So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18
In my “former life,” I was a cosmetologist and worked at a salon. One of my male clients was a contractor; he had his own small contracting business and did both small jobs and large ones, such as building new houses. He was nice but he was not a big people person. He lived and worked in an area where people tended to be a little … high maintenance, shall we say.
As I was cutting his hair one day, we were talking and he was telling me about a particularly ridiculous situation that he had to take care of earlier that week—it seemed to him that the woman was being extremely nit-picky. He concluded his story by saying, “I wanted to tell her that it is just a stupid house! You eat there and you sleep there. It is not worth all this fuss!” I think I actually laughed out loud when he said that!
If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know I care about the house that I live in and I want it to be nice. I currently have a house cleaning business for my day job which offers me the opportunity to help others keep their homes nice and in a comfortable condition in which to entertain and relax. We take pride in our homes; we go to great lengths to make it reflect us and our own specific tastes, our own private retreat, and our homes are very important to us. But—. There are still times when I find myself getting all hung up on the details of a project in my house, or I find myself dwelling too long on something that has absolutely no importance in the grand scheme of things that I find myself repeating this man’s words, “It is just a stupid house. I eat there. And I sleep there.” There are bigger things to dwell on in life. We can so easily get hung up on the minutiae of life that we start missing the big picture. We forget that while earthly things (like a house) do matter in this life, it won’t matter one bit in eternity.
“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 3:2 NIV. I don’t know about you but that verse is a little more convicting than I would like for it to be. I can think of lots of things that I give way more energy and time to than they ever deserve. The new kitchen table won’t matter in eternity but the relationships built around that table will. Are we spending time exemplifying Christ? Are we investing time and energy building relationships with people, sharing the Good News? People are what matter and not the things of this earth.
Certainly the things of this earth are a blessing and we should be thankful and be good stewards. The condition in which we live will affect how we feel on this earth and you will never hear me say that it doesn’t matter. But, when we focus too much on the details of this life we miss the big picture. Eternity is what this life is really all about.
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How is your new year going? Are you sticking with all your new commitments? Or are you struggling? If you are anything like me and enjoy a quieter start to the year, where you slowly start to focus on things that have a cumulative effect throughout the year then read on for a few of the tips that I have accumulated over time to help me maximize some of my time and streamline some of the more mundane tasks.
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What Should We Have for Dinner?
If you aren’t someone who loves to cook, or doesn’t have much time in the evening to cook, then this can be the most dreaded question of them all! I am a huge fan of meal planning and prepping ahead. (Check out my Meal Prep post here.) Preparing meals ahead of time for the coming week or next few days is a huge timesaver, but even that can be daunting. Where to start?
A lot of people find it helpful to have a meal prep matrix, where you always have a taco Tuesday for example, or soup on Sunday. This gives you a rough outline to follow every week. If you like to cook but can become easily bored with the recipes in your normal rotation, try dedicating one day a week in which you find yourself with a little more time to try a new recipe. Or go to a local farmers market or specialty food store and pick up a new food item that you’ve never used before. Then look that ingredient up on Pinterest for ideas of how to use it!
Even if you have no desire to prepare a week’s worth of meals, try doing a little bit of prep ahead on the weekends. Wash all your veggies when you come home from the store. Cut up veggies a head of time so that they are easier to grab to munch on when you are hungry—having a healthy snack ready a head of time can save you from grabbing a less healthy option later.
Laundry
I hear so many people bemoan the never ending mountain of laundry and I have to say—I don’t get it. I’m sorry but I don’t! Maybe it’s because we don’t have kids yet so we don’t produce quite as much but I don’t think that is the case.
What I have found that works well for me is to only do laundry once a week. Time management experts and studies have shown that while throwing in a small load of laundry everyday can make you feel like you are staying on top it, actually ends up taking more of your time each week than biting the bullet and doing all the laundry at once. I do laundry on Friday and Saturday. I only have one rule and that is all of the laundry has to be dried and put away before we go to bed on Sunday—otherwise it will be sitting there all week!
Another thing people often do that makes laundry take longer is breaking their loads into smaller portions than they actually need to. They have whites, lights, bright colors, dark colors, delicates, heavily soiled items, towels, and sheets. No wonder they dread laundry day! Yes, like colors should be washed with like colors but your white shirts and whites towels? They can be friends; wash them together! Do your sheets and any colored towels in one load. Heavily soiled rags and work clothes can often be washed together too. And what about the socks that go missing and never seems to have a pair even though a pair went into the washer? Try washing the socks all together in a mesh bag. This is especially helpful if you have little kids with little socks. You can even attach a Command hook to the inside of the closet or to the side of your laundry basket to hold the mesh bag and then every time you have dirty socks to dispose of, place them in the mesh bag so you don’t have one more thing to sort when laundry time comes.
