Working on homekeeping schedules..

today I started to tackle my biggest problem in my home right now ME!!!

I used to be very dilligent about getting things done and everything had to be just so and I tried to step back and not worry so much about getting things done but I think I stepped back way too far...Now nothing is getting done so I am going back to my old schedule with a few little tweaks to it.

You probably can't tell by the pictures but I have the prettiest light purple paper that I printed everything out on and I really like it. I find if I like things and they are pretty to me I am more apt to use them.

I have been editing the daily pages to get rid of items like scoop litter box since we don't have Oreo anymore and things I don't need on them but they are not all done yet. So please excuse the way they look right now.

Here are all the pages lined up~


And then in daily form~

Mondays~



Tuesdays~




Wednesdays~



Thursdays~




Fridays~





This is how I am putting them together~

The first page is the weekly menu calendar and then the weeks daily chores pages.~




I also have a page for monthly menu planning but have to work my way up to that one, struggling just to do a few days at a time right now.


Don't know for sure if this will work but I always will give something a whirl and see what does and doesn't work for me. Basically I really just have to let go and let God help me with this. I want to do what I am doing for the glory of God and Him alone. Not so that my home will be like a picture in a magazine or so people will see it and say " oh my your home is beautiful,". I like my home to have that lived in look but be clean and a place of refuge for my husband to come home to every night after his long commute. Who wants to come home to a dirty home every night.

Please leave a comment if you would like and let me know how you organize your homekeeping schedule or a link to it if you have a blog.

I feel as though I am not living up to my expectations I have for myself at being a homekeeper. This is the only job I want and I want to do it well. ANd please don't think for a minute that everyday everything on the lists get done. Take today for example I did start dinner in the crockpot this morning and I did most of the morning chores but I did none of todays cleaning chores (the kitchen) and we will have to see what happens tonight with the evening chores. I do have laundry going but it's been cool here the past few days and even though I knew it was going to get hotter today it really kind of snuck up on me and I now have a raging headache, I am hot and there are a million things to get done. Thankfully I have a new day ahead of me tomorrow :)

I printed out pages for menu planning from www.frugalmom.net

Menu pages~

Monthly~




Weekly~






And last but not least, Roger and I both got one of these phones the other day, having fun with it but will take me months to really figure it out :).....


My new phone, it has a real pretty purple case on it but you can't really see it~




Have a wonderfully blessed day in the Lord.
Blessings,Joann

Tomorrow is the big day......

Tomorrow is Roger's first day of his new job, and my first day in a long time without him being home all day. Not sure if I will like that or not kind of got used to him being here.

Last week on thursday morning we packed up some clothes etc.. and our little doggies and took a short trip over to Ft. Bragg on the ocean. We had our honeymoon in Ft. Bragg 11 1/2 years ago. this time we stayed at a different place because the place we stayed for our honeymoon was a bed and breakfast and they don't take pets. This time we stayed at a place called Cleone garden Inn it's a little north of the city of Ft.bragg. We got there Thursday night spent a few days and then came home. We had a lovely time and it was pretty relaxing. Friday we went down to the Point Cabrillo lighthouse, I love lighthouses so it was real fun for dinner on Friday night we ate at a place called the North coast Brewing company, they have the best fish and chips!! The fish was so fresh tasting and you got tons of it. Saturday we went to McKerricher state park for a picnic lunch right on the ocean, that was fun too. Saturday night we stopped off and picked up a pizza and went back to our room kicked back and just enjoyed a night in the room with our little doggies. Monday I did manage to get a few loads of laundry done but I was just so tired. Taking a trip no matter how long or short seems to tire me out.

Tomorrow for me will be when I need to get back into my homekeeper mode, I have definately been on vacation from that for a while. I need to redo my keeper binder and get back on my schedules as best that I can. I also need to work on menu planning. I used to menu plan every meal now it's just what can I find to make for dinner :( I also need to work some on the winter wonderland project. I have worked on it now for about 3-4 hours and have completed the word "winter" I know I am very slow at embroidery but I do enjoy it so.



