10 things that bring me sanity to my day

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topI wrote this blog post way back last year when I was thinking about blogging.  I was reading where someone recommended having a months worth of blog posts ready and waiting.  So of course I started writing before I even had made a blog design.  I realized now I do not need to do that, life enables me so much to blog about, its hard to contain it to just 5 days a week.  I wrote this to share how I was thankful for some material gadgets in my home:)
 (In no particular order, just material things I am very thankful for)

1.  Large 32 gallon trash can.

Sounds funny but having to empty our overflowing kitchen trash can everyday was not.  After visiting with a dear friend I saw her large trash can and the light bulb went off – what a simple and plain idea! We have never gone back, only thing I miss is a flip top lid….but I won’t be picky.

2.  Steam mop

 

with 12 people in our household, keeping the floors clean is a daily struggle.  After having 6 babies in the last 7 years, I have spent hours on my hands and knees hand washing the floors to make sure thy were all clean for crawling babies.  Then my wonderful visionary husband said there has to be an easier way.  After hours of scouring the internet, he shared with me about steam cleaning.  At first I didn’t buy into it, but after doing some research, I found that it was the answer to my prayers.  Perhaps the best advantage of all, is that hot steam vapor is a natural sanitizing and deodorizing agent without any chemical odor.

3.  Electric tea kettle

For a family who does not own a microwave, this has been a huge time saver for us.  We can quickly heat water for tea, coffee, hot cocoa, or oatmeal.  One of the greatest things I believe ever made.

4. My Google nexus tablet

I know not a “plain” item, and probably not a necessity for most people,  But for me as a mom on the go—-its huge.  Most of my day is spent nursing a baby, playing on the floor with children, and if I were to ever think of running off to my room to spend some time alone on our laptop—forget it.  .  I finally can do my bible reading plan for a year everyday, I make all my lists—because in our household if you write stuff on paper its bound to end  up as a paper airplane 🙂 , and I type my blog from it. Its small and convenient enough to hold while nursing baby or I can lie in bed and not disturb my husband. Again a wonderful gift from my husband, its awesome.

****actually I am going to change this to my Asus EEE PC notebook.  That is my favorite item.  The tablet the children enjoying playing games on, I like it for driving and watching videos and for quickly checking my mail. But when the children are all in bed, that is when I do my blogging.  I like my mini laptop so that I can easily carry it off to sit by a restless toddler or keep it stored on my countertop for whenever I can grab a second during my days:)

5. Magic erasers

Because someone is always bound to leave one crayon out and the 1 or 2 year old always finds it:-)  crayon is hard to get off of, but not with magic erasers, this has become a weekly chore in our household.

6. My top loading HE washer and dryer

Laundry, laundry, laundry, that’s all we used to do 24 hours a day.  With 3 in cloth diapers this was always a struggle to get done.  Last year my husband bought these and it was probably one of  the greatest investment in our lives.  Typically we only have to do 2 loads plus 1 diaper load a day.  Now that I don’t over stuff my washer—because there was so much to get done—clothes come out cleaner and I can still use my all natural homemade laundry soap.

7. Scissors

I use scissors to quickly cut up my children’s meals.  Whether it be a sandwich, burritos, or spaghetti noodles, I use these everyday all day.  I buy these for $.99 at Harbor Freight.  We use them for everything.  Cutting green onions, mini tomatoes, even pancakes and sausage.  It gets the job done quicker than knives.

8. hand cleaner

Before the hand sanitizer craze, my hands would be so dry after constantly washing and drying them.  With hand sanitizer a quick hand wash and I’m good to go.  Great time saver for little ones, unless there is visible dirt:-)   we have a bottle in every bathroom, by the kitchen sink, in the van, and in our purses and diaper bags.  One of the first “skills” taught to our children,  as soon as we get in the van, hands out for hand cleaning.