If you produce a lot of whites and colors, try having two laundry baskets so clothing gets sorted as it is worn. As far as the actual wash and rinse cycle, my husband and I find that throwing in a load or two before work on Friday, and then switching out loads as much as we can Friday night into Saturday really helps. Unless your water has a really unpleasant odor and a really, really heavy amount of metal in the water, most of your items will be fine to sit for six hours overnight if you throw in a load before bed. It will finish while you are in bed and be ready for you in the morning. Try it!
The biggest pain point with us is clothes that aren’t quite dirty. They’re too dirty to go back into the drawer but not dirty enough to go into the hamper. Ever had that problem? We were able to greatly mitigate this dilemma by using command hooks. We put a few command hooks on the inside of our closet and that is where “almost” dirty clothes go!
Tidy Up
One of the things that I think makes the biggest difference in keeping a tidy home is to do a nightly tidy-up. In her book, A Simplified Life, Emily Ley talks about how at the end of each evening she grabs a laundry basket and goes around and gathers up all the miscellaneous stuff that has been sprinkled throughout the house. Her family all gathers around as she dumps the contents on to the floor and then everyone is responsible to put their items away. When you do a nightly tidy up like this, your house doesn’t have the chance to get too out of hand. It makes it easier to run the vacuum or do some touch up cleaning that might come up.
Cleaning
Speaking of cleaning, I approach cleaning the same way I approach laundry—once a week! This isn’t necessarily true of a few things, i.e., wiping the counters and running the vacuum, but for the most part, I do my cleaning weekly. I like my house to be pretty clean; I really notice when it is not, but the other advantage of cleaning weekly is that it doesn’t get the chance to get super dirty which means it cleans easily and more quickly than if I waited longer in between cleanings. For an in depth discussion of how to establish a cleaning routine that fits your life and schedule, check out my post, How To Get into A Cleaning Routine.
Buy the stuff
Have you had the thought at all while reading this, “Oh that reminds me I need to buy…?” I do this. A lot. I just bought a runner for in front of our sink that I’ve been wanting to buy for over a year and just never sat down and did. There are lots of little things like this. Projects are the same way—sometimes we have big project we want to tackle. Sometimes we have lot of little projects we want to do, such as cleaning out a closet. We put things off thinking when we have time we’ll do it and then we never have time.
Often instead of needing a huge chunk of time to do some of these things, what we really need is to make use of a few little pockets of time. In her book, Better Than Before, author Gretchen Rubin talks about how she established a power hour to tackle some of the tasks weekly that she always found herself putting off. If you have several little chores you want to tackle, or things you want to buy, make a list and then the next time you find yourself with 20 minutes and are debating what to get into next, pull out the list and get busy!
Your Schedule
Are you happy with how your new year has started? Are you feeling bogged down already? Take a good hard look at your schedule and ask what really has to be there—not what always has been there, but what really has to be there. I’m guessing work, maybe a religious commitment, and possibly one or two family commitments are all things that have to be on the schedule. Double check yourself before another year goes by of you doing things you don’t really want to be doing while you delay starting the things that you really want to do.
In her book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, Amy Morin talks about the power of alone time and journaling. We get so crazy, so used to the constant influx of noise and content flooding our consciousness that we never take time to quiet our souls and decompress. Try taking 15 minutes to write down what you did in a day and to list one to three of the most important things that you have to do the next day and see if you don’t feel more at peace than you were with all of it floating around in your mind.
It is always my hope that these tips will help to serve you and bless you. I certainly don’t have it all figured out but these are all things that have helped us to simply and streamline our lives so we are better able to focus on what matters to us. I hope it will do the same for you! Here’s to a great 2022 for you!
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Then God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey.
Genesis 22:2-3a
You’ve heard me tell stories about my dog before; they are usually good stories but, alas, it is time for you to know that Rosie does have some flaws. One flaw—she doesn’t always listen. They say there is no such thing as a bad dog—just bad owners—and when it comes to instilling obedience into our dog, I’m afraid we may fall into the latter category.
