our lovely mess: February 2011

Archive for February 2011

Intention

In the last 3 weeks, the 2010 Cheyenne has been showing her face in my life. The one who surfs the web looking at another's reality rather than focusing on her own life. The one who dismisses the messy house, the clingy, needy children, the books wanting to be read, the conversations wanting to be discussed.

Somewhere along this journey I have lost my desire to be intentional with my life. I laid it down for a minute, and now that minute has turned into weeks. I need to find it. Reclaim it. Make peace with it again.

My intention to be a peacemaker, a lover, a reader, a giver. To be understanding, compassionate, honest. To be organized. To be constant, steady, faithful.

To dig deep in my relationships with God, family, friends.

To love deeply.

Micah 6:8

To do what is right. To love mercy. To walk humbly with God.

Job 13:15

To hope. To trust.

Zephaniah 3:17

To know he is here. My savior. He delights in me. His song is constant over me.

To find my part in his song.

To know that my story is a part of his story.

To live. To fully live.

Sharing is Caring

I want to share a couple of things with you...

The first one is this...

www.rojofotodesign.com

My husband, Robert, is RoJo with rojo foto design. He decided for the month of February to have a giveaway in which he will give away an entire wedding photography package. So if you or someone you know is getting married this year, go submit your love story for a chance to win free wedding photography. It's pretty big deal!

The second one is this...

mingmakescupcakes.yolasite.com

Robert found this AMAZING website with pictures and recipes of 33 incredible cupcakes. He just made the #4 cupcake. Red velvet with buttercream frosting. Yum!!! A friend of mine made the #19 cupcake. Blueberry with maple brown butter frosting. This weekend we are planning on trying out one or two or four more of the recipes. :) You should too!

Thou Shalt Not Let Thyself Go?

I read this blog today by Rachel Held Evans. I posted a link to it on facebook and got a couple of responses. I was posting my response back and realized that it might be too long for facebook. :) I decided to blog it instead.

I agree with this article. I understand her to be saying that a woman shouldn't feel like she has to look good in order to keep her husband.

I mean, he committed to her in sickness and in health...for better or for worse. If he has an issue with her appearance, he should first figure out why he is disappointed. Is it really her appearance or is it something deeper and he is just blaming it on her appearance?

If it is just her appearance (which I seriously doubt), he should ask why she has let herself go...is she not feeling loved and wanted? Is he not telling her she is beautiful and making her feel sexy? Is she stressed, overworked, unhappy or depressed? Does she have too much on her plate and not enough alone time? Is she being stretched in all directions to where she only has time for her job, kids, house keeping, etc? All of these things would make me want to completely forget about my overall health and appearance.

But Robert and I enjoy eating healthy and keeping fit. We enjoy taking care of ourselves. And because we make each other feel loved, wanted and sexy, we want to look good for each other. I don't feel that I have be pretty to "keep" him. I want to look pretty because he loves me and I love him. Now, I do like to dress comfy. If I could live in work out clothes, I would. I rarely wear heels...I've only owned one pair of stilettos, and I only wore them twice. There are times that Robert asks me to dress up for a date night. I hate dressing up, but because I know he enjoys seeing me dressed cute every once in a while, I do it. And it really pays off. ;) But he never makes me feel that I have to dress a certain way or look a certain way to make him happy.

Sometimes, married couples just change. They both put on weight, change fashion styles, just settle in and get comfy. If both spouses are "letting themselves go", then they shouldn't judge each other. They should just be fat and happy together! :)

I think this article is pointing out how some people think a woman should basically be a doormat. If she is not looking great or cooking great or cleaning great, then she doesn't deserve her husband's love. She would be to blame if he cheated on her. That's bogus! If those things are issues for him, then he needs to communicate that to God and to his wife. Marriage is hard work. Neither spouse has an excuse to cheat. Period.

According to this philosophy, my marriage would have been over after my dad passed. I've mentioned before that I really quit on life back then. I let myself go. I gained over 10 lbs, let the house get messy, quit cooking, yelled at the kids and at Robert. He loved me through it though. He stuck it out knowing that I would pull through this dark time. He never blamed me or treated me badly. He supported me and offered all the help he could. This depression was a huge strain on our marriage, but with lots of prayer, love and communication, we pulled through.

We as women should never believe the lie that says if we don't look a certain way, then we don't deserve to be treated right. Rachel Held Evans points out the passages in Proverbs 31 which states, "beauty does not last..." and 1 Peter 3 which says, "you should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within...". Our firm skin will sag and wrinkle. We will see age spots and our hair will gray. But if we are beautiful on the inside, that beauty will last forever. And that's the important beauty. That's the beauty that men should fall in love with. Yes, outward beauty plays a part...but just a minor part in the big picture. Let's remember this the next time we look in the mirror!

The Organization Continues...

In my previous post, I said I was starting the "Ten Days to a Simpler, More Organized Home" section of the book Organized Simplicity. Today was day 8, but I am really on day 4. Oops...

Last week a blizzard came through the Chicagoland area, so we took a couple of days off our normal routine. Then this weekend, we went to a leadership meeting at our church and of course the Superbowl, which we didn't even watch much of. It was just a great excuse to have some friends over for dinner and sit and talk for a while. So, I am a little behind, but I don't mind. I'm not a stickler when it comes to a lot of rules and routines.

