{I'm In The Zone}

I have no idea what has come over me but whatever it is I hope it's here to stay! I am in the zone! The Organization Zone! I'm soooooooo tired of the clutter and stuff in my house and I'm finally doing something about it.

It started early last week with getting a shredder. I do all of my banking online these days, including paying the bills signing my life away to all my creditors so why keep all the paper lying around? So, that begun my journey.

Next I organized my office with my sister (which I posted about this weekend here). Today, I took all of the paper, boxes, mail and stuff out of the kitchen and moved it up to my office where my new shredder is. Then I took all the fake greenery above my cabinets and tossed that. Who needs more dust catchers anyway? I even went through all the cleaners and chemicals under my kitchen sick, trashed the old ones, and put the ones I rarely use in a bin and brought to the garage. Ahhh, it feels so good to get rid of unnecessary mess. All the clutter was really starting to get to me. I was feeling like my house was chaotic all the time. I was edgy and cranky with Princess Emilee and Princess Gracie because I just could not get a grip on things. It's amazing how doing a little bit of cleaning makes you feel so much better.

My goal for the rest of the week:

• Buy some cheap shelving for the basement and move some of my dry store items down there (i.e. canned goods, pasta, soup, paper towels, toilet paper, etc.).
• Make room in my cabinets for items we use on a daily basis but have no place to put them (i.e. cereal, bread, shake mix - for the hubs)

If I can get some of this stuff done this week along with the laundry that never seems to go away that I tend to put off because it seems impossible to conquer, I will be sooooooo happy. Oh, and if I can manage to eat healthy and count all my Weight Watchers points, then this week will have been one of the most productive in such a.long.time.

{Laughing Moments of the Weekend}

My sister, Kate, came to visit this weekend and she helped me organize and clean my office upstairs. It's something that I've been wanting to do for a few weeks now. I want a place where I can go to read my Word and pray. I want a place to put my laptop so that it's kind of out of the way and I won't be so distracted by it all day long. I want it to be functional enough to do some sewing and crafting projects. It took us h.o.u.r.s. to do but it's done. We even cleaned out the closets and got rid of so much junk brought it out to the garage so it's all out of the way. The only downside is that we forgot to take before pictures. Let me try and paint a picture for you:

• Medium sized room with L-shaped computer desk covered with paper, pens, junk.
  
• Comfy arm chair in the corner with painting and crafting supplies on it.
  
• Shoes belonging to the Emilee Grace Company taken out of their boxes (by Princess Emilee and Princess Grace) strewn about the doorway.
• Boxes of Emilee Grace products along the wall and in the corner.
• Clothing and shoes falling out of the closet and on the floor surrounding the closet doorway
• Old school computer monitor sitting on old school table.
• Old (very old) sewing machine/table in the corner.

Can't you just picture it? It was bad. But now it's clean and although it doesn't look like this (I can dream can't I??), it looks 100x better. Thanks, Kate!!!!Now onto the real reason for this post..........the laughing moments of the day. Once we were done cleaning we needed to bring some of the final junk to the garage. It was our second trip outside so my flops were nice and wet from the rain outside. Gracie was sitting on the steps crying about something and Emilee and Kate were outside the front door. Just as Kate is telling me I need to open the garage door (again! b/c Em took it upon herself to close it), I slip on Tim's boots, while carrying big computer monitor and fall down 2-3 steps. Kate's initial reaction was "Oh my gosh, are you okay" and then it happened. The laughter. I started laughing. She started laughing. We got into some more trouble, laughed and laughed some more. I haven't fallen down the stairs in a long time. Usually I'm tripping up the stairs. I don't blame Kate for laughing at me. I would have laughed at her!

As if the day can't get any more eventful, Grace decides she wants to pee outside. When I asked her what she was doing she said, "I'm pretending to be a dog". lol Well, at least she took her underpants off. Gotta give her credit for that!

Thankful Thursdays

Thanks to my new friend Collette, I came across Thankful Thursdays and I wanted to participate. If you would like to also, please visit Sonya at Truth 4 the Journey and get on board. :)
The five things that I'm most thankful for today are:

1. I'm thankful that my husband has a secure job and that we have a roof over our heads. I know so many people that are going through tough times right now because of the economy and while we are definitely not living large, God has been keeping us and providing for us.
2. I'm thankful that my kids and husband are healthy.
3. I'm thankful for the buttermilk that my husband picked up at the store the other day. lol We never have buttermilk in our house but I've always wanted to make Buttermilk Pancakes and now today I can. :)
4. I'm thankful for laughter. My girls are seriously nuts and the fact that I can laugh over most of the things they do and the havoc they create is a good thing. lol
   
5. I'm thankful for God's mercy and patience. So many times we seem to take FOREVER to get our act together in some areas but He's always so patient, loving and kind with us. His mercies are new every morning and while we can be hard on ourselves at times, His love for us is unconditional.

Total Randomness

My blog got a facelift. Did you notice? I wish I could take credit for it all but thanks to some really great sites out there, I managed to spruce up my blog. The background came FREE from Aqua Poppy Designs. Me likey.

