Christian Homekeeping™

Friday, January 27, 2012

Before/After 3rd Bedroom Closet Organize/Declutter

These are actually from the first week of January but I'm just now getting around to editing and uploading them. I did a video, but with my new camera that is HD, it takes a loooonng time to upload them and it just isn't worth it. I am thinking of just uploading a lower quality version, so maybe later. In the meantime, here are pictures. You will notice that I removed the black storage unit on the right out of the closet, we are using it elsewhere in the house. I also got rid of a lot of stuff and then stacked the blue bins in the back of closet so now its easier to go in there and get what we need for homeschool or crafts, etc.

I also used a cheap $6 clear/white shoe organizer to house a lot of our craft supplies - it is really handy!

A True Friend

A True Friend

A True Friend knows your weakness,

But shows you your strengths;

Feels your fears,

But fortifies your faith;

Sees your anxieties,

But frees your spirit;

Recognizes your disabilities,

But emphasizes your possibilities.

William A. Ward

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Snow/Ice Storm Photos & Update

God really blessed us through this whole storm. While others went days without power, we had power and also while other's yards are filled with debris and trees and branches, ours wasn't! I had prayed that God would shield our lot and not let any trees or branches fall on us and He answered my prayer! Thank you Lord!

We only lost power for a few hours and it was actually a fun time for our family. My husband and daughter built a fort outside with all the snow and then they built a medieval castle inside during the few hours without power. We don't have internet or phone but even that has been a blessing because I read more and spent more time with my daughter just hanging out. I'm using a friend's wifi right now, so I may not post for a few days until our service is restored. Enjoy the pictures!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Snow Storm & Ice Storm

In the almost 6 years that I've lived in the Seattle/Tacoma area, I've never seen it this bad. First we got hit with about a foot of snow. Then last night and this morning there are layers of ice so thick, I've never seen anything like it before. We just watched part of a tree break in half and fall and its leaning and possible going to fall on a trailer a few doors down on the next street. Our neighbor behind us has had branches hit his roof all through the night and this morning, we can hear it and its a scary sound! I'm so glad our landlord removed the 5 tall, pine trees in our yard this spring!

We haven't had power in 6 hours, it did come on briefly early this morning but then went back off. It's on now, so we are running the heat and hurrying to cook something to eat. It was off last night for about 3 hours too. There are others with no power till possible Saturday. Say a prayer our electricity stays on and that we are safe from the falling trees! It is currently still raining ice.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Well-Arranged Time

Got this the other night in a fortune cookie, thought it was awesome and had to take a pic and share:

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Prayer Request

Hello readers, sorry I've been missing for a week or so, besides turning another year older this past week, I also have been battling some health issues. The good news was 2011 was the first year I haven't been hospitalized in 7 years!! I also haven't seen my doctor since 2010! The bad news is I've been sick for a few weeks, but this past week I've developed some new symptoms and today being the worst, I'm going in tomorrow for some tests. I'm just asking for prayers - lift my name up for healing if you will, thanks! ;-)

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Eating Organic - Almost 90%

It's been a journey for us as we've gradually switched over to organic foods. In the past few months, we finally made the switch to organic meat and cheese. It was the most expensive switch but one that I think was the most important. We immediately noticed the better taste and quality, especially with the grass-fed beef and cheese!

We are now about 90% organic and eating meat only on weekends has really improved our digestive systems and eased this all into our budget as well. However, we still crave a hamburger occasionally and get take-out, but I want to keep that to 1-2 times a month.

We have learned a lot during the past few years of this transition and one is that we can no longer eat hot dogs without ill effects! I also can no longer eat sandwich meat without getting intestinal issues. I can however stomach the no-nitrate/nitrite, natural sandwich meat but we rarely eat it. My daughter gets sick every time she gets a hot dog or corn dog seemingly anywhere, so we have just eliminated them from her diet.

