Homemaker's Haven

• She looketh well to the ways of her household...

It's time for this week's Homemaker's Haven, sponsored by Stephanie at a High and Noble Calling.

Last week was an easy week in some respects; we were out of town for several days, so my week consisted mostly of getting ready to leave and recouping after we got back.

Today I got a wonderful "prize" in the mail--remember a few weeks ago when I sang the praises of a wonderful organizer I used to have that was out of print? Stephanie had an old one that was barely used and offered to send it to me--and it came today! I can't wait to start using it--I'm sure I'll be the most organized gal on the block by the end of the week!

My goals for this week are:

1. Clean out the fridge--priority since it didn't get done last week
2. Catch up on laundry from the trip
3. Clip this week's coupons
4. Clean out my coupon binder--I know there are some expired/soon-to-expire ones lurking in there
5. Start my Christmas baking
6. Plan my menus
7. Work on two reviews and a giveaway for my food blog
8. Pack away my fall decorations
9. Get started in my new planner
10. Bible reading--Isaiah, chapters 40-68

My project for this week:

Start buying/making Christmas/Hanukkah decorations for the apartment--all on a budget of $20! I did pretty well for fall, but I did have some things from home to help. This will be a bit of a challenge, as all of my Christmas and Hanukkah stuff is in Louisiana. We'll be going home on the 18th, and we'll do most of our decorating there, but I don't want to postpone all of the holiday cheer until then. My goal is to see what I can get for cheap or free to make some cheery holiday decorations for my Doors of Welcome post, coming on the 15th, as well as a centerpiece for the table and a few other areas.

What are you doing this week to make your home a haven?

Until next time...

Advent 2009, Week 1

• She openeth her mouth with wisdom...

Advent has kind of eluded me the last few years; it almost snuck past me again, but I think I actually caught up with it this year

I wasn't raised with a tradition of observing Advent. It wasn't a tradition in my family, and the churches I attended, when I did attend, were not "Advent observant" if there is such a description. We celebrated Christmas and Easter in as much of a "non-secular" way as each congregation or individual family thought best. Although I had friends who attended more liturgical churches, the ceremony and formality seemed foreign to my experience. Fast forward to several years ago, when I was looking for ways to "celebrate the season" in a way that was more spiritually meaningful to me, without completely doing away with the traditions of Christmas that I'd grown up with that held their own place in my heart.

In a nutshell, Advent is celebrated, or observed, on each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, and Christmas Eve. Some years it all falls in December; some years, as it does this year, the first Sunday of Advent falls in November. The word "advent" simply means "coming" or "visitation". Just as Christmas is meant to be the celebration of the first advent, or coming, of Christ, the Messiah, the season of Advent is meant to remember the time leading up to the first advent, and to anticipate and prepare our hearts for the second advent yet to come.

There is no one right way to do Advent, any more than there's one right way to do Christmas or any other holiday. It generally involves a wreath with four candles, one to be lit for each of the four Sundays during the season, and often a fifth candle in the middle for Christmas Eve. Some traditions have all white candles, some have three purple candles and one pink candle, and one white candle. The years I did Advent, I made my own wreath, and used four different colored candles to represent different aspects of Christ--purple for His Kingship, blue for His Priesthood, red for His blood sacrifice, and white for His purity and holiness.

For more on the origins of Advent and ways to observe, from another who came to Advent observation later in life, read this excellent series of posts by Mark Roberts.

I don't do a formal observation of Advent every year, but taking the time to focus on the Advent season helps me to take a step back from the frenzy of busy-ness that tends to overwhelm us at this time of year, and to refocus on the spiritual meaning that should be behind it all.

I'll be sharing a little more about my personal thoughts and observations of advent later, but for now, let me leave you with these scriptures, from the 40th chapter of Isaiah:

• The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
• Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth
• The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

In this Advent season, I intend to take some time to prepare my heart for the way of the Lord.

Until next time...

Happy Thanksgiving

• She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
  

This post was originally posted 11-27-08; I enjoyed re-reading it, and hope you do as well--Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Holidays have a unique effect sometimes, of bringing out the best and the worst in us, and Thanksgiving is no exception.

The best because we do usually pause, however briefly, to reflect on those things that we're thankful for--our families, if we have one; our health, however precarious; the abundance of food that the majority of us have the means for--all of those things that we do, face it, take for granted much of the time.

Along with all of the thankfulness, though, can come lots of pressure, which translates into lots of stress. Whether we are hosting an elaborate family get-together, or whether we are the ones visiting extended family, the pressure is there, just in different ways.

