Getting My Thoughts in Order. . . Or. . . Listing on My Blog

1. God.

• Slowly reading through Seasons of a Mother's Heart by Sally Clarkson. I recently told my mom that I bought SC's The Ministry of Motherhood several years ago, but put it on the bookshelf because I couldn't take the guilt. I wasn't ready for it. I picked up Season's of a Mother's Heart at the library and, still feeling some guilt, am now ready to learn and grow and stretch and all that other fun stuff.
• Made a list of books to read on "Spiritual Formation". Looking forward to delving into some of those as $$ allows (most are *not* at the library).

2. Me.

• Working through an incredibly extensive list of books to read. They cover the gammit of literary themes and genres. Right now I'm reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Bring Me a Unicorn -- a collection of her letters and diary entries. I love reading things like that. They intrigue and inspire.
• Consequently, I am thinking of investing in a very nice journal and doing some night-time journaling *on*paper* while J monopolizes the laptop. I used to journal like crazy in the middle school through college years. Have all those boxed up in the garage along with my raggedy baby blanket that I finally broke with when G was born.
• Would love, love, love to get a sewing project or two done, create an white picket-fenced heirloom country vegetable garden in the backyard, can all my home-grown goodies, decorate my house with all my hand-made decor, make each and every food item that graces the table from scratch, and write a few prize-winning books. . . but I've been brought back to a good reality reading this post.

3. Marriage

• Well, it is no secret to those that know both J and I that we are both opposite in everything except our strong wills. That makes for some hairy situations. I'm working on submission.
• This is pretty broad and general. Specifically I am working on breaking down my defenses and receiving criticism and correction with a more humble, teachable attitude.
• I'm also committing myself to putting into practice that proverb: "A soft answer turns away wrath."

4. Parenting

• We begin homeschooling on Monday, and I'm looking forward to it. Truly. It looks to be a fun year full of all kinds of good stuff. We'll be learning to read, discovering the history of our country, exploring great art and doing some ourselves, and dabbling in the world of science. But mostly we'll be reading lots and lots and lots of really good books. Because, isn't that really the best foundation for learning?
• And, as that will all require much of my time, I will be learning to put down the computer or book or whatever else has my attention and give my time to my children rather than to myself. I'll still have "quiet time" and bed time though.
• As a family we will be memorizing Romans 12, learning about unity, reading these Bible readings daily. . . And I'll be working through this book with Teeny, and J. will be working through this book with G.
• We also have a good Christmas plan or two cooking in our brains, but I'll save that for another post.

5. Homemaking.

• I semi-finished Getting It Together by the Sidetracked Home Executives. Good stuff. I now have a daily, weekly, and monthly plan/guide; and I've found that cleaning thrice daily takes less time and energy than cleaning once daily. Whoopie!
• And I now hope to get back to reading and applying Edith Schaeffer's What Is a Family?.

BTW: I'm missing a ream of paper. If you've been over lately and have seen one laying in a place you thought seemed strange, that is probably it. Please let me know. The poor paper is dying to be drawn on by broken crayons wrapped in soft, dimpled fingers.

June's Menu and Three Recipes

BREAKFASTS:

• Cinnamon toast with fresh fruit.
• Vanilla yogurt with granola and fresh fruit.
• SATURDAY: French toast with fresh fruit (all sprinkled with a little powdered sugar).
• SUNDAY: Donuts or something equally easy and quick and low-mess.

LUNCHES:

• Pasta with veggies and salad.
• Chef salad.
• SATURDAY: Tuna sandwiches with raw veggie sticks.
• SUNDAY: Burgers or Dogs with raw veggie sticks.

DINNERS:

• SUNDAY: Grilled meat of choice (whatever is cheap) with salad and other fixin's.
• MONDAY: Mexican (tacos, burritos, nachos, or enchiladas) with chips and dip.
• TUESDAY: Salad night ~ Veggie salad, potatos salad, pasta salad. . .
• WEDNESDAY: Chicken Alfredo with salad.
• THURSDAY: Meatless Mexican (black bean burritos or nachos) with chips and dip.
• FRIDAY: Pizza night!
• SATURDAY: Cincinatti Chili and salad.

SPECIAL DAYS:

TEENY'S TEA PARTY

• Iced raspberry tea and lemonade
• Bite-sized PB&Js and cream cheese and jam sandwiches and veggie sticks
• Biscuits with jam or honey
• Thumb-print cookies and shortbread cookies
• Peaches and blueberries with sponge cake and coolwhip.
• Icecream cake with white cake and sprinkles and cherry ice cream.

