31 Days to Clean

I am so excited to read this little book. 31 Days to Clean.

I love the idea of a month long spring cleaning devotional. Some "Mary" Challenges and some "Martha" Challenges to tackle not only my external house but my internal one. 31 Days to Clean is about the "why" and the vision and the heart for taking care of your domain. Each day you will be encouraged with some thoughts and ideas on the heart of cleaning, and then you will put those ideas to action.

After each days reading, you will be given two challenges:

The Mary Challenge -Something you do that encourages/engages your heart
The Martha Challenge - Specific cleaning tasks

And honestly with ebooks ranging upwards of $25 these days I'm SO glad to see an affordable ebook. $4.99!

I have really been in need lately of a little boost in not only the "get off my rump" department but the "keeping my house as a service for the Lord" department. I think this little book is going to be just the ticket.

My first 2011 Before and After and organizational rambles

Okay so the reality here is that I need to get this house in order. NEED. I've realized a lot about our life in our messy house lately and I have to do something about this. A messy, disorganized house causes more problems than I care to think about. But I need to keep reminding myself of them to stay motivated. In fact I'm pretty sure I will be working lots of these out for the first time right now.
Problems a messy, disorganized house causes:

• Husband stress. Husbands go work all day and when they come home, they expect their home to be a place of rest. Now our attitude as wives and how well (or not well eek!) we have trained our children contributes, but there is nothing relaxing about a messy house. There is nothing relaxing to your husband if he has to sort through a mountain of laundry on the couch for clean socks at 4:30 in the morning. Or not being able to find a clean spoon when he wants ice cream before bed. And don't forget the fact that he has to FOCUS to not be upset that he worked almost every minute of the day while the wife can't bring herself to find 15 minutes to fold laundry. Laziness in a wife is not restful to the soul of the husband who wants to respect his wife.
• Wife stress. I've said this many times here. I cannot feel at peace in my home. Why you ask? Well there is not a single place (okay actually when I show you my before and after there is now a tiny space) but for the most part there is not a single space where my eye can look and see anything other than WORK that needs to be done. Nowhere where I can look where I don't see what I didn't get done while I was on the internet or watching tv. Nothing where I don't see failure. Wife stress. Then there is the stress that comes from realizing you don't have clean pants for any of the boys for church. Or that 5:30 scramble to make quesadillas because menus aren't planned ahead of time. And for me one of the biggest... the stress that comes from feeling like my husband can't be as proud of me because of my laziness and lack of respecting him enough to take care of the house as he'd like (and my husband does not have high standards on this because he loves me so)
• It costs money! Things on the floor get ruined and need to be replaced. As do having all the cups dirty on the counter so babies get on chairs and knock them down and they all break. Clothes on the bathroom floor get stained beyond what can be fixed when walked on by mud-covered boots. Kids' shoes that aren't kept nicely on the shoe shelf get lots and a new pair need to be bought. Food left in a chaotic refrigerator goes bad and ends up in the trash. What a waste! How many things get bought only to 4 months later get found under someone's bed?
  
• It does not teach children good character. Self-control, diligence, hard work ethic, respect for things, respect for people, scheduling, all of these and way more are taught through the well-kept house.
  
• It does not glorify God when we are doing the opposite. Being lazy, messy, careless, reckless, slothful, destructive, all these and more are shown when a house is messy and chaotic. A house full of stress instead of peace does not show the wonders a family of God can and should be.
  

I'm sure there are 100 more points and if you have some I'd love to hear them. All those things plague me day in day out. And it causes pain and sadness. And the Lord is not content to let me stay on this path.

So my plan. While I am praying about how to best handle different issues like scheduling, etc. for the basics of the house, the Lord has showed me one of my major issues. There are two that I feel need to be tackled first.

First, that there isn't anywhere to PUT anything. That whole "a place for everything, and everything in it's place" blows up if you don't have a place for everything. Things get thrown here and there, things get piled up on side tables because no one knows easily and readily how and where to put things. SO I need to make a place for everything. Containers, baskets, decluttering, it's all part of this first part. My non-official plan to tackle this first part is to slowly work on getting areas of the house 100%. That means absolutely DONE. Containers, labels, paint if need be, all done. Nothing without a home in that area. Nothing not how I want it in that area. It will be slow going as I can't afford containers, etc. for all the spaces. I just can't. But a $3 basket here and there and it will get done.