If we are hosting, we feel the pressure of making sure we've remembered everything from the rolls to the cranberry sauce. We want the food to be just right, and of course the house needs to be spotless, here comes Aunt Sara two hours early and I haven't even had my shower yet, oh-lord-who-invited-this-many-people-do-I-have-enough-of-everything-will-you-make-those-kids-go-outside-will-everyone-just-BE-QUIET-SO-WE-CAN-GIVE-THANKS-BEFORE-WE-EAT!

You know what I mean.

If you are the one traveling, you still have pressure, just of a different sort. What clothes will I need to bring, not just for myself, but for the kids? Will it be warm enough for them to play outside and run off some of this energy? Do I need an extra jacket for everybody? Do I have enough toys/books/crayons to keep them occupied if it's too cold/wet/rainy for them to go outside? Did I forget anything? No, honey, I need the snacks loaded in the front of the car, not the trunk. Yes, the other ice chest can go in the back, it has my pies in it. Ok, kids, everybody load up. I-thought-I-told-you-to-go-before-we-left-honey-we-have-to-pull-over-why-are-you-driving-so-fast-no-kids-we-aren't-there-yet-here-we-are-oh-look-Aunt-Sara-is-already-here-too-oh-great-who-invited-them-NO-KIDS-NOT-GRANDMAS-BEST-DISHTOWELS-go-in-the-bedroom-and-play-just-eat-a-little-of-what-I-put-on-your-plate-WILL-YOU-ALL-JUST-GET-QUIET-SO-WE-CAN-GIVE-THANKS!

Whew!

Just remember this--sometimes we are nicer to strangers than we are to our own families. And vice versa. It's not that we don't all love each other-but we do often know each other so well that we forget hose common courtesies that we would offer to strangers.

If you haven't had your family dinner yet, take a deep breath, say a prayer of thankfulness, and try to speak kindly. And carry a big stick. (just kidding!)

And if you're reading this after yours is over, and it turned into another three-ring-circus with everybody mad at everybody else, remember this--forgiveness is divine. Literally.

Hoping you and yours have a blessed holiday, with just the right amount of family togetherness to leave you wanting more, and a few shopping bargains this weekend to help you out of your post-turkey-day-blues.

Until next time...

Homemaker's-- "Haven" or "Hovel"

• She looketh well to the ways of her household

It's time for another Homemaker's Haven post, where we set goals and seek some accountability for our efforts to fulfill them. This week Stephanie at A High and Noble Calling has a good post titled A Mary or Martha Thanksgiving, about keeping our priorities straight this busy holiday week.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I'm so glad I read the post this morning from Fishmama at Life as Mom about not comparing ourselves to others. She's been working on what she simply calls the "Get a Good Habit Going" challenge, where she works on one or two small things to get her routine in a better working order.

Do you ever have "one of those days"? I think I've had one of those weeks, which I've had before, but somehow it seems worse because I started off so well. I set my clock and got up just a bit earlier, I kept the television and the computer turned off, did some necessary shopping and cooking, but somehow slid back into mediocrity and worse. I did get to bed earlier some nights, not so early others. I set my clock anyway and got up and did my morning/daily routine about half the time, which is an improvement, but not as well as I had expected. I totally flubbed up the extra baking. One day I started and realized that while I had stocked up on most of the things I needed, I was missing a vital ingredient. So I switched gear and went a different direction, but I have burned or messed up in some way almost everything I've attempted, so I am taking a step back and regrouping! Today I have to run a couple of errands, catch up on laundry, and straighten the living room/dining room/kitchen; and then tonight and tomorrow I'll either get my baking done or throw that plan completely out the window, according to the results I get!

Last week's menu plan went pretty much as I'd planned, although not in the order I listed them. I made everything I'd listed except the pot roast, and I'll hold off on that until next week. This week we're planning on leaving bright and early Wednesday morning and won't be back until Saturday night, so the next two nights will be using up leftovers or making something quick and simple.

This week's goals are:

1. Clean out the fridge--besides the current leftovers which we'll use, there are some things "lurking" in the back that need to be thrown out.
2. Be sure laundry is caught up to simplify packing and traveling
3. Pick up and put away my "hot spots" on the coffee table and dining table
4. Pack
5. Do my baking--or not(!)
6. Take the time to keep myself mentally and spiritually grounded by spending some time with the Lord in prayer and reading my Word--holidays can be stressful, even when they go smoothly, which brings me to...
7. When the room gets hot and stuffy and the kids get loud, and there's no place to go to be alone--take a deep breath and go to my "happy place" and don't let the stress get to me--which is easier if I don't neglect #6

How have you done this week on making your home a haven?

