Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.
Psalm 68:19 NIV
God will carry our burdens, Psalms assures us of that promise.
Is it hard to believe the promise? No.
Is it hard to let go of our burdens? Yes!
I have to let stop picking up my burdens (worries) after I’ve given them to God.
What burdens do you carry? Just for today give it to God. Let Him carry the worry for you.
Disclaimer: This is not a political post! This is a heartbroken daughter trying to understand.
I don’t understand a lot of things, how computers work, black holes, algebra – just to name a few. There are things I do understand, coffee, laundry, and sacrificing for people we love.
As parents we do everything we think possible to keep our kids safe. We get our kids vaccinated, they always ride in car seats, and wear bike helmets. Those are just a few off the top of my head.
As adults we do what we can to protect ourselves: exercise, perventive health screenings, seat belts; I remember when seat belts weren’t required, now I don’t start my car without buckling up. Grandparents get vaccinated against whooping cough to protect their grandchildren.
We also do things as a society to protect others – drive on the right side of the road, stop at stop signs, food service workers wear hairnets and gloves. We obey this sign…
We put on flip-flops and a tank top to go into a restaurant. A few years ago on vacation men were required to have shirts with sleeves in the restaurants, so my husband wore shirts with sleeves when we went into the restaurants.
Why are we so offended by this sign…
Yes there are people who medically can not wear a mask. This is exactly why the rest of should want to wear them. It’s not to prevent me from getting COVID 19, it’s to help prevent me from spreading the virus to the most vulnerable around me.
Wearing a mask doesn’t stifle my individuality, it doesn’t make me a fear monger, it doesn’t make weak. It makes be a considerate person, it makes me a good neighbor, it makes me a good citizen.
Wearing a mask doesn’t take away my freedom, it help me protect other people’s freedom to the best of my ability.
This takes away your freedom…
This takes away your freedom…
My siblings and I lost our only parent from complications of COVID. We were allowed 15 minutes for one of us to go to the hospital to say goodbye. Thankfully because of modern technology we were able to have a video call during those 15 minutes for us all to “be together” to say goodbye. We had to choose who could and could not
attend his funeral. This is not a situation I would want for anyone.
As of the time I’m writing this 181,000 families have lost loved ones: 6,047,692 cases of COVID in the US since January. Each of those 6,047,692 “cases” is a person, is a daughter, a sister, a mother, a father, a brother, a son.
I don’t understand why many in our society are so opposed to temporally wearing a mask in public. It’s a temporary inconvenience. Complications from this virus could be long lasting, we don’t know yet. Losing a loved one is forever.
If wearing a mask can prevent just one person from contracting this virus, save that family the heartbreak associated with this virus, why would you not wear a mask?
After Christmas I wanted a new wreath for the front door but I’m trying to be deliberate about my spending and using what I have on hand. I checked out my craft stash and went to Pinterest for inspiration.
I had valentine’s material in my stash all I needed was a wire wreath form. I got that at the stuff-mart for $3 and started tying the strips, and tying and tying and tying.
It only took 2 episodes of a dective show and the live action Lady and the Tramp movie to finish it. I added a bow and Ta-Da Valentine’s wreath.
I like my wreath close up but the bow is hard to see from a distance. I tried a couple other colored bows with the material I had on hand but decided it really needed a solid colored red bow. I found a small piece of fabric at the stuff mart for $1.
The craft mission was to have a Valentine’s wreath on the door, in time for the holiday and do it on the cheap. I up the wreath up on January 25th, additional supplies were $4. Craft mission accomplished!
A few years ago I heard about choosing a word for the year. I tried to Google the origin of a word for the year, there is so much information, blogs, websites, books, ways to choose your word, even a word of the year generator. Wow! One little word, words of the year, my word; whatever you want to call it the idea is pretty much the same. It’s a word you incorporate into every aspect of life, family, friends, health, work. It’s how you think about everything.
One of my words for 2019 was intentional. I didn’t do a good job of being intentional at all last year. 2019 was a very busy year and I fell back into old comfortable (not good) habits. Eating well, exercising and de-cluttering are just some of the areas that my lack of intentionality shows.
