Keeping the Home Link Up

I've really fallen off with doing Keeping the Home Link Ups, but I want to start again because it's something I'm passionate about. I really want to encourage Christian women in their calling as Keepers of the Home.

This week I thought I'd mention book I'm reading right now. I've read it before, but I needed to reread it again to be reminded of the importance of being a Keeper at Home. Passionate Housewives Desperate for God is an excellent book. Excellent. I can't recommend it enough.

The authors are stay at home wives, moms, homeschoolers and housewives passionate about serving God and their families. Throughout the whole book they examine Scripture and how God's plan for women as Keeper of the Home isn' degrading, but a high and noble calling that requires all our giftsand talents. These women seek to be last by humbling themselves and serving others and they encourage others to do so as well.

Do you have any thoughts, encouragement, tips or stories about Keeping the Home this week? If so, please share with us by linking up or leaving a comment!

Our Heavenly Calling

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kudumomo/ / CC BY 2.0

"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven
for our Lord God. We should acustom ourselves to think of our position and work
as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but
on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow."
Martin Luther

May God bless you today as you serve your family!

Keeping the Home Link Up

I've taken a break from a lot of the blogging I was doing "last year." It's been great to have take some time to think and try to organize my brain. It's January 7th and I'm still working on what I hope to accomplish this year. There's a few reasons it's taking me this long.

Keeping the Home is about more than just cleaning, cooking and keeping my children alive each day. I feel that keeping my home includes watching over it, improving it, organizing it, caring for it and the people in it (incluing myself!) to the best of my abilities.

But it's hard to imagine all that I'd hope to accomplish it keeping my home this year. There's books I want to read, start planning for homeschooling, I want to reorganize again and purge unused things, improve my relationships, work on crafts, be a better and more committed blogger, make income from home, improve my spiritual life, lose weight, become more disciplined and so much more! Just the thought of it overwhelms me!

I always start out with lofty plans and more often than not I fall flat on my face and any changes I do make usually don't stick! What a frustrating cycle. I'd rather not repeat it this year! I've decided that I will be making small, slow changes this year. I'd rather make one small change that sticks, than 50 big ones that fall by the wayside.

Each month, I hope to reevaluate my goals and my progress from the month before and make adjustments as needed. Here's what I hope to accomplish for January:

1. Consistently waking up by 7AM or earlier (I'm at about 7:20 right now)
2. Lose 6 pounds (this isn't going so well so far)
3. Healthier eating: cut out potato chips completely as well as the "whites" food group (white sugar, white flour, white rice, etc.)
4. Stay on track for reading through the bible chronologically in 1 year
5. Review, edit and obtain or request suggested read alouds for homeschooling
6. Pick another yarn project to start on
7. Find a special way each day to make husband feel loved
8. Do something special with the girls each day (painting, puzzles, etc)
9. Finish reading Life as Mom's Organizing E-book and start on a home management binder

I think that's enough for now, don't you? :) I would absolutely love to read any suggestions or goals that you're tackling this year. If you posted your goals on your blog you can link up below and I'd love to come by and check them out!

Tasty Tuesday: Recipe Dilema

I've often wanted to post more recipes on here. I love to cook. L-O-V-E it. But I have a problem posting recipes on here for a reason: I rarely use recipes. Even when I do use recipes, I rarely follow them. I use recipes as helpful suggestions, rather than instructions. I don't even follow the directions on the box of mac and cheese... I usually "doctor" it up. :) For this reason, it is very difficult for me to reproduce my results or pass them along to others.

For example, I made Turkey Soup on Sunday. Here was my basic cooking process:

