One Step At A Time...

It is that time of year again; time to remove all the winter drab away from your house and get your clean on. I was reading a friend's Facebook post about this topic and it got me thinking about how can I simplify this dreaded set of tasks because face it, behind teaching my kids all day and playing referee all day, I just do not have the energy or time to spend hours washing walls and purging all the junk. So I am now on the search for some spring cleaning hacks! Do you have any? Do you find having a list to follow helps?

I posted this as a comment on post about if a child is born with special needs, should we be praying for their healing. These are my thoughts on it. Just maybe God has an amazing purpose for your child’s life and needs, maybe that purpose is to change you. We are each fearfully and wonderfully made, handcrafted by God. I believe that God does not make mistakes. We are born to be what He created, not what we think we should be.    “ For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” ‭‭Psalm‬ ‭139:13-14‬ ‭NIV‬‬ “ My son was born with a spinal cord issue. He was born with a purpose: he pointed me to Christ because I was heading straight out of my faith and the church doors. I didn’t have a choice to cry out to Jesus to heal my broken heart. God allowed my son to be born with a tethered spinal cord to teach us to rely on Him. My son has surger...

We started homeschooling this year. It has been an adventure and humbling experience so far. For myself and them. Watching them grasp new concepts and find new passions has been amazing. Watching them struggle with difficult tasks has been heartbreaking. Everyday is roller coaster  of emotions, highs and lows, failures and triumphs. Overall, I love the extra time we have with our kids. Because they do not have to get up so early, they can to stay up later with my husband which has lead to spontaneous movie nights, gaming evenings and more time for just hanging out together. My kids’ anxiety has subsided, sleep has improved and they are overall happier! We are learn to balance it all and some days I fail but we are learning how to do this together. Together, that is how we all want to be.

Bad attitudes. Do I have one when ask to help serve my family, my church, my community? Do I grumble and complain because I think my God given talents and gifts are better used elsewhere? Do I get an attitude with those that I am working with because things are not my way? Do you? I have been studying the book of Nehemiah with my mom's ladies group at her church and this verse keeps coming back to me from Nehemiah 3 where Nehemiah talks about the beginnings of rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. He is talking about how each person did their job, fixing what was in fixing of them, how they all worked together, despite of job, job title, and class. All except the nobles of Tekoa.  "5 The next section was repaired by the men of Tekoa, but their nobles would not put their shoulders to the work under their supervisors." Even in the days of the Old Testament, there was always someone who thought they were too good to do hard work. They had bad attitudes about what the...

I have been struggling internally over issues beyond my control. Allowing others' drama bring me down. I have moments when I just want to scream at those people to let it go (cue Frozen soundtrack in your head), or stop creating drama in your life, or that is time to move from issues in their past, to fully give those issues to God like they said they have and stop picking them up after they say a prayer for Him to help them, plus so many other thoughts. Unfortunately, I am not eloquent with speaking words aloud and end up being blunt and to the point, which can cause hurt to that person. Instead, I keep all of this thoughts in my head and simply pray Psalms 141:3 and Luke 22:49 over and over. I know these issues are beyond anything that I can do. The best thing for me to do is to pray for them. Simply put. I cannot change anything, any person, but myself. I can only even do that with the help of Jesus.

I am a slacker. I have been knitting like crazy and blogging took a back seat again. It is not hard to tell where my priorities and true passions are! To be honest, I have never confessed to be a blogger so I am good in my slacking. Life is still crazy but the hard parts seem to have calmed down. My father in law has entered remission from cancer, my Nan suffered a heart attack but is recovering, Jeriah's pain has seemed to calm down. We are getting ready for Christmas slowly. Lots of shopping left to do.  My oldest is playing hockey, middle is playing basketball, the youngest is seeing how much he can age me in a small amount of time! Overall, we are doing good and keeping busy!

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Too much stuff weighs your whole being down. Letting go of it all, is so freeing and life changing. We have been programed to think that more things will make us happier but that is a pure lie. Excess stuff holds you back. It creates fears of not being good enough. Too many things creates chaos and disorder in your house and mind. Through this process, I have learned that without all the stuff that I can breathe easier,  that I am more at peace in my mind and soul, I am not dreading someone showing up unexpectedly because my house is a giant mess because I have no place for all of these things that I have accumulated. Owning less is way easier than trying to clean up excess stuff all the time. This is the simple lesson that I learned through all of this.   Simple but true! Major differences that have happened:  - My floors are staying cleaner longer. There was too much stuff that had no home, so it ended up on the floor. - My laundry is staying caught up. I can d...

I don't know if any of you follow or have heard of Dave Ramsey . He is a money guru who has an awesome book called the Total Money Makeover (which I totally recommend to everyone!). In his book, he talks about the snowball effect which is about how a small change can motivate you to keep making bigger changes, like how a snowball gets larger as it rolls down a hill. He applies this example to getting out of debt but I am using it to talk about my journey to reclaiming my house from stuff. Yesterday, I talked about how just deeply purging clothes made my house feel lighter and helped to settle the constant chaos that we felt. The day after I started the clothing, I decided to tackle another job that I had been putting off: my yarn stash/cabinet. The doors would not even shut on it anymore because it was so messy. It was a big task but I had this mindset that it was going to be done. Before and After I moved on from there and tackled the entertainment cabinet and tided and ...

Back to my story: I looked at this item of clothing that my daughter has never even wore before but I had washed multiple times and said this is the last time that I am washing it. I am done. I refuse to spend time and energy to keep all of this stuff clean. It is time to remove it from my home. It and many other items were washed, dried and placed into a empty green basket. Within two loads of laundry, that empty basket was full and overflowing. I just kept washing, drying, folding and purging and it took about a week to get through it all. That basket is currently full again and will have a permanent place near my laundry area. My trusty green donation basket! The rule was that if it did not fit in my kids' dressers, it was going. For my husband and I, the rule was we had to love the item or it was gone. We just simply did not have room for this many pieces of clothing in this house. We were done with living out of laundry baskets. I took three smaller baskets and labelled ...

