Home Sanctuary

Turn in Points and Drawing Entries!

What a great month of Small Things we've had!  I've really enjoyed putting them together, and more importantly, I've enjoyed what the Small Things have done in my home. Yes, there are many days in which, despite my best intentions, I don't get the daily task done.  But I've come to believe that if I just pick up with the NEXT one and keep trying, the results will be wonderful.  Because it's not just the TASK, it's the "can-do" mindset that is starting to be a habit with me.  

With THIS kind of progress, I'll soon be well on my way to being downright perky!

My own personal favorite this month was Sporking, maybe because I just liked the way it sounded.  But I think I planned my week a little bit better than usual by combining errands and tasks.  I scoured my kitchen sink after I washed dishes and I enjoyed the feeling of completeness it gave me.

To review the prizes for this month, Cheryl made a BEAUTIFUL prayer shawl for the Most Points Winner:

And the Random Drawing Winner will receive a signed copy of this book:

 

Today's Small Thing is a two-step process.

1. Email your point totals to me.  If you are just entering the Random Drawing, simply let me know by email as well.
2. Leave a comment letting us know which small thing you enjoyed or needed the most this month!  We've got a lot of new girls, and I hope to hear from some of you today!  

POINTS: 40 for doing both things, good toward October's tally! 

Company Girl Coffee

Why do I feel tempted to say, "It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone?" when trying to recap this week? Maybe because it HAS been quiet around here, unusually so.  We're sort of between work projects right now, so we are trying to get some chores done around the Barnhouse.  I only had to work one actual day, out at the house waaaay on the other side of Dallas.

Here's a photo of the finished sky in the dome.  It was a weird dome, shaped like a cone.  It was a challenge to make a sky without an actual overhead "surface."  Like painting the inside of a witch hat.

 

I can't wait to get invited over to YOUR house today!  You can serve "coffee" if you like, or just share what's going on in your life.  I've been having major internet problems, so getting sites and comments to load was a challenge for me.  If any of the coffee girls did not get a comment from me last week, I tried! Just posting my blog each day has been a test of my patience.

Link up and let's have caffeine and sugar together.  We can raid the kids' candy for the Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars...they'll never miss them.

Company Girls Coffee Participants

1. Esthermay 2. Melissa 3. Erin @ Finding the Funny

4. Elaine 5. Forgetfulone 6. Michelle Craft

7. Zoanna 8. Samantha 9. Claudia

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Turn in Points/Enter Random Drawing Tomorrow!

Hey, don't forget that tomorrow will be the day to email in your points for the month of October!  Get out your calculators and start adding up!

If you've participated in the Small Things but haven't worried about keeping score, you'll simply email me so I can put your name in the hat.

I can't wait to see who wins!

Rachel Anne

Vampires in the Midst

Disclaimer:  This post is not an endorsement of scary stuff, spider webs, haunted houses or bubbling pots of Toil and Trouble.  While it is the view of the author that babies dressed up like pumpkins are utterly adorable, and that small princesses and short hobos should be given generous amounts of candy on the 31st, this in no way constitutes the support of anything that might give anyone nightmares, or reason to sleep in their parents' bed indefinitely. It is, however, to be fully understood that bags of fun-sized candy bars are the reason for the season in many minds, and however you choose to view this particular holiday, the author hopes your life is filled with lots of goodies.

Best Buy is sponsoring a "Vampire Awareness Day," today, and although I don't even like to type the word "vampire," I thought it was a worthy enough cause to work into a Small Thing.

Apparently, Vampire Power is the electricity that consumer electronics and household appliances use when they are switched off or are in standby mode.  Computers, TV's, stereos, microwaves, phone chargers...all are using electricity 24/7 and it not only costs money, but harms the environment.

You can find out more by visiting Vampire Awareness Day, but I'll warn you that the brief tongue-in-cheek video has a ghoulish vampire on it....not something I'd let my children watch, but it has some good facts.  I'm easily creeped out.

Today's Small Thing is ward off these evil power suckers.  

You could:

• Unplug your chargers (I usually leave the charger plugged in, and just grab the phone or laptop)
• Unplug appliances or electronics that aren't in use.  (Big TV's use a lot of electricity in standby mode) 
• Plug electronics into a power strip and flip the switch to off when not in use. 

