This and That

We are finally getting some warmer days around here. The boys and I spent the whole morning outside yesterday. It was just gorgeous. I LOVE spring, new beginnings, I love how perfect the temperature is, not too warm not too cold. We ended up having lunch on the patio sitting in the sun. How perfect! We racked the whole front lawn and got some good exercise out of that too. :)

Now on a different note, I've been reading the e-book "Workers @ Home, How to Make The Most Of Your Time, by Erin Thiele." My life is of course quite different than the author's right now, but I have found many useful tips and encouragement.

Here is the one point she brought out that had the biggest impact on me:

"Some of you have chosen a life that is much too busy with outside activities. Your home reflects the rat race with chaos and disorder! The root cause for many of us can be found at James 3:16 where it says, "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing."

When "My Own Agenda" is first and foremost in my life above God's plan, which gives me the responsibility to keep my home clean and running efficiently, then that is selfish ambition. Any time this creeps into my life (usually brought on by selfishness or self-pity), then my life and my home are disorderly and evil runs rampant!"

This was better help than anyone telling me "It's OK, you'll get there some day, just keep picking at the chaos in your house, you're doing well...YOur young you have a lot of time." I need a good kick in the behind is what I need, and calling me selfish and jealous might just do it. We know God is a god of order and according to James 3:16 to him this is where disorder comes from, selfishness. I think that is true of my case. I probably have been quite selfish and even though it's not necessarily "voluntary", I think it is something I will be fighting for a long time and will definitely be a mater of prayer for me for a long time.

Erin also encourages making a flashcard box, some call it a Home Management in a Box. Although I already have a Home Management binder, I am still gonna try this method. In fact I started making my cards last night. I'm a very visual and tactile person and I'm hoping this will help me as it is small, colourful, very straightforward and tactile as I need to flip through the cards basically every time I'm done the previous card.

You can download Erin Thiele's e-book right here

Memorial of Christ's Death

Thursday April 9th 2009, our family along with our congregation and thousands more, commemorated Christ's death by attending the Memorial held at our Kingdom Hall. I don't know yet what the attendance was and will probably find out this coming Tuesday, but we had a full hall with many visitors. Last years worldwide attendance was I think 18 million with only 7 million of these being Jehovah's Witnesses. So many visitors!

On Thursday, as I was nursing in the bathroom/mother's room, during the Memorial, a sister came in crying, sobbing actually. I thought something horrible must have happened or perhaps she was thinking of her grandfather whose funeral was just 2 weeks ago. I asked her right away why she was crying. She said she had dropped off a Memorial invitation that morning, in the mailbox at an old friend's house. This girlfriend of hers was really close to her family but had taken a bad turn 3 years ago. I was ready to try to console her for her friend not being here when she said,

"On my way to the bathroom, I saw her sitting at the back, she actually came!"

Those were tears of joy! It made me want to cry too. I was so happy for her. We can't give up, many will take wrong turns, but how exciting to think some WILL turn around and come back to Jehovah. We should be reminded of and be thankful for Jehovah God's patience and long suffering with us all.

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

- 2 Peter 3:9

My Messy House - Part 2

It seems pics of my messy house are THE most popular pics on my blog. Sorry to disapoint you, but I DO have pics of my home CLEAN.... and YES you HAVE to look at them. I am so embarassed that everyone is soooo interested in my MESSY place, lol. I still have to take pics of the office and dining room table and maybe the laundry room so this isn't a full tour of my house but it will do for now. I'll do a full tour soon when I have more time. Here they are:

Part 1

Recipe Cards

I have had a Home Management Binder for a while. I have a section for recipes and dinner ideas, as well as weekly meal planning.

Here is my problem. For some reason, my recipe sheets don't seem to stay nice and neat in there. I get food on them or they get ripped out after using them often. I know this could be fixed with simply putting them into plastic sleeves. BUT my issue is also that I find it cumbersome to have my big binder on the counter, and I have at times taken the sheets out, but they didn't seem to make it back to my binder. I'm really bad at that. I also simply WANT a nice little recipe box to keep on my counter.