Picture it: I am standing at my washing machine, I have approximately 5 baskets of clean clothes, 5 baskets of dirty clothes, over stuffed dressers and empty ones. I am on the verge of tears as I add clothes that I had literally just washed the day before but they were not even worn on a body yet. Why was I was washing them because they ended up on my kid's bedroom floor because there was no room in their dresser. I felt like failure. I am failing at this homemaking gig. We are drowning in stuff, it is everywhere. Just stuff everywhere. My house is in a constant state of chaos. No one is at ease or at peace. My husband is working 11 hour days and coming home to a house that looked like a bomb went off in each and every room. I am seriously failing in my job as a homemaker, wife and mother. I was becoming tired of trying to organize and clean with no results. The reason as I quickly learned is that you cannot organize when you simply have too much stuff. All you are doing is ...

I struggle daily, with this at a follower of Christ. Am I speaking words that speak the love of Jesus? Am acting how Jesus would act when I am faced with trials and temptation?  Am I showing love to my fellow humans, even if we do not agree on certain topics? Am I being to a light those who need it most? Are my words being followed by actions of love? If I do not love, I have nothing. Jesus told us that the greatest of these is love. He wants us to love as He loves us. He calls us to love.     ''If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what ...

This is my rule that I try hard to stick too. If I complain constantly to anyone who will listen about how my husband doesn't do things my way or whatever, all I am doing is tainting everyone's view of him. They are seeing one fraction of the amazing human that he is. Yes, he annoys me and yes, at times I tease him or am vocal about it. I just flat out tell him when he is bothering me. He needs to know, not all of our family and friends. I will not call him out on Facebook and make him look like a jerk because he has displeased me in some way. I will not be passive aggressive  and post memes or pictures about how men are all lazy and complete idiots, and how hard it is to be the one who does everything. No one needs to know every detail of our marriage, good or bad. I would be really upset if he went on Facebook and complained because I didn't clean the kitchen one day but neglected to say that I have done it every other day of the month. We need to be our spouse's ...

You are facing some very rough storms in your life and your relationship with Jesus. You are wondering if life is going to be this hard while you are in Christ, why bother? God has put this issue into your life so you find and deepen your faith in him. He wants us to praise him even when we are tired, feel abandoned and alone. He wants you to find HIM in the midst of our storms. If we never experienced hard times, we would never learn to be thankful for the good times.  God gives us the hard issues so when we get through them, he gets the praise!  Psalm 107:28-31 Yet when they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,  the Lord brought them out of their distress.  He calmed the storm  and its waves quieted down.  So they rejoiced that the waves became quiet,  and he led them to their desired haven.  Let them give thanks to the Lord for his gracious love  and for his awesome deeds on behalf of mankind. Learn to worship him when words fa...

I am tired. I am tired of giving all without being filled back up. I am empty, my needs have all been placed on the back burner. I have got to start taking care of myself properly. It is okay to put your needs first. I am learning that things that others classify as selfish, are not.  I am not selfish to spend extra money on healthy food to nourish my body.  I am not selfish for loosing myself in a knitting project or a Xbox game, in order to combat the stress that I feel and instead of tackling the dishes in the sink or the mess on the floor.  I am not selfish for telling my kids to go play and give me a little bit of quiet.  I am not selfish for telling others no, I cannot help with that right now. I am not selfish for finding a place where heart is blessed and happy. I am not selfish for taking 30 minutes a day to do yoga. I am not being selfish when I need a break from my husband, kids and dogs. I am simply learning and choosing to refill my cup s...

I have a child with special needs. Yes, most of the time, he looks and is healthy. I am beyond grateful for that. My heart leaps with excitement because he is one of the lucky ones, who's condition was corrected early enough before permanent damage was done. I would not change one moment of my life, I would not trade a single part of BabyJ. He is teaching me faith, courage, and that I am stronger than I ever dreamed that I could be. He completed our family, the part that we did not even know was missing. With all that said, his future is very uncertain. His nerves running to his legs are still surrounded by a sizable mass of tissue that could re-tether itself to his vertebrae again, at any time or he could fall and injure those nerves at any moment, he could lose feeling in his legs or GI organs and never get it back. He could be paralyzed from the waist down at any moment. He may be perfectly healthy for his whole life, which is my only wish for him but that does ...

I have been knitting up a storm! Since October I have completed 13 projects! This one by far is my favourite! It is the Baa Baable Hat pattern! I love this hat so much. It is so warm and soft! It is also my first successful stranded color work so that makes it really special to me! I have posted the link down below! Baa-ble Hat

Another contest! http://www.myorganizedchaos.net/2015/11/transformers-super-bumblebee-for-the-super-fan/

I am trying this whole entering contests online thing so here is my first one! I have a friend who has won a lot of great stuff and I am starting to get jealous of her a little! http://www.myorganizedchaos.net/2015/11/tv-tip-over-prevention-from-best-buy Wish me luck! K

There is a legend that says Ernest Hemingway made a bet that he could make people cry with a six-word story. He won the bet with, For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never worn . I was reading a blog post this morning about this topic. I started thinking about what my 6 word story would be. Those 6 words that best describe me. Could I sum up my life in 6 words? I came up with this. Wife. Mother. Lover Of Creative Beauty. That is the basic summary of me. I am proud of my role as wife and mama. I love my husband and kids deeply and madly. I love to find the beauty in everything. I love to create beauty around me.  What is your 6 word story?