The average house has 20-30 electronics plugged in, and even in standby mode, they use a ton of electricity. I'm going to unplug my toaster and chargers, but I can't bring myself to unplug my coffee maker. The Delay Brew setting was divinely inspired and it's what gets me out of bed in the morning.

Look around and see what you could unplug today.  Being vigilant against these power predators could add up to hundreds of dollars a year!

POINTS: 40 for combating the vampires in your midst.

Children's Chores...A Must Read!

What are the odds that my sister, Katherine, and I would be posting about children's bedrooms on the same day yesterday?  Hop over and read her excellent post on helping your kids do age-appropriate chores!  I love the checklists, and they worked well for our family....but only when I was disciplined enough to follow through with them. (sheepish grin)

The irony that I would suggest cleaning the kids room FOR them on the day that she had such a great post about learning responsibility, really illustrates the "dance" of parenting.

Discipline with grace.

Rules with love.

Authority with kindness.

Responsibility and fun.

Protecting and letting go.

The list goes on....

Some children see a list and become so daunted they are immobilized.  Some relish zipping through a checklist, while others will take all day to do it, and with a whole lot of groaning.  If you have 3 kids, you probably have one of each.  They all need structure, and they all need a whole lot of encouragement and appropriate rewards to accomplish it.  Yeah, you might even have to spank a naughty rebel who doesn't go along with the program on occasion, but hang in there.  Eventually, they'll get it.

Anyhoo, don't miss Katherine's post.  She rocks!

Autumn Sweeps In

Oh, how I love Autumn!  It's not just because my daughters have beautiful "Autumn" complexions and hair.

(This is a thinly veiled excuse to post photos of my girls.)

(Meghan, you know how I feel about your hair, but if you want to cut it, go ahead.  Just save me some...sniff.)

I love Autumn mostly because the crisp air makes me feel invigorated.  I did a cartwheel the other day, just for fun.  Today I'm putting pumpkins out!

But the north wind has brought leaves and grass and sticks from Canada right to my front porch.  (Well, it's the back porch, really, so we generally just call it "The Breezeway.")

The Breezeway gets to be more like a wind tunnel sometimes, and it's hard to keep it looking nice.

Today's Small Thing is to simply sweep your front porch, stoop or walkway.  (Some of your northerners may have to shovel the early snow.)  I'm completely aware that it's a losing battle, but we've gotta fight on until winter, girls!  Away with you, crumbly leaves!  Be gone!

POINTS: 30 measly points, but hey, this is a pretty easy job.  So easy, you could get one of your children to learn some responsibility and do it for you! :)

At Least SOMEONE's Gonna Sleep Well Tonight

I'm usually in a pretty good mood.  When my kids were younger, that mood would start evaporating the closer we got to bedtime.  We'd start the nightly rituals of finishing schoolwork, finding clothes for tomorrow, getting bedtime snacks, brushing teeth and getting into pajamas with PLENTY of time to spare. But somehow, the clock always passed the appointed time and I was no longer a happy camper.

And THEN. I would enter the bedrooms.

Lord have mercy, it looks like something exploded in there.

Do these children have no pride in their belongings?  Do they not realize the hard work and sacrifice that went into providing all those stuffed animals, tossed so carelessly on the floor?  And the Legos! Must they always be underfoot?  And are these heaps of clothes clean or dirty?  Alright, who was eating crackers in here?

Please tell me I wasn't alone in my frustration.

Today's Small Thing is to focus on just ONE (kid) bedroom in your house.  Now, I know that kids should be responsible enough to clean up their own rooms and take care of their own stuff.  Haven't you been trying to teach them that their whole lives?  But children are just like adults, in that they are often overwhelmed by the size of the mess they've made and have no idea where to start.  They sometimes need outside help to either get them started, or keep them moving.

Cleaning up kids' rooms can be very taxing on your patience.  I'm just warning you now.  

But it's good to think that, by giving them a helping hand, you are helping them love order and beauty.  

Occasionally, I've cleaned my older children's rooms as a gift to them.  They did not expect me to clean it, and if they did, they'd have another thing coming.  But the delight on their faces to see a vacuumed floor and a made bed with the teddy bears on it, made me see that they too, enjoy a gift of service when it is done with love.  If you choose to do this, remember that you're not making a habit of spoiling them, you're just showing them what clean looks like.  And if you can do it with a smile, well, you're getting another jewel in your crown.