I made the header using Scrapblog. Soooooooo easy to use and it has so many great FREE graphics. :) This blog is still a work in progress............as is everything else in my life these days.

Today is one of those days where I have a bunch of thoughts bouncing around my head but can't seem to make any sense of them. Maybe I'll just be random and throw them out there.

In no particular order:

1. The girls are watching Dora and I notice that a lot of her adventures include witches. We may have to ban Dora.

2. Tonight is the last night of Bible Boot Camp (VBS) and I'm pretty excited about that. The kids had a great time and I think it was a success. A lot of time and planning went into it so I'm thankful to take a break from that.

3. I got up at 5 this morning to do the treadmill. I told Tim last night to get me up even if I put up a fuss. I only did 15 minutes but I guess that's better than the zero minutes I've been doing lately.

4. One of my prayers lately is for God to make me into a morning person. I'd so much rather sleep in than get up and do anything else. I want to be that kind of mom that gets up early, gets her quiet time with the Lord in, gets showered and ready for the day, gets the house in order and gets the kids ready for the day. Pretty much I guess I'm wanting to be that woman in Proverbs 31.

5. I'd love to be more organized and get myself (and the kids) onto some sort of schedule and routine. I hate that chaotic feeling that I often feel throughout the day when I'm looking at the laundry and the messes around the house, the bills and papers piling up, etc. Sigh.

6. I'd love to reach my Weight Watchers goal one of these days. I started this summer with a plan to lose 20 lbs in 20 weeks. That went out the door pretty quickly. I actually went in the opposite direction, which I'm not happy about. I can sit here and wallow and moan and cry the blues but I choose to start tracking my points again and look forward to Sept. 15 when Emilee and Grace will both be in school and I can actually go weigh in at Weight Watchers and stay for the meetings. 19 days to go. Hopefully I can knock off a few of these lbs before then. Tim's on a new program so it always helps when we are both on the same page. Actually, I've had Em and Grace eating better this week too. I realized that if my kids have weight issues, it will be my fault and I needed to do something about that.

7. I have a lot to do today so I better get going. :)

A Mom After God's Own Heart

I have SO much to do today because tomorrow morning we leave on a quick mini-vacation and technically I should be showering but I'm really loving blogging these days and wanted to post a little something. It's funny because I don't think many people ever read (or even know it exists)this particular blog (except for Michele lol) but I enjoy doing it so that's reason enough.


I've been reading the book A Mom After God's Own Heart for, well, forever, it seems. I keep coming back to the first few chapters. There's so many great things in there regarding parenting and raising Godly children that I keep re-reading it after I've gotten sick of myself and the Monster Mommy I find myself turning into. I'm sure we've all heard the verse in Proverbs "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it". I used to think that "train" meant taking them to church and reading them Bible stories. As my kids get older I've realized that it's really soooooo much more than that. It's teaching them scripture and reading it to them so that it gets buried deep within their little hearts. It's showing them that our relationship with God should be the most precious, most important thing in our lives. It's respecting our husbands so that they learn to respect their dad. Pretty much every things we do or say should be life lessons we pass onto our children.

One thing that Elizabeth George, the author of A Mom After God's Own Heart, talks about is reading the Word to our children. Here's an excerpt from the book that really spoke to me:
"It doesn't matter how long it's read. Even a few minutes a day will make a powerful impression on your family...................And don't worry about what your children are or are not getting out of your Bible reading times. What they do get is the firsthand experience of seeing your love for the Bible and your wholehearted commitment to God and His Son. They'll realize God's Word is important to you...therefore it will become important to them. They also get to hear scriptures. And, as the Bible teaches, "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17). Your family members will also receive familiarity and respect for the Bible that will help them to love and live the Word of God as they age."

I've slacked in this area but I'm glad that I keep coming back to this book to remind me of what's important.

Soft, Gentle Voice

Lately during worship at church God has been gently speaking to me about things. Last week (or the week before??) He showed me that I am bound by the fear of man. I knew I was a bit intimidated by people at time (i.e. I loathe public speaking, don't like phone calls, etc.) but I realized that it was bondage more than anything else. I've let what people think and the fear of rejection keep me from doing what God wants me to do, really what He wants us all to do and that's to preach the gospel to all people. I'm so consumed and wrapped up in my own little world (where it's safe and I don't have to put myself out) that I rarely listen to the Lord and His promptings. Something's gotta change.


Then this morning at church we got a word about how the status quo is no longer acceptable. That God wants more. That got me thinking. I've been a Martha for a long time when really my heart is to be a Mary. I want to be at the feet of Jesus, loving on Him, seeking His face, falling more in love with Him. That's kind of hard to do when I'm on Facebook more than I read the Bible or pray; when I'm working on things that God has not called me to do; when I'm more interested in the latest "scoop" than I am about getting the heart of God.


So, I'm working on working those things out. Setting my priorities in order and putting the things of this world aside to set my affections more on the Lord. I love the gentle voice of the Lord.