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If you've come looking for my blog and all the great stuff I'm doing, you won't find it here :)

Check out my "new" blog that I actually update on a somewhat regular basis: http://prettybittyblog.blogspot.com/

Giving it the Old College Try

I thought this blogging thing would be easy! Turns out it's not. It also turns out that changing my cleaning and organizing habits is a tough task as well. But as I sit at my computer desk with piles of bills and who knows what cluttering up my space, I think of my poor husband. He comes home from work every day to this same cluttered home and I need to give him a place he can relax. Then I look at photos of my daughter, fortunately she's sleeping now (finally!). She turned 6 months on Sunday, I can't believe it. I don't want her to pick up my same habits of getting behind and feeling like there's no way to catch up. I'm starting anew! Goodbye for now, I'm off to get showered then start my house work with my trusty timer. That's the one thing I have taken from FlyLady that I have stuck with. It works like a charm!

Shine the Sink!

The first step in starting the FlyLady program is to shine the sink. She says that every evening, before you go to bed, make sure your sink is shining!! That means all the dishes must be done and the sink must be clean.

Last night before going to bed I made sure the sink was shined. Corey helped and was really excited about this new program. We got all the dishes done and put away and left the sink shining. This morning, waking up to a clean sink and no dirty dishes, really started my day off on the right foot. Waking up to dirty dishes can make you feel like you can't get anything done, like your day is shot, it makes you a little depressed. But FlyLady's emphasis on keeping the sink shiny really works. The house just feels better. I don't feel like I have an unbearable load of work looming over me. I feel good!!

But, it's laundry day, so now I go to fold all the laundry. Another new goal in this process is to get the laundry folded the same day it's washed. Lately I've been putting it off, planning to do it the next day, but I'm still folding last week's laundry...so...today is the end of that vicious cycle!!

Creating a New Eden

As a new stay at home mom, I have realized that I really need to make our home a comfortable place for my family, as well as a welcoming place for friends. I spend most days at home all day yet still struggled with keeping things in order. My husband and I have talked about being the place that people can always drop by any time, the place where our kids can bring their friends and they'll want to stay. We want to have a warm and welcoming home. A place where we can comfortably rest and recharge.

Right now we just have one baby. Elora Grace is almost 3 months old. As she sleeps in her swing, I think about what things will be like several years from now. I want to be the house for sleepovers, parties, and "just hanging out". I want to be able to welcome her friends in to the house no matter what time it is or what we're doing. I want our house to be a new "garden of Eden". A safe place where God can be glorified and comfort can be found. I want to be there for my kids and their friends to talk to, I want to be able to help them, and point them to Christ.

The first step in this is to get my house in order. It is tough to take time to do much of anything (other than clean) when the house is in disarray. I want to have a tidy home so that we are free to take time in the morning to read God's Word together. I want to have a tidy home so that in the evenings when Corey gets home from work he can find refuge here and we can glorify God together. I want to be free to drop everything to serve someone. Right now I don't feel like I can do that.

I feel like I have this weight on my shoulders, I am bearing the heavy load of an unorganized house. And I have placed this load on myself. And I will be the one to lift it! With the help of flylady.net

A word from J. R. Miller

It is only a heathen lodging-place!

(J. R. Miller, "Our New Edens")

Parents are the custodians of their children's lives. If they would meet their responsibility and be able to look God and their children in the face at the judgment, they must make their homes as nearly 'gardens of Eden' as possible.

The way to save your children from the temptations of the streets--is to make your home so bright, so sweet, so beautiful, so happy, so full of love, joy and prayer--that the streets will have no attractiveness for them--no power to win them away. "Do not be overcome by evil--but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21

The place of the home-life among the influences which mold and shape character, is supreme in its importance. Our children are given to us in tender infancy--to teach them and train them for holy, worthy, beautiful living.

It is not enough to have an opulent house to live in! It is not enough to have fine foods, and luxurious furniture, and expensive entertainments! Most of the world's worthiest men and women, those who have blessed the world the most--were brought up in plain homes, without any luxury!

It is the tone of the home-life, that is important. We should make it pure, elevating, refining, inspiring. The books we bring in, the papers and magazines, the guests we have at our tables and admit to our firesides, the home conversation, the pictures we hang on our walls--all these are educational. As in everything, LOVE is the great master-secret of home happiness.

The religious influences are also vitally important. In that first 'garden home', the Lord came and went as a familiar friend. Christ must be our guest--if our home is to be a fit place either for our children or for ourselves. If there is no sincere prayer in it, it is not a true home at all--it is only a heathen lodging-place!

How can we make 'new Edens' of our homes? What are some of the secrets of home happiness? I might gather them all into one word and say--CHRIST! If we have Christ as our guest--our home will be happy! He must be welcomed into all our life. He must be in each heart. He must sit at our tables and mingle with us in all our family interaction. Christ can bless our home, only through the lives of those who make the home circle.

Make your home so sweet, so heavenly, with love and prayer and song and holy living--that all through it, there shall be the fragrance of the heart of Christ!