On Becoming a Proverbs 31 Woman Part 1a

The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
~Proverbs 31:11 KJV

I thought I was done working on this point, but as it turns out, I wasn't. One thing I didn't really touch on is, when your husband's out at work, can he trust you to keep his castle running smoothly? As far as housework goes, my husband could really care less about how the house looks (although, as a side note, he said he *does* notice a better overall feeling when the house is clean ;) ). But there are two things that are a big deal for him: meals, and having a shirt pressed and ready every work day. And, ironically, when I'm in a motivational slump, those are the two things I slack on the most.

Right now, we are at a major turn with our finances (for the good!). My husband has never liked going out much for meals, but especially now when we're at this point. It adds to his stress when he has to dig up himself a lunch for work or when he has to think about going out and spending money at the local fast food joint. It's a big pet peeve for him when I'm not on top of meals around here. So, I need to make sure that he can trust in the fact that he will always have good meals not only at home, but also that he will have a good meal packed and ready for work.

Also, my husband does work a lot, and he has a pretty high-stress job. It is not mandatory for his job, but he will not wear non-pressed shirts to work...it's just part of his work ethic that his uniforms are always clean and pressed. I feel bad when I get behind on the ironing to the point where he has to ask me to do it. And I know it adds a little stress to him to *have* to ask me.

My husband works hard in order for me to stay home and take care of our house and family. He gets enough stress from his job, without having to worry about whether or not I'm doing mine. My philosophy is to try and make things as easy on him as possible once he punches out at work. If there's something around the house that I can do, I need to be taking care of it, and not putting it off until he has to say something.

Find whatever it takes to motivate yourself to get things done. Sometimes for me, it's as simple as making sure I'm taking my MS medication when I'm supposed to. I have noticed that if I skip a day or two, my motivation to do my job takes a pretty steep dive and my cognitive skills dip, too (aka, I turn into an airhead ;) ). Some days I need to pray more and ask God for motivation. Then I remember that every little thing I do for my husband, kids, and home gives God glory. That is a huge motivating factor right there! Another good motivator is to just work on being thankful...for EVERYthing. Even if you have to make a conscious, forced effort at first, it WILL come naturally if you just practice being thankful ALL the time!

So, tonight I'm off to iron, and hopefully by tomorrow, I will have a menu plan done for the rest of this week and next. I do plan to post my menus here, so stay tuned for that! :)

Lisa

A rant: Open Your Eyes, People!

I usually try to stay away from politics on my blog, but this was just too much. This was brought on last night when hubby was flipping through the channels and accidentally lingered a little too long on MSNBC. It was a good thing he turned it after thirty seconds due to his own disgust, because I was already seeing red.

They were talking about taking the health reform plan to various town hall meetings, and were talking about all the "loud, shrill voices" and the "disruption" being caused by people who are against government health care. Are you kidding me?!?! I'm sorry, but those "loud, shrill voices" are the voices of the American people, who YOU POLITICIANS are *supposed* to be working for! If this were a few years ago and this were some sort of reform President Bush was trying to push through and the liberals were voicing their opinion, this liberally biased media would be saying how wonderful it is that the American people are speaking out and those darned politicians just aren't listening. But no, people like us are "disruptive" and I'm sure they're thinking "dissenters." And now the White House wants people to report websites who disagree with their health care reform??? Seriously?!?! Does this, or does this not, sound like DICTATORSHIP???

Let me ask you, since when has the government stuck their nose into something, that it has gotten better? Or cost LESS? HA! Why is NO ONE talking about Medicare/Medicaid??? Is anyone who has to rely on that singing it's praises? WHY is no one concerned about the fact that the government (higher-up employees, anyway) will get a totally different and separate health care plan, different from the citizens? Why are doctors and nurses actually living the system in Canada and saying "DON'T do it!" being shut up and swept under a rug? Think you're going to be able to keep your private insurance? Observe Obama's actual plan:


What is going to happen to people who have issues that without proper and PROMPT treatment could possibly KILL them a lot faster? Ask the healthy people in a country with socialist health care and yes, they will sing praises of a single payer system. They get a cold or an ear infection, or their kids do, and they can get in the same day and get it taken care of and it's "free." Guess what? No, it's not free, the taxpayers are paying for it! Now, go to that same country and ask someone with cancer how they're liking their health care system. Do you know that in Canada, if you're diagnosed with cancer, you get put on a 3 YEAR WAITING LIST just to get seen by a specialist? Do you know how many patients die in that amount of time? Still think socialist health care is going to save a lot of lives?

And every time a politician or someone in the media opens their mouths, the number of uninsured in this country gets bigger and bigger. There are 47 million in the US without health insurance. NOT hundreds of millions, certainly NOT billions, as I heard last night on MSNBC! A good chunk of those are people who WILLINGLY opt out of the insurance they are offered. Another good chunk of those are most likely illegal immigrants. Key word: ILLEGAL, as in, they are not supposed to be here! They are not paying taxes, yet somehow they are recieving all the benefits. I can't say exactly how I know because I would be revealing too much about a family member and their past employment, but believe me, there are people on the databases that have never paid a cent of tax to this country in their entire lives, yet are enjoying retirement benefits as I type.