I had a hard time choosing a word this year. I kept thinking consistant. This is the definition I found “the achievement of a level of performance that does not vary greatly in quality over time”. But that didn’t quite capture what I wanted. Maybe dependable or reliable? Well, not exactly.
Deliberate. I think this definition sums up how I want to approach 2020 “done consciously and intentionally“. Consciously is defined “in a way that is directly perceptible to and under the control of the person concerned“. Adding consciously to last years word embodies what I want for 2020.
One of the old habits I fell into was failing to plan. “Winging it” may work for some people but not for me. It leaves me feeling frustrated and rushed which leads to irritability. Not a good combination.
The other comfort habit is telling myself I don’t have time. I do have time but I don’t always make the best choices in how I spend my time. I have time to play the bubble expode game on my phone, while telling myself I need to “make time” to read. I don’t need to make time I need to be deliberate in how I spend the time I have.
At least as organized as it it going to get. My May/June organizing project has taken a long time. It was very close to becoming my July project. The last project was the awkward corner cabinet.
There is a lot of mess in there! This was the inspiration for the kitchen reorganizing project when my teen said “Umm, Mom something leaked.” I didn’t find out what leaked but the oils & vinegars got wiped down and put on a tray to contain future mystery puddles.
The final step was to label my canisters. It took 29 years to get it done. But here they are finally…
I wonder how old my canister have to be before they can be considered “vintage”? Yep, they are the original Tupperware set we received as a wedding shower gift.
Besides finally putting labels on the canisters, I put things that go together, together. Coffee stuff together, tea in one place and baking things all in one area. Including the extra bag of flour and sugar in the same cabinet instead of behind the boxes of cereal in a different cabinet.
I haven’t decided on a summer project yet. Summer is a very busy time in my office so it might be a good time to take a break from home projects. The projects will still be there in the fall, or when the heat and humidity get unbearable, which ever comes first.
My May organizing project isn’t going as quickly as I had hoped. I’ve made some progress but it has been very slow. My lunch prep boxes are on a shelf I can reach without a step stool and the pantry staples are organized. It’s small progress but it’s progress!
I moved the canned goods from the upper corner cabinet to the pantry closet. I put the grab and go snacks in bins in the corner cabinet. So far this is working for everyone.
The lower cabinets have gotten a little worse as I was grouping like items together, especially this one. I may have started cleaning and organizing this area when something leaked but it has a long way to go.
Looks like my May project will also be my June project. There are 3 lower cabinets I haven’t even started. A fun part of the project I’m looking forward to is making cute labels for my canister set and coffee containers.
This month I’m organizing the kitchen. I don’t enjoy cooking, it’s a necessity not a passion, but I still need the kitchen to be functional. Like a lot of spaces in our house the kitchen hasn’t been re-organized since we moved in.
When we moved in we had two kids at home and one full time job. Breakfasts, lunches and after school snacks were a priority. Now we have one kid at home and two full time jobs, the priority is to get dinner on the table as quickly as possible between work and activities and finding what I need to make dinner. These cabinets are not working for us! Hidden in the back of the top self of the corner cabinet (top right picture) I found a can of pumpkin that expired in December 2015. Gulp! I can’t reach that shelf or really see what’s up there without a step stool. Out of sight out of mind.
The lower corner cabinet (lower left picture) got a quick tidy when (one of) the coconut oils (we have three) leaked. The rest of the stuff in there is a hodge podge of everything from pasta to kitchen gadgets.
The other problem I have with the kitchen is like items aren’t kept together. Snacks are in more than one place and baking items aren’t together. Other things we use daily are in inconvenient places, for example the containers for my lunches.
They are on the very top shelf. Nope, I can’t reach them. Yes, the peanut butter is in there with the dishes not other food items.
This is my organizing project for May and probably June. Please share your kitchen organizing ideas in the comments! I need all the help I can get!
After misplacing Bean’s birth certificate, I was inspired to clean out our file cabinet. I had the bottom drawer packed so tightly when we took the folders out of the drawer we could hear them expand. Okay, maybe not actually hear it, but once the papers were out I couldn’t believe they had all fit.