1. Realize I have guests coming for lunch tomorrow and that I should prepare something
2. Open the freezer
3. Dodge the avalanche of frozen food from my "booby trapped" freezer
4. Find a weird block of cooked, shredded meat I believe to be turkey
5. If there's turkey, may as well use some of the misshapen bags of turkey stock in the freezer
6. Place turkey and stock in the fridge knowing full well they won't thaw in time for lunch tomorrow
7. The next day, around 10AM I realize I should do something about the impending lunch
8. Pull out still very frozen turkey and stock
9. Melt a hunk of butter in a large dutch oven
10. Chop an onion and stir it into the butter
11. Add garlic. It's already minced in a jar and I don't measure it (just to be wild!)
12. Find week old bacon in the fridge, chop it and add it to the pot
13. While the onion, bacon and garlic are partying in the pot, I try to chop up frozen turkey hunks without cutting myself or damaging my knife
14. Pour the half thawed stock into the pot (watch out for splashes from the hunks of frozen stock falling in)
15. Scrape the turkey into the stock
16. Search for fresh vegetables and find celery. Chop 3 stalks and add to the pot.
17. There are no more fresh vegetables to be found, so I search the freezer and find corn cut from the cob and frozen last summer. Not bad, add it to the pot.
18. Consider adding frozen scallions, but decide I have enough oniony stuff already
19. Decide I have enough vegetables after all (because I don't think frozen broccoli will be a very good addition)
20. Dump in what looks like a reasonable amount of little alphabet pasta I got for Christmas
21. Add 2 bay leaves, Italian seasoning and (as an after thought) some salt
22. Realize the pasta is soaking up all the stock and go in search of some canned stock. Find chicken stock I keep on hand for just such a situation and add some to the pot. Then add more. Then add a little more. Finally, dump the rest in.
23. Make some *amazing* grilled cheese sandwiches and serve with the Turkey Suprise soup

And that's how I made lunch that day. Luckily, it wasn't a flop and ended up being a great way to use up some of the things I already had on hand. Plus, it was a fairly healthy recipe. If you can call it a recipe. Wish I had pictures, but I was so busy not following a recipe I forgot to take some.

Do you follow recipes? What do you think of my Turkey Soup instructions? :) Linked up to Tasty Tuesday, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, and Tuesdays at the Table.

Keeping the Home Link Up

I have still been working on being content with what I already have and learning to be a better steward with it. Last week, before I took a blogging break, it was my goal to improve my kitchen using mostly things I already have by organizing and cleaning. It was a lot, but I did a little each day and was very pleased with the results!

Look how purity! I really like my mug hanging hooks, I think it looks classy. :)

The huge amount of stuff on top of the fridge was stressing me out.

Look at all that stuff! I need to remember how blessed I am to have food and all the wonderful things I have each day!

It is likely that this cupboard will be messed up again. Pulling everything out of it is one of my daughter's favorite things to do.


So, not bad for a week's work, I think. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of everyday work to keep the kitchen in order. For some reason, our kitchen gets disorganized very easily, so I have to commit to keeping it orderly each day.

How about you? Did you work on organizing or cleaning an area of your home? Did you repurpose something or learn in some way to be more content with what you already have? Link up or leave a comment and share with us how you're being a Keeper at Home!

Keeping the Home: Kitchen

I will be continuing on my journey of being a better steward with what I already have in an effort to be more content.

This week I will be working on the kitchen. I'm ashamed to post these pictures. I can't believe I'm putting my mess out onto the internet.












I have a lot to do this week! How about you? Anything you're working on around the house this week?

Come back later in the week to see how I'm doing and on Friday I will post a link up for you to join in and tell us how you've been learning to be more content, a better homekeeper, re-purposing things you already have, etc. Come join us and let's encourage one another in this home keeping journey!

Keeping the Home Link Up

Sorry I'm behind on this. I wasn't feeling very well yesterday. I have still been working on being content with what I already have and learning to be a better steward with it. This week, it was my goal to improve my master bedroom using mostly things I already have.

I'm not sure if I'd call this week a fail. I did go through my personal dresser and organized and got rid of lots of things. I organized the bookshelf and managed to clean up the office area a bit.

I'm not posting pictures because those aren't areas that you can really see the progress in. I guess it's just my own personal success. :) Plus, the master bedroom is a chaotic place where a lot of our living is done. It's an area with constant change and mess and more change going on everyday. I'm content with that for now. I'm glad we have an area where we can just live.

How about you? Did you work on organizing or cleaning an area of your home? Did you repurpose something or learn in some way to be more content with what you already have? Link up or leave a comment and share with us how you're being a Keeper at Home!

Keeping the Home: Master Bedroom

I will be continuing on my journey of being a better steward with what I already have in an effort to be more content.

This week I will be working on the master bedroom. I certainly have my work cut out for me. I especially want to sort and organize the areas that aren't so noticeable, like my personal dresser and the computer/office area.

