Making Your Home a Haven

Greetings! I pray that with this season change upon us (our Northern friends are surely in full thrust of rich colors now); it has brought about a refreshing breeze to your homes and lives. Like a breath of fresh air the Father above gives us through His word as we breathe it in daily, I hope this season will bring a renewed desire to be intentional in our living. If this is your first time visiting, be sure to leave a comment and say “hello” (or if you have visited before…leave a note to say you stopped by). My hope is that while here you will be encouraged in your calling as a wife, mother, daughter, sister…

 

Well, as a further encouragement during this lovely season, Courtney at Women Living Well is hosting an October challenge ~ Making Your Home a Haven. This challenge is broken down into weekly challenges for the month of October for intentional living as we focus on making our homes a haven.  (Monica from the homespun heart is also doing a similar challenge this week.)



As wives and mothers our days are full of Distractions, Demands and Duties…sometimes we can allow these to hinder our Delight. I intend for this challenge to help me intentionally refocus my attention onto the Lord and to pray more, live more intentionally and focus more on how my behavior and attitude can set the tone of my home.



Courtney’s first challenge for this week is to:

• Light a candle everyday in your home (well, that’s pretty simple) AND
• Every time your eye catches sight of your lit candle, to say a prayer for peace to be in your home. (This is what I would call the intentional part.)
  

  

  One in the hub of our home...the kitchen

Another near a beautiful reminder of God's grace...my quiet time candle

I did light a few candles yesterday (as well as today) and my prayer is for peace to be the tone of our home ~ peace between each other, peace with the Lord’s direction for our day and peace to take over when things may not go smoothly (with a home full of children there is always sharing and kindness with everyone putting others needs before their own usually a squabble to be had at some point … several points… during the day). As the aroma from the candles fill my home, I pray that peace will also be the unseen aroma that resides throughout it…by God’s grace and my intentional actions to aide in bringing that about.

Yesterday, we spent some time bringing out our autumn decorations and creating focal points of the rich colors this season provides. Our Creator is so giving to design us to have senses…senses to smell the fragrances of His creation, senses to tastes the fruits of each season, senses to see the beauty of His design (if we will just slow down long enough to look at it), senses to hear the sounds associated with a change in season and senses to touch that can warm our hearts.

How are you intentional in living, in such a way, to create a peaceful home? What have you found to be a way (or ways) to encourage peace and joy to be present? Your comments may be just the means used by the Lord to encourage someone today that is struggling in this area…

That peace would be evident ~

If you would like to participate in Courtney’s challenge you can click here to see the challenges for this month.

I am also linking up with Monica over at the homespun heart, doing a similar challenge titled Make Your Home a Haven each day during this week.  She has a lovely blog reflecting the beauty of her creativity and making her home a haven.

Frugal Fridays: Money, Resources and Time

Frugal, as defined in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, means to be economical in the use of money, goods or provisions of any kind. Frugality is not a principle to frown upon, but one we should embrace as it is a means to freedom…be it, financial freedom, freedom from the bondage of “stuff” or freedom to do things the Lord puts before you to do (minister to the sick, to be hospitable, to serve others, etc.) because we have managed in such as way to allow us the “time” to do so.


Here are some of the frugal things that work for me in each category:

Money ~

We make our own laundry detergent and save much money by doing so. Here is the recipe we have found to work for us:


Ingredients ~

1 cup Borax

1 cup Washing Soda (not baking soda)

1 bar of Fels-Naptha (grated)

¼ cup Dr. Bonner’s Pure Castile Soap (we have used Tea Tree, Citrus Orange and Unscented for laundry soap making purpose…lavender would probably work just as well, too)

6 gallon bucket

Hot water (about 6 gallons)

Click here for my laundry soap post for instructions and my cost analysis.

