November 11, 2011

Pleasing to the Eye: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

Wow ~ what a week!

We’ve adjusted our hearts, we’ve learned to greet the morning with a smile, we laugh in the face of unplanned interruptions, and we are enjoying more peaceful meals! Let’s tackle one more thing this week and then spend the weekend practicing peace in our homes! How about we take a look at the things we look at?

Is your home pleasing to the eye?

The post I did this past spring on Brainstorming Beauty in the Bedroom is exactly what I want you to do for the rest of your home! Read that post, print it out, carry it around your home with you and really think about the spaces in your home and what they say about you and your family.

My home is a mish-mash of family friendly couches and chairs, a buffalo head, and earthy accents that make me smile. This is a “lived-in” home and everyone who enters soon realizes they will be treated to good conversation and a lot of laughter.

If you are comfortable in your environment and feel peaceful there, that will naturally extend to those who enter your home.

I see it as a light. My home is a testimony to the peace of Christ within me. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be authentic.

So often we think our homes must be perfect in order to be pleasing to the eye, but that just isn’t true. Yes, we need to have a tidy environment, but perfectionism can actually be quite stressful as we try to maintain something that just isn’t meant to be.

Imagine the mother who has just slaved over her spotless home when suddenly her young toddler spills an entire cup of milk on the floor. If she has not learned to find peace and joy in her role as mother, that one cup of milk will spell her undoing. We must learn to laugh at the imperfections of our day and strive toward the essence of beauty rather than the appearance of perfection.

OK, here are a few quick and practical tips for creating a pleasing and peaceful environment (for more ideas, head over to my Brainstorming Beauty post!)

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

Consider your entire family’s tastes and interests when thinking about decorating your home.
Shop your home first. Take things you already have and recycle them in other areas of the home.
Avoid clutter. Don’t fill every inch of your home with things, let the peace of Christ fill the space.

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

10 days of Character Studies | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of Christmas Countdown Ideas | Milk & Cookies
10 days of Creative Writing | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of Crockpot Meals | The Happy Housewife
10 Days to a Godly Marriage | Women Living Well
10 Days of Growing Leaders | Mom’s Mustard Seeds
10 Days of Homeschooling High School | Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
10 days of I Wish I Had Known | Fruit in Season
10 days of Keeping Your Marbles | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of Kid-friendly Food | Planner Perfect
10 Days of Language Arts Lesson Planning | Jimmie’s Collage
10 Days of Learning Apps | Daze of Adventure
10 Days of a Mason Jar Christmas | Cajun Joie de Vivre
10 Days of More JESUS in Christmas | Preschoolers and Peace
10 Days to a Peaceful Home | Raising Arrows
10 Days of Raising a Life-Long-Learner | Bright Ideas Press
10 days of Science with Math | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of Teaching Values | Our Journey Westward
10 days of Winning your Child’s Heart | I Take Joy

November 9, 2011

Well-Ordered Wiggle Room: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

We’ve checked our hearts, we’ve greeted the day with goals, but what happens when the day just doesn’t seem to be going as planned?

We remember that peace can still be found when we allow ourselves “wiggle room.”

If you’ve read my series on Creating a Daily Routine, you already know that I am not fond of sectioning off a day by 15-30 minute time slots. I don’t do well in that kind of environment because it feels too boxed in. I much prefer a routine that is loosely based on times of day and order of activities. The times listed on my daily schedule are suggestions and guidelines rather than rules.

I know, if need be, I can adjust.

THAT is wiggle room.

But, why is this post entitled “Well-Ordered Wiggle Room?”

Because despite the fact I wholeheartedly believe you need flexibility, I also wholeheartedly believe you need order for peace to flow throughout your home.

Living life willy-nilly however you may please may seem free-spirited and wonderfully peaceful on the surface, but underneath all of that footloose and fancy-freeness, there is often found randomness that stems from an aimless life searching for contentment and peace.

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Proverbs 29:18

God is a God of order, not chaos. He gives mankind guidelines and parameters to work within because He loves us. Ordering our day glorifies Him and shows our love for those in our household. Allowing wiggle room amongst the order of the day allows room for God to work and our family to act on those Works!