Until next time...

This is My Frugal

• She looketh well to the ways of her household

There are a lot of bloggers who write about "being frugal", and it means something different to each one of them. Some are saving their way toward something big--like a trip, or a house, or to get out from under mountains of debt; some are desperately trying to keep food on the table and roof over their heads.

Most of us are somewhere in between.

Today, I'd like to share about my "frugal".

My frugal is not about making my own laundry detergent, cooking everything completely from scratch, buying all of our clothes and furniture at thrift shops, and never using anything disposable. I'm not making a statement about anyone who does any of those things, they're just not my frugal.

Since I starting shopping the sales, couponing, cooking more at home instead of "bringing home supper from town", thrifting, and just generally being more conscious of what I spend and why, I find that I'm able to get a lot of our household goods and groceries for what I call "free or frugal"--sometimes completely free (except for tax) or frugal--at a deep discount.

My frugal involves using these "free or frugal" ("ff") items as I go about my daily routine. I get up in the morning, and I brush my teeth with my ff toothbrush and my ff toothpaste. If I need more, there's plenty more in my stockpile stash. I wash my face with my ff brand name facial cleanser. In the shower, I have ff shampoo, ff conditioner, and ff body wash. My husband, who refuses to use body wash, uses ff bar soap. I put on my ff anti-perspirant, get dressed, do my hair, using my ff styling products if necessary (usually only if I'm going somewhere). I put on my ff facial moisturizer, ff foundation, ff blush, and ff mascara.

During the week, we usually eat hot or cold ff cereal for breakfast. On the weekends, one of us cooks breakfast--probably not something free, but bought on sale or with a coupon, so still frugal. My husband makes his lunch to take to work, using ff ingredients when possible. I do lunch at home, sometimes leftovers, sometimes I've made especially for my lunches (see my chicken and dumplings recipe on my food blog). Dinner is the same--made at home with ingredients that may not have been free, but were mostly bought on sale and/or with coupons, so still frugal. I don't cook everything single thing from scratch, but I do a lot from scratch, and the rest is usually along the lines of "semi-homemade".

If I do laundry or cleaning that day, I use my ff laundry soap and ff fabric softener, along with ff cleaning products that I may need.

I could go on, but you get the picture. I save money as I can, when I can. It helps us make ends meet while putting our son through college without building up new debt. It helps me be able to take some time as a stay-at-home wife, even though we never thought I'd be able to do so until well after our son graduated and all of our bills were paid off.

Are there still more ways we could cut back? Sure there are. I still use paper towels, and I don't usually re-use baggies or aluminum foil. I don't make my own laundry soap or shampoo, and right now we don't have a garden or raise our own meat. There are ways.

But for now, this is what we do. This is my frugal.

Related posts:

Mission Possible with Intent

Where I Get My Coupons, part 1

Where I Get My Coupons, part 2

How I Organize My Coupons

This post is linked to Frugal Friday at Life as Mom

Until next time...

Homemaker's Haven, 11/16

Welcome to this week's Homemaker's Haven , sponsored by Stephanie at A High and Noble Calling.

This week Stephanie has thrown down the gauntlet and given us some challenges to complete in five areas:

Begin Your day in God’s Word
*Challenge: Share what you have read in His word that has encouraged you today with others on your blog or in the comments.

I have some thoughts that have been swirling around in my head, bits and pieces of scripture, a sermon, and conversations with others, but it needs a separate post--hopefully to come later in the week, so stay tuned.

Complete Your Morning Routine
*Challenge: Share your morning routine on your blog and cross it out as you complete each item
My morning routine is (or should be) the following:

1. Get groomed and dressed for the day
2. Make bed
3. Make and eat breakfast
4. Start day's routine
5. Prayer and Bible reading/study

(I shared a couple of weeks ago why I think it works better for me on most days to get my day started before I have my prayer and Bible time. To be honest, sometimes it works better, as in I stay awake, but it can be counterproductive if I get distracted or sidetracked by my day--more on that later! :0) )

Have A Plan

*Challenge:Share your to-do list on your blog, cross each item off as you finish it.

1. Wash, dry, hang/fold one load of laundry
2. Cook bulk ground meat for this week's menu plan
3. Empty trash
4. Vacuum
5. Clip this week's coupons and work on coupon binder

What’s For Dinner?
*Challenge: Try to plan a menu out for this week and share it on your blog. Plan at least one meal that you can make from your pantry.