Here are some pictures of the trip~


Our motel sign~



Me and the doggies at the Pt. Cabrillo lighthouse~




Ocean view for our picnic lunch~



More views of the ocean~






Roger and I had a wonderful time just spending time together away from things at home. It is so nice to be able to get away for even just a short time to just rejuvenate ourselves.What was really special about this was Roger picked out the place to go because he remembered we went there for our honeymoon. :)

I pray that everyone has a very blessed week ahead of them and thank you so much for stopping by my blog I truly appreciate it.

Blessings,Joann

Answered prayer~Roger got a job!!!!

Roger has been out of work since the end of February and even though it hasn't been that long for us it seems like a lifetime. At the end of June Roger will be starting a new job working on the Golden Gate Bridge. I would like to thank all of you who have kept us in your prayers for this job.I think both Roger and I feel like a big weight has been lifted off of us. We are most certainly thanking God for this job which was to be in His time not ours. We did get a little discouraged from time to time and of course asked the question why often but then really everything does happen in God's time not our own.

Have a wonderful upcoming weekend.
Blessings,Joann

Walking in a Winter Wonderland...

Today I found out that the red pen I bought the other day works just great for transfering patterns. There are two pieces of the winter wonderland pattern that are quite large and I wasn't sure if I had enough white Kona cotton, but I did.


Winter wonderland pattern from www.crabapplehill.com~

*(I believe if you click on the photos they will enlarge and you can see them much better)




The two large patterns are the holly border and the one that says walking in a winter wonderland.

I found out they would be too large to transfer on my small table I normally use so I found another way to do the transfering of the large patterns...



I used the large window in my living room~








Here is a close up of the pattern all transfered~




The only problem I could find with using the window was the fact that it is such a detailed pattern it really hurt my back to stand there and transfer it. I ended up doing it in sections with rest periods in between.


I have had this pattern for a while and normally only think about doing it when it is already Christmas time. Maybe if I can get started on the embroidery sometime this week I can get this done before Christmas :)


Today is also June 15th wich means for me reading chapter 15 in Proverbs...sometimes it seems like God is certainly using His Word to get my attention. I have just recently been very harsh in my speaking and this chapter humbled me to the core. I love this chapter of Proverbs because it always seems to speak to me and I always learn something from it. I love being in the Word of God everyday and it helps me to get through the day. We also used our Air conditioner for the first time in quite a while today, yesterday the outside temp was almost 100' and it got up to 87' in the house, even with the ceiling fans it was unbearably HOT!!! I do not do good in the heat so today Roger turned the air on for me and it was most comfortable all day.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today, may you have a wonderful tomorrow and rest of the week. May you find many blessings along your road in life....

Blessings,Joann

Created to be his help meet....

I have just recently started reading this book again, Created to be his help meet. I have had the book for a few years and when I first got it I just sat down and read the whole thing without really taking the time to absorb what it is saying. Through the counsel of a wise and wonderful friend I am starting to read it all over again with a completely different attitude.

The first part is entitled~

The Help Meeet

Chapter 1 God's Gift~

"A Wise woman doesn't take anything for granted. She is thankful to be loved and seeks to make herself more lovely."


"Do you wake each morning ready to make your husband happy and blessed, to serve him to the best of your ability-- to be his helper?"

"When you honour your husband you honour God. When you obey your husband you obey God.

The degree to which you reverence your husband is the degree to which you reverence your creator. As we serve our husbands we serve God, But in the same way when you dishonor your husband , you dishoner God."

My first time reading this book, I was very defensive thinking that maybe my husband doesn't deserve to be honoured or reverenced and then this time around this particular sentence caught my eye....
....because it is so weird to think that your husband deserves you as his help meet. But who said anything about what he deserves??


It is much more a realization that I need to do what I was designed to do and to honour God while doing it.


Character traits to work on ~

1) Virtue

2) Graciousness

3) Wisdom

4) Goodness


I am being honest here, as I always try to be...Marriage is sometimes hard work and if people say that they have the perfect marriage I wouldn't believe them. To be a good wife has little to do with your husband and so much to do with what the Word of God says about being a wife. Trying to live as much like Christ as possible but knowing that I am so far from that and that I have a long way to go all I can do is start every day with a prayer and do my best to honour God throughout my day. Do I fail at this, yes I do almost daily but thankfully I have a God who forgives and gives me the next day a new day to live for Him.