I thought we’d find some paperwork for things we didn’t own but I was surprised at how many there were. The original class ring catalog and order form for my daughter’s class ring from the fall of 2008. The bill of sale and service receipts for my daughter’s 2006 car. They traded it in last year for a “new to them” 2014. All the paperwork for a car we don’t own. The owners manuals we never read, some were never taken out of the plastic wrapper.
Sorting through the folder with the kids art was easier than I thought it would be. The best art was already in their memory boxes. I did find a couple treasures, a paper with Bean’s finger prints and a poem and note from my Sweet Pea. Those I’m holding onto.
The rest went to the recycle bin. The recycle filled a paper grocery bag (I’m still able get those). It feels good to be able to find what we need when we need it. And it’s nice to be able to close the drawers without stuffing papers back in.
I’m moving on to the the kitchen next. Bean and I were trying to make him energy bits when I realized oil had leaked in the cabinet. I pulled every thing out to clean up the oil and found 3 bottles of coconut oil and 3 bottles of corn syrup. Two of the corn syrups were expired. Yep, the kitchen needs to be cleaned and reorganize. The energy bit recipe wasn’t a keeper.
This month’s project is more necessity then simplicity. I’m tackling the file cabinet! It looks 
pretty harmless but looks can be deceiving. It’s two drawers are packed full of I don’t even know what and conveniently hidden out of sight. The motivation for taking on the file cabinet was losing Beans birth certificate. Total mom fail!
The birth certificate should have been in the safe deposit box. We had a lot of activities going on that weekend. To help me out my husband said he’d check the safe deposit box because he was running other errands and would be there anyway. Yesss! Cross that off my to-do list. Then, I got a text. “Birth certificate isn’t in there.” Oh snap! Could it be in the file cabinet with the documents we used to get his driver’s permit? Could it be in the office? It’s probably in the file cabinet in the folder with his name on it (found out there are two files). Nope. It wasn’t in any of those places.
Before going into full panic mode, I went back to the bank to check the safe deposit box one more time before they closed. It was there! Whew! Not in the envelope labeled birth certificates it was under something else in an envelope that said “vital records”. Both copies were still in the original envelope from the county. I need to do some orgaizing in the safe deposit box too.
It’s very possible there are instruction manuals in there for appliances we don’t own. Maybe some paperwork for our last house. I’m guessing on the left is some art work that didn’t get put with the kids memory boxes. This project may fill up the whole recycle bin.
Let me know how you organize paperwork. What do you keep? What goes directly into recycle?
Apparently, this old mom can learn a new trick. I was inspired by the Minimal Mom’s laundry system. I didn’t think her exact system would work for us, we are a much smaller family and my high schooler (supposedly) does his own laundry. Basically she does one load of laundry per day, every day, and everything goes in. Doing laundry for just two of us, I didn’t think one combat load (as my military husband would call it) would be the best solution but the inspiration seed was planted.
My office is closed on Fridays, so that’s my day to do big cleaning projects, grocery shopping, and laundry. My system was to start early on Friday morning sorting the laundry, usually five loads, then start washing them. One, then the next, then the next…put one in the dryer, take it out, fold, put it away, repeat. Yes, it took all day, but that’s the way I have done it since I started working full-time. When my kids were little and I stayed home, I did laundry 2 days a week with the same batch method. The one load a day idea made me question my laundry routine. What I was doing wasn’t efficient. We had one hamper and two laundry baskets to collect dirty clothes. Three different places for dirty clothes to pile up.
I decided to try having 3 small laundry baskets in the master bathroom for us to sort the clothes by load when we put them in the baskets instead of just throwing everything together in the hamper and baskets. I know. Duh! When a basket was full, I put it in the wash, dried it, folded it and put it away. Done before bedtime! I did two during the week like this. Laundry day came and I only had one load to wash. ONE! The solution seemed too simple, but this mom was stuck in a laundry rut. I don’t have less laundry to do, I’m just doing it in a more manageable and time efficient way, and not feeling so overwhelmed by it.
This is my new laundry buddy! One bag for dark clothes, one for white clothes and one for everything else!
It’s was such a small change but it has made a huge difference in my routine. What small changes can you make to save time?
From the Bottom of My Coffee Cup 