I have in a folder a heap of “draft” blog entries — some dating back several years. I was going to just ‘blindly’ delete the whole folder since I generally write inspired by studies, current events, or experiences for single entries, message series, or Bible studies. Today I reread the following entry, written two years ago in the midst of an activity that lasted a couple of months. What’s interesting to me is that while this happened two years ago, hindsight demonstrates it was just a precursor to what began to happen just before this new year, this 2021 year.…
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Over the years I’ve used a phrase numerous times in all sorts of seasons, mental spaces, homemaking, motherhood, even on this blog — the phrase: do the next right thing. This concept wasn’t learned overnight and it wasn’t learned easily. It wasn’t something that came naturally to me — as disciplines of motherhood didn’t come naturally to me. But, from the beginning, God was working in me to will and to work for His good pleasure. –Philippians 2.13. Day by day He has been working disciplines into my life and I share these things with you that you might experience the same:…
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Over the last month or so, living with less clutter, I’ve experienced some unintended benefits of my intentional decluttering project. Not the least of which has been ease of housekeeping and/or ease of moving from one daily activity to another with very little preparation or tidying. Having been the mother of many children for decades, home organization has been paramount. But even with all my planning and organizing, I still had clutter. In this process of decluttering over the last couple of months, I’ve mulled over some of the “clutter factors” and how they came to be. One of the…
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The problem with attempting to make dramatic changes, or to carry out new resolutions, or most anything, really, is that we’re still the same people with the same proclivities, habits, personal styles, bents. The tidying, or in my case, the project of eliminating clutter, only lasts as long as the determination/work/project continues. No matter where you are in the project of eliminating clutter or tidying, you’re still you. You’re still you. I’ve had to repeat this to myself many times in the last couple of weeks as I see myself “dropping my guard” on eliminating clutter. Just recognizing this has…
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There’s a saying, One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. I kept this in mind from time to time as I proceeded through my month-long activity of eliminating clutter in our home. I also had in mind a couple of other thoughts that sort of guided my process: I’m doing this for me and our family and clutter is relative! After an initial confrontation, I purposely blocked out a couple of thoughts: cost/origin of the item and other’s opinions/style. I kept in mind the goal of eliminating clutter, living in our new normal, gratitude for the past activities/needs/possessions, and keeping…
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One of the challenges I’ve been experiencing as I have been going through closets, cupboards, and drawers specifically — and rooms, in general is newly exposed space: open space! If you’re either a Queen Of Quite A Lot or a Saver Of Quite A Lot, you just might find yourself in a quandary. No, not the first day, not the second day, but a couple of weeks after you uncover OPEN SPACE in your home, your natural tendency will be to FILL it! Fill it back up. Quickly. Don’t do it. Resist the urge to fill space. Now, I know…
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Clutter, clutter everywhere and not enough places to put it. That’s how the beginning of this year felt to me. Clutter of things, clutter of thoughts, clutter of concerns. I didn’t know what I needed to do, initially, but I knew I needed to get busy. I process things either verbally, by writing or by cleaning. So, it really stands to reason that my resolve to clean out the clutter was really a resolve to clean up some other areas of my life, too. I didn’t start with an exact plan or schedule beyond the decision to eliminate clutter, but…
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After writing last week how I dealt with starting out unprepared, my friend wrote about lists I used to have on my walls. So I thought I’d continue on today sharing about lists and how to use them — remembering: lists are tools, they’re simply tools. Again, I wasn’t born organized — I’m not a naturally organized girl, but life as a mother to many children gave me much practice and many opportunities to test the results of being disorganized and being organized. And, believe me, organized was better. It’s still better — and it is for so many reasons…
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Just so’s ya know, I’m not a naturally prepared girl — I’m more unprepared than prepared. But God. It was through many blessings in my life that I learned to be prepared for things. It was through many failures, missed events and opportunities that I had to develop methods to be better prepared for — well, for life. But I was unprepared. I didn’t come from a large family. I wasn’t raised in a Christian home. I didn’t have a great deal of Bible knowledge yet–but I had faith and that faith began to bloom. And so, that was the…
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[cp_dropcaps]I[/cp_dropcaps]n Titus 2.4-5 we read, in part, that younger women are to be taught by older women to be keepers at home, we see that there must be something to this ‘keeping a home’ for it to warrant teaching or knowledge of skills to do the keeping. This home-keeping, something that needs to be studied, or which requires skill, must also be pretty important or noteworthy for it to be contained in the list of imperatives in the book of Titus concerning what ought to be taught through and to women. I will add that this ‘home-keeping’ be done well…