Recommended Reading

Finding Inspiration - Pure. Gold.

I’ve found it helpful when I see an inspiring photo or read an inspiring post to ask myself what it was that I learned from what I saw or read. It helps me have a take away from what I’m reading and instead of focusing on the skills of others and lack of my own skills, I try to figure out what I can learn from them–it completely changes shopping and blog reading and pinterest lurking–it’s ok to make it about yourself and what you can learn and apply. It’s really the only way to not be wasting your precious time.

It's so easy to be overwhelmed with the ideas out there, and think we have to have certain things - not true!! It doesn't have to cost big bucks, but whether purchasing furniture, clothing, or even kitchen tools, stop to consider whether it's truly the right pick for you and your family rather than immediately settling for what's cheapest/easiest. I know I've mentioned before about trying to bump up my style factor a bit - I still love Shari Braendel, and I've also been browsing the fashion stuff on pinterest a bit. Yes, it's full of supermodels sporting strapless dresses and neon eyeshadow, but I specifically have been looking at the way outfits are styled. Sweater layered over a button down shirt and a belt over top: I'm pretty sure that we all have something in our closet that we can use to pull off that look ;) (funny story: I did exactly that for church a couple weeks ago, and was staring at the mirror, wondering if it looked OK. I felt a bit ridiculous because it was SO not something I'd normally do. As I entered the building, one of the high school girls saw me and immediately complimented me on my outfit. Trust me when I say that hadn't happened before! And I received compliments from several other ladies, too - it was unexpected and admittedly an ego boost) I also like checking out jewelry (what type of necklace with what neckline, colored cuff bracelet with a mostly-neutral outfit, etc). I still wear scarves a lot, and there are all sorts of ways to tie them. But back to the Nester's post: I like Lisa Leonard's style, but she uses lots of layers, which is simply not practical when I'm in 80+ temps for the majority of the year... my big takeaway from the posts was noticing how she has a very clear color palette for the clothing, so when she does purchase something new, she can easily mix & match with existing pieces. Definitely need to work on that!

Facing Challenges - "The Enemy wants us to over commit. He wants us to...fail and give up when we try to climb mountains too soon." Just.keep.going. Baby steps are better than nothing (or even worse, losing ground!)

Quotes to inspire me toward better home management - "If housework isn’t the definition of ‘service to others,’ I don’t know what is." !!!

Teaching Kids About Money - good stuff to think about, and some suggestions. Our son in particular is really interested in how much stuff costs right now, and we've already had numerous conversations about using money (i.e. go to the Dollar Store and buy a few things that will probably break in a week, or save up for the Lego set that he REALLY wants). We're still debating about just how much to share with the kids money-wise: I don't think they need to know exactly how much Daddy makes, for instance, but I DO think it's good for them to see exactly how much we spend on electricity every months. Anyone want to chime in with how they were raised, or what they're doing with their kiddos?

Creative Consequences - this article may be geared toward tweens, but I found it helpful even though my kids are younger.

And just for fun: my brother is done here for work this week, and had dinner with us last night. The kids were disappointed that he didn't bring their cousins along to play with, but all was soon forgiven ;) And secondly, this is the inside of my junk drawer. I'm quite happy with the general function, and the white basket corrals the glue/tape. Our daughter had used the gluestick, and she did put it back in the drawer, but I nearly had an unfortunate incident when I reached for my lip stuff later in the day. May need to rethink that storage arrangement ;)