TEENY'S BIRTHDAY

• All meals of Teeny's choosing ~ yet to be decided.

FATHER'S DAY/FIRST DAY OF SUMMER

• BREAKFAST: Bacon, eggs, and grits.
• LUNCH: Grilled burgers and dogs.
• DINNER: Wings and veggie sticks
• DESSERT: Deep fried brownie sundaes.

RECIPES:

THUMB PRINT COOKIES

from Paula Deen

3 sticks Butter, softened

1c. Sugar

2 Egg Yolks

3 3/4c. All-Purpose Flour

1/4 tsp. Salt

1 tsp. Vanilla

Preserves/Jam

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolks. Sift flour and salt; blend into butter mixture. Add vanilla. Chill dough thoroughly. Preheat oven to 350*F. Shape dough into 1" balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Make indentations in center of each with thumb (I use my pointer finger for a deeper hole); fill with preserves/jam. Bake for 15min. or until lightly browned. Cool slightly; remove to rack to finish cooling.

SPONGE CAKE

from The Anne of Green Gables Treasury

1c. sifted All-Purpose Flour

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1/4 tsp. Salt

1/2 c. Milk

2 TBL Butter

2 Eggs

1c. Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and flour a 9" or 10" round baking pan. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a small saucepan, heat the milk and butter until the butter melts. Keep the mixture warm until you are ready to add it to the batter. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until they are think and lemon-colored (about 3 min.). Add the sugar a little at a time while continuing to beat the eggs. Stir in the dry ingredients till just blended. Add the warm milk and butter and the vanilla. Stir into batter. Turn batter into pan and bake for 25-30 min. or till the cake bounces back when touched. Let cool completely in pan on rack. Serve iced, sugared, or topped with fruit and Cool Whip and whipped cream.

DEEP FRIED BROWNIES

Take about 1-2 cups baking mix (we use Jiffy) and mix it with enough water to make a slightly thin batter. Add a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract. Dip brownies of choice into batter and deep fry in oil heated to about 375*F.

For a sundae, top with vanilla ice cream, a bit of cheap chocolate syrup, and some Cool Whip or whipped cream. Oh so delicious.

Spring Antics

So, each of my little guys greets the warm weather with their own flare. I just sit back on the deck or in the sunroom and watch as they attack the world.

G has a "best friend" down the stream that he seeks to play with daily. Together and apart these two confine a good bit of their play to the stream, making "secret potions" with the water, building dams, and digging for all sorts of water critters. When they aren't busy at this water play, they are practicing every sport from baseball to basketball to tennis and everything in between.

Teeny's favorite outdoor activity is collecting dandelions and any other permissable flower she can get her little hands on. And, being the little fish that she is, she lives for time in the "pool" which is a plastic sandbox bottom that they occasionally fill with water. I seriously need to sign this girl up for swimming. She also loves running around the yard as I turn our hose into a sprinkler for her.

Bud-Jack, well, as usual he has the most unique way of greeting the season. He takes off all his clothes and his diaper and runs around the house and yard naked. I suppose this is his way of thanking the good Lord for warm weather -- a sort of offering of himself. He literally spent all of yesterday naked, despite my many efforts to clothe him. I could discipline his little streaking sprees, but they are what I think may actually get him potty trained; so I rest contented.

And my dear little M&M, who will turn the ripe old age of one next week, is enjoying walking. She walks in the sunroom, she walks on the patio, she walks on the deck, she walks in the grass. And, wherever her little feet take her, she finds something new to explore and perhaps chew on -- rocks, dirt, flowers, grass, kitty cats. . . It must be exciting to be almost one.

But being a mother of young children, I am finding, is also exciting. It is all I can do to get up and get myself cleaning some days. The warm weather and the vision of my kids at play outside constantly tempts me away from my indoor responsibilities. So, I do what absolutely needs to be done and rush outside to join in the fun.

I AM, I CAN, I OUGHT, I WILL ~ My Home

I AM --
The keeper of my home. The one who sets the tone in this house. In charge of cleaning, cooking, decorating, and creating an atmosphere.

I CAN --
Keep my home as to the Lord, not worrying about the expectations and opinions of people other than my husband. Do a load of laundry and clean "The S" every day. Provide three healthy meals a day.