No, we don't have the perfect system for health care, no one ever will. What can we say, though, about the *quality* of our health care compared to the rest of the world? There's a reason people from other countries come to America when they're sick (if they can afford to travel). And before you start throwing tomatoes at me, I'm ALL for making sure everyone's taken care of and less people are dying! That is not what I'm saying! Getting the government involved in health care is NOT the way to do it! I even don't mind helping out. It's being FORCED to "help out" that I have an issue with. And it's when the money that's being stolen (yes, STOLEN) from my husband's hard-earned paycheck may not even be going to help someone TRULY in need of it, since there's already so many who take advantage of the system because they don't WANT to work hard for what they have like so many Americans do.

Anyway, this vent went on longer than I expected it to...there's so much more I want to say, but I'll leave it at what it is for now. I'm sure most of your eyes have all glazed over by this point. I'm not going to apologize for my rant, truth be told, I'm extremely concerned about this going through. Concerned for what will happen to my own health as well as many others across the country who will eventually get put on waiting lists. Oh, but OUR country certainly won't be anything like all those *other* countries who have adopted this very same system, will we? (Note: the sarcasm)

Lisa

On Becoming a Proverbs 31 Woman Part 1

¹⁰Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
¹¹The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
¹²She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
¹³She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
¹⁴She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
¹⁵She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
¹⁶She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
¹⁷She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
¹⁸She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
¹⁹She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
²⁰She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
²¹She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
²²She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
²³Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
²⁴She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.
²⁵Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
²⁶She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
²⁷She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
²⁸Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
²⁹Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
³⁰Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.
³¹Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.
Proverbs 31:10-31 (KJV)

It has been on my heart for awhile to do some sort of a series on the Proverbs 31 woman. I am a long way from these standards, to be sure, but I think God put this (among many other things) in scripture to kind of give a vision to us wives and mothers on what our life should look like. While I realize this is not a checklist, I would like to go through the various characteristics of this ideal as I work on becoming the woman God wants me to be. I don't want to say I will focus on one per week, because there may be some things I want/need to focus on, or touch on more, or maybe even less. For now, let's just say I will be working on one characteristic at a time. :) Feel free to join me and comment/discuss your experiences!

The first characteristic in the Proverbs 31 woman is found in verses 11-12.
"The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life."

Ah, I have such a long way to go in this, but this is so much easier for me than it used to be. I believe these 2 verses are a good summary of all God wants us to be in regards of being a wife. This covers so many areas! It all comes down to, can your husband fully trust you to do him good and not evil, ALWAYS? Not only on the surface, but in your heart and attitude as well? When he's not around, are you STILL doing him good and not evil? Are you making sure you are careful what you talk about to others? HOW you talk about your husband to others? If you have issues with the way he's doing things, are you making sure to not only go to HIM (instead of friends or family) about it, but also going to him *respectfully*? Are you honoring and reverencing your husband the way God wants us to be? Are you *bringing* him honor? One thing I used to be in a bad habit of (mostly before I was saved), was joining in on the poking fun of him with family and friends. Not behind his back, but when he was there, and he was good-natured about it. BUT, it was usually putting him into the category of what most of society thinks of men today, and looking back it was just not cool. Even if he wasn't directly hurt by it, here's the deal. Since we've been saved, my husband has told me numerous times that next to God, MY opinion of him is the only one that counts as far as he is concerned. Us wives have so much influence on how our husbands view themselves. When we were married, we became one flesh...that is a huge thing! One is truly affected by pretty much everything the other does. If I keep poking fun at my husband's very character, even if it IS just in fun, that is still going to eventually wear on his confidence, especially his confidence in what kind of a husband and father he is.

Does this mean we cannot have any disagreements? Of course it doesn't! It just means that when we do, we bring it up respectfully and *submissively*. Ooooh, now THERE'S a word that's controversial to utter, isn't it? I may touch more on submission this week, since I think that's a big part of of the kind of wife the Proverbs 31 woman is, but for now I will continue with our husbands trusting in their wives.

Ephesians 5:33 says, "Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."

God knows what each of us needs! He commands husbands to *love* their wives, and he commands wives to *reverence* their husbands. Yes, we both need love and respect, but in the relationship structure men NEED respect like women NEED love. Giving your husband respect IS showing him love! If you don't respect your husband, anything else you do to try to "show" him love will mean absolutely nothing to him.

I almsot feel like this was a rambling post, but I'm going to leave it. :) As I said earlier this characteristic covers such broad area in regards to being a wife to your husband, and I'd never be able to cover everything. I just thought I'd share what personal experiences stick out in my mind, and what's on my heart. As I said, feel free to comment and start a discussion, or just share your thoughts. As a forewarning, any disrespectful comments will be deleted. I do have a family and a home to take care of, so I don't have time to debate something that's already set in stone for me and for many others, as I'm sure they'd agree. Respectful discussion is fine, but this is MY blog, and if I deem something to be disrespectful, it WILL be deleted.

And speaking of taking care of family, my youngest is clearly ready for bed. ;)

Lisa

Amazing Changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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