Yes. I did. I just ate a handful of pastel colored sprinkles. You see, I was organizing our spice cabinet today. We were generously gifted several boxes of spices. I couldn't ever find what I was looking for, and on more than one occassion, I came across something in a recipe that I didn't have, and looking at overflowing spice cabinet, couldn't possibly justify buying anything.
When my hubby came home with 2 more boxes, they sat on my table since Saturday afternoon til today. 3 whole days! And after I got over the intial crazy of 'oh my goodness, i have to find some time to organize my spices so i can go thru the new boxes', I was actually okay with the boxes. Except that my oldest daughter kept digging around in them and every time we sat down to eat, I had to move them out of the determined baby's reach.
So I got around to them this afternoon. I got in touch with a couple of close friends, put together some bags for them, still some leftover, that if the other couple of people I contacted don't claim them, will be going to a food pantry.
I had the intention of taking all of the lurking baking supplies out of the spice cabinet, and putting them with the rest of the baking ingredients. When I started rummaging in that cabinet, I didn't make alot of room. As I organized and put like things together, I actually had a bag of almonds and something else that I had no room for. In cleaning that cabinet out though, I found that I have PLENTY of birthday candles. I also have plenty Halloween & Valentines Day sprinkles. Then I had a zipper bag with a package of generic pastel sprinkles off of a can of frosting. That Kaylor had opened once, and we'd never finished.
I can't bear the thought of throwing food away. The kids unfortunately weren't too excited about sprinkles. So that left me.
Also not making the cut to stay in the cabinet was a bag of fried chicken breading. I couldn't find a discernable expiration date on it, but I'm 99.9% sure that when Aaron and I moved into our house, that came from a random box of food that he'd put in storage. Ironically, we gave the mix to our chickens and they loved it. I'd have a picture of the irony, BUT it's raining now, and my camera batteries are dead....
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
Simplifying, chocolate, crayons- what does it all have in common?
Today's post finds me exhausted and wanting a nap. My head was spinning with thoughts.
We (at least, me) have been working our home to a more simple home. Less is more. Less things to clutter our home & our minds, freeing up more time to do more things that are important to us, instead of looking at the piles of things we've amassed and thinking 'I've got to do something with that stuff'.
One of my big challenges was my oldest daughters room. She's a very emotional hoarder. She wants to save junk mail because it has a pretty picture, receipts from when my mom bought my grandma a Mother's Day card at the Dollar Tree. She can't part with anything, it seems. So when I cleaned her room the other week, I got rid of all the things that were piling up. She was fine with her new clean room and hasn't noticed that so much stuff is just gone. She told me she's happy she can find stuff again.
Part of the new agreement, is that if it's something you care about, you don't leave it out of place. (I found socks crammed in desk drawers, pajamas on hangers, good clothes in drawers... a mess.) That's worked so far. Til today.
Earlier I sent her into her room to put away some clean laundry in her newly organized & thinned out drawers. 30 minutes later (I was busy trying to get little ones down to naps, clean up after lunch, do laundry etc.) I call to her and she comes out. She goes back to the table and resumes her work, so I go to her room to find a couple of photocopied pages from a coloring book out and that had been partially colored. I was so angry at this point, that I ripped them up and threw them away.
She got upset, and then I got even angrier.
After my reaction, I started thinking, is this how Jesus would have reacted? No. Ofcourse not. But then I thought about it some more. You have to take the temptations away. Like with dieting, trying not to fall into the same old sin- trap, staying focused means eliminating the temptation. Whether it's chocolate, hanging out with old drinking buddies, or crayons stashed in your desk. I thought about it some more, and felt okay with my decision. I'd just had the same conversation with her before we started schoolwork. Was her room clean? Yes it was. Everything in it's place? Yes. Found dolls just thrown in the FLOOR! So they had just gotten packed away into the yardsale pile.
Any successful dieter will tell you, you have to eliminate the junk foods from your house. Period. Just knowing that you have a stash of chocolate somewhere will tempt you. It's all or nothing.
There's a bigger picture, and there are forces working against us to keep us from obtaining that bigger picture. Whatever those forces are chocolate or crayons. If you can't say no to them, then they have no place in your life.
Now I'm not going to throw all the crayons away. But maybe I take all the writing utensils out of her room. (I would prefer having them all stored together then have bits & pieces in every room anyway.)
Sometimes you have to get tough to get things done. Sometimes we've been la-la-la-ing along, and now we have to take back some control. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something else.
I'm not preaching a life of deprivation, but there really is so very little that we really NEED, and beyond that is excess. Excess makes us comfortable. Comfort isn't necessarily a good thing. Excess isn't healthy in anyway shape or form- excess food (makes us fat) excess alcohol (makes us do dumb things), excess vitamins can make you sick, excess exercise can mean you burn too many calories.
I'm taking back my family, my house, my life & my sanity and saying NO! to more stuff.
We (at least, me) have been working our home to a more simple home. Less is more. Less things to clutter our home & our minds, freeing up more time to do more things that are important to us, instead of looking at the piles of things we've amassed and thinking 'I've got to do something with that stuff'.
One of my big challenges was my oldest daughters room. She's a very emotional hoarder. She wants to save junk mail because it has a pretty picture, receipts from when my mom bought my grandma a Mother's Day card at the Dollar Tree. She can't part with anything, it seems. So when I cleaned her room the other week, I got rid of all the things that were piling up. She was fine with her new clean room and hasn't noticed that so much stuff is just gone. She told me she's happy she can find stuff again.
Part of the new agreement, is that if it's something you care about, you don't leave it out of place. (I found socks crammed in desk drawers, pajamas on hangers, good clothes in drawers... a mess.) That's worked so far. Til today.