Goods ~

I try to conserve resources (water, which we pay for) but limiting the amount of dishes I dirty in meal preparations. Whenever possible, I use one pot or one bowl for recipes. For baking recipes that say “cream” this in one bowl and “mix” dry goods in another, I “cream” in the mixing bowl and add the dry goods to it. My recipes have never flopped from not using that other bowl. When making a casserole or soup recipe, I use one pot for all my preparations…brown the meats, then add the veggies that need to be sautéed then the rest of the ingredients. Once again, our meals have turned out fine and I have saved from dirtying extra dishes, which ultimately saves water usage as I am washing less dishes.


Another water saving tip…catching rain water and using it to water plants or using cooking water to water them (once cooled). Why pour good costly water down the drain?

Time ~

I try to save time (which ultimately saves goods AND money) by menu planning. I have planned our meals for years and have found having a meal plan works for us. I have a breakfast menu, which is simple enough that the children (assigned to a couple of them) can prepare for the family. Our lunch menu was selected based on three factors: preparation time, nutritional balance and ease in preparing. Although they are not the most frugal lunches, they are still fairly economical when feeding a large crew. Our dinner menu is a four/five week rotation, without repeating any dishes (typically) for the month. I take advantage of sales and have built our pantry and freezer inventory over time, allowing me to keep those levels maintained which ultimately saves money and wasted trips to the store.


Another time saver is making a grocery list each week. I refer to our menu plan before each weekly shopping trip and base my shopping list on what items are low in our food inventory, the fresh produce items which will be needed for the upcoming week and any sales that may be happening at the two stores I buy from. Coupons are used (for items we regularly consume when I have them) and sticking to my list both save time and money. Our food budget for our family of 9 is around $150 per week and I regularly am able to stay within that budget. Now, I do not buy strictly organic (if I did that would reek havoc on my budget), but instead buy certain items such as milk, eggs, chicken, beef and pork (both purchased as part of a co-op locally) and some other basic items consumed regularly.


Well, those are my frugal tips for saving MONEY, GOODS and TIME. What do you do to save in those areas? I love learning from all you ladies out there, so leave me a comment, sharing your tips and helpful hints. If you would like to read what others do to be frugal, click here. This post has been linked up with Frugal Fridays.


Blessings as you save money, goods and time ~

Storage Solutions ~ For Our Family

This week’s focus at 4 Moms, 35 Kids is Storage Solutions. What fun…in our house with so many various ages and needs at any given time, I am always seeking to maximize our home’s space.


The best storage solution is NOT to have more than you need so that you limit the NEED for storing. Now, with that said, we also must be wise and good stewards of we have…so the answer isn’t to give everything away either. For those of us still in child bearing years, keeping items we know we would use with subsequent children is a good idea…or regarding schooling, keeping items we know we will use with children up and coming in various grades is also a good idea.


How do we utilize storage tools? I have done a couple posts in the past about organizing which may provide you a better understanding of how our use of labeling and baskets, bins, and totes are great tools we use. Maybe, seeing how we improved our school closet or pantry will provide you a few more ideas on maximizing closet space to its fullest potential.

School closet (normally has mirrored by-pass doors on this closet) is our foyer closet conversion...shelves were added (years ago), bins/plastic baskets, magazine racks, paper racks, and plastic drawers are labeled to help organize our materials better.

Our most recent project is remodeling one of the girls’ closets to accommodate a drawer system in order for “Little Bit” to have some dresser space. The local home improvement store carries this line of closet systems we have used in all our bedroom closets to fit our needs. Fairly economical and they have held up in all the rooms so far…so…

Closet emptied and new unit being installed with 3 separate closet rods...

In the bedrooms, I have combined the different closet systems with bins, baskets, hooks and storage boxes to help keep our things orderly. Labels are added on the containers to help everyone know where to put things. Hangers are color assigned to each person to help with putting laundry away and to keep closets looking uniform (see another picture at the bottom of this post).

 All out of season clothing or clothing that is outgrown is stored in the large Rubbermaid totes in our attic. I also utilize these totes for storing seasonal decorations, toys that are brought down for rotation purposes, baby/infant items and homeschool portfolios (not kept in the attic). I use our Print Shop program to print picture/word labels for the fronts of the totes so they can be easily located when needed.