1. Chili for chili dogs
2. Spaghetti
3. Jambalaya
4. Chicken and dumplings
5. Homemade pizza or stuffed bread
6. Mexican cornbread
7. Pot roast

Complete a Project!

*Challenge: Choose a larger project to complete in your home today. Be sure to make it manageable. I find a large project is easier to complete if I set a goal of working on it for a set amount of time per day instead of trying to tackle it all at once (like my basement!).

My big project for this week is start goodie baskets for family we'll be seeing next week for Thanksgiving. We won't get a chance to see them again before Christmas, so that means doing some extensive baking this week and early next week. Watch my food blog, Secrets of a Southern Kitchen, I'll be sharing some recipes and pictures there.

Be sure to visit Stephanie and the other participants in this week's Homemaker's Haven challenge.

What have you done to make your home a haven lately?

Until next time...

Doors of Welcome--November Installment

Welcome to this month's installment of Doors of Welcome, sponsored by Karen at Some Days are Diamonds!

Welcome to my home-away-from-home! As you may recall if you visited for last month's Doors of Welcome, home for me is a small town in Louisiana; home-away-from-home is a corporate apartment in Georgia. We bring our clothes and a few personal possessions and that's about it for the most part. My seasonal decorations are a combination of a very few things I brought from home, and items I find around the apartment or at thrift shops and dollar stores.

To be honest with you, this month's Doors of Welcome kind of crept up on me--I knew it was coming, but for some reason I didn't realize until too late that it was coming so fast! And because my October decorations were more "fall" than Halloween, not much has changed.

This is what I had last month--simple, but full of bright and beautiful fall color. But because of the tremendous amount of rain we've had, the only thing left outdoors is...

....the wreath--isn't it pretty? I still love the simplicity of it, and the combination of berries, leaves, and pinecones. Don't stop there, though, this time I want to invite you inside, so come on in!

I didn't want the rest of it to be ruined by the damp, so I moved the rug from here...

to here--where we see the bright and cheery colors in the oh-so-bland kitchen every morning.

And I moved the suitcase/trunk box of leave and garlands from here...

to here, on top on the armoire that holds the television, dvd player, and internet stuff.

I do have the beginning of a centerpiece of sorts--some silk leaves in a jar, fall colored candles and some fake grain--I've been looking for a plate or charger or something to group it on, but I haven't had much luck with my thrifting lately, so this is as far as I've gotten.

I did buy a pumpkin, but instead of decorating with it...

...I cut it half, cleaned it out, and baked it...

...which helped me turn it into this, which ultimately became...

a pumpkin pie!

And now that you're here, pull up a chair and enjoy a piece of pie!

Next month I plan a fabulous (!) transformation, and no more orange and rust!

Thanks again to everyone who is visiting--please visit Karen by clicking on the link at the top of this post, or the "Doors of Welcome" picture on the left sidebar. She has all of the lovely participants on her sidebar, and I assure you they have some fabulous decor, well worth visiting!

Until next time...

Homemaker's Haven

• She looketh well to the ways of her household

Welcome to this week's Homemaker's Haven post, hosted by Stephanie at A High and Noble Calling.

Last week we discussed the importance of working to make our homes a haven from the world for our families, using the 4 P's--Prayer, Prioritize, Plan, and Progress.

Even though I knew it was time a new installment, this week's post is a little bit late because of another P--Procrastination. And the main reason I procrastinated--lack of Progress toward working my Plan and keeping my Priorities! (and probably not enough Prayer, either!)

As I look back over my post from last week, I realized that there were several things that I wrote about that I didn't actually do--even though I know from experience that it works better for me that way.

• There were several days that I didn't get up and get dressed or start my morning routine right away. When I don't, it messes up my whole day--everything runs late, and I just don't get as much done.
• While I set myself a couple of goals for the week and wrote about them in the post, I didn't write them down on my list or in a planner that I actually looked at daily--as a result, my priorities did get a bit skewed.

This week's goals are pretty much the same as last week's, although slightly re-worked:

1. Prayer IS my priority
2. Tweak my morning routine, and actually DO it
3. Write things DOWN-whether a grocery list, to-do list, or whatever-list

What are you doing this week to make your home a haven?

Until next time...

Thrifty Thursday

• She is like the merchant's ships, she bringeth her food (and other things!) from afar
• She looketh well the ways of her household

It's been awhile since I had a Thrifty Thursday/Vintage Thingy Thursday post to share. We had so much rain for a while that we tried to stay in unless we absolutely had to get out. We did manage to hit a couple of thrift stores one weekend, and my husband spotted this serving bowl for $2 at the Valley Rescue Mission thrift store off of Second Street in Columbus.