The most expensive switch was the cheese. Here is the cost rundown:

Non-organic cheddar = 20 cents per ounce
Organic, grass-fed cheddar = 34 cents per ounce

Non-organic mozzarella = 19 cents per ounce
Organic, grass-fed mozzarella = 44 cents per ounce

You will find that the biggest expense in eating organic, is generally the animal products, but it is also the most advantageous for your health. If only man would leave what God created alone and quit trying to make a fast buck, we would all only be eating normal, God-intended grass-eating cows lol! Oh but no, man wants to be rich and decides to shoot up the cows with growth hormones and feed them corn - which cows were not made by God to eat and they can't digest it - so they get sick. Then man injects the cows with antibiotics because MAN made the cow eat something God didn't intend it to eat. You see the problem here right? It's time to get back to common sense.

Shredded cheese contains an additive that makes it not stick together, cellulose, which is indigestible! If you shred your own cheese, you won't have to worry about it, sometimes convenience puts your health at risk, which do you hold as a priority? Imagine if we all switched to God-intended food and left the chemicals in the laboratories for the rats to die from. Less rats and healthier people.........what a concept!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Declutter/Organize - Homeshool Room Video

I finished the homeschool room today as the first room on my declutter/organize mission. It feels SO good to have it all very organized! The papers are what took the longest, but now I have a better paper system I'm implementing.

At the end of the video, I did a demonstration of what I was talking about in this post of using a sheet protector and dry erase marker for the to do list.

I also took a few photos of the completion:

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year 2012!

I'm excited to start a brand new year and leave the past one behind us! Isn't it amazing how so many feel that they really can "start over" again on New Years? It gives us some sort of renewed spirit and power to try again at whatever we may have resolved to do and failed at. I wish you all a wonderful New Year 2012 and pray that for all of us, it is a wonderful one!

A New Year With The Lord

A new year is about to unfold
With new opportunities to explore
Doors will open for new experiences
New adventures with the Lord

Remember not the former things
The things of this past year
The Lord will do new things in us
Much more than we are aware

For He will make a way for us
As we put our trust in Him
And He will guide our every step
By His presence we have within

What God has placed within our hearts
We find we’ll be able to do
If we look for the opportunities
We’ll see the door to go through

We mustn’t let anything hold us back
But rise up and take our place
And be all that God wants us to be
With a fresh touch of His grace

© By M.S.Lowndes

(Free to distrubute/use as long as unaltered and copyright left with poem)

Saturday, December 31, 2011

2012 Goals

Call them resolutions or goals, pretty much the same thing in essence. I suppose you could say that I'm resolved to reach my goals this year. Or how about, I will set a goal to meet my resolutions? =0

In thinking of a phrase or word for 2012, I thought of a few words that describe what my hopes for this year will be: Happy, Efficient, Strong

Here is my personal list of goals for 2012:

Read & Pray daily
Book List
Get Fit - physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally
Home & Homeschool Routines - get them running smoothly and efficiently
Less Computer - less mindless time online
Training Daughter - I want to continue to train my daughter to take care of the home and all that entails
Optimum Food - give my family quality food; cut back on takeout
Organized to the Max - I want a home for everything! We are actually in the middle of this right now and wow is it feeling amazing already! Lots more to go though.....

A Look Back on 2011

As this year comes to a close, I wanted to look back on what all happened in 2011 in my life. My daughter prayed for salvation this year! Our family also finally became DEBT FREE! We paid off the last medical bill in February and rejoiced in God's goodness! This was also the year that I started being able to talk with my Pastor about some deep things and get deliverance. I bettered myself in my role as a wife, mother, homekeeper and teacher of my child. I really feel like I gained a lot more skills this year and bettered other ones. I did start sewing but quickly lost interest, but who knows, I may pick that up again here soon.

This is also the year I learned to stand up for myself more, work through problems instead of pushing them back in my mind and pray harder. There are some bad things that happened this past year, but they all worked to my good, so praise God anyhow! ;-)

One word to describe 2011 for me was Growth - not talking waistline here lol, but rather spiritual, mental and emotional growth. God really did a work in my life and I pray He continues in the next year.

Here are some of the most memorable posts from 2011:

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Free Printable - To Do List

Here is a to do list I made that includes tasks, errands, calls and purchases and then a box for miscellaneous. You can put this in a sleeve protector and then use a dry erase marker so you don't have to print one each day.