In the living areas, baskets are one of the methods to increase storage. Books are typically kept in them to allow easy access and easy clean up. Now, we have a lot of books, but for the little ones I like to keep most of their books in a basket. We all have books on bookshelves and night stands, as well. Homeschooling has a tendency to cause book collections to GROW. An ottoman doubles as storage for baby toys (see picture at the bottom of this post).

Children's books are easily accessed for reading time and quickly put away using the basket storage method (surplus books are kept in the book cabinet or book cases).

 My husband (last year) added windows, vinyl flooring, shelving and paneling to our screen room to allow added living space that could be used daily no matter what the season/weather. I moved all the toys (after purging took place) to the now Florida room and put them in clear plastic bins, baskets and plastic dish pans with colored labels that include a picture of the contents and the content name. This has helped greatly to keep bedrooms clean and orderly, as well as keeping messes confined. Clean up is something even little ones willing can do because of the labeled bins with pictures. Love our space…great for play, reading and keeping an eye on the children when they are outside playing!

Our well used and enjoyed Florida room...adjustable shelves mounted to the wall to hold all the toy bins and plastic baskets.

An example of the Print Shop label I made to help identify each bins' contents...this picture/word label works great for helping little ones with clean up time.

Other baskets have been incorporated throughout the house for storing scrapbooking items on my floating shelves above my desk area or a hanging basket above my husband’s stand to hold charger cords for cell phones (see end of post).

I love using these floating shelves to hold books, scrapbooking tools, and display some special keepsakes. 

 Finally, not so long ago my husband added sliding wire racks inside our kitchen cabinets which I love (not an agape kind of love…just the practicality of them)! They have saved on bending and lifting of a lot of my HEAVY cookware…cast iron pieces and stoneware pieces (see another picture at the end of this post). Not only have they saved my wrists from lifting out of awkward places inside the cabinets BUT these sliding racks have allowed my cookware/bakeware to be better organized so that I can easily access all of them…which means they can be used….which means happy tummies. I’d say that’s a win win situation.



Sliding wire racks mounted in our cabinets to make accessing heavy cast iron cookware easy!


 So in summary…my preferred storage tools are:

• Baskets
• Plastic bins and totes
• Shelving and drawer systems

Labels whenever possible really help to keep things organized…be it labels from our label maker or printed off of Print Shop. So what storage solutions work for you? Leave a comment (I love learning new tips…) or participate by linking your storage solution post here.


Always seeking to maximize space with storage solutions for our ever growing family ~



And another section with one single sliding wire rack and one double tiered sliding wire rack to hold stones and glass bakeware AND our KitchenAid...all quite HEAVY!



Hooks are another method to utilize wall space for storage...a hanging basket for phone chargers, keys and ceramic plaques to remind us of God's goodness.

Our ottomon serves as a storage area for baby toys...

Baskets to hold cloth diapers/burp cloths, travel crib bedding, etc.; girls are assigned "pink" hangers so all their hanging clothes are neat.

Laundry System...for Our Large Family

As you can imagine, in a family our size there is RARELY a day that the laundry bins STAY empty.  Try as I might, when there are children in the home, it is a very RARE occasion that clothes are clean for long.  So how do we try to manage the endless task of keeping laundry clean and keeping the dirty laundry organized?

Well, here's a tour of "Grand Laundry Station"...a place where the dirt stops and the aroma of bleach is a common scent.  ;-)

Looking into our laundry room from the hallway

A Blurr of a Week...

It's hard to believe it has been over two weeks since my last visit to blogger.  Life kicked in to full throttle this past week and our family put to practice what a primary caregiver overseeing/responsible for 24/7 care needs to do.  It was a challenge to be 100% present for Mom and still keep things (school, business, caring for our children and managing our home) on the homefront going as close to normal as possible...which was far from "normal".

