A Mom’s Life Made Simple

Go ahead and include me in the group… what group you may be wondering…  The group of women all over the world that live their day to day life using a Home Management Binder. I first heard of women organizing their lives using these handy notebooks on Cafemom and while I usually find the information from Cafemom helpful I have to admit I was a little skeptical.  I mean how in world can someone become more organized and less stressed just by using a notebook?

I assumed it would take more time to pull the book out and check whatever I needed to check then it would to just remember it all. The bad thing for me was I wasn’t remembering anything! So I humored myself one night and created my family management book and I absolutely have no regrets!

 I no longer have to search for receipts, bills, calendars, or wonder when my son’s next sports or chorus even is. Phone numbers are all together in one place and life is much easier now. It’s amazing how one little simple book or binder can help so much.

If you’re thinking about making one it’s quite simple. I found different sites online offering printables for home management binders and created a section for everything important to the balance of my family, I then found cute pictures and quotes or poems to place in each section just to add a little personality to it.

The sections you may be wondering can include anything you like. Mine are as follows (in no particular order):

• Bills with a calendar included
• Daily Routine/schedule: this includes cleaning routine, checklists, my personal schedule for work, school, and kids, cleaning tips
• Grocery: which includes grocery lists, coupons, recipes etc
• Section for each child: includes chores, school issues, homework, etc
• Sports: includes game times and practice days for my son and his father’s team also
• Holiday: includes shopping lists, gift list, thank you to whom lists, etc
• Important documents: birth certificates, ss cards, etc
• Misc: has everything else!

There are many sites online offering ways to make a great Home Management Book but mine fits the purpose and I’m happy with it. So if you’re as busy as I am you might want to give it a try I don’t think you’ll regret it either!

Source

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“It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.”

♦Helen Keller♦

It seems that my happy little home has become a home full of yelling and screaming these last few days and it’s during these times I have to step back and think about what is going on. Is it worth fighting over, is it even important at all. Most of the time the answer is no. It’s also at these times when I turn back to The Love Dare book and begin reading again because it helps to ease my mind and redirect my thoughts. Today I turned to Day 13 in the book:

“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”

Mark 3:25

We Boundary Rules

1. We will never mention divorce.

2. We will not bring up old, unrelated items from the past.

3. We will never fight in public or in front of our children.

4. We will call a time out if conflict escalates to a damaging level.

5. We will never touch one another in a harmful way.

6. We will never go to bed angry with one another

7. Failure is not an option. Whatever it takes, we will work this out.

(love dare pg 62)

And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
(Matthew 18:2-6 ESV)

It seems that Jesus has been weighing heavy on my middle child’s mind. They have been saying their night time prayers for a long while now but my five year old is finally understanding to whom they are praying to. She’s been asking me all week to tell her about Jesus, to show her pictures about Jesus, and her biggest thing is she wanted to “see Jesus on the cross.”  I found a few videos online and then decided to try  youtube which amazingly had wonderful cartoons about Jesus and movies the same. I typed in “Jesus cartoons” in the youtube search bar and there they were!  She asked so many questions and sat forever just watching. It’s a beautiful thing.   Finally she asked again about seeing Jesus crucified, the cartoons were not enough to settle her curiosity and she pointed out a movie which him on the cross.

Now don’t judge me for not wanting her to see something so very important in her understanding of Jesus but we’re talking about a child that gets really scared at the sight of blood and she now wants to see  a man that has recently became a very special person in her life in a way that I felt would scare her.  I felt though that she was so set on seeing the crucifiction that I needed to use this time of curiosity to allow her to learn as much as possible. 

So I showed her. She watched as they pulled whips out and beat him, she watched as they drove nails through him and placed a crown of thorn on his head. To her this man was Jesus as she isn’t old enough to realize that TV characters are not real. As she watched his face express the pain that he felt I watched my babygirl close her eyes and then open them again because she at this point was feeling his pain as well.  She watched as Jesus had blood streaming down his face and her words were “mommy they really hurt him.” 

 We talked more about what happened and why. She now understands a little better who Jesus is but she is still asking for more and I’m offering as much as she’ll take in.

1/2 cup corn starch

Mix the ingredients in a bowl. Add warm water gradually until the mixture forms a dough. Before working with the dough, the stickiness. The children can shape the dough into different shaped beads. A hole can be pierced in each bead with a toothpick. Dry the beads on a screen.

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 When things go wrong as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don’t you quit. Life is queer with its twists and turns, As every one of us sometimes learns, And many a failure turns about, When he might have won had he stuck it out. Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–You may succeed with another blow, Success is failure turned inside out–The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far; So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Unknown

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Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness,heart, talent, guts. That’s what little girls are made of; the heck with sugar and spice.

Bethany Hamilton