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

Begin creating a family schedule/routine that factors in wiggle room.
Practice your reactions to things not going as you planned.
Try your newly created schedule/routine for a few days and tweak as needed.

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

October 28, 2011

Goals From My Past

I am a note-taker. Always have been. Always will be. It’s the only way I can remember anything. (By the way, have you seen OneNote? It has taken my note-taking to a whole new level!)

A short time ago, I found an old notebook that I used to make notes from audios I had listened to or from homeschooling and homemaking ideas I had as I read books or listened to conference speakers. The notebook was old and falling apart, so I pulled out the notes and decided I would start looking through them and see if there was anything worth adding to OneNote or blogging about.

One page caught my eye because at the top was written my oldest daughter’s name with a curriculum we never used scrawled next to it. As I looked down the rest of the page, I realized it was followed by all sorts of notes to myself…

goals I wanted to accomplish…

five years ago.

It was a fascinating blast from the past as I realized some of these goals have become second nature and some of these goals never happened…yet.

So, today I share with you my goals from the past and commentary on those goals because it is just as good to look back and see where you have been as it is to look forward and see where you are going.

1. No phone calls in the morning – make calls at rest time. I don’t heed this, but truth be told, as I have aged and had more children and my circle of friends have aged and had more children, the phone calls are fewer and further in between. We are all simply too busy to sit on the phone all morning long and chat. The occasional days I do take a phone call in the morning don’t end up being a big deal in the overall scheme of things.

2. Breakfast: Winter = hot, Summer = cold – Hmmmm….Breakfast has always been a difficult thing for me. I did not get this one down and I’m not sure I want to. I did however recently decide to add Green Smoothies {thanks Erica for making it super simple!} to our list of breakfasts.

3. Write out a few simple goals for each day the night before. Most of the time I do this, if not the night before, then the day of. I even wrote a post about making simple goals when I have morning sickness. In fact, I was thrilled to see Sarah Mae talk about this in her ebook 31 Days to Clean. It really does help to have something to shoot for and something to cross off throughout your day. Now if I could just remember to make this same kind of list every time I sit down at the computer…can you say rabbit trail?!

4. Start trying to cook bigger batches and freeze the leftovers. This one made me laugh since bigger batches 5 years ago would have looked like our normal batches now. This is a goal I would like to work toward and do occasionally accomplish, but not consistently.

5. Schedule a little bit of housework every day. Let me take you back…I had just had #4. Remember, my Crossover Baby? Prior to his birth, I was doing FLYlady with success, but then I hit the wall and could no longer accomplish a full day of cleaning and one day of laundry and manage to keep the house clean for more than a few minutes at a time. This goal must have been made shortly after finding out about Large Family Logistics (when it was only a website and not a book). I didn’t end up adopting Kim’s exact days, but I did take her concept of bite-sized pieces and ran with it. You can see our Weekly Chore List here.

6. Be in bed by 11 pm and up by 7 am. This has translated to an hour later on both ends. And for me, that is actually a very good and doable goal. And yes, you may all now gasp at how late we get up around here.

7. Have a routine, but not a highly scheduled one. Way to go, Amy! You’re learning, girl! And guess what…you end up writing an entire series on this and making it into a homeschool conference session!

8. Start school with a book. I do start school with a book…the Bible!

9. Read outside when possible, learn outside when possible! I do this, but not enough in my opinion. This time of year is absolutely beautiful for learning outside, so note to self…GO OUTSIDE!

10. Plastic dishes for breakfast and lunch. I actually did do this for a time, but the reason it didn’t stick is because I really do not like plastic dishes. I use plastic only for my youngest 2, but everyone else uses regular ole plates. Now, my reasoning behind this was so that my then 5 year old could help with table chores (a newly instituted event back then). Instead of using plastic, I now have all the plates, glasses (yes, REAL glasses too) and silverware in a cupboard next to the refrigerator where the younger children can easily access them and help out with my supervision. Typically, it is the 7 and 10 year olds who set the table and put away dishes from the dishwashwer, but back then I didn’t have anyone over 8, so plastic made sense.

