Titus 2 Tea - outside projects

Today, I have to go to work, so I won't be getting a whole lot done outside.  But tomorrow, I should be able to do a lot. 

Mowing, putting down hay, weeding, splitting firewood, there is plenty for the kids and I to do, even though we'll be having someone with us.  We're excited that she gets to come for another weekend, and she won't mind sitting outside and doing stuff with us. 

The house is staying clean, though I expect it won't be super duper clean when I get home tonight. 

Hope you all have a great weekend.
Steph

Thursday's Thoughts - lies that I believe

Yesterday, I was so discouraged.  My plan that I had laid out was not working.  I thought there is no way I can keep up with everything.  Carpenter wanted the house clean first.  Which is a great idea.  Really.  But it's not my favorite thing.

So yesterday we sorted and cleaned off bookshelves.  We cleaned rooms and vacuumed and we made it down to the main level.  To my eyes it looks much cleaner, much better. 

Today, as Carpenter suggested, we/I touched every room.  Sometimes I felt that all a room needed was a broom and dustpan.  Yes, farmhouses get dirty quickly.

By 7:30, I had cleaned and straightened each room that was clean yesterday.  Today's schedule from the old plan, says that we need to do major cleaning in the kitchen and dining room.  We need to do the fridge, the cobwebs, the dusting, and the walls, but with 7 kids that divides to two people per chore.  Nice.

Also I got out and mowed (push-mowed) till the mower quit.  We have machines that glitch up a lot, so it provides good times of rest, but we always have to mow because we can't get it all done in one shot.  Plus, I'm not doing the whole garden this year, so I'm mowing that too.

The boys are hoeing and caring for the corn, and picking peas and radishes and strawberries. Bugaboo is caring for the littler ones and helping them stay out of trouble.  And it's going to rain, so we won't be outside all day, and it helps with the heat.

The lie I believed - that if I do work on the house, I'll always be caring for the house and never doing anything else.  LIES - Big time.  I just need to discipline my body and bring it into subjection. 

I don't need to be controlled by it, but rather control it.  I need to be it's master and not it's slave.  I want to be the woman who does good and not evil all her days so that her husband has no lack of gain. 

These are my desires, but when it come to today - today, I just want to relax, to sit back and do nothing or read a book.   As I read in an article last night, a bunch of todays spent relaxing will end up with years worth of nothing.

"Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty; thus I fight, not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection."  I Corinthians 9:26

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Wednesday's Househols - Epic Fail

Have you ever had a day where you realized that your house was an epic fail?  If you come into my house after I've just cleaned you might not say that, but even when I'm keeping up faithfully, you probably would think that it wasn't very clean.

But yesterday, even though I did my regular cleaning.  When Carpenter came home, the house was a wreck.  The hallway had been clean at some point during the day, but now it was littered with paper and hangars and toys and stuff, and there really wasn't room to walk. 

I had spent a lot of time on the computer, but I had done the stuff on my list.  I knew things were going downhill, but was interested in my own projects.  We hadn't had time to get out in the garden because it had been raining in the morning, and I was waiting for it to dry out a bit.  Then when it was drier, the little children I care for were needing attention and I had to go shopping.  It seems endless.

It discourages Carpenter, more than me, when things are a mess.  It grates on his nerves.  He does a great job keeping it under control, and basically ignoring it.  But last night it was too much for him.  He spoke to me about it, and I felt it - epic fail.  He was not rude or unkind, just firmly explaining to me how he felt that with all the kids and him being gone for 12 hours, surely there was time to clean the house.

He told me that in his mind the house was first priority, then the yard, then the garden.  Other projects would take place after all the other stuff was done.  While it's super good to have some accountability, someone to rein me in, it wasn't easy stuff to hear.

I wanted to tell him all my excuses, but I knew that I hadn't been doing my best to keep the house clean.  I had kept up on my blog, been working on Scripture memory, but in 1 Corinthians 9 it says, "everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things."  I wasn't being temperate (or self-disciplined).

My dear man reminded me that I have children who should be a great help to me.  They should be able to help with the work.  And it's true.  I've been telling myself they're on summer vacation.  That they shouldn't have to work all day.  But the truth is they've been doing a bit of chores in the morning and then reading or t.v. or video games all day.  It's not a good plan for anyone.

He thought that while the little ones shouldn't have to work all the time that maybe they should be told where they can and can't be, so that they aren't running around making messes where we've already cleaned up.

Ugh, the thought of managing so much made me wilt.  But what I realized is that I have been trying to manage their work while doing what I want to do.  They may not be bad things, but you can't oversee something that you aren't involved in yourself.

I realized something else as well.  Something I didn't want to realize.

Daily, or maybe hourly or minute-by-minute, I need to offer up on the altar the sacrifice of my will.

I am a mother and a wife first and foremost and that means that I probably won't get to do all the things I want to do, unless I love housework and cooking, which I do not. 

So here's a solution that I had already been planning on discussing yesterday. 

Spend time with your kids doing what needs to be done.  It may feel harder, but they don't want you to pass a chore off to them, unless they've already been trained in it fully.  And they don't need to be off running and playing while you do the chores.

 You can't see what we're doing in the picture but Jules wanted to shell the peas.  I was going to ask her to do it alone, but she said she'd rather do it with me.  On another blog, I had just read about going on dates with your children, and I figured that this may be a way of having a date with her.  While everyone else was busy all around, she and I spent time together, shelling peas - something she loves to do.