*Scribd sometimes jumbles up the preview. Not sure why some of my uploads look weird in preview, but if you download them, they will correct themselves. To Do List Blank

Free Printable - Room Plan

I got this idea from this book, however, I didn't like the way she set up essential and necessary columns, so I made my own. You can use one of these for each room of your home as a task list of what needs to be done in that room at various times. I made 2 different versions, depending on preference.Room Plan Blank 2nd Version Room Plan BLANK

Free Printable - Things I Want To Change

I was making myself one up and made a copy for anyone to print as well, enjoy! Things I Want to Change Things I Want to Change BLANK

Complete Notes PDF - "Homeschooling at the Speed of Life"

For those who want to print these out or read them all in one spot, I created a PDF of all the notes combined:

Notes From Homeschooling at the Speed of Life

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Our Beliefs in a Nutshell

The Basics

- Trinitarian - God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit

- Salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ, not works

- Holy Spirit baptism is subsequent to the new birth and evidenced by speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance

- Water baptism is to show an outward reflection of an inward work

- We must live holy lives and continue in the faith

- Our good works show others our walk with God (fruit tells you what kind of tree), not that works make us saved

The Family Unit

- Women's role is to be a keeper at home

- Husband is the leader or head of the home

- Marriage is for 2 to become one in a perfect union and for procreation to raise up children in the Lord (they are HIS reward)

- Keep our children unspotted from the world by training them up in the way they should go - we homeschool to instill these Godly values

- Abortion or devices that mimic it are murder in the sight of the Lord

Finances

- A tenth of ALL our increase goes to God; which has ordained the church to handle as it sees fit for the furtherance of the gospel

- We must be good stewards of all that God gives us - from money to taking care of this earth through recycling, living frugal and not wasting

- Not having a love of money or mindset to get rich but rather being thankful for what we have; contentment

- Trusting in God to supply ALL our needs, he will never fail, no matter the circumstance!

Modesty & Appearance

- CLEAR distinction of the sexes and attire of each: dresses for women and pants for men

- Long Hair is a woman's glory and her covering and sign of submission to her head and for the angels

- Attire must be modest: loose fitting, not revealing or showing of the thighs, etc.

- Showing shamefacedness and being chaste with an unpainted face or other adornments

- Not having masculine behavior as a woman but feminine and men are not to be effiminate but rather masculine - again CLEAR distinction of the sexes which God intended

Worldliness

- Not involving oneself in the entertainments of this world that have the appearance of evil; keep oneself unspotted from this world and its enticements

- Definitely not a part of worldly establishments such as bars, clubs and such like that are dens of sin and all manner of evil

- Loving the world and its fashions and mentality is strictly forbidden in the Bible - we must be separate and "come out from among them"

There is more but this would get pretty long if I included them all - so basically we believe the FULL gospel!

Quotes to Ponder

The objective in Christian homeschooling is not to teach children how to "deal with the real world." I do not want to teach my children how to merely survive this life. As believers in Christ, we are called to be overcomers! - HE magazine

The modest virgin, the prudent wife, and the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romances, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver, or their eyes. - Oliver Goldsmith

Long ago I ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil world. - Charles Spurgeon

In a time of universal deceit, telling the TRUTH, is a revolutionary act . -George Orwell

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. -Winston Churchill

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Christian mothers too often neglect their home-centered role for the empty promises of fulfillment in the workplace, while they warehouse their children in daycare centers. Parents send their children to secular schools where God is outlawed, and they allow them to watch trashy movies and listen to vile music—and hang out with those who do the same. After years of training in the ways of rebellion through godless schooling, debauched entertainment, and peer association, Christian parents are somehow surprised when their teenagers rebel, forsaking the God of their fathers.- Philip Lancaster

You are as much serving God in looking after your own children, and training them up in God's fear, and minding the house, and making your household a church for God, as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts. - Charles Spurgeon

I’m very fond of men. But I don’t want to look like one. When women gave up their long skirts, they made a grave error. -Tasha Tudor

SECULARISM is a philosophy that claims that there is no God-or that if there is a God, He is irrelevant. HUMANISM essentially says that in the absence of God, humans can and should act as gods by judging, choosing, and defining what is right for themselves. The philosophy pervading the public education system combines these two philosophies into one.-Ken Ham

The true defining situation for a person is what they do when they are alone and don't have to do anything else. What do they do? Do they do frivolous things? That's when you define what you are. -Kevin Rollins, former CEO of DELL