Just because it's not seen regularly, doesn't mean it shouldn't be organized! Usually it's the unseen messes that bother me the most in the back of my mind, causing mental frustration. :)

I also plan to sort through the bookshelf, deciding if anything needs to be gotten rid of (on Paper Back Swap!) or if it needs to be moved downstairs to another shelf. Only the most important books should be in the master bedroom.
Those are the things I hope to accomplish in my home this week! How about you? What are you working on in your home this week?

Come back later in the week to see how I'm doing and on Friday I will post a link up for you to join in and tell us how you've been learning to be more content, a better homekeeper, re-purposing things you already have, etc. Come join us and let's encourage one another in this home keeping journey!

Keeping the Home Link Up

As I posted about, I was convicted about being content with what I already have and learning to be a better steward with it. This week, it was my goal to improve my closets using mostly things I already have... again. If at first you don't succeed...

Believe it or not, this is a vast improvement from what it was before. I was happy to get basically everything off the floor. It feels so much better and there's less stuff for my 16 month old trouble maker to get into. :)


I decided that I have far too many crafty things to keep on one table. I like having most of my scrapbooking/card making supplies in a carry all with wheels so that I can take it wherever I please when the craft mood hits.

Not bad, I think. I'm so excited that I get to move on in my Home Keeping challenge now! :)

How about you? Did you work on organizing or cleaning an area of your home? Did you repurpose something or learn in some way to be more content with what you already have? Link up or leave a comment and share with us how you're being a Keeper at Home!

Keeping the Home: Closets... Again!

I will be continuing on my journey of being a better steward with what I already have in an effort to be more content.

As I mentioned last week, I didn't quite get everything done with my closets that I had hoped to. I'll be trying to continue with them this week. I'll be focusing on the master bedroom closet (my personal closet)/craft dumping area .

We got rid of an older computer and now have a free table. I hope to put my crafty stuff on that table which will hopefully help me to organize it better than leaving it on my closet floor. :) I'm also hoping that having it out in the open will remind me to work on it more often!

Come back later in the week to see how I'm doing and on Friday I will post a link up for you to join in and tell us how you've been learning to be more content, a better homekeeper, re-purposing things you already have, etc. Come join us and let's encourage one another in this home keeping journey!

Keeping the Home Link Up

Closet Results:
As I posted about, I was convicted about being content with what I already have and learning to be a better steward with it. This week, it was my goal to improve my closets using mostly things I already have.

I was a little disappointed with what I accomplished this week. Some things came up and I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. I did have a few things to share with you though.



One of the best lessons of organization is that things can get much worse before they get better. When I started going through my closets, things were pulled out and began to pile up (as the pictures too clearly show). There seemed to be piles everywhere!

It's very easy to get discouraged and give up. Don't! Just keep with it and it'll improve over time. Little by little, it will get done if you keep with it!


The closets I did finish aren't exactly what I think is perfect. But I'm content with them for now. Sometimes we just have to settle or nothing would ever get accomplished! :) I plan to continue working on the closets next week, especially the master bedroom closet. It's still pretty bad. Lots and lots of piles. LoL.

How about you? Did you work on organizing or cleaning an area of your home? Did you repurpose something or learn in some way to be more content with what you already have? Link up or leave a comment and share with us how you're being a Keeper at Home!

Keeping the Home: Closets

I will be continuing on my journey of being a better steward with what I already have in an effort to be more content. Last week, I worked on my bathroom. I was very with the results. Every time I walk in the bathroom now, I feel happy and peaceful. :)

This week I'll be tackling the closets! This should prove very interesting because closets in themselves are for hiding messes, in my mind. LoL. That needs to change! No longer will I stash the closets with the junk I just don't want others to see!

The coat closet needs some work, especially with the shoes.

Blah, the linen closet is so difficult to make tidy. By nature, it holds the untidy.
The pantry above the basement stairs doesn't need much work, just a little organizing and sorting to keep things from expiring. I need to get better at properly rotating my food storage.

Eek! My closet is my far the worst. It's a drop point for basically anything. Crafts, clothes, misplaced office items, etc. I'm dreading doing that closet. It may take me all week just to do that one. *gag*
If I can convince him, I might get my husband to join in and clean his closet a bit too. :) What are you going to be working on this week?

Come back later in the week to see how I'm doing and on Friday I will post a link up for you to join in and tell us how you've been learning to be more content, a better homekeeper, re-purposing things you already have, etc. Come join us and let's encourage one another in this home keeping journey!