Rosie listens pretty well—90% of the time. Usually when we let her out, she runs out, does her business, and when we call her, she comes racing toward us, jumps up onto the deck, slides halfway across, spins in place for a minute, then charges inside where she looks to us for a treat. But every once in a while, we will let her out and when we call her, she just looks at us. We can sound super excited; we can say “treat,” “breakfast,” “tennis ball”—in short, all of the magic words and do you know what she does? She lifts her nose in the air, takes three slow deliberate sniffs, her nose lifting a little higher with each sniff, then she tilts her head slightly sideways looking at us out of the corner of her eyes as if to say, “Make me.” Obviously we cannot do that because she’s a half acre away! It is times like this when I am usually running late that she starts acting up that I get some of my best praying in! “Lord, please just let her come. Please just let her listen.” You’ve probably had similarly panicked prayers,
Sometimes Rosie comes racing in. Other times, she turns her little furry tail towards me and races down to the neighbors—in the exact opposite direction from the house and I have to go running after her, and while dragging her back home, I am telling her how other dogs have to live outside all year round and if she doesn’t want that to happen to her .…
A while ago I was reading my Bible and it was the story of when Abraham took Isaac up on the mountain to be sacrificed. The Bible says that God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and Abraham got up the next morning and went. THE NEXT MORNING! Abraham knew what God was telling him to do. He didn’t procrastinate for three days “just to be sure” about what God was telling him. No. He got up and left. Right away.
There’s an old saying that delayed obedience isn’t obedience at all. Unfortunately, I think this means that my dog might not be obedient at all! What about us? How often do we hear the Holy Spirit’s prompting and we take time “just to be sure” when we know good and well what He is telling us.
I challenge you, the next time you hear the Holy Spirit prompting you to do something good, something that you just don’t want to do, that you not wait and instead act immediately. I think you will be glad that you did.
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Please remember that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!
I believe I have mentioned this before but January is rarely a month where I hit the ground running. I settle into the new year rather than jump into it. As someone who settles in and focuses on their new year’s goals little-by-little, I find myself still reflecting and thinking a lot about the past year; and, of course, these thoughts include reflections on all the books that I read last year.
Below is a list of several books that I read last year that stood out to me. These are ones that, nearing a year later, I still vividly remember and think, “Oh I loved that book!”. These are not necessarily new titles that you have never heard me discuss before—although a few of them are—but rather they are the ones that I most likely would recommend to friends and family so I am sharing them with you too!
Early American History
The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd
This book is set in 1739 and is fleshed out American history. Ms. Boyd took excerpts from the letters of the main character, Eliza Lucas, and true life events to craft this narrative. Eliza was a 16 year old girl growing up in South Carolina on a plantation. Her father was a merchant with aspirations in the West Indies; he left his young daughter in charge of not just one but all three of the family’s plantations. Having heavily mortgaged his properties in order to pursue his political aspirations, Eliza is left trying to make ends meet and to turn a profit on the plantations. To do this, she decided to try to raising indigo—something never before attempted in America. If she is successful, she saves her family. If she isn’t, the family’s future is at stake, including her having to marry, not for love, but to the highest bidder—making her a low dowry bride.
Revolutionary War Books
The Revolutionary War is my favorite time period from American history. In late winter/early spring, my husband and I got hooked watching a Netflix series called, “Turn,” about the spies George Washington employed to help defeat the British. “Turn” was based on real people and real events. The show doesn’t strictly follow the facts, of course, but it got me curious and did wonderful things for my reading life during one of the dreariest times of the year.
Rebel Spy by Veronica Rossi
This book is based on the events of the revolution that Washington’s spy ring help effect. This particular narrative is based on who the mysterious “lady” agent could be that was supposed to have played an active role in the Culper spy ring. The true identity of the lady agent remains a secret—in fact there are discussions as to whether a lady agent existed at all! The events of this book are true while the story itself is a work of fiction; it is gripping fiction indeed! If you are looking for a book with all the classic elements of spying, adventure, close calls and a dash of romance, this is one you won’t regret reading!
George Washington’s Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger
This is a fact based, fast paced account of what we know about the men in the Culper spy ring. To try and decipher what is fact and what is fiction about the Culper spy ring, I recommend reading this title as an introduction, not a conclusive study, of the spy ring.
355: A Novel, The Women of Washington’s Spy Ring by Kit Sergeant
This novel is closely based on the facts of three women who participated as information carriers during the Revolutionary War. I would say it is more of a portrayal of events than a story with a plot. Imagine trying to gather information on the British and safely transfer that information of the Americans—all while having the British living in your home and watching your every move!