Here's a glimpse of how the week went without getting into too much detail...continually thankful for your prayers:

Sunday ~ church…call afterward to check on Mom (not well at all)…arrive at her home, Hospice nurse there and stayed until 11:00pm (a little better, with some “good” signs, so I went home for some rest)


Monday ~ call to wake Mom up (this is the day I typically take her food shopping and out on errands…doesn’t answer either phone, leave my house (kids) and go to hers…not doing well at all (again). Try to get her pain & nausea under control…a friend comes to sit with my children (for the day…Mark is working), I stay with Mom…update Hospice on status and proceed to provide necessary care until my sister arrives for a few hours after she gets off work. (Austin goes to Orchestra…) I go home gather some things to stay the night, have dinner with my family, check school work and return to Mom’s. (No rest this night as I checked on her about every hour…quite concerned.)


Tuesday ~ with Mom, still not doing well…called Hospice, nurse comes out and another ailment added to her issues to monitor and care for. My sister arrives (her ½ day at work, around 12:30pm, and stays until 8ish) allowing me to go home for a while (another friend has come by to be with the children…Mark worked and oldest at college all day, so quite a bit of juggling ensued this day. We return around 8 and I stay with Mark until 11ish…he takes the night shift, I go home to a teething 11 month old…not much sleep this night either ~ Mom did okay through the night though...praise the Lord.


Wednesday ~ Mark and Zach trade places, I get kids on to their school; try to catch up around the house and then go down to get Mom situated with pain, nausea and care. Go back home for an hour, then return when Hospice nurse arrives…stayed 1 ½ hours this time (another friend helping with the children so I can go back and forth throughout the day…a gift)…return home, try to get some business done for Mark…then return to Mom’s again before little ones have their afternoon naps. Make sure she is on schedule with care/medications and monitor her for a while. She gets up – hallelujah! – Nurse comes for another check-up, but she returns back to bed not long after. (Austin goes to Orchestra.) I return home, my sister comes again after work for a few hours. Mark and I go back down when she leaves and Mark takes another night shift at Mom’s…I return home for that teething little one…nursing to comfort throughout the night.


Thursday ~ Mark is off (pre-planned weeks earlier due to homeschool function) so he stays a bit longer in the morning at Mom’s, I run out to do business errands, a friend picks up Alyssa for our monthly Mother/Daughter Bright Lights Young Ladies Group meeting…I return from errands and trade places with Mark. He stays with the rest of the children (Zach at classes again all day). Friend returns with Alyssa and stays for a couple hours, allowing Mark and I to get some business work done and me to meet with the Hospice nurse. I stay with Mom until my sister comes for a few hours after work. Mark and I return to Mom’s with Mark taking another night shift…I return home to the teething girl…a little rest this night – hallelujah!...Mom up and signs of some improvement.


Friday ~ Mark and I trade places for about an hour allowing me to provide morning care to Mom, kids get ready for a field trip (decided I would take them, since we both could not go…event planned a couple weeks ago), then we trade places again. Seems to be making more improvement with Mom being up a bit more today…not as nauseous although pain level still high off and on. Hospice nurse comes to check on Mom, I return back from the field trip and Mark and I switch places again. I stay until my sister comes after work again for a few hours, allowing me to return home and get things on the home front in order. Zach goes down until Mark and I return after kids are settled in bed…switching places with Zach. I stay with him and Mom until about 11pm, and then return home to – you guessed it- the teething girl. ;-) Mark sleeps soundly, Mom sleeps soundly after eating a good dinner (not necessarily healthy, but solid) and things seem to be improving.


Saturday ~ Mark and I switch places in the morning; I get her care in order, continue with her home tasks and prep lunch/dinner. A friend of hers calls desiring to come visit, which works well. Mom up and ready for a visit, enjoying a few hours with her friend, I, in exchange, go home…getting lunch and grocery shopping done for the week, then my sister goes to Mom’s for the night. Things seem much better now (under the circumstances) with some concerning issues seemingly subsiding after some medication changes…time will tell. All will be home tonight in their beds – the first time since Sunday night late. Thanking the Lord for this time…


Sunday ~ able to attend church together as a family and things with Mom seem improved…sister goes home in the afternoon, I return to check on her and ready her for bed. Praying ailment eases and the Lord provides added strength to her days…


Much to praise after this challenging week for her…


“…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Because of Him ~