I have accomplished a lot though. My living/dining room look great! I just need to tackle the magazine shelf and computer desk. My kitchen is all organized except that pesky junk drawer. But I still need to clean the windows, oven and radiator. And tonight, I tackled the breakfast nook, which we've repurposed into a homeschool/office area. I brought an unused bookshelf up from the basement and rearranged a bit. It looks so much nicer. I can actually see all the stuff I have...no more buying duplicates because I couldn't find something! Eventually we want to build two cute corner shelving units and a small butcher-block topped table and get rid of the desk and bookshelf. But until then, what I did tonight will work!

Tomorrow I need to hit the upstairs bathroom. Robert painted it this weekend, which means the "clearing out the clutter" part has already been done. Yay! It used to be a shade of country blue...not our style at all. So we decided to paint it our signature color...green. Yes, I know that my kitchen is green and that my living room furniture is green and that my bedroom comforter is green. What can I say but that I love green! We can't seem to get away from it. Maybe it's our way of bringing a spring/summer feel into our home. We do have pretty dull and dreary winters up here!

I'm really excited to have accomplished so much. And just in time too! We are having around 25 neighbors over tomorrow night for soup. A friend of ours, who lives one street away, began a neighborhood soup night 7 years ago. There are 8 host families. Every Tuesday night in January and February one of the 8 families opens up their home and provides soup for the neighbors. Everyone brings a side dish, and we just have a really great time! This is our third year attending, and we decided to host a night in our home this year. I am going to make my grannie's gumbo. Yum! The only problem I've come across is finding enough seating for 20+ people in our humble abode. It will be a tight squeeze, but it will work out just fine.

We also should be getting a print of our family mission statement in the mail tomorrow. We have a frame to fit it, so now we just need to get it up on our wall. I will post a picture when we get it done.

Now I'm off to bed for tomorrow will be a busy day of cleaning, cooking, and spending quality time with my neighbors!

Organized Simplicity

Robert and I decided that for this new year we want to read one book per month. The book I chose for January is Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider. This book is great.

We have always desired to live simply. To not want a lot of things. To not have a lot of things. To make do with what we have. I love the saying "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." But living with this mentality is hard for most Americans. We've been raised to want the American Dream. We want and want and want and want. Instead of figuring out how to limit our stuff to what we can afford, we try to figure out how to get more income so we can get more stuff.

Unfortunately, Robert and I fell into that mindset about a year ago. We had been doing great at living simply and using just what we need. Then when my dad passed, he left us a life insurance policy. We gave to charity, paid off debt, put money away in savings, bought a nice used car, remodeled our kitchen, sent Shiloh-Grace to a private kindergarten (I was not emotionally ready to homeschool), and then we went on a fun shopping spree. It was fun for a while.

Then my depression settled in, and some unexpected expenses popped up. I didn't feel like cooking, so we ate out all the time. I began going to therapy. I gained weight from the emotional eating, so I went shopping for clothes that fit me. All of a sudden we were no longer in the good financial shape we once were in.

Once my emotional state calmed down, the excess spending stopped. But we had a mess to clean up. Mainly in my way of thinking. I had to re-adjust to using cloth diapers, shopping on a budget, cooking every night, to just living simply again. We've done well for the most part. But there are still a few areas that need some tweaking.

Enter Organized Simplicity. Tsh Oxenreider has reassured me that simple living is really what I want. That less really is more. Her book is split into two parts. The first part explains what simple living is and why it is so important. The second is a guide to get you on the track to simple living from your view of things, to your finances, to your decorating.

The first part even had us write out a family mission statement. The books lists 20 questions for you to answer to help you realize what you stand for and what you really want out of life. Then it gives a model of sorts to develop those things into a statement to live by. Our mission statement is this: while making timeless memories together, we desire to give unsparingly, value diversity and creativity, and to be honest, peaceful and compassionate.

Then yesterday, I started the second part: Ten Days to a Simpler, More Organized Home. Day one had me go through each room of my house, look at its contents and ask two questions. Is each thing in this room useful to me? Do I find it beautiful? If I answered no about any object in the room, I removed it, and put it in the garage sale pile (which is surprisingly huge right now). So the only things that are left, are things that I really use and/or things that have great meaning to me. Things that truly bring beauty to my home.

Day two and three will have me clean my living room area from ceiling to floor and reevaluate why I have decorated the way I have. Does my decorating bring true beauty to my family and home. Is it too much? To cluttered? I will clear out and reorganize my bookshelves, media cabinet, play area, magazine rack, desk drawers and so on. All the while asking those two important questions of usefulness and beauty.

I am so excited about this step because even though I keep the surface areas nice, the hidden areas are a wreck. My desk drawers are full of paperwork that I'm sure can be shredded. My bookshelves have books on them that we haven't read in years. There are movies and games in the media cabinet that need to go. And don't even get me started on the magazine shelf...these date way back! The craft/play area gets an overhaul every few months, so cleaning it out won't be too bad.

I already feel better. We've started a new budget and now our home is truly going to express who we are and how we really want to live.