Secondly, I have lost the sense of beauty in my home. I don't love the spaces like I should. I don't think everyone's house needs to look like a magazine but you should love your space. Peter Walsh, the rockin' organizer said once "Your home is the outward expression of what you value, what you enjoy, and what is important to you". For ME anyways, it most certainly holds true. So saving money for paint, doing some crafty things for the walls, etc. is on my list.

SO FINALLY... the reveal of the first TINY place that has been redone. The "blue desk" as it's called here.
Before: *note* this is SUPER clean compared to how it normally is. We had just cleaned it. But even then, when it was considered pretty clean it has t-tapp videos, maple syrup, a phone, a bowl, a notebook, lots of junk, and lots of papers.

Drumroll please................... the after
The colors in the pictures don't really tell but I painted the wall a pale icy blue instead of a dusty mocha. The middle basket holds my camera. The smaller basket holds Clay's stuff from when he walks in the door. I tried to get him to just not need a basket and put stuff away but my camera basket became his stuff basket so I needed to add one. Our little desk needs a new coat of dark blue paint. I also painted the inside of our front door a pretty dark navy (which is the leftover paint I will be painting the little desk here).

So there it is. With the addition of the calendar and white board I'm done with this space and pleased! One small victory for Kim, one large victory for our family.

Beauty in the little things

Go here first and see her oh-so-lovely laundry room.

http://pleasantviewschoolhouse.blogspot.com/2007/04/beauty-in-laundry-room.html

Just looking at that makes laundry not seem so bad. I can see myself with sunshine beaming through the window as I iron Clay's shirt on that floral ironing board cover.

Oh to make my surrounding such that I can't stand to see them messed up. Oh to make the little things beautiful. To have my laundry soap in a cute metal bucket with a metal measuring scoop. To have large floral ribbons weaved through my laundry baskets so that when they're filled with homeless socks they aren't an eyesore but an addition to my bathroom. I want to make or really should I be wanting to SEE the areas of house as beautiful and lovely; places that I straighten up as I walk by to keep them looking beautiful.

On a side note, this is a great idea to me:
See how she uses an actual bed pillow with on the couch? How much easier would it be to try and find cute vintage pillowcases than pillows? I actually love this and will be doing it ASAP!

Honestly though. Run on over to PleasantVilleSchoolhouse. She has post after post showing the beauty in the little things of her life, of her home. Inspiring.

Beautiful Results!

Okay sometimes we need God to show us that what we're doing is working, that what we're doing is important. I'm so dorky to be excited about this right?

So since I originally typed my beauty post, which was a handful of days before posting it, I really have been trying hard to get the house in order and just looking nice. This morning I awoke to THIS email:
Making an effort in the little things does NOT go unnoticed even if you never get a thank you email.

What is even more lovely to me is how working on the little details adds to the big picture, making Clay think to thank me for the things I have done for a long long time.

There are some things I normally do to show Clay how much I love and appreciate him. I gather Clay's clothes before bed so at 4:30 in the morning he can just walk in the bathroom and take a shower. He has an ironed shirt everyday. And I make his breakfast and lunch everyday. I make a container of oatmeal, a quart of unsweet tea, a quart smoothie with raw milk and strawberries, a lunch, and now that he's working until 9:30 at night, a dinner as well. And I set up his coffee maker, grinding the beans, setting it up so her can just turn it on, setting out a coffee cup.

And if you rolled your eyes thinking how old-fashioned that all is, and how I'm giving into male/female stereotypes, that's good!

Menu for Nov. 6-12

Here's our weekly menu to soothe those who have been waiting on the edge of their seats for our menu since I mentioned it a couple days ago.

