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.

The Lord's Table Study

I've posted in the past about my struggles with weight. I thought I'd share this amazing resource with those who haven't seen it. Recently I've had to come to terms with the fact that for ME weight is most definitely a spiritual issue. Lack of self-control, self-discipline, laziness, food as an idol/turning to food before the Lord in times of pain, boredom, escapism, and general giving in to the lust of the flesh, all those issues are rooted in sin, rooted in lack of relationship with the Lord Jesus.

I've tried endlessly to do this weight thing on my own, of my own power and clearly *cough cough* I am failing. I am powerless over this sin without the Lord. When I try and do it without HIM all I experience is my weakness when what I need is His strength.

There is a great Bible study online called The Lord's Table at SettingCaptivesFree.com.
Setting Captives Free also has studies on other food issues, substance abuse, s*x issues, and self-injury/cutting, etc. When you sign up you are given an email mentor who gets sent your answers, is a prayer partner, etc. for you if you want that. You can also buy a book version of that at CBD here if you like to hold things in your hand. I know I do but haven't been able to buy it yet.

They do have an eating plan that I personally do not agree with as being a true healthy way to lose weight so I don't do that. But the study itself is amazing. I hope this helps someone out there! Off to do tonight's lesson and go to bed.

Homestead to Health

So I'm overweight. Yeah. I said it. Oh I've said it before? Yeah well I'm still overweight. Nothing's really changed. Up until now I've tried everything. South Beach. Schwarzbein. Calorie Counting. And on and on. I've gone up. I've gone down. I've lifted weights (which I firmly believe in!) and done endless hours on the elliptical. But the life change was never really there. Not there in that it stuck.

The other day Clay and I went and worked outside. I pulled weeds in the garden. We were out for a couple hours. I felt great. I slept great. I've always said that I want to live the type of life that doesn't need ellipticals. I've heard SO many of my girl friends say it. We all want to be living a life so full of activity, a life that tries to live off the real food their growing in their gardens, so FULL that they don't need to plan elliptical time and buy diet "cheese product" (I couldn't call low fat cheese CHEESE. I just can't. It's weird.)

At this point I figure the way, the only way, for me to lose weight and live a life of good health and good body weight, will be to achieve this idea of living a life that doesn't need constant trips to the treadmill to keep it off. So I'm starting my own little series to try and keep myself motivated. If any of the 5 people who read this blog want to join along be my guest! I'll even make myself a little graphic you can use if you want.

So the idea?

A, Basically an attempt to eat how a homesteader would eat. That doesn't mean no cake ever but trying to make deliberate choices in what I make for my family and what I put in my mouth. Eat seasonally. Eat grass-fed meats and dairy. Can and dehydrate foods for leaner times. Eat whole real food. And enjoy the occasional treat as it comes along. Try and eat in a way that's intentional. Eat like one out on a homestead in the past would eat. Whole fruits, veggies, home canned foods, good healthy meats, healthy traditional fats like butter, lard, olive oil. Long soaked sourdough type breads and grains. Also in the thought process of eating like a homesteader, not eating insane amounts of food LOL. I just can't see Pa and Ma Ingalls eating 7 pieces of cake. Or eating 10 handfuls of chocolate chips. Can you?

B, work outside almost every day. And even on off days, do small outside projects like reload the wood on the porch. I need to get off my rear and make this homestead happen. A lot of projects would be done already if I had been out everyday doing them instead of in here on my rump in front of this computer. Essentially, start creating that life so full of activity that my metabolism does its job naturally. That life I was saying I wanted.

So I'm going to start keeping track of the kinds of food we eat, how to prepare certain foods, link to other's great information about fats, etc. And post the great homesteading chores I'm doing to shrink this waistline.

If you blog...

There's this post. This one here at Rocks In My Dryer. Go read it. It says things like this:

"But there is undeniable part of blogging that feeds a part of us (me) that is, perhaps, not the most sensible part: the part that craves to "measure" ourselves, the part that is naturally drawn to a false sense of urgency, the part that needs to be heard even when there's not really anything to say. "

Then you move onto the comments. READ THE COMMENTS. Yes, that was a command. Heed it. But you move onto the comments and you read things like this:

It was feeding something unhealthy in me - mostly a whole lot of narcissism. It was hard to admit that to myself, that I was wasting so much time on something that was essentially just a big ego booster. It felt awfully self indulgent.

I have felt God yelling at me to 'find the quiet' (yes, I see the irony in that statement). Blogging has started to feel like a highschool clique, and I'm certainly not part of the in group. I had started to wish I was the popular blog out there instead of just enjoying writing when I was inspired and had something to say. I was starting to fret if I hadn't blogged for a few days, worried that I was losing readers.

