House + Life Updates

Mar 4

Written By

Hello there! Welp, were back baby! I have been so torn lately about posting new blogs posts on here because I feel like I'm not saying anything and trying to hard to fit in with the other fancy blogs. And the longer we go without posting the more daunting it feels to post....But I decided that this is our journal, we have followers, and we have Awesome stuff to share with the world. So we are pledging to blog when we feel like it, not on a certain schedule like the "blog advisors" say you should. We are also going to share random things that we do in our home that you can do too and were going to share stuff about our life. Because we do really cool things and you can't tell us other wise because this is our blog. So BOOM!

We have some REALLY exciting things going on, and we are promising to start sharing them SOON! But first here is a little update on what we've been doing lately and maybe you will gain a little wisdom from it :)

First, we got a really awesome new camera, so we are taking lots of crazy pictures and attempting to figure this thing out, so as we learn we will share info so maybe you will learn some tricks!

Second, I have been struggling a lot lately with coming home from work and becoming an amoeba on the couch and watching, yes I am admitting this, Vampire Dairies. I did an activity with my college girls small group and we tracked how we spent our time for a week and I was way disappointed with myself. So I have been working really hard to get in gear and be productive! Those are always my famous last words before a 3 hour TV stint. To combat this, I recently invested in Laura Simms Roadmap to Action journal/planner/How to guide.

You can check it out here: http://createasfolk.com/roadmap/

I've been doing lots of soul-searching through this to envision my "perfect life" and work towards that by getting rid of the clutter. The second book I've been reading that has me doing LOTS of soul-searching is The Emotionally Healthy Church,

check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/Emotionally-Healthy-Church-Strategy-Discipleship/dp/0310246547

I am reading this along with the other small group leaders at our church and man, it is rocking my world! I have been so convicted about the areas of weakness that I struggle with, like being lazy and being a bad listener (please don't tell the social work licensing board, they may revoke my license for this statement) but I have been learning through this book about how Paul viewed weakness:

⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:8-10

I am learning admitting my weakness is the first step in allowing the Lord to make me strong. So this week I have been practicing that and have been making progress! Every day I've been trying to do a little project or two and to JUST DO IT!! Isnt that crazy, that if I just get up and do stuff, I feel productive and when I feel productive, I feel energized and accomplished and excited about my day?

So here are a few of the small projects I've been tackling to make our house beautiful and our life less stressful and more productive and organized!

We decided we needed a vision for this year. We used this sweet idea from Creating Clever and made ourselves a Mantra. She gives a template, but I couldn't quite figure it out, so I just used a simple word document, printed it out and mod podged it to an old canvas I painted over (sorry mom, your topiaries are gone forever). Check out the tutorial here: http://creatingclever.com/the-aileen-manifesto

We used the other canvas to paint this sweet picture that we also live our life by on:

I'm still unsure about the colors, I may paint over the letters again, but we'll see.

Here they are hung on either side of the entertainment center:

Next I got out the craft glue, random paper, fishing line and clothes pins and voila, my craft room has a pretty little line to hang inspiration on!

Notice, the zebra box? Fabric + glue + cardboard box = Storage needs met.

Next, we have the sweet grocery list, that I downloaded from here: http://www.divshare.com/image/10728008-39f

I used my sharpies, made it pretty, laminated it and Bam! Reusable and pretty grocery list!

And the answer to my life's greatest problem: The monthly menu board! Such a great idea! We plan out meals for the month, make a grocery list from it and now we have NO question about what is for dinner and I only have to go to the grocery store about once a month! It makes my life soooo much easier! I highly recommend this!

Spoiler alert: We have some exciting things to share this week and that week with the arrows may have something to do with it!