Plans for February

We are one month into the new year already.  Time really does fly.  I am excited about February studies at our house.  We are going to be doing an Olympic Unit Study by Amanda Bennett.  Check out her website to see all of her available studies.  This is a four week study written so that children of all ages in the family can participate.  I am excited about this because I have felt pulled in so many directions due to the differences in the ages of my kids.  I am praying this will bring some togetherness. 

Thankful and Creative~ Was I successful?

Thankful and CrEaTiVe

Those were my words for 2009.  Was I successful?  Maybe. 

I am learning to be more thankful.  Every breath is a gift and I am not guaranteed anything in this life.  I am guaranteed heaven and I have eternal life because I know Jesus.  Everything else is simply a blessing from God. 

So, in light of that perspective, I am thankful.  I won't be perfect until heaven but I am learning and making progress, however slowly.

Now for creative.  Creative is a word I would not use to describe myself.  I can copy someone else's creativity but coming up with a creative idea on my own is not something I do on a regular basis. 

I want to be creative. {insert a great big whine here}  Creating fun ways to connect with each of my children individually is really important to me.  I don't want them to think of me as the boring task master.  This is so hard for me.  Being a task oriented person is hard to unlearn.  I want to put relationships before my to-do list, though.  The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak!  Help me, Lord!

Decorating is not something I am good at either.  (What am I good at, I wonder??? )  In 2009 I  challenged myself to decorate the neglected areas (and there are many) in my small house and redecorate the areas that were decorated but not loved.  Most furniture in my house is either old and worn out or mismatched because it was a gift.  Nothing wrong with those things.  I just didn't know how to use them in ways that reflected my style (do I have a style??). 

This sounded like fun but there was this ever present problem of lack of $$$$$$$.  Nothing like the lack of funds to make a person get creative.  THANKFULLY, (did you catch that I was thankful ;) ) a local ministry opened a thrift store in our town in 2009.  It has been a gold mine for great finds.  Another thing that has been a help is reading all the decorating blogs in blogland.  I will have to do a separate post to list my favs someday.

So here is a list of some of the "creative projects" I completed:
1. painted the great room and hall (includes kitchen, dining, and living area)
2. new curtains for kitchen and living room (on sale)
3. new border for kitchen ($1 a roll clearance find~ jackpot since we only needed 2 rolls!!)
4. bought items from thrift store, ebay, and hobby lobby (with gift cards) to decorate tops of kitchen cabinets
5. painted light fixtures in dining and living room Lighting makeover
6. bought slip covers for my very worn out couldn't find any more threads to sew together sofas Slip Covers
7. completed a laundry room/pantry makeover Laundryroom/pantry makeover
8. new flooring and paint in hall bathroom (the kids did this project~ YES) I am including a link but it doesn't look this way now.  I redecorated the redecorated bathroom. LOL Hall Bathroom remodel
9. started yard sale shopping again and found some great stuff ~ I have used some of it but have some put away for later ~ I have a plan though. Trash to Treasure
10. learned to use spray paint and repurposed some things (the chalk board is no longer over my kitchen window and the little round chalkboard isn't in the girls' room.  I know I know.  So undecisive. projects
11. Repurposed some old frames for art for my bathroom frames
12. Learned to bake bread (thanks Mrs. Marie) Bread
13. Made Christmas ornaments for gifts homemade ornaments
14. learned to make laundry soap laundry soap
15. I almost forgot!  I made two wreaths like this.  One I gave to my mother in law at Christmas and the other is hanging on my wall.

How did I do?  Pretty good?  I think so.  I am thankful you have let me share this with you!

Our daily schedule

I have been beating myself up for a while now about the schedule we have in our home school.  I get up early.  It is my time alone to pray, bible study, use the computer or whatever.  I like it this way but I always feel quilty that everyone isn't up and ready for "school time" at 8 a.m.  My house is filled with a bunch of night owls-right down to the youngest one.  He can stay up with the best of them.  I am usually ready for sleep by 10 or so but they keep going like the energizer bunny.  So, needless to say, they sleep late in the mornings.  If they don't, well, we won't go there. 

I am usually done with my morning bible/prayer time and computer time by 8:30.  Then I start my next routine.  First I empty the dishwasher.  Then I check my menu and lay out anything I need from the freezer or possibly fill the crockpot. Next I check my calendar to see if there are phone calls I need to make, bills to pay, etc.  I get the kids school notebooks out and mark the attendance sheets and have their schedules ready.  Over the weekend, I have hopefully made the schedule out for the week listing what they need to do each day in each subject.  After they finish an assignment, they check it off with a highlighter. 

By this time B-man is usually up and ready to watch a video.  He plays in the floor while watching a video and eating his breakfast.  I head to the shower.  If I don't have to wash my hair (which takes for-e-va to dry and straighten), I am ready in about 30 minutes or less.  If it is hair washing day, give me an hour and 15 minutes at least.  Usually after I get out of the shower I go ahead and wake the big kids so they can get their showers and eat breakfast.  I let the little princess sleep until she wakes up. 