Anyone who would like to join me in reading this book you are so very welcome. I am reading it with a friend and we will be emailing each other our thoughts on each chapter. Things I will share here will not be the personal things that I will share with her but mainly my thoughts on the chatpers. Please email me if you would like to join me, if you don't have my email leave a comment with your email and before I publish it I will remove the email part.

Have a blessed day in the Lord, Joann

Updating.....

I haven't blogged in quite a while so will try and update what has been going on here at home.



Last Sunday I had a Bridal shower for my future daughter in law, I was so excited about it and put my heart and soul into making it just right. With Roger being out of work I had to do it on a budget, wich was challenging. Sara's (the bride to be)Mom Annette asked me if it would be okay to bring the cake and I said yes and told her what a blessing that was to me. She brought a beautiful cake and it tasted so good!!


Here is Sara with the cake~






The day of the shower came and instead of being worried about it being 100'+ I was worried about rain and cold. Who would have figured there would be rain on the first weekend in June in CA. The weather turned out okay but it did rain quite a bit during the bridal shower. Luckily we were under the patio cover and were safe from the rain. At one point I was thinking we may have to build an ark it came down so fast and hard :) Sara got many wonderful gifts and we had 14 people come. The day was fun and turned out fine. Sara came by our home on Thursday this week to pick up some pictures from the shower I had for her and her mom. We chatted for a little while talked a little about the wedding in October and then she left. She left CA friday to go back to Las Vegas (where she is living right now) and I thought all was well and good. I wasn't sure if we could go to the wedding in Texas or Vegas since money is tight but if there was a way I would be there!!!! Friday night I checked my facebook page and now Sara has listed herself as married to Mattie, changed her name and everyone is congratulating her on her recent marriage!!! What, when did this happen, my son is in Iraq, I talked with her on Thursday afternoon and here friday evening she is now married and she didn't even mention it to me, this really made me MAD!!!! I feel like she was lying the whole time. Now I know Mattie has a big problem with lying but I thought maybe Sara could break him of that. I guess not since she seems to have no problem lying either. First I was mad then I just got very sad and dissapointed that I had been left out. Mattie has done some not nice things to me in the past but nothing this important and sadly right now I am to the point of I don't care anymore. You think this catches you up with what's been going on around here?? YOU couldn't be more wrong......

Chapter 2 :)
I have been having some personal problems the past few month and had confided in two very good friends. I won't call them my BFF's because I am an adult and that is a teenage term :) One of them is a true sister in Christ and the other well just a good friend I have know for over 15 years. I emailed both of them and one of the responses I got just gave me a wake up call as to who is really my friend and who isn't. Both of these friends emailed back within a day and gave me some advice to think about, I was sick at the time and didn't get right back to them, it was probably like 3-5 days before I got back to them. In the meantime I get a second message from one of them about me not being a good friend and that all I do is come to her with my problems all the time and that I am not there for her. I couldn't believe what I was reading, this is the same person whom I have visited in her home with her many times and even though we lived very close to where she was living she never once came by my home, she moved I think 3 times and she never even let me know, I found out by either calling or going by and finding no one there. And she has the nerve to say I am not there for her. My other friend doesn't think this way, she knows that that is what friends do for each other, they listen and try to say the right thing and to just make you feel better.


Chapter 3, don't worry this is much more fun :)

I went to the library yesterday and picked up books I had requested. I love the fact that I can go online pick out books and request them and then just go to the library and they have them all ready to pick up sitting in a stack.

THese are the books I picked up~




When I was out yesterday I also went by the fabric store to look for a pen for transferring patterns, I usually use a black micron pen but since I am doing redwork I wanted a red one. I couldn't find a red micron pen but I found this and am hoping it works~



I plan on starting on the winter wonderland embroidery project this coming week. Lots of transferring to do..

Please have a very enjoyable week ahead, and I will try and be a little more consistent with my posting.

Blessings,Joann