11. Easy lunch, bigger dinner. Five years ago my husband worked from home. Although I do not remember the circumstances behind this goal, I imagine I was trying to have big meals all the time and was burned out. This is a goal I hold to even today. Our lunches are fairly simple most days and our dinners are typically the largest meal of the day because Daddy is home at that time. Recently we pulled out of the Feast or Famine cycle (thanks Sherry for opening my eyes to this!) and when I made my last Once a Month Shopping meal list, I made sure we had both Feast Meals and Famine Meals intermixed throughout the month, rather than all the Feasts at the beginning and all the Famines at the end.

12. Take a short walk each day with the kids before lunch and then come home for lunch. I don’t do this, but it sure does sound like a nice idea!

Well, that was fun! Thanks for sharing in my blast from the past.

How have your goals changed over the years? I’d love to hear about it!

October 10, 2011

Too Busy Texting to Parent

A beautiful blond headed little girl in a pink sundress ran ahead of us at the zoo. She scrambled up the boards of the llama’s fence in the petting zoo area and grabbed onto the llama’s halter and looked as if she would climb right on that llama’s back as the llama struggled to get his mouth around to bite her tiny little arm off. Thankfully, a woman standing nearby retrieved the little girl before the llama could defend itself.

and all the while her mother stood a few feet away…

texting.

At horse riding lessons I saw a similar sad, albeit less dangerous, situation. Mommy spending the entire lesson texting while her 5 year old son learned to maneuver his steed.

This addiction can be seen in grocery stores, at stop lights, and in schools across America.

And restaurants? Don’t even get me started. It is beyond me how two people can go to lunch together and NEVER look up from their phones to have an actual conversation WITH each other.

Everywhere I look people are connected to their phones and disconnected from life around them. And the worst of it is parents who are missing entire chunks of their children’s lives because of overworked thumbs.

It truly is an addiction. An addiction that is stealing parents away from children and children away from parents.

But, lest you think I am writing this looking down my nose in condescension at texting mommies, I want to tell you there are plenty of things in this world and this life that will try to rob us of what really matters. Texting is but one of them.

Our hearts, souls, and minds were created to worship.

We WILL worship whatever we focus on.

And yes, texting can be a form of worship.

A worship of technology. A worship of being “on top of the latest news.” A worship of the world. A worship of self.

It is so easy to become immersed in the world of texting and facebook and emails and twitter and get caught up in just checking one more time, just sending out one more thing, just answering one more question.

We are afraid of missing something. But the thing we are actually missing is much more important than what technology can offer.

We are missing life.

Real.

Abundant.

Beautifully colorful.

Life.

And children.

Children who are growing up without engaged, connected, focused parents are essentially being “left to their own” (Proverbs 29:15).

Please, mama…

Unplug. Shut down the screen. Shut off the phone.

You will not miss anything.

And what if you are the last one to know what was happening online while you were away?

How would what you missed (if you had known about it immediately) have enriched your life and your children’s lives? Would one more hour, one more day, one more week really have made a difference.

My guess is

not really.

In fact, I would imagine if you totally unplugged forever you would not miss much.

Can you parent and be technologically savvy?

Sure.

But you had better be extremely self-controlled.

And you better be willing to step away from technology and be mom.

No gadgets. No laptop. No distractions.

Just mom.

July 7, 2011

Streamlining My Kitchen

When we moved this past January, I unpacked the kitchen and living room first. At the time the larger kitchen was overwhelming to me so I just put things where I *thought* I would use them.

Five months later, I realized I needed to rethink the kitchen and streamline the whole thing for more efficiency.

For years now, and in every single home we’ve lived in, I’ve had a Baking Center (see the book Large Family Logistics for more information on “centers”), but beyond that I never really gave “centers” much thought because I lived in houses with kitchens that were too tiny to need efficiency! (But I must tell you for some reason having a large kitchen makes it 100 times easier to keep the kitchen clean-makes no sense, but it’s true!)