By the time the big kids have showered, dressed, eaten breakfast, and made their beds, the little princess has gotten up and had her breakfast.  The next item on the morning agenda is table time.  Benji usually plays, draws, or goes outside on the patio (which I can see from the table) and plays while we do table time.  During our table time, we do bible study.  The big kids are doing a fruit of the spirit study I found here.  The little princess studies her Awana book.  After bible study, we all do an activity that I print from Enchanted Learning's activity calendars.  These are mostly for the elementary ages but I use it for everyone since it is always good to review.  The activites are short and sweet and give a time to do something all together.  Table time takes about 30 minutes.  Then I prepare lunch while the big kids start on their other subjects.  After lunch, I work with the little princess and help the big kids as needed. 

Since little princess is in K5, I don't spend over an hour a day with her.  But we don't do all of her stuff at one sitting.  She needs frequent breaks.  It takes the big kids anywhere from 3 hours to 5 hours to complete their lessons.

After lessons are complete, I do chores, clean the kitchen, and finish supper.  That is a pretty typical day at our house.  We school mostly in the afternoon.  Sometimes my oldest will need to work on things after supper but not often.  He and big girl do their reading before they go to sleep at night.  So ends a typical non-typical day at our house. 

Giveaway at Beneath My Heart

There is a great giveaway going on at Beneath My Heart right now.  Amanda at Queen Bee Designs has a lovely line of stamped jewelry and she if offerring a  $40 gift certificate to one lucky reader of Beneath My Heart .  So head on over to register to win.  I really want a necklace with my children's names on it.  I have my eye on several.  I keep entering the giveaways in hopes of scoring one pretty soon.  Good luck!!

Word of the Year

For the past couple of years I have been joining a group of friends in choosing a word to focus on for the year. It is something we pray about and ponder. Usually it is an area we feel the Lord is leading us to focus on or maybe it is something He is teaching us. Sometimes it is a combination of words and not a single word.

My word for 2008 was sorrow. Let me tell you that I did not want that to be my word. It was the first year I chose to participate and I didn't even tell anyone what my word was because I did NOT like it. Who in their right mind would choose sorrow as their word for the year? But the Lord impressed upon my heart that this indeed was my word. As always, He knows best and He taught me much using the word sorrow. The year 2008 was a big healing year for me. But for healing to come I had to face many memories and facts about myself. I had to face things about others.

I had to mourn for loss in my life. I had to mourn for loss in the lives of others. I had to grieve the death of dreams and goals. I had to learn that my Lord is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3) and that because of that He can heal my brokenness. I had to learn about Godly sorrow vs. worldly sorrow. 2 Corinthians 7:10 says Godly sorrow produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret. My anger and rebellion needed godly sorrow.

Praise God for the word sorrow and it's work in my life.

I had a couple of words for 2009. They were thankful and creative. I was so thankful for all that God had taught me in 2008 that thankful just seemed appropriate for 2009. I also wanted to focus on being creative in my life. Making the best out of hard situations, being creative in relationships, doing crafty things, and being frugal were all ways that I tried to express creativity this past year.

Although the lessons I learned in 2009 weren't as emotional as those in 2008, I still learned some things. I learned to be thankful for special people God has placed in my life and I am learning to love people as they are without placing my expectations on them. I learned to decorate on a budget and have finally decorated most of my house~something I have put off for a long time.

For Christmas, I made many of the gifts that I gave. Not only did it save us money but it gave me a creative outlet.

The word of the year for 2010 is surrender. This year I want to focus on surrendering my will to the Father. I want to be obedient to whatever He asks of me with a cheerful heart. I am looking forward to walking with Jesus with a surrendered heart in 2010. Here is a post I did about my 2010 word. my word for 2010

New Blog

Today is the first day I have actually posted on my new blog. I was so excited to learn that I had won a blog makeover from Designer Blogs . Steph at Somewhat Simple hosted a 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway. After registering for some super nice gifts over those 12 days, I woke up Christmas morning to the surprise of winning a new blog design. It is probably no surprise to anyone that winning the designer blog was the very thing I wanted to win. Merry Christmas to ME!!

I wanted to start the new blog with a new title as well as a new look. Sort of a fresh look, new name, and new year kind of thing. :)

I have some ideas of things I would like to blog about and am looking into those as time allows.

Happy New Year to all my blogland friends!

www.somewhatsimple.com

My Word for 2010

A few weeks ago during a church service, the pastor who was speaking was a visiting pastor so he didn't know anyone in our church. He started his message by saying that if anyone there was struggling to surrender to what God was calling them to do, then he/she should just Surrender. I was struggling. I don't know exactly what God is asking of me yet but I went to the alter that day to Surrender my will to Him. As I prayed about my word for 2010, I knew that Surrender would have to be the word for me.

Lord, I surrender my heart to Your calling. I don't know exactly what You desire for me right now. But I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phillipians 1:6). I am looking forward to seeing what 2010 holds.