9. My chore organizers

Every morning,  as I’m serving breakfast, I gather up my premade chore cards for each child.  Everyone then knows what is expected of them and I don’t have to feel so overwhelmed that the house is a disaster.
****I still use these chore packs just on a more simpler level.  I do not have to worry about getting them ready in the morning.    You can read how I have made our chores manageable with 12 people.  

10.  Knowing that my husband has left me an iced coffee in the freezer.  A great surprise especially on those long days when I know, my husband won’t be home till late and I just feel like I wanna crawl out of my shell:-)

 

****its amazing how life can change so much in a years time.  I use to look forward to my hazelnut macchiatos from starbucks.   They would keep me going throughout my day—-life was very tiring and baby and toddler consuming last year.  After my weight loss, it seems I didn’t rely so much on caffeine to keep me going.  Now with my new fast starting, I will be anxious to see how my level of tiredness will be.  How much does a person have to rely on caffeine?  Hmmmm I will be figuring that out in the next few weeks.

What are the top 10 or 5 things that you cannot live without in your home????

New Years resolutions — a high rate of failure.

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resolutionsDo you make any New Years Resolutions?  Let me see if I can guess one of them….

  • lose weight
  • spend less make more
  • get organized
  • stay fit and healthy
  • live life to the fullest
  • learn a new skill
  • read my Bible more

Were any of those on your list for 2014 New Years resolutions?  If they were then you are not alone.  According to University of Scranton, these were part of the top 10 resolutions people make each year.

The sad part is that only 8% of people actually achieve those goals.  What is it about making a goal and sticking with it?  Why is that so hard?  We are human beings, full of flesh and selfish desires.  Why would we want to deny ourselves that chocolate dessert  or those new pair of cute boots or even that cigarette when stress comes upon us?  The reason is, is that we have never been taught self control.

Self control to deny ourselves the things which ruin our bodies and our lives.  Self control to say, “I don’t need that sugar filled dessert because it is only doing harm to my body.”  Or self control to say, “I really do not need another pair of boots, the ones I own are just fine.”  It is hard.  Our society says, its all about ME, ME, ME.  There is never any self denial.  It is all about satisfying the flesh.

You know my husband and I were watching a documentary on China recently and it talked about how they have tried to control their ever growing society by limiting the number of babies you were allowed to have.  And I thought, “What a horrible thing.”  My husband quickly interjected and said, ” We have that in America its called, fast food, cigarettes, and work.  Our society allows us to be self loathing creatures so that in the end we die of cancer, heart attacks, and disease from the choices that we make in our lives.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  God has made us to be able to do whatever it is we want to achieve.  You wanna lose weight, He will give you the willpower to do it.  You want to spend more time with your children, He will help you find ways to achieve that.  But it starts with us.  We need to say what it is specifically that we want to do.  You can’t just say,”I want to lose weight.”  Okay sure, but how are you going to achieve that?  You need to break down your main goal into smaller more manageable goals.

In my FREE ebook …A Virtuous Woman…Who can find her?  I have a chapter devoted to setting and achieving goals.  It is free by subscribing to plainandnotsoplain.com.  But for those of you who do not want to subscribe, I respect that and will give a smaller condensed version here.

One of my goals this year is to get back on track with my healthy eating and exercising. I was doing so well these last two years, achieving my weight loss down to what I was when I got married, but then I got lazy.  I used the excuse that my “free time” was for starting up this blog and I didn’t really have time to exercise.  Which in turn poured out into eating foods that I shouldn’t of been eating.  Thus the extra 10 pounds that I have gained back since losing the 70.  I am disappointed in myself for making poor choice after choice,  giving into my selfish greed.

I have a very dear friend who struggles with addiction to a substance.  I always thought, “Why would this person want to continue to ruin themselves with these addictive habits?”  Wasn’t it easy to just put down the addictive substance?  Was having self control really that hard?  Then I tried losing weight.  I realized the addictiveness that food had on me.  Me trying to deny myself the bag of Combos at nighttime was no different than the substance my friend was addicted to.  Their’s was going to kill them in the long run, and mine would do the same to me if I didn’t change my eating habits.  I have more empathy for the person struggling with addiction now than I have ever before.