So, here’s a little visual tour of how I set things up. I will probably need to post these diagrams in the kitchen so we can find everything now!

Starting at the garage door:

I had the baking dishes on the other side of the kitchen and the washcloths and towels in the drawer where the hotpads are now. I’ve always kept our vitamins in a basket up away from little hands. Putting the keys to my van and Ty’s car (the only vehicle that fits in the garage) by the garage door in the same basket works well.

Now, let’s work our way to the right (just left of the sink):

The biggest changes in this section were the lazy- susan in the corner and moving the coffee pot to this area. The lazy-susan had not been well thought out at all. I had a mishmash of stuff in there. My mother-in-law happened to be here the day I tore into the kitchen and her reaction when she discovered I had put the pots and pans in the lazy-susan instead of their original home was to declare, “That is so much better!” Nothing like a little confirmation that your attempts to streamline actually make sense!

When I moved the coffee pot (from the right side of the sink to the left side), I also moved the coffee grounds and filters and mugs to the labeled cabinet. More on that in a bit.

The toaster is not a daily-used item, so it is stored, but the Bosch and to some extent, the Vita-Mix are, so they stay on the counter. I’m also so thankful to finally have a kitchen big enough to put my utensils on the counter (we call the thing that holds them a “roundy-roundy”, but I didn’t figure you’d have a clue what I was talking about if I said that!)

And in case you are wondering, that weird looking knife in front of the knife block is an Ulu knife, handcrafted in Alaska for my favorite mountain man.

Lastly, the bar area (this is one of those scary catch-all areas that must be tidied CONSTANTLY!):

Originally, I had the glasses, plates, and silverware all separate from each other, almost triangulated from each other. I realized that made no sense whatsoever, so I put them all in proximity of each other so I can easily grab from all three places and lay them out on the bar (providing the bar is tidy–see how this all works together to force a homemaker to keep things orderly?)

I also moved some of the often-used items to the end cabinet so that when the dishwasher is opened it doesn’t block the cabinets that dishes go in. Ideally, I would have the mixing bowls on the other side of the kitchen, but I don’t have enough of the right sized cabinets over there, so this was a good compromise.

The laptop you see in the picture is my old laptop which is now used by my oldest two for school. Megan does her Rosetta Stone Spanish there and this is also the computer that is directly hooked up to the printer.

I also have a pantry and another tall cabinet next to the refrigerator that hold a lot of office supplies, teas, bibs, a dust buster, and playdough. I haven’t really worked through that cabinet at all. Someday soon, I hope.

And you might notice in the first picture, I have a plastic stacker on the dining room side of the bar. The things we have in there are either computer related or school related.

The side of the refrigerator holds our schedules and chore lists. And yes, that is the buffalo skull up there on top of the fridge…don’t ask.

Oh, and the orange gladiolas? I bought them for $4 when they were just budding out, so that I would have a longer time to enjoy them. They don’t streamline my kitchen in any way, but they sure do make me smile!

July 6, 2011

Children’s Bedrooms

I mentioned in a previous post that my children share bedrooms. Boys in one bedroom. Girls in one bedroom.

Some of you asked to hear more about the children’s bedrooms, so here goes…

Let me start by saying WE RENT.

That means rarely are we in charge of the color scheme, rarely can we do much about where walls and doors are, and logistically, we have to “make do” with our circumstances. So, our bedroom situations are not ideal, but they work.

I like uniformity.

I am going to be totally honest here: the matching bedspreads on the girls’ beds are for MY benefit…not theirs. While it helps my brain to see uniformity within a bedroom, I realize I should not expect this in every aspect of their rooms. These bedspreads are starting to show their age, but until we decide new bedspreads are a priority {or this UK children’s bedding company makes their United States debut–love their Scripture bedding!}, we’re sticking with the matching bedspreads and allowing them put their own special animals and pillows on the beds to make it theirs. And yes, I do allow several stuffed animals and several pillows to be on their beds. I could fight this battle, but it’s not a worthy cause to me. Which brings me to my next thought…

They need individuality.