I have a soft spot for dishware serving pieces. I grew up in a family where plates were served from the stove and carried to the table. The only things put on the table were baskets of rolls and maybe condiments or relish trays. My Memaw, though, always took everything up into serving dishes and put them on the table, so she had lots of all different kinds of servings bowls. These older white pieces always remind me of the bowls she used to put on the table.

This one has a marking from Homer Laughlin, the manufacturer of Fiesta Ware, as well as restaurant and other industrial pieces. I've checked their website, but I can't find anything that resembles this particular piece, so I don't have a clue as to it's age. It's not an antique, but probably does qualify as "vintage" Suzanne from ColoradoLady left a comment telling me that the numbers show the year and month it was manufactured--in this case, June of 1951--so this bowl defnitely qualifies as "vintage"! Thank you, Suzanne!


It has a couple of chips on the underside...

...but is pretty intact on the inside.

How have you done on your thrifting lately? Now the weather is cooler and it looks like we may actually have some sunshine for awhile, I'm hoping to get out and find some more goodies.

This post is linked to:

Thrifty Thursday at Tales from Bloggeritaville

Vintage Thingies Thursday at ColoradoLady

Until next time...

Homemaker's Haven

• She looketh well to the ways of her household

This week I'm joining a new meme (that's blogger talk for themed posts) called "The Homemaker's Haven" , sponsored by Stephanie at A High and Noble Calling. The purpose of the meme it to help us all stay focused and accountable as we work to make our homes a haven. She has a good introductory post about using the 4 P's--prayer, prioritize, plan, and progress as tools to keep our days ordered.

Prayer--I know there are many who recommend praying first thing in the mornings, but I find that this can backfire on me. If I get up and come straight away to the couch to read and pray, I'm still half asleep, and I have trouble concentrating. Sometimes I find myself dozing off, or else so distracted thinking about what I need to do, that I'm not really reading or praying. On days that I'm at home, I find I do better if I get up, get myself groomed, make my bed and do a few little things to get my day's routine started. It may be as simple as starting a load of clothes in the washer and putting something out to thaw for dinner, but once the initial rush of the morning is over and those little nagging things are done, I can sit down with my Bible and spend time in prayer, journaling, planning my day, etc. I find that I often end up spending more time with the Lord then, because I've fully awake and I don't have that feeling of urgent daily, un-done tasks to distract me. My goal is to keep the important at the top of my list of priorities, which brings me to...

Prioritize--Have you heard that saying, that sometimes the important is drowned out by the merely urgent? Sometimes, like with morning prayer, I do better to tackle just a few of those "urgent" things and get them out of the way so that I can concentrate on what's important. The problem with this is that if I don't watch it, I start to view everything as "urgent"--from those that are, to those that may not be. Setting priorities can be something of a hit-or-miss thing, because what's important looks different to every one of us, and can change from day to day--or even hourly for some us! Sometimes the simple act of writing it all down can help us determine what is important vs. what is merely urgent. And that brings me to:

Planning--One of my favorite planners of all time was one I bought from a Christian bookstore. It was from Focus on the Family and was called "The Fruit of Her Hands". It was spiral bound, and undated, so that you could pick it up and use it at any time. It had a blank monthly calendar on a two page spread, and a page or two of blank, lined pages for you to make notes. Then came 5 weekly pages, divided by days. Each week had a scripture to read and mediate on, and daily columns that could be used in several different practical ways. There was room to write down appointments, notes to yourself, dinner menus, or whatever you wanted to write. What I liked about it was the flexibility--I could jot down what was important to me for that day--be it a prayer request or a grocery list--and if I didn't use it for a week or two, I could still pick it up and start back where I'd left off.

Unfortunately, that particular planner is out of print and no longer available, but the principles I used during that time still apply, if I'd just use them. I have a tendency to let time get away from me, and before I know it, the day, week, or month is almost over and I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I thought I would! And once again that brings me to...

Progress--In order to see progress, Stephanie has challenged us to do something to make our homes more enjoyable, whether it's getting rid of clutter or adding something beautiful. My goals are to :

1. Clean off the coffee table and the kitchen pass through, including making a place for the things that seem to get piled up, and putting them there
2. Get back in the habit of writing things down, whether in a planner or on a scratchpad, so that I can keep in mind short term and long term goals, and see the difference between the urgent vs the important
3. Spend more time on the important and less on the urgent

Until next time...