If you don't have children at home, just focus on your bedroom today.  Even if most of the house is a horrible mess, working steadily at one area will give you a feeling a great satisfaction.

POINTS: 50 for helping a child clean his/her bedroom, or giving a gift of service by doing it (just this once!) for him/her.

Spork!

Someone was really thinking when they came up with the idea of a spork.  It's the eating utensil that combines the spearing capability of a fork with the scooping capability of a spoon.  The darling of airline food service, backpackers, and Kentucky Fried Chicken (oh sorry, KFC), the spork is a model of efficiency and cost savings.

Today's Small Thing is to do some sporking of your own.  Actually, you'll get to have all week to work on this one, because it will take a little bit of creativity.

The idea is this:  see how many ways can you combine tasks to be more productive, and save time and money.  It's not so much multi-tasking as it is pre-planning.

Here's what I mean. 

• Do you find yourself running errands almost every single day?  Plan just one or two errand days and combine your jaunts to make fewer trips.

Side note:  When my kids were younger, I found that I needed at least 2 days a week that I did not go anywhere in order to get things done.  I realized that I was running errands out of sheer boredom (and lack of planning), and a "quick trip" to the store would eat up most of a day.  No wonder I was bogged down!  

• Elaine posted about things she could do while waiting at a soccer practice.  Talk about sporking! She's got the idea!

• Maybe you could chop vegetables for tonight's meal AND tomorrow's meal.  Great combo.

• Make scouring your sink part of finishing up dishes.  Really, it takes less than a minute.

• Do you exercise by taking walks?  I don't, but if I did, I would download a book, scripture or sermon onto my ipod to combine improving my health with getting smarter.

• Teach your children to combine playing with picking up.  This is the best kind of spork EVER.

Combine discipline with love, good food with good conversation, cleaning with music, and napping with a soft pillow.  Schoolwork with encouragement, chores with rewards, and picking up with straightening.  Your man might even like to try sporking with you, but I'll let you figure that one out.

See?  Sporking is fun!  

POINTS: 50 for using at least three ways to spork this week!

Feel free to share your ideas!  Help us spork!

Company Girl Coffee

The highlight of my week was getting slobbered on by a local college mascot, Beau the bulldog.

I was invited to a special ribbon cutting open house at the newly renovated student commons area. I'd painted the murals a couple of months ago and it was my first chance to see the finished space. Beau did not seem impressed that his portrait painter was there, he was more interested in a squeaky toy that had been given him for the occasion.

Here we are, posing under the larger-than-life Beau mural. 

What's going on at your house? Have you made progress toward creating sanctuary for your loved ones? Maybe you organized something or got to do something special together. We want to know about it!

Link up below, then hop 'round to visit your Company Girls! Even if you don't link up, I hope you'll take a chance to get to know some new blog buddies!

Company Girls Coffee Participants

1. Cindy 2. Claudia 3. Esthermay 4. Elaine 5. Erin @ Finding the Funny

6. Michelle Craft 7. Marie 8. Lindsay 9. Lindsay 10. Michelle@Princess At Heart

11. Melissa 12. Rebecca 13. carol 14. Sallie

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Off Key?

The drawers in my house are slowly improving.  Doing the Small Things each day has really helped me see just how far a little bit of effort can go.  I've been straightening drawers here and there, and I have to tell you!  It feels GREAT to see some organization in those places that have plagued me for years!

My junk drawers, and there are many, are full of the oddest assortment of items.  Among them are keys.

Keys are things that we never want to throw away, just in case we might want to start a vehicle we haven't owned in 10 years, or open a lock that is long gone.  Since they are unlabeled, they kick around in junk drawers for eons, never seeing the light of day. 

There are also some mysterious keys hanging on the key rack.  Maybe they will unlock a treasure chest worth millions!  We wouldn't want to throw them away either, just in case.

Today's Small Thing is to gather up the keys that lurk in dark shadows and do something with them.  The unsavory characters who are simply loiterers ought to be thrown out.  The ones with no identification but remote possibilities that they go to something important could be banished to a ziplock.  Being grouped together will eliminate unnecessary frustration when you have to dig through a drawer to find a glue stick or a pen that works.

See, you don't have to organize an entire drawer today.  Just one teeny, tiny item that you know has been bugging you for a long time.  Baby steps, my friends!  Baby steps is the key.

POINTS: 40 for gathering up miscellaneous keys

BONUS: 30 for labeling some keys that actually go to things