The same things I took into account when I was decorating my master bedroom are the same things I try to take into account when decorating a child’s bedroom. I am not of the mind that bedrooms are simply a place to sleep. Often this is the only room where a child has any say-so in what the room looks like. Let them practice here for the homemaking skills they will need later on.

The girls’ room has butterflies and horses and aqua blue and…

Legos

While Lego has fallen out of favor in our household (too “dark” for my taste–we much prefer the ones from Vision Forum), there are still a few that meet our criteria (Hero Factory being one of them…unless they change their storyline). And yes, my oldest daughter in particular, really likes them. So on her bulletin board, underneath her butterflies is a picture she printed off.

My favorite? No.

Reasonable? Yes.

God didn’t give me little copies of myself to raise…one of the most humbling aspects of parenting.

Right now, the girls’ room has

petite bunk beds (made in England and given to us by some friends)

an expensive-for-WalMart-but-not-high-quality dresser (2 of the drawers hold keepsakes for each girl, the other 3 drawers hold clothes)

a stacker with magazines and crafting supplies

a basket for Megan’s books and a basket for Melia’s dolls

a changing table and diaper pail (because there’s a place for it there)

In the closet is

a coat rack for purses and hats

Megan’s lock box

clothes that need to hang

shoes

their laundry basket

breakable toys (i.e. porcelain dolls, tea sets)

The biggest issue with their room is the paper stash that grows daily. There is a tub under the bed for papers, but it overflows all over the room, into drawers, and onto doors and walls. Until recently, the only solution I could think of was to periodically go through it all, either by myself…pitching at will, or with the girls…exerting much energy along the way. I finally came up with what I hope will solve the paper issue.

My oldest daughter (who is my “paper” child) now has 2 notebooks. One for

Things I Like

and one for

Homemaking

Those are the two main reasons she keeps bits of paper and magazines and whatever other papers lurk in the corners of her room. She keeps an entire magazine because of one article on 10 Reasons Why We Homeschool (from The Old Schoolhouse®). Or she keeps a catalog because it has one of her favorite books with a summary she likes. Having these 2 notebooks has really helped lessen the amount of paper around the room and has given her a place to keep all those tidbits of information she wants to hold on to for the future.

Now, for the boys…

When we moved to this house, there was one room decorated in red, white, & blue. We decided to put the boys in there, even though it was the smallest bedroom.

Our 13 year old has a twin bed, our 5 year old has a toddler bed, and our 2 year old has a toddler mattress that slips underneath his older brother’s bed during the day (the little boys have nicknamed it “the peekaboo bed”)

Also in the room you will find

safari decor my oldest son bought (with his own money) at a garage sale (that’s right…DOES NOT go with the Americana theme…but it’s ok…no, really, it is)

a plastic 3-drawer “nightstand” we hope to replace someday

their laundry basket

a gun rack used to hold their hats and backpacks

In the closet is

the same dresser the girls have

13 year old son’s hanging clothes to the left of the dresser, 5 year old’s hanging clothes to the right (little boys’ clothes are in my closet)

telescope, microscope, Scout stuff, etc

My boys are much tidier than my girls. The worst they manage to clutter their room with are their cowboy outfits and stuff the girls bring in!

Now, perhaps you are wondering about Boy #4…Mr. Garin.

Well, he’s in my closet.

Yikes! Did I just say that? Yep, I did.

My closet is big.

Big enough to hold my clothes, Garin’s clothes, Micah’s hang-up clothes, AND a porta-crib (because you gave me permission to use it!)

Garin just isn’t old enough to be in a main bedroom without the others in the room causing him to wake up several times in the night. That is the very reason why we moved him from our room to the closet. The door of the closet is kept ajar and we all get a good night’s sleep. {Garin wakes up between 6-7 am}

Eventually, we may have to put some of the children downstairs, but for now with the amount of children we have and the ages they are, this works well.

So, how do you have your children’s bedrooms set up? If you have a post on children’s bedrooms you’d like to share, link up below!