Week's end with thanks …
- Family Night playing Pickel the Pirate. Heidi always wins!
- Heidi’s curls spilled out over her pillow.
- The Best of My Days list … a creative gift that’s blessing my life.
- Sunny afternoons playing Star Wars on the riding lawnmower, our own Starfighter conquering galaxies near and far.
- Running through the pasture, Heidi in arms bouncing up and down, her laughing floating through the air. “Again, Mommy! Again! I like it when you run!”
- Dutch chasing behind, all of us breathing joy.
- Kissing that spot on his cheek, right by his lips, inhaling.
- Jeff reading Prince Caspian with kids under the turquoise quilt. Dutch staring off as he listens, imagining the world of words.
- Into the world of blends and double-syllable words: Sunny and Thumper jumped and skipped!
- Wearing Jeff’s sweatshirts.
- One Community Group with three tiny infants. The other Community Group with three tummies growing! New life in us and among us…
- Lego StarWars book, taping and re-taping it together. Love my boy who wears things out.
- How life affords the perfect learning opportunities.
- Answers to prayer.
- The honor of having my post read and distributed at Aunt Lois’ Memorial in New York. SO blessed to be part of her celebration of life!
- Long phone conversation with Lois’s son, my mom’s cousin, sunshine in my day.
- His story of meeting my mom and my aunt Linda for the first time, more than 50 years ago. “Whoa! Who are those beautiful girls?” “Your cousins.” “Oh darn!”
- Laughter.
- Perspective.
- Re-Meeting a dear penpal friend who I haven’t seen in 14 years.
- Seeing her miracle daughter, a living, breathing answer to prayer.
- Cute skirts for $9.99.
- Lemon zinger tea.
- Common Prayer.
- Molalla girlfriends.
- Sweet kids.
- Eyepatches.
- My two wired, giddy kids playing together. Driving me a bit crazy but glad they enjoy each other.
- GENEROUS photographer, videographer, and blog graphic-designer friends.
- My husband handsome in his new running jacket. Thanks, Momma!
- This post, a friend honoring her husband for their anniversary. I went to highschool with this guy and he was always a truly quality person. It’s SUCH a blessing to see people have great marriages and to see wives honoring their husbands!
- My own husband who I admire beyond measure.
- Scrabble at night.
- SILLY kids.
- Heidi learning her verses. Words jumbled up. Her so cute I want to eat her up!
- Gospel Story Bible.
- DK Big Book of Knowledge.
- Firewood.
- Finally eating a meal with a fork. (Apparently you CAN get tired of soup.)
- A lunch out.
- A night in.
- Really encouraging friends.
- Really amazing parents.
- Selena’s voice.
- My mom’s voice.
- Crazy-generous friend dropping off groceries. I am so spoiled!
- Cranberry vinaigrette made from Momma’s leftover homemade cranberry sauce. SOOOO good!
- Playing every single day.
- Learning to live a life of no regrets.
- Jesus.
52 Bites for 2012
Beauty. Order. Simplicity. Calm. Peace. Joy.
These are the things I want my home to be. How? Primarily by letting God work those things into me first and foremost and then it will naturally characterize our home. But there’s practical steps as well, right? If the laundry’s piled up to the ceiling it doesn’t matter how calm and peaceful I am — we need a better plan for clean undies. And when we want to make changes, and need to “eat an elephant” so to speak, what’s the best way?
One bite at a time.
Insert, once again, Tsh Oxenreider. I recently bought her e-book, One Bite at a Time, with 52 simple projects for enhancing the beauty, order, and simple organization in our homes and lives.
So I thought it’d be fun, on Fridays, to simply tackle one bite each week … together.
I’ll share the project, a bit of her simple how-to, and what it looks like for me. You can follow along, do it your own way, do a different project of your own, or ignore me altogether. I reserve the right to do the same.
Deal?
*Note: We won’t go through the book’s order, but I’ll share each week’s bite based on the season, etc. You can also purchase the e-book yourself for $5 here. The fun part is doing this together, a little accountability and encouragement goes a long way!
Ready? Bite 1 is easy since we’re already been doing some New Year pondering:
1. Set Annual Goals
Tsh says, “The thing that makes a goal a goal is that it has a concrete, doable plan with logical steps. After all, as Dave Ramsey says, “A goal without a plan is just a dream.”
Need a place to start? She has some great Questions for Developing Goals, several of you have asked about these. I’ve already shared my goals and whispered requests for grace here. Your turn!
{Would you be willing to share with us a few of your own goals for 2012? We’d be so blessed if you’d share! And now, I promise, no more talk of resolutions … I’ve had my fill as well. 🙂 Thanks for reading.}
Setting Manageable and Measurable New Year's Resolutions {FrugalLivingNW}
{With our friends over at FrugalLivingNW today…}
We sat on her couch as I recounted my parenting woes. The more I dumped the more I felt overwhelmed. Little things, seemingly unrelated, heaped verbally into the air until I sat in a thick fog of my own creation. I shook my head and looked at her, Where do I start?
Her simple response became my guiding principle for resolutions since.
Pick one thing and the rest will fall into place.
Pick one thing. She explained that usually all behavioral issues have the same – or at least a similar – root. By simply picking one thing you create a manageable plan, and as you conquer one particular area you inevitably notice many others falling in line as well.