Friday:
Breakfast: Sweet Rice (leftover brown rice simmered with milk, cinnamon, vanilla & honey until the rice is soft, then beaten eggs mixed in to thicken)
Lunch: Bean salad with an open faced PB&J
Dinner: Black beans and brown rice with salsa
Tomorrow's Prep: Start sourdough, soak oatmeal, reboot kefir, get pita recipe written on card for recipe box for morning

Saturday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Vanilla Kefir
To Do: Make Pitas and bread
Lunch: Beans and rice leftovers (Clay will be at work) with kombucha
Dinner: Creamy Garlic Potato Soup with my sourdough bread
Tomorrow's Prep: Make Pitas, Start Sourdough IN pans so can bake first thing in morning, soak lentils, kefir grains in fridge, make quiches

Sunday:
Breakfast: Mexican Scrambled Eggs with my sourdough bread
Lunch: Pitas with hummus and coconut curry lentils
Dinner: Quiche
Tomorrow's Prep: Set up baked oatmeal before bed,

Monday:
Breakfast: Baked Oatmeal
Lunch: PB&J on sourdough
Dinner: Turkey and Mashed Potatoes and our yummy canned green beans
Tomorrow's Prep: Reboot kefir, soak pintos, soak oatmeal

Tuesday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Kefir
To Do: Make tortillas
Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: Shredded Turkey with beans and homemade tortillas, reboot kefir, soak oatmeal, start sourdough, put turkey carcass in crock pot

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Kefir
Lunch: Cream cheese scrambled eggs (made by a 9yo)
Dinner: Turkey Soup with my sourdough bread

Thursday:
Breakfast: Homemade granola with homemade yogurt
Lunch: In town.
Dinner: Red curried cabbage and carrots over brown rice(unless I see my mom before then and get the red curry paste I left at her house. Then I'll do it earlier in the week cause I'm craving it!)

To see the beauty....

Clay loves Fall. He loves it. Every time we step outside he revels in the beauty of the colors of the trees. He'd live somewhere that was Fall all the time. I can see awe in his eyes at God's creation.

And there's me, looking, thinking it's pretty and all, but...

There was a time as a young wife that I was SO focused on bringing beauty to every area of our lives. At that time, Clay and I lived in a schoolbus. It was a rockin' long schoolbus. And I made it home. We had a bed, a dresser, a rod for our hung clothes. It had a wood stove and a propane stove and oven. It had recliners and a small couch and a bookshelf. Everywhere you looked you could see touches of beauty I had tried to instill in our little humble abode. Curtains, doilies hung over backs of chairs, random little things here and there that as a new wife were my ways of showing love for Clay and bringing beauty to our simple lives.

After we moved here to TN, as a young wife I wore lovely skirts and dresses everyday. I did my hair and wore a nice floor length floral apron. We lived in a.. hmmm what's the word for it? Very hillbilly looking shack I mean house. And still again it was lovely in it's way. I had nice curtains, throw blankets on our free stained couches to try and cheer them up, a nice green rug on the floor, everywhere again there was me trying to bring beauty in the little things.

Now as Clay looks with wide eyes at the glory of the leaves changing color I sit and ask myself "Where's the awe?". As I sit in my nonfeminine grey sweat pants, needing a shower, with not a single picture of my children on the walls, and ask myself again....

"Where's the awe?"
(okay it's not a picture of Fall, but man, the beauty of that simple little creek running over rocks!)

Where's the awe in how amazing it is that the Lord blessed me with a husband to love and care for, truly amazing children to train and love on, a home in the country to tend, just a life that is so overflowing with blessings I can't number?

Somewhere amidst laundry piles, dirty walls, diapers to change, tangles to comb out and school to do I forgot to look around and see the beauty in life. And it shows. I no longer get up and put on lovely feminine clothes. I no longer leave scriptures in Clay's lunch. I no longer try and make little corners of my house lovely. I no longer plan meals ahead to be 100% sure we have nutritious meals for our family. I no longer keep the house in the beauty that is order and cleanliness. I no longer make it a priority to keep my body beautiful and slim.

I've officially let myself go. And everything else in a way. I've stopped appreciating the beauty in an organized closet, in not only clean dishes but an empty dishdrainer (*gasp*), in a mopped floor (do people actually still DO that?), I've stopped appreciating the beauty of straightened books on a shelf, of colored leaves strung on strings around the house for Fall (do I have to actually DO that now that I've posted it? *help*).