I have horrible night time habits.  I can go all day and eat good healthy meals, drink my allotted water intake and stay away from sweets.  But at nighttime, when I pull out my laptop and start my blogging, I ALWAYS look for something to snack on.  I usually end up grabbing a salty snack to eat.  And I can sit here and eat a whole bag.  Not good.  This is something I am going to work on.  I figured what better way than with my viewers here at plain and not so plain:)

I have to have a way to achieve my goal.  I am going to set specific baby steps to help me get back on track.  They will consist of:

  1. Feeding my children breakfast of oatmeal everyday.  For those of you who don’t know my story, having a large household with many little ones I have resorted to feeding them Cheerios and milk each and every day.  But an hour after breakfast my children are ready to eat again, I want to start feeding them something that will stick more in their bellies.  They like oatmeal and we have it not as much as I ‘d like.  I have a huge 50 lb bag of it in my basement, but I continue to buy Cheerios for breakfast.  I am not only feeding my children a “filler” food, but I am also wasting money that can be spent somewhere else.  No more.  I need something quick, as I still have many little ones.  Maybe within the year, I can resort to making eggs from our chickens, but I am not going to make mornings stressful unless I have to:) Here is my update
  2. Back to drinking water, LOTS of it!!!  My husband bought me a new Contigo water bottle. Before,  I had a nice large plastic cup with straw, that I enjoyed, until it dropped and cracked.  This I like as it closes and will not spill. My new goal for drinking water will be the same as I did last year for losing weight.  Two in the morning before lunch.  Two in the afternoon before snack.  One before dinner.  Two before bed time.  That gives me 24 oz times 7 equals 168 ounces.    If I drink in between 6 and 7 of my 24 ounce cups of water then I will drink my weight in ounces.   Read why it is important to drink water.
  3.  Instead of making sure I have baked goods for the week, my goal will be to make sure that I have a huge vegetable and fruit tray no matter how expensive it is through the winter months.  I will save more by eating less “junk foods” and providing myself and my children with healthy choices all throughout the week.
  4. I will use my elliptical every day Monday through Friday, with grace for one day off if I am super busy.  It is down in my basement and we have a pool filled with corn for the children to play with as well as bikes to ride.  They will enjoy a half hour of music and playing while I exercise.  I am still trying to decide what time of day I want to do that.  If I do it in the morning time, then I am feeling rushed while trying to get their schooling done, but if I do it immediately after lunch, then they will have a nice “burn some energy off before nap time,”  but that means I do not shower until that time of day.  Which will take some getting used to.  Thinking that sounds the most logical.
  5. I am going to make dinner time my last meal of the day.  Ohhhhhh this will be hard, but not impossible.  If I struggle, I am going to allow myself a plain fruit or vegetables to satisfy my munching.
  6. I am going to participate in fasting for a minimum of 21 days, starting now.  This will be a kick start for my weight loss as well as a spiritual one to join the other millions of people who participate in fasting at the beginning of the year.  Why would I do that?  It is always better to know that you are not alone in doing something that is hard.  I want to experience the benefits from fasting that can only come from God.  My first two days of fasting will include only liquids.  I will then allow only fresh fruits and vegetables for 1-2 more days. Then I will continue on with the Daniel Fast.  Which is basically fruits, vegetables, oats, rice, and beans.  There will be no yummy tasting “extras.”  No breads, no meats, and no sugars. I have made a list for things that I want to specifically pray and fast about that are going on in my life.  Things that I believe God will honor through pray and “denying” myself things.

I will give weekly updates of my trials and hopefully not many failures.  It is all about accountability.  Do you have a bad habit or something that you want to see get better in your life?  Why not join me and others on a fasting crusade.  You don’t have to do what I do for fasting, do as you feel the Lord is leading you.  You can fast one meal, you can fast from snacks, you can fast from certain foods, whatever it is the method you choose, God will bless your obedience.

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