Making Your Home a Haven Monday: Refresher Series #3
Today's Challenge:
1) Refresh Your Spirit (5 minutes)
As I've been encouraging you the past few weeks, take a few moments to sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and quiet your heart before the Lord. Pray, read Scripture, and just encourage your heart in the Lord. Ask Him to love through you today.
If you have a chance, I encourage you to think of three things you are thankful for. Write them down and express gratitude to the Lord. Focus on the blessings in your life, not on the things you wish you could change. Choose to bloom where God has planted you! An attitude of gratitude will go a long way in making your home a haven!
I'd love for you to post three things you are thankful for.
STOP: Is your morning routine done? Don't move on to #2 unless it is!
2) Take Time to Plan (5 minutes)
In addition to writing out a short to-do list numbered in order of importance today like I encouraged you to do last week, I also want to encourage you to plan what you are having for dinner. Make it your aim to have dinner completely made or almost completely made by lunch time. This will make for a much more peaceful afternoon and evening.
Share your to-do list today, if you have a chance. Also, what's on your menu for dinner?
3) Do Something! (15 minutes or so)
Today we're going to focus on the laundry and laundry room. Light a candle, put on your apron, turn on some uplifting music, and get busy!
Your goal by the end of today is to have all of your laundry finished, folded, and put away. I'm usually behind on the laundry on Monday mornings as I rarely run much laundry over the weekends so this will be a great project for me to tackle!
For those of you with a laundry room or laundry area, take some time to organize and clean up this area. Wipe down your washer and dryer, check for socks and other articles of clothing behind and on the sides of your washer and dryer, and clean out your dryer lint.
If you're brave, post some before and after pictures of your laundry piles and laundry-room makeovers. Lord-willing, I'll post mine later on today.
Graphic from Art.com
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Would you like to join us in this "Making Your Home a Haven" Challenge? Just do one or more of the challenges listed above or something else related to "making your home a haven" and post about it on your blog. Come back here and leave your link below so that we can be inspired!
Labels: Making Your Home a Haven
posted by Crystal Paine at 9:00 PM
12 Comments:
I'd just like to emphasize the "clean out your dryer lint" step. I had purchased a kit to clean the dryer a couple years ago, and it was one of those projects that just kept getting pushed to the back burner. We FINALLY tackled the job last week, and we just have to give God the glory that our house hadn't burned down from the build up of lint. Our old home is a unique situation because our vent runs 12 feet long (through another room) to the outside, and we're thinking the previous owners probably didn't clean it out, but still... we ended up with 2 GALLON BUCKETS of packed in lint from the dryer and the vent to the outside. Invest in a lint cleaning kit and do this job!
How fitting that todays focus is laundry. I have been on vacation for 2 weeks with my daughter (2 yrs old and expecting at the end of July). DH stayed home to work as he will take time off when baby is born. Anyway I have 2 weeks of laundry to do and WOW is it a lot. I don't have a blog but I sure wish I could post the before pictures as my laundry room is overflowing into the hall :) What a challenge for the day!
I am looking forward to spreading the word about Making Your Home a Haven Monday. Please, keep it up!
Thanks for a great idea. My laundry room needs some major maintenance. There are two huge stacks of winter clothes that need to get put away, so I WILL tackle it today. And you can check up on me ;)
Today is a semi holiday here since dh doesn't have to work, so it isn't full speed ahead per usual. That said, I have cleaned out the fridge, loaded the dishwasher, bathed the kids, collected the dirty laundry...not a bad start for the day.
I take my quiet time in the afternoon, but three things I am thankful for are flowers, God's provision, and laundry warm out of the dryer.
I was working on laundry myself today - perfect timing. Usually I start it today, but then have it all over the bedroom on drying racks for several days. I am determined to not just start it today, but fold and put it away also! Three things I am thankful for today: 1. My two wonderful, happy, healthy children. 2. The joyful life I have been blessed with. 3. A safe, clean home to live in.
3 things I am thankful for... I decided to take a lighter approach to this. I am not always thankful for the little things that make my life easier. I am very serious and not making lite of this at all. I believe I should be thankful for even the smallest of Gods gifts to me since I deserve nothing from Him at all. So 1) I am thankful for the big kitchen table He has given us. There are 7 of us and to find a table that fit in our small dining room (we don't have an eat in kitchen) was a task. But God provided and now I love to look up and see all the faces around the table. It also provides a great place for homework and family worship. 2)I am thankful for my cast iron skillet. It may seem silly to some but here in the south corn bread really needs to be made in an iron skillet. I was without one for a few months and God provided a new one and what a fun gift it has been. 3)I am thankful for the zoo pass my mom gives us every year for Christmas. We get into the zoo free and it works at many different zoo's. I live in SC but my sister lives in FL and my pass works at her zoo and her pass works at my zoo. So when the cousins get together we always have fun stuff to do at the zoo. And we can take food into our zoo so it really is free. We just take our food and make a picnic and have a great time. It may not seem like much but we go all the time and it's free. These are 3 seemingly small things that God has given me that I believe have helped me "bloom where He has planted me". This is a fun series. I have enjoyed it. I took this challenge a step further and on our walk this morning we went from oldest to youngest and the kids said what they were thankful for. It was so interesting to see what their minds came up with. We went through the line up several times and they were thankful for everything from our military who provides our freedom to the shade from the trees. It was fun for all of us. Thanks
This is my first time participating in the Home Haven Monday. I'm so excited to be a part! Now, it's off to accomplish my goals!
What a timely blog! Laundry is a source of contention in our home. I have no problem getting it done. . I just HATE putting it up! For so long now I have had a bad attitude toward maintaining my home. It has become a source of consternation and conflict in my family. I forgot how it feels to take joy in creating a good atmosphere for myself and my family. I have felt for so long like it was "unfair" that I had to do these things after working all day, but this weekend I approached it with a new attitude, and began to actually feel a little peace and joy while performing these "acts of love in motion" for my family. What a difference a new vision of the same thing makes!
Blessings to all!
Rebecca
fourmyers.blogspot.com
My husband cleaned out our garage this weekend which includes our laundry area!! So since that was done, I decided to tackle a job I have been putting off for months...steam cleaning the carpets! With a two year old potty training (with lots of accidents) this was perfect timing. I think I will just leave out the steam cleaner for "touch ups" if more accidents occur. Oh and I used Basic H in my steam cleaner. It worked great! I cannot believe how filthy carpets can get. So gross. Thanks again Crystal for the hat tip for Basic H! We love it!!
I love the inspiration you give on this blog. I need to follow your advice on how to start my day. I will to that tomorrow and make it a new habit. Time with the scriptures at the start of the day sets a tone for the rest of the day. As much as I know this to be true, I don't do this often enough. Thanks for the reminder.
I love this feature, and have had trouble participating lately. But, in the midst of sick ladies - I did manage to tidy our laundry room some.
Thank you for inspiring me!
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