I've heard it a gazillion times about learning to love homemaking, learning to love the little things like laundry and dishes. Honestly I don't love those things. I may never. BUT I purpose to start seeing the beauty in them well done. To look in the mirror with a nice skirt on in the morning and see the beauty the Lord sees in me, that Clay does. I purpose to not just look in the mirror and see the overweght woman, he one that doesn't need to look nice because what difference does it make? I purpose to smile when I smooth out wrinkles in our bed in the morning. I purpose to cover that bulletin board with pretty fabric and hang it up. I purpose to empty the dishdrainer, wipe down the counter and see it's beauty.

When I think of the Lord's creation, the tiny details He made with such loving care, I am reminded that I need to treat the little details of life with such loving care whether it's combing tangles out of 8yo hair or stacking cups in the cabinet. Beautiful.

Wednesday's Visual Things To Do

Surprisingly I really enjoyed doing the pictures of the messy areas yesterday. It was quite motivating! I found myself working in things when I normally would be poking around on the computer. Be sure to check out yesterday's post as I updated as I went along. So.... we're trying round 2. But this round is scarier. Honestly. I have messes that easily trump the ones from yesterday. Ones that I cringe at the thought of taking pictures of. But here goes...

Blue desk Before:

Laundry take 2 Before:

Okay this one's going to hurt! The upstairs. This was just allowed to get totally out of control the end of my pregnancy and this last month with the new baby. Out. Of. Control. Thankfully I had Frankie take the picture and he didn't capture a good half the room lol! Sheepishly hitting Enter... Before: Status - DONE!

And the After:

Make quiches to have ready for tomorrow's dinner.

These three things I will post about here soon!
Reboot kefir

Reboot kombucha

Feed sourdough starter

Write out menu for the next week

Take shower. NO before here because an unshowered Mommy is not a good sight. Honestly.

Change sheets. We won't do a before of that because well... who wants to see my used sheets anyways?

Okay off to work!

Tuesday's Things To Do

Last night Cassie and Adric both had fevers so my amazing Mom drove 45 minutes to come pick them and take them to her house to keep the baby safe in case of them having the flu. Thankfully they're feeling better this morning, with Cassie only having a slight fever this morning. They're still there and enjoying being spoiled by their Nana. We all like a little Nana spoiling now and then right?

That leaves me with Frankie (9), Garrison (2), and the baby. I'm kind of letting Frankie have a free day today. He will work with me tonight on the kitchen but for now he's having a free day. The baby's asleep and Garrison's laying down for a nap.

So now what do I do?! I'm never without children. And it's not just not having lots around to deal with arguments or boo-boos or special drawings to look at. But it's also not having them to HELP me with the things I need done. I am looking around at some things and I realize I never clean them! Like the bathroom. I only do once in a blue moon and it's when I'm doing deep cleaning with Bleach and tea tree oil. Or straightening the blue desk. Or anything on the floor :) What a blessing having older children is in terms of house cleaning. They all make more mess but they sure clean well too!

On top of it, Clay's working late (until 9 or 9:30pm). I miss him so when he's gone.

*note* to make myself actually DO this, and for some sort of accountability, I'm going to post before and after pictures of some of these areas. Kind of scary posting this for all to see. But hey, I'm not perfect. And um... Grandma.... ignore the pictures of the mess. Just come back later to see the pictures of my nice clean house. Got to keep up appearances and all.

So the plans for today:

Watch V the series that's on Sci Fi today :) DONE! LOL!

Deep clean the kitchen counters. - DONE! Before:
After:

Clean out the baking pan cabinet, wiping and reorganizing. Before: status - job for tomorrow.

Clean bathroom (not sparkling, but normal day to day cleaning). - DONE! Before:
And After:

General straighten - DONE!

Fold all the laundry. Before: - status report: In fact that laundry pile grew more than twice it's size! It now fills the whole couch AND the coffee table has three laundry baskets of clean laundry on it. Now how did THAT happen?

Put laundry away

Straighten living room bookshelf. - DONE! Before:
After:

Cut out the pieces of Cassie's skirt - didn't even think about this! There most definitely wasn't time to find to do this. I wish I would have though!
Twirly Skirt Free and Easy Pattern and Instructions

Okay off to start. I'll be back to post after pictures as they come!