Earlier I sent her into her room to put away some clean laundry in her newly organized & thinned out drawers. 30 minutes later (I was busy trying to get little ones down to naps, clean up after lunch, do laundry etc.) I call to her and she comes out. She goes back to the table and resumes her work, so I go to her room to find a couple of photocopied pages from a coloring book out and that had been partially colored. I was so angry at this point, that I ripped them up and threw them away.
She got upset, and then I got even angrier.
After my reaction, I started thinking, is this how Jesus would have reacted? No. Ofcourse not. But then I thought about it some more. You have to take the temptations away. Like with dieting, trying not to fall into the same old sin- trap, staying focused means eliminating the temptation. Whether it's chocolate, hanging out with old drinking buddies, or crayons stashed in your desk. I thought about it some more, and felt okay with my decision. I'd just had the same conversation with her before we started schoolwork. Was her room clean? Yes it was. Everything in it's place? Yes. Found dolls just thrown in the FLOOR! So they had just gotten packed away into the yardsale pile.
Any successful dieter will tell you, you have to eliminate the junk foods from your house. Period. Just knowing that you have a stash of chocolate somewhere will tempt you. It's all or nothing.
There's a bigger picture, and there are forces working against us to keep us from obtaining that bigger picture. Whatever those forces are chocolate or crayons. If you can't say no to them, then they have no place in your life.
Now I'm not going to throw all the crayons away. But maybe I take all the writing utensils out of her room. (I would prefer having them all stored together then have bits & pieces in every room anyway.)
Sometimes you have to get tough to get things done. Sometimes we've been la-la-la-ing along, and now we have to take back some control. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something else.
I'm not preaching a life of deprivation, but there really is so very little that we really NEED, and beyond that is excess. Excess makes us comfortable. Comfort isn't necessarily a good thing. Excess isn't healthy in anyway shape or form- excess food (makes us fat) excess alcohol (makes us do dumb things), excess vitamins can make you sick, excess exercise can mean you burn too many calories.
I'm taking back my family, my house, my life & my sanity and saying NO! to more stuff.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
What did you do today?
I didn't carry anything heavy, use any tools (other than a rake, shovel & wheelbarrow), or shovel any cement for that matter. Nothing to write home about.
But when my kids play on this playground, along with many other kids, they can say "My dad & grandpa helped build this!" What's more, is there were so many people there who's kids & grandkids even are too old for the playground, or their families lives far away. There were even people there who don't even have any kids! And they all showed up to show community support & voluteer one day of their time.
We fell short of our goal number of volunteers- but we got it done. It did really aggravate me, that there were people in the YMCA working out, while all of this was going on. Deep breath and let it go.
A devoted group of people at our YMCA worked hard, for a long time to get this project rolling. But now it's done and the kids can play.
Work in progress
You know the saying, 'You never stop learning? Means we're all a work in progress too. We're aren't *there*, we're working on it."
Several years ago, I got on the 'go green' bandwagon before it was cool. Alot of the things we did out of necessity growing up would be considered 'green'. One thing I get from my mom is a deep sense of frugality. I'm not saying I'm the most frugal person in the world and am more frugal than you by any means. We splurge. Often. But that's a work in progress too.
Every time I would read an article about '10 ways to save on your electricity bill without spending another penny' I was like, 'We already do all that. I've been doing all of that all of my life.'
So last night, we inadvertantly started a new thing at our house. It was late, I had all of the windows open. I'd just cleaned the day before, including my stockpile of smelly candles (someone's gonna read this and say, "but burning smelly candles releases XYZ into the air & will give you cancer!"-more on that in a different post.) I left one sitting out for us to burn, because we all want our homes to smell good & inviting, at least to use right? It's 80 degrees in my house, I'm not about to fire up the stove to bake something to make it smell better, also because I would eat whatever that something is, and it would not be good for my health either so...
Burning smelly candle. Kaylor washed the dishes by candlelight, while I got the little kids to bed. She carried it to her room and used it's light to clean her room.
Adds an extra step or 2 into our day, but as we work on earlier bedtimes, we attract less bugs than with traditional lights. The fumes from the candles might have some bad stuff in them but apparently my CFLs do too. Also the glow of the candles will be more conducive to getting the babies down than bright lights glaring.
Several years ago, I got on the 'go green' bandwagon before it was cool. Alot of the things we did out of necessity growing up would be considered 'green'. One thing I get from my mom is a deep sense of frugality. I'm not saying I'm the most frugal person in the world and am more frugal than you by any means. We splurge. Often. But that's a work in progress too.
Every time I would read an article about '10 ways to save on your electricity bill without spending another penny' I was like, 'We already do all that. I've been doing all of that all of my life.'
So last night, we inadvertantly started a new thing at our house. It was late, I had all of the windows open. I'd just cleaned the day before, including my stockpile of smelly candles (someone's gonna read this and say, "but burning smelly candles releases XYZ into the air & will give you cancer!"-more on that in a different post.) I left one sitting out for us to burn, because we all want our homes to smell good & inviting, at least to use right? It's 80 degrees in my house, I'm not about to fire up the stove to bake something to make it smell better, also because I would eat whatever that something is, and it would not be good for my health either so...
Burning smelly candle. Kaylor washed the dishes by candlelight, while I got the little kids to bed. She carried it to her room and used it's light to clean her room.
Adds an extra step or 2 into our day, but as we work on earlier bedtimes, we attract less bugs than with traditional lights. The fumes from the candles might have some bad stuff in them but apparently my CFLs do too. Also the glow of the candles will be more conducive to getting the babies down than bright lights glaring.
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