Another thing is to have your older ones, help the children in their play.  It's good for them to learn how to play games and how to lose or win graciously. 

Right now, I don't have any more ideas, and I have to get back to my housecleaning.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Cooking Tuesday - Fruit Cookie Pizza

 The recipe called for these ingredients

• 1 pkg of chocolate chip cookie dough
• 1 pkg of cream cheese
• 1 cup of whipped topping
• 2 oz of white chocolate and 2 T milk
• 1/4 c of powdered sugar
• 3 kiwi
• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Choclate syrup

I rolled the dough out on the cookie sheet and thought there wasn't enough.  So I made more cookie dough, but it was a lot stickier than the refrigerated dough.  I spread it out almost to the edge of the stone.

Here is my little chef.  See the tongue.  Licking the spoon is his favorite thing to do.

I checked the cookie pizza after a bit and noticed that it was falling off the edge.  So I started scraping it a bit with a spatula.  Maybe the 16 oz of refrigerated dough was enough.

Melt the white chocolate with the 2 T of milk

Mix in the powdered sugar and cream cheese

Spread over the cookie pizza

Add strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi.

Drizzle with chocolate syrup or choclate chips melted with 1 T oil.

 

Project Monday - more on that Father's Day project

 After last week, I decided that I wanted to paint this area.  It needs to be done, except I usually paint all the walls at once.  That's not a possibility anymore - too many tools and business stuff have taken over the garage.  So I thought I would paint it in segments.

I removed everything and placed it on the boxes of siding on a different wall.  Then I painted the walls and shelves a color called Faraway Blue.    It is slightly but very slightly blue. 

And yes I painted over the edges of the electric box, but I wasn't too worried about that.  This way I got a good coat and I had no tape, so I wasn't going to wait for a trip too the store.

I also did underneath.  It was amazing to me how much paint it soaked in, until I talked with Carpenter's aunt, who mentioned that the longer drywall sits unpainted the more porous it gets and therefore it takes more paint to paint it.

On Friday, I came out to this mess.  All my neatly sorted jars and bins crashed to the ground because the siding gave way.  I'm not sure if the kids did it or if it just fell on it's own.  But needless to say, I had to redo a lot of my original work of organizing.

 

 

There was glass underneath the tire, so before we went anywhere it all had to be cleaned up.

 



I didn't like just the light blue, so talked with Carpenter's aunt about what color I should put with it, and we chose Peacock Blue.  I thought of accenting it with Sunflower, but don't know where to put it.  Any ideas?

 

Here it is with the second coat of paint.  I was nervous that maybe Carpenter would think it was too girlie.  But he shrugged and said, "It doesn't really matter to me."  I know that he's happy to have it look neat and painted, so it's a relief that he doesn't hate the color.   The white blurb on the shelf is a hook that I decided to leave the light blue.  Not sure if I should paint it or not. 

Keep pressing on
Steph

Titus 2 Tea - Outdoor projects

 

 

 



 The outdoor projects are coming along.  We are now gathering peas and strawberries daily.  We've had some radishes and lettuce and even a bit of broccoli from our garden.  Right now, the main work of the garden is weeding.  And taking care of the produce that comes in for the day.

The big bale of hay is for keeping the weeds down.  It will really help when our corn comes up and in among the strawberries.  It also helps with keeping the water from evaporating right away.  Jeff's uncle dropped it off today for us to use.  It's a blessing to have such wonderful neighbors.

 We (the boys) finally finished splitting the wood that was near our firepit.  Now we are just in the final stages of cleaning up the wood chips in that area.

And the flower beds constantly need weeding.  Keeping up means that lately I spend 1/2 hour out of most every hour outside.  Because of the heat, I work inside the other half hour.

Keep pressing on
Steph

Thursday's Thoughts - where my strength is found

On so many days, I feel weary and worn.  I want to shout at my children, "Stop yelling at each other and get along already!!!!  I don't know how I'm going to make it another minute, let alone finish the day.

There is so much to remember to accomplish and so many things to do in the day.  I usually don't finish the day remembering everything that I thought I should do or that Carpenter asked me to do.  Which is why I use my notebook to plan my day - somewhat. 

But there is no strength in that.  That's just a discipline that I have found works for me.  When I use it, I generally remember the things I need to remember.

The one place that I do find strength is in the Word.  When I fill my mind with God's Word, His Words consume me through the day.  I still don't always respond appropriately - like when I don't get my way.  Sounds kind of childish, doesn't it?  But I respond better, and as I've said before here, it doesn't take me pulling on any bootstraps - it doesn't take much work on my part. 

The biggest step is to be in the Word.  When I am obedient in that regard, I have found that it takes effort but not an enormous amount to be kind and gentle.  And also when I am really engaged in the Word, I find so much joy.  And we talked about that last week. 

But it's so fun to be in the Word and finding new things all the time.  Which is why the Scripture Typer program works well for me.  I find myself distracted when I just read the Word, so actively typing it into the computer on a daily basis has been a help for me.

Get your strength.  Get into the Word.  And then share it with someone, it will double or triple the effect, and as my I John teacher used to say, "When you share it two or three times, you won't forget it."

Keep pressing on, (but not in your strength but in the strength of the Lord),
Steph