I've also for years had this little tin box laying around the house. I kept finding it everywhere, even in the garden, full of mud. I always felt bad about throwing it out and thought I should really do something with it. This box had been with me through 2 or 3 moves. Like I said in my previous post, I am quite bad at attaching sentimental value to something that doesn't mean anything. In the back of my head I kept thinking, "Well, I can't throw it out now, after all these years and history of finding it everywhere in my house, surely I can use it for something".

Well, wrong thinking, like all organizers will tell you, I should have thrown it out a long time ago..... BUUUUT....now I HAVE finally found a use for it and I am quite quite happy with it. Sooo, don't follow my example of keeping around something that you don't use for years, but please do follow my example of finding a use for something that might end up in a landfill. lol

So here is what I've done with my little container. I've turned it into my little recipe card container. The outside of it use to be just like the utensil holder you can see on the right of it in the picture.

When I was in school, I made a large wood cabinet and I made the doors as frames with chicken wire in the center. My teacher told me to use GUN BLUE to make the chicken wire look older.

This is exactly what I used on this little tin box. Now it looks like it has some history. I might do the same to the utensil holder, I'll see.

For my recipe cards, I bought some antique look, parchment paper. I made up recipe cards in a Word Document. I then cut out the cards (4/page) and placed them inside a laminating sheet and laminated them. You must leave enough room between the cards so you can have a border of plastic running around each of them. This makes them last longer.

Lastly I added and an old vintage paperclip on the back of the box. This allows me to easily follow a recipe by setting it on the paperclip as you can see in the picture. (I originally was gonna drill a hole in my box and screw the paperclip upside down onto it, so it would hold my cards tight, but it didn't seem to hold them at the right angle. So I let the paperclip hold onto the box and let the card sit on top and it was the right angle and the card didn't seem like it was gonna fall over.) I also added a 2 inch Styrofoam block at the bottom of the box as my cards were a bit short and I wanted them to stick out more.

With time I'll be adding more and more cards as I find recipes I like.

It's been a while...

I know, I know, I've been gone for a while.

I'm just having to readjust to my new routine and the lack of sleep... and I've tried to make sure blogging didn't come first.

I was doing pretty good keeping my house clean right after the baby, but I've gone backwards a little bit since. I'm working on de-cluttering. I had to go through all of D's old clothes to find stuff for the new baby and I was having the hardest time putting my own clothes away as I had my pregnancy, pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy clothes all over our bedroom as every day was a challenge to find clothes that fit properly. I think most of it is sorted now. I've lost a looot of weight.

I still have lots of things to catch up on in the house.

I'm working on having a place for everything and everything in it's place!!! Helps me get rid of things that I only keep for "sentimental" value... Don't get me wrong, I keep a lot of stuff for sentimental value, I don't just throw out keepsakes.... buuuut I seem to attach sentimental value to everything, even very little nick-nacks, things that don't really mean anything. sooo.......

A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN IT'S PLACE!!!

This will be my motto for the month.

I am soooo excited. This is our last month with tenants in our basement. We are taking over the basement May 1st. I can't tell you how much this pleases me. We will be able to take our freezer out of the garage and put it in the basement (we will be able to clear a lot fo stuff from the garage). Actually, just this last week we bought a newer bigger freezer, a stand up one as well and we will be putting it in place of the fridge which is in the downstairs kitchen. I will also be able to declutter my kitchen a little more and put to use the downstairs kitchen cabinets for things we still want to keep but don't use as often. There is also a storage room, a little bit like a cold room. I'll have lots pf provisions there and will hopefully cut down on my trips to the store and maybe start canning as well.

All our winter coats will come out of the dusty garage. We will have 2 guest beds and exercise equipment. We've been wanting to cancel out gym memberships for a while. This will save us money.

But the most exciting part for me will be to use the living room as my new little classroom... Oh let me tell you the plans I have for THAT project. It's gonna look nice!!!!! I will take pics when the time comes.

SO that is about it for the excitement this month...

I guess I should add, that although I don't celebrate birthdays (therefore don't need birthday wishes), I did just turn 24 on the weekend.

I know what you're thinking, "Oh my goodness she's so ooold !" hehe ;)