Of course. We’ve heard this so often in different ways. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Baby steps. Tsh Oxenreider’s simple suggestion of limiting your to-do list to three Most Important Tasks each day. A few things successfully completed is far better than a list as long as your leg of things still left undone.
But aren’t we optimists always tempted to take on the world? Or, we realists, to just kick the whole goal-game to the curb. Really, why try? Because trying leads to failure … which leads to success.
That’s why simply quitting isn’t the answer – the answer is simply setting manageable and measurable goals for 2012. A few reachable goals that will give you the momentum to tackle even more.
Not sure where to start? Since we’re frugal-enthusiasts here, ask yourself some questions to narrow down what exactly you’re hoping to accomplish by your frugal living goals?
Are you wanting to save for a vacation? Pay off your house? Get out of debt? Teach your children money-management? Give more? Contribute to a college or retirement fund? Simplify your life?
Once you’ve figured our your big-picture goal, you can figure out some manageable and measurable resolutions for 2012. Think of these as steps toward your big-picture goal. Here are a few frugal ideas.
- Shave $50 off the grocery budget.
- Cook four meals at home each week.
- Eliminate one eating-out meal each week.
- Choose one non-essential item to go without this year.
- Reduce by one the number of times you visit Starbucks each week.
- Switch to cash-only for at least one budget item (e.g., groceries)
- Three times this year practice going one full week eating only what’s already in your pantry.
- Switch-out one convenience-food item for a homemade item (e.g., whole chicken, homemade bread, homemade mac-n-cheese)
- Make yourself, kids, or husband (if he wishes) a brown-bag lunch one day a week.
- Try to save $25/month in a jar or separate savings account, then give the $300 you save to a worthy cause next December.
The key is manageable and measurable. Remember the power of momentum. If you can make one reasonable goal and reach it you’ll be far more likely to continue your forward momentum. Who knows, you might be amazed one day to see how far all those baby steps can take you over time.
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Your turn! What are your manageable and measurable frugal-living goals for 2012? Please share so we can encourage and inspire each other. Thanks for reading!
Freshly written goals and whispered requests for grace …
The smell of a freshly-sharpened pencil.
A blank sheet of lined paper resting on the table.
A new planner, days all white and waiting to fill.
I love me a new beginning.
Over dinner on December 26th, Jeff asked me what had been the highlight of my day. Hands down:
Taking down the tree and vacuuming the carpet.
I love celebration and festivities, but there is nothing so sacred to me as the mundane. When all the laundry’s folded just so and the freezer’s full of chicken stock and a new kid’s Bible-devotional book lies waiting for us to devour. I color-coded all of Dutch’s new Legos and stretched those fresh sheets across our bed and stowed the Christmas decor and crossed off that last day — 31st — and tore the sheet right out. There underneath lay a new glorious page:
January 2012.
I don’t know what this year will hold. Every single day is a gift, and I’m often reminded of dear family and friends around me passing from this life to the next. I know this world is broken down and aching and we pass through it bruised and beaten. I feel it, too.
But God is good and does good. And so we can always look forward with hope and smile upon the future knowing our God is good and does good. So as I move into this new year, I’ll look forward a bit, as best as I know how, and ask God to direct both my goals and my requests for grace. I won’t share them all, but here’s a glimpse of the goals:
Personal:
1. Read through the Bible again and establish set times of prayer during the day. (This time instead of just straight through I’m reading 3 OT and 1 NT each day. That way I get Jesus every day!)
2. Read through my nightstand stack. (Will share that soon!)
Physical:
1. Run Hood-to-Coast with Jeff. (This may end up being a regret 🙂
Marriage & Family:
1. Read The Meaning of Marriage (Tim Keller) together as a couple.
2. Read the rest of the Narnia books aloud to our kids.
3. Create memories enjoying the generous gift we were given for a free week in Maui.
Goals for Dutch & Heidi:
1. Heidi learn all the Letter Lesson verses.
2. Do our daily work and learning routine: (Make bed, get dressed, brush teeth, put breakfast dishes in the sink, take out the trash, write a note or sentence/story, Dutch read four books, recite verses, read from Big Book of Knowledge, do Bible devotional story/activity.)
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I’m yawning a little looking at this list. There isn’t anything very remarkable, in fact it’s borderline mundane.
That’s just right.
I pray to live this year–another year of ordinary Tuesdays and Wednesdays and early mornings and rainy afternoons–pounding nails into the right places. Establishing sacred habits one moment, one choice, at a time. And sewn through this list I’m stitching the reminder about living a life of no regrets. So here’s another category:
These are my whispered requests for grace, resolutions of the heart …
- Resolved: Ask God what He thinks of my parenting decisions and children’s behavior before wondering what the rest of the world thinks.
- Resolved: Speak of Jesus even when I’m scared to death of looking foolish or floundering or flubbing everything up.
- Resolved: To rest and play one day each week.
- Resolved: To love, honor, and respect my man through his love language.
- Resolved: To speak to my children with words of life, giving correction out of hope not exasperation, discipline out of love not disappointment.
- Resolved: To abide in the extravagant love and grace of Jesus Christ who suffered and died so He could be with me.
Can’t cross those off as attained or measure them at all, but I believe by faith that God gives us the desires of our hearts. He plants them there and then He fulfills them. So I ask Him for these things, as gifts, this year.
And I believe He will give them, because of grace.
{What are your goals for 2012? And what are the desires of your heart, the gifts of grace you’re requesting from the Father in 2012? Thanks for reading.}