internet break
I am back after a brief break from the internet. It was involuntary, because our internet went down after someone from the cable company came and buried the cable line (it was installed in the winter, so they had to wait until the ground was thawed to bury it). Then, we had to wait 2 days to get an appointment for someone to come back out here to fix the mistake.
It was actually kind of nice being internet-free for a couple of days! I got so much done around here. I am supposed to be working on the master bedroom and bathroom this week. I did get them cleaned, and since I pretty much got them de-cluttered last month, I decided to go back to work on the older boys' room. I got it completely done yesterday, including the closet! We have FIVE garbage bags full of stuff to give away and we ended up using an entire garbage bag for the stuff we needed to throw away. It feels SO nice to have that done!
I started on the baby's room today. Since we got rid of so many toys from the older boys' room, they had a whole toy rack (the rack that you put the different colored containers in) that was going unused, so I moved that into the baby's room, as we were still using bins for his toys. When Isaac wakes up from his nap, I will go in there and finish up his room and get started on his closet. Since we have Awana today, I probably won't finish it, but who knows? It's definitely not as bad as the one I did yesterday. We'll see. ;)
We also sorted through all of our board games and puzzles today and managed to fill 2 bins to get rid of. So, yes, our house is losing some weight! :D I am just amazed that with all the de-cluttering we did before we moved, we are still getting rid of this much stuff. Hubby's also going to go through our shed sometime within the next couple of weeks and de-clutter in there. So, we will have a LOT of stuff to bring to wherever hubby decides to drop it off. :)
I will probably be taking some of these breaks more often!
Lisa
It was actually kind of nice being internet-free for a couple of days! I got so much done around here. I am supposed to be working on the master bedroom and bathroom this week. I did get them cleaned, and since I pretty much got them de-cluttered last month, I decided to go back to work on the older boys' room. I got it completely done yesterday, including the closet! We have FIVE garbage bags full of stuff to give away and we ended up using an entire garbage bag for the stuff we needed to throw away. It feels SO nice to have that done!
I started on the baby's room today. Since we got rid of so many toys from the older boys' room, they had a whole toy rack (the rack that you put the different colored containers in) that was going unused, so I moved that into the baby's room, as we were still using bins for his toys. When Isaac wakes up from his nap, I will go in there and finish up his room and get started on his closet. Since we have Awana today, I probably won't finish it, but who knows? It's definitely not as bad as the one I did yesterday. We'll see. ;)
We also sorted through all of our board games and puzzles today and managed to fill 2 bins to get rid of. So, yes, our house is losing some weight! :D I am just amazed that with all the de-cluttering we did before we moved, we are still getting rid of this much stuff. Hubby's also going to go through our shed sometime within the next couple of weeks and de-clutter in there. So, we will have a LOT of stuff to bring to wherever hubby decides to drop it off. :)
I will probably be taking some of these breaks more often!
Lisa
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Weekly Cleaning Rotation
My weekly cleaning schedule is one of those things I picked up from flylady.net that I keep in my routines. Every month, I follow the same cleaning rotation:
Week 1: Front hall, dining room, and yard
Week 2: Kitchen
Week 3: Main bathroom and one other room (which I rotate the older boys' room, the baby's room, and the laundry room)
Week 4: Master bedroom and bathroom
Week 5: Living room
The one thing I don't follow from Flylady is that I do detail cleaning in each area, even if it's not totally de-cluttered yet. Clutter bothers me, but leaving things dirty/unclean bothers me even more. So I basically make sure the area is picked up, give it a good cleaning, then de-clutter here and there as I feel like it.
I also do the "Home Blessing" every week, although I have modified that to fit my needs as well. I don't necessarily have a set day every week for it, I just fit things in where I can, and as needed...sometimes I need to do certain things more than once. Here are the components of my "Home Blessing," which is the weekly cleaning that stays consistent every week, all month long:
Change sheets (I do mine & hubby's bed and Isaac's crib; the boys do their own)
Dust (yes, I have Flylady's feather dusters, bought them quite a few years back and I *love* them!)
Glass-I run around with the bottle of glass cleaner and a rag and clean any glass surfaces that need it, including windows and mirrors. This doesn't take very long if I'm keeping up on it and am only doing spot cleaning.
Vacuum carpets
Mop floors (the sweeping is done daily)
Most of the time, this will not get all done at once, or even all in the same day. Although I do like to try to keep the dusting and glass cleaning together, and vacuuming and mopping together, if time allows. If not, oh well! I've learned in the past, I am not the type of person who can stick to a list strictly, even though I *do* need those lists! At least for awhile. I tend to rely more on just *knowing* my routines, and I'm more of a do-it-as-you-see-it-needs-it kind of person. It works for us! And it helps to train my kids to listen more to me, instead of them getting too used to a strict schedule and then saying, "But Mo-om, we NEVER do this thing on this day at this time!" when I need to change things a bit.
Lisa
Week 1: Front hall, dining room, and yard
Week 2: Kitchen
Week 3: Main bathroom and one other room (which I rotate the older boys' room, the baby's room, and the laundry room)
Week 4: Master bedroom and bathroom
Week 5: Living room
The one thing I don't follow from Flylady is that I do detail cleaning in each area, even if it's not totally de-cluttered yet. Clutter bothers me, but leaving things dirty/unclean bothers me even more. So I basically make sure the area is picked up, give it a good cleaning, then de-clutter here and there as I feel like it.
I also do the "Home Blessing" every week, although I have modified that to fit my needs as well. I don't necessarily have a set day every week for it, I just fit things in where I can, and as needed...sometimes I need to do certain things more than once. Here are the components of my "Home Blessing," which is the weekly cleaning that stays consistent every week, all month long:
Change sheets (I do mine & hubby's bed and Isaac's crib; the boys do their own)
Dust (yes, I have Flylady's feather dusters, bought them quite a few years back and I *love* them!)
Glass-I run around with the bottle of glass cleaner and a rag and clean any glass surfaces that need it, including windows and mirrors. This doesn't take very long if I'm keeping up on it and am only doing spot cleaning.
Vacuum carpets
Mop floors (the sweeping is done daily)
Most of the time, this will not get all done at once, or even all in the same day. Although I do like to try to keep the dusting and glass cleaning together, and vacuuming and mopping together, if time allows. If not, oh well! I've learned in the past, I am not the type of person who can stick to a list strictly, even though I *do* need those lists! At least for awhile. I tend to rely more on just *knowing* my routines, and I'm more of a do-it-as-you-see-it-needs-it kind of person. It works for us! And it helps to train my kids to listen more to me, instead of them getting too used to a strict schedule and then saying, "But Mo-om, we NEVER do this thing on this day at this time!" when I need to change things a bit.
Lisa
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)