I OUGHT --
To keep the whole house clean, orderly, and pleasant to the senses. To smile and keep my home with joy in order to fill the house with an atmosphere of joy.

I WILL --

1. Do this job of keeping a home as to the Lord, and not unto men. I will not worry about how others keep their homes or what they think of how I keep mine.
2. *Smile!* And maintain an attitude of joy, contentment, and peace both within myself and withing the home in general.
3. Do 1-2 loads of laundry and clean "The S" daily. Clean other parts of the house as time allows throughout the week.
4. Provide three healthy meals to my family every day.
5. Find a way to create and keep a clean, orderly, beautiful house that works for me and my family in the stage of life that we are in right now.

Resources:

• Messies Anonymous and J's inspired housekeeping ideas.
• What is a Family? and The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer
  

. . . And Speaking of House Cleaning. . .

There is no better way to clean a kitchen then with open windows ushering in the first Spring breeze of the year!

Setting Reasonable Standards in a House Full of Littles

Life is, as you can imagine, more than a little hectic around my house. I have four children, ages 6, 4.5, 2.5, and 10 mos. I homeschool. And, to top it all off, I'm imperfect.

All these things come flying down on me when I look around my house some days. It seems that just as I finish picking up the living room, M&M pulls a shelf or two's worth of books down. When I bring a load of clean, freshly folded towels up to the bathroom, I find that Bud-Jack has filled the sink with Captain Crunch and Crest. While I'm hanging pictures and curtains in the girls room, G is pulling down the curtain rods and disassembling the dresser in his own room. And as I help the boys pick up their toys and clothes, Teeny is in hiding in the next room cutting up her doll clothes. It all just becomes so overwhelming and so discouraging.

That is when I have to remember that this is, truly, just a stage. All my kids have gone through the "pull all the books off the bookshelf" stage; I hardly think a teenager will have any desire to fill the sink with cereal and toothpaste; G merely needs some space and materials to deconstruct and construct in the garage; and Teeny will eventually realise that she likes her things enough to keep them around for a while.

Still, all the positive thinking in the world is not enough to make me feel good about my house on those "special" days. What I always need is a plan of action -- a go-to method -- some small steps that can help keep a minimal semblance of order around here. I have my husband to thank for my three daily to-do's:

1. The first thing on my to-do list is to wash two loads of laundry. This used to be an overwhelming feat, but J simplified my life when he came up with the basket method. He placed four baskets on our laundry room counter: one for me, one for him, one for the boys, and one for the girls. These baskets hold *clean* laundry, not dirty. Twice a day, I unload the dryer into these four baskets, not folding the laundry. This makes getting two loads washed a breeze. Towels and dish rags get folded and set on the ironing board. Once a week, during an free moment, I have a folding fest, and the kids and I spend about 20-30 minutes putting laundry away.
2. The next thing on my to-do list is The S. J came up with The S one day when I was panicing about cleaning the whole house for that evening's dinner guests. He stood in the living room and told me that our adult guests would not venture anywhere beyond the foyer, the half-bath, the living room, and the kitchen. In our house, these rooms form an S shape. So, every day I clean The S first and work to keep these areas looking good.
3. J's third wonderful idea is the hardest to accomplish at this point; but as he finishes school, I believe we'll get more consistent about it. The plan is: J puts the kids to bed at night while I pick up the living room (usually books, dirty clothes, and a coffee cup or two) and clean the kitchen (dinner mess). After we're both done, we sit down together and enjoy our evening together. It is incredible how mood-altering it is to both go to sleep and wake up to a clean living room and kitchen.

I work on these three steps and wait for J to come up with more brilliant ideas. I'm also working through the ideas at Messies Anonymous.

After I get my house in the right order, I can focus on the atmosphere. But part of creating the right atmosphere involves relaxing my standards and giving myself and my family a break. I read a great line at Femina once: "The only thing that absolutely must be organized in my house is my attitude." Isn't that the truth. What is the point of keeping a clean and orderly house if it causes me to nag and berate my husband and family all day and night? What do I or my family gain by a neat, orderly mother/wife who is too busy to read aloud, hunt for worms, play catch, watch a movie, listen to ideas, . . . "go to bed" ; ) ?

Housekeeping vs. Homemaking

Note to self:

Don't get so caught up housekeeping that you neglect the more important job of homemaking.