My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
This was a slower paced book than I am apt to typically count as one of my very favorites, but I really enjoyed the book’s slower pace and ability to pull me into the events. I knew very little about the Hamiltons prior to reading this book so I found it very informative. This book also shed light on how turbulent it was starting out as a new nation—the nation almost didn’t make it.
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
This book will keep you on the edge of your seat with the storylines of three women who helped crack the German enigma. Beth is brilliant, one of the best minds to work on the enigma. Mab has secrets she desperately wants to keep hidden. Osla wants to be seen as more than a silly debutante. A few years after the end of the war, the three friends who worked on the enigma have had a falling out. Beth has somehow ended up in an insane asylum and she needs her friends’ help to escape before a surgery ruins her mind forever. A note from Beth reaches Osla and Osla wants to help Beth, but Mab is bitter from something that happened during the war. Will Osla and Mab devise a plan to rescue Beth before it is too late? What did happen during the war to tear this group of friends apart?
Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
This is a story that takes place in Italy during World War II. Nina is sent with a man, Nico, who she doesn’t know, to live under the guise of being his wife in his family’s home.
It is a rocky situation from the start—she is blamed as the reason her pseudo husband left seminary, something the entire family was immensely proud of Nico for achieving. Things start to smooth out but stress is always high as Nico’s exploits to help rescue Jewish people frequently take him away from his home … a fact that does not escape the notice of the Nazis who are stationed in their little village.
Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan
This is a fictionalized account of a real event, the sinking of a ship called the Pulaski that later came to be known as The Titanic of the South. Everly is a young historian who has been recruited to work on the Pulaski exhibit at the museum. Everly stumbles onto the stories of a few young women who were aboard the Pulaski and instantly becomes intrigued—what happened to these women after that fateful night? Everly falls into the research. However, digging up the past also means that she will have to dig through her own personal history and come face-to-face with working through the death of her best friend—something for which she feels terribly responsible.
I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.
Exodus 23:28-30NIV
Last week I talked about how my cat, Jester, doesn’t just like to have enough food in his bowl—he likes to have plenty! And the same can be true with us and God, we don’t want him to give us just enough—we want plenty! But what happens when we ask him for plenty and aren’t ready to handle His bounty?
In Exodus 23:29 God is talking about bringing the Israelites into a new land and He promises that He will drive the people of that land out before the Israelites and the entire land will be theirs, but He will not drive them out all at once. He gave it to them little by little, testing them, seeing what they could handle, and then slowly releasing more to them. How often do we doubt His promises to provide for our needs and to bless us abundantly. I can think of times in my life when I have wanted to take matters into my own hands to try to produce plenty on my own rather than waiting on Him and His timing. I think we have all done this and, most likely, will do it again!
Remember Abraham, the father of many nations? Abraham desperately wanted an heir and God told Abraham his prayer had been heard and that God would turn Abraham’s descendants into a great nation. Then what? Well, nothing. Time went on, years went by, and Abraham and his wife Sarah remained childless. So Sarah did what many of us would do—she took matters into her own hands and told Abraham to go into her maid, Hagar, so that she might conceive a child. Sarah’s plan seemed to work—until it didn’t. Abraham and Hagar’s child, Ishmael, brewed bitterness and hatred in Sarah. The Bible says of Ishmael, “He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man. And every man’s hand against him. “ (Gen. 16:12). Many years later, God came through on his promise to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah conceived, had her baby, Isaac, and the situation got worse. It became so bad that Sarah eventually sent Hagar away to live apart from them. To this day the descendants of the sons of Abraham still war against each other.
God had waited to bless Abraham and Sarah with children. We don’t know why. We don’t know if there was a lesson God was trying to teach them (patience?) or why God tested them in this way. But they stepped out of His will. They wanted to bypass trust and growing pains and decided to try to self-insure that there would be descendants. And they really messed things up.
Have you ever done some version of this? Have you asked for more responsibility than you were equipped to handle? Did you ask for more financial wealth when you were still struggling to manage what you had already been entrusted with? Have you ever tried to step ahead of His plan? What was the outcome?
We have just started a new year, one in which we no doubt have lots of ideas about how things should go. But before we jump headlong into all the things we want to do, and things we want to ask God to bless us with, let’s pause for a moment and reflect: How did we steward the blessings He gave us last year? What did we start and not finish? To what did He call us already that we are not being faithful to?
He is a wise father, He will give us what we are meant to carry and when we are meant to carry it. Not before, and not after. We don’t have to worry about his plan, but we do have to trust and wait on Him.
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