What was supposed to be a place to practice my writing sort of morphed into a journal and then a place to complain about anythign and everything. And then suddenly, I become more concerned with catering to the people that I thought might be reading my blog and I worried about what would draw them in and keep them

Seems like lately I come across a lot of blogs where the writer starts by saying that they don't have anything to blog about however they manage to write a very lengthy post about nothing

WHY do I do this? Is it pride? Is it making friends? Is it wanting to feel interesting or needed?

My post from last night and then reading this made me think. I haven't been posting because things aren't perfect. In fact, they're far from perfect. Really far. From here to China far. I haven't been doing great things. I haven't been canning or gardening. I haven't been finally conquering the behavior problems with the kids. Or keeping the bathroom spotless because of some great inspirational cleaning routine.

I started this to document things for my family. I could have stayed on my other blog with the readers I already had. Comments everyday sure are nice and who doesn't love the pat-on-the-back of loads of comments? But I moved. To start a blog more for our family. More about our family. And SO fast I came back to this place where I was blogging for other people, and hey, NOT blogging because of other people. In the same respect, I haven't been blogging real life BECAUSE family reads this blog. Who really wants their Grandmother (Hi Gramma! IF you've gotten this far and haven't turned back because my ramblings are too weird and annoying, I'm waving to you *wave*) but who wants their Gramma to read that they just can't seem to climb Mt. Laundry?

But if I don't mention Mt. Laundry I never post. lol!

SO what's the answer? I'm not sure. Part of me wants to not blog at all. Part of me wants to just cut this internet off and be done. Part of me wants to be able to just throw it all out the window and blog like a journal. Part of me wants to limit the blog to family stuff and farm stuff with no ramblings. Who knows. I don't. I know myself well enough to know I won't stop 100%. I know myself well enough to know I won't stop being on the internet. I wish I would. But I won't. Just won't happen. BUT I need to do something about my internet addiction. Maybe that should be the first step. To step back. Now how to do that? I'm an all-or-nothing gal. I'll pray about it and talk about it tomorrow. I've been thinking and praying about this internet thing for a while.

But for now you get my "I'm doing a blog post about whether or not to do a blog post" post. Which brings me back to another great post from the original post here

(In other words, I think writing a 47-part blogging series about Why We Probably Shouldn't Be Blogging So Much might be a little disingenous, don't you think?)

Hmm... blogging about why I blog. Blogging about whether to blog. Spending time on the internet debating whether to be on the internet. Ever wonder if because you're wondering you should just get up and stop?

See ya.

Late night bits

It's been a while. And I know why. I don't want to admit it, but I do. At first glance it feels like I have the whole "I have nothing interesting to blog about" syndrome. But deeper, it's not that. Not that at all.

I know I'm not the only one who feels like I do. Like at the end of every day there is disappointment. Just that feeling of not having given 100%. The feeling of not having done enough, not tried hard enough, been selfish, been on the computer too much, or too much tv. Too many times where a child had to ask me something 4 times before I responded. Too many times where I said "no". "No" we can't play a board game. "No" you can't play playdough. "No" you can't sit on my lap. Too many dishes undone before bed. Too much laundry piled up. Too many chores undone. Too many times I was not the mother the Lord wants me to be. Too many times I was not the wife the Lord wants me to be. Too many times I didn't speak with kindness. Too many times I was actually mean. Too many times where I saw behaviors in the children I did not address. Too many times where I saw my behavior mirrored in their behavior. Too little prayer. Too little time in the Word. Too many times where guiding was really nagging. Too much laziness.

I'm sure by now you get it. And no, it's not a pity party. It is what it is. At the end of the day when I usually blog, it feels fake to talk about the little things done when everything else is left undone. It feels fake to do homemakery posts when I feel like a struggling homemaker. Same with fun children stuff when all day I was a "No" Mom.

So I'm going to work on crocheting this snood for myself, wait for Clay's clothes for work to dry (yeah he needs clean clothes for tomorrow and there's none in the closet. Sue me) and then set the alarm to go off at a reasonable time, spend time in the Word and start afresh tomorrow with a new Make and Share Monday scrapbooking post and you can pretend this didn't happen.

Odds and Ends

A few minutes before bed to blahbitty blah blah.

A, have you been getting turkeys? Cheap turkeys? What? You haven't? It's pre-Thanksgiving time people. Right now at Walmarts all over the country there have been reports of 40 cents a lb turkeys. The turkeys have been around $5.50. Yeah 5 big bucks. Now there's a 2 turkey at a time limit. Over the last few days we've gotten 8. I sure wish I lived closer to town. I want 30 total. It's not looking good. But I've got my mom on the turkey hunt and she's going to be getting me 2 a day when they have them. Go Team Mom!

And in case you didn't know, turkeys are great. Yeah I wish I could afford nice free range turkeys (we raised our own this year, and unfortunately didn't take good enough care of our baby turkey poults this Spring) but at $40+ a turkey for free range, it's not in the budget. But 5 BUCKS?! Dude. And turkeys go so far. Far far far. See next paragraph. :)

So we cooked a turkey today. Actually it's me cleaning out all of last year's turkeys. We had a huge Thanksgiving turkey meal. Ahh the wonders of my mom coming and making homemade stuffing with sausage and mushrooms. Yum. But we ate loads of turkey. Then I stripped loads of turkey meat off. LOTS of it. And I put the carcass in the crock pot for soup. I easily have 2 full meals worth of shredded turkey meat. And more for soup. All those meals include a full dinner, lunch for Clay, and leftovers for us at home the next day. So that's how many meals? 8 meals in total? For $5 for the meat? Understand now why I want so many? 2 turkeys a month. Wouldn't want one every week cause we'd get sick of them, but every other week? Go budget, it's your birthday.....

What's that sound? You running to Walmart? Pick me up one while you're there eh?

*note* some Walmarts have been selling out of turkeys. The manager told my mom to call ahead of time. Might be worth a call if you live 30-45 minutes away like we do.

*note 2* if I were a cool blogger I would have taken a picture of the turkey and crock pot and whatnot. Does it ever feel ODD to take pictures of things like cutting meat off a turkey carcass? Sometimes it feels way too weird. When you're ripping tendons and hacking away at the turkey it feels pretty full of myself to take pictures of that grossness and feel like people will care about them. **Then I type out my post and wish I had taken the weirdness, narcissistic pictures to make my blog post look cool.**

B, Forget my old Last Hoorah post. I've had many of them in the last week. I'll touch on that Monday. Or late tomorrow night. Blasted weight loss. I hate it. Why can't I look like a goddess at 200 lbs? Why? Or live in one of those countries where they love their women fat? Now that, THAT would be nice. To weigh 200 lbs and be thought of as the most attractive woman in the room. Okay I don't seek to have men look at me, in fact I try to dress modestly so they don't. And the heavier I am the harder it is to dress modestly and feminine. It's not easy to find feminine modest clothes at Goodwill. So maybe the other country business would be even worse? um...No. It wouldn't. Where ARE these magical places people talk about anyways? And anyone want to make me some nursing jumpers or find some XL blouses for me at Goodwill? Okay. THis is it. So this is the LAST Last Hoorah Day LOL! Time to lose this weight. It wasn't so bad really. Some homemade stevia chocolate before bed. But let's not forget that I ate a plate and a half of Thanksgiving dinner. Even it being 5 hours ago and it was still Last Hoorah worthy. If I lived in that magical Fatland would I eat Thanksgiving every week? Do you think women specifically TRY to get fat there and being skinny is considered the state in which women are to strive to not be? That would be weird right? "Ew look at how skinny she is. Blech. Honey I love your fat." Okay enough. Must go to sleep. Can you see my tiredness morphing into madness? Eh... ignore my ramblings. This is just the tiniest glimpse into the rambling nonsense that makes my sweet rational, reasonable husband roll his eyes at me :) I love him.

C, Why am I up this late? Oh yeah, babies who don't sleep. Or prefer staying up until 1am and then sleeping til 9. I've never had a baby sleep through the night before the age of 2! And here I have this baby that sleeps 8 hours at night. But seriously me not being able to go to sleep until 1-2am isn't a huge help. I really need to buckle down and get working on him going to bed earlier. The first key is... NO, I don't want to say it. I can't. Sigh. Getting him *cough Me cough* up earlier.

D, Thanks mom for coming over and making a pre-Thanksgiving meal with me.

E, and because I read something that said people hate blog posts without pictures... I leave you with this. Garrison...
And that headdress thing was brought back from Egypt, real Egypt by my mom. Why Garrison is wearing it and why he looks so grumpy in all the pictures I found of him wearing it, I don't know. But it just feels like this post. That's what I should be wearing right now as I typed it. And I leave with that look on my face.

Sleep. Must. Find. It.

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!

My Last Hoorah

We all have done it. The last hoorah. You know what I’m talking about. The night before your new diet, and all bets are off. The night before the new diet. Pizza at 10 at night, followed by a couple cookies, the bottom of a strawberry milkshake (okay smoothie but still) a bowl of ice cream. And on and on. I mean tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of your life and all that jazz right?

Until tomorrow comes :)

Then you screw up and eat whatever. Yesterday’s long awaited tomorrow just became the new last hoorah because you’re starting OFFICIALLY this time, tomorrow. And you just had two, count em two, binge nights. Then two turns into three and instead of skinnier from this new diet, your new diet made you GAIN 10 lbs.

Help. I need to stop. Tomorrow’s the beginning of the best of the best food life. I hope. Well either way, tomorrow’s the beginning of no more last hoorahs. It may not be a perfect eating day but it won’t be a last hoorah day.

I hope.

Hey wait does that make today’s last hoorah the last hoorah of last hoorahs?

Help. I need help.