Clothing Clutter
I have been noticing that clothing is probably the number one thing that overwhelms me and robs me of sooooo much time… (Paperwork is right up there too…) After reading this post, and making this commitment, I have been sorting through TONS of clothing determined to pass some of our abundance on to others who may need it…
Last night I grabbed all the various piles that have been sitting around the house (or had to be moved out of the laundry room) and sorted them into piles. I then began with my own clothes, determined to give away another 25% of it all. (Back in April I gave away 50% of my clothing, and I still had/have way too much!) It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be!
This morning I began sorting through the girls clothing. I took everything out of their drawers and closets and laid it out on my bed. I couldn’t believe how much they have! (Although most of it is too small for Twinkle Toes and fits or will fit Chiquita…) No wonder they can never find “something to wear,” I even had a hard time figuring out what was whose and who fit what!
Even though they have so much I am having a much harder time deciding what to keep and what to pass on. Everything is “just soooo cute!!” At first I was going to try and get rid of 50% of it all, but instead settled on 33.33%. For every two items I return to their closet or drawers I have been adding one item to the donation pile. It has been hard, but it is so freeing at the same time!!
I am really looking forward to living (a hopefully more organized life) with less!
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?
And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil or spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?
Therefore do not be anxious saying, ‘what shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”
For my Boys
My boys asked me to grab my camera and take a picture to share with you all… This is one of the reasons why I am not able to grow anything outside!
A (way too short) Visit
My hubby spent his 8 hours off the clock today driving home for a short visit. It was so nice to see him. Just look at the smile on our happy baby’s face! The morning went by too quickly, and hubby had to get back. It looks like we should be able to meet him for Mass again on Sunday morning. He looked exhausted, so please say an extra prayer for him tonight if you can. At least he has been able to take a couple naps each night…
You know, I really need to be careful what I blog about!!! Remember my Stressed Out Momma’s Daybook from Monday? Remember the graphic at the top, showing the leaky washing machine??
Weeelllll, hubby hoped to get a little laundry done before he had to head back, so I started the laundry and as we were sitting in kitchen visiting I asked Rascal to take something to the laundry room… He came back and said he couldn’t since the floor was covered in water. I ran to check and sure enough the whole room was flooded. This picture doesn’t do it justice and I was in too much of a hurry to mop it up to get a better one. It took all the clean towels in the house! :S
On the bright side my floor is now *really* clean, and my hubby wants to move forward remodeling this room — one of the two rooms we have left to do, the other being our kitchen — with the OT from this fire assignment. We already had prior water damage to the floor that has needed to be dealt with for awhile…
I am having a hard time figuring out how to change the layout, since I would love to be able to add a much needed extra fridge/freezer, as well as some cabinets. Hummm…. Any suggestions?
Little Flowers for St. Therese
Tonight the girls had their first Little Flowers meeting! They were thrilled!
A friend of mine tried to start a group last year, but found out she was pregnant (with our adorable new goddaughter) shortly after, so we only had one meeting. The girls asked all year when the next meeting would be, so I decided to organize and lead it myself this year, with the help of the other moms.
Tonight we had 8 sweet little girls and their mom’s, and we had such a great time, even though I was totally nervous, since I have never led anything like this before! It actually wasn’t the girls that made me nervous, it was all the moms!!! 😉 I don’t know why, they were encouraging me along the whole time… it’s just my personality.
We will be working our way through Wreath One. Each month the girls will learn about a different virtue and how to practice it so it becomes a habit. There is also a saint and flower for each month as well. Tonight was based on the virtue of Faith, Saint Catherine of Siena, and the Sunflower.
We started the meeting with a prayer and introduction to the Virtue and Saint of the month, followed by a short lesson, which I think was way over everyones the girl’s heads. (I need to work on simplifying it for next month…)
We then moved on to coloring a beautiful coloring page of St. Catherine of Siena, thanks to a very talented friend.
We then moved on to the craft. I had purchased the Craft Companion, but wasn’t too crazy about any of the suggestions… Instead I decided to have the girls create notebooks. Each month we will add a page to the notebook based on the virtue of the month, with a picture of the saint, flower embellishments, and quotes (or possibly copywork for the older girls).
I found an image online, and typed up the quotes for the girls to use if they wanted. They each got a sheet of cardstock, some green construction paper, some cardstock letter punchouts, and–my favorite part–a couple Martha Stewart dimensional sunflower stickers. (You can download my notebook page here.)
Here is the sample page that the girls and I created before the meeting:
I loved seeing how all the girls put their pages together.
I love how she added a little drawing of herself!
The other night I picked up some darling pink binders with the clear pocket on the cover, so we will be decorating those and placing each of the pages into the binder. One of the moms said that she has quite the scrapbooking stash and offered to help out with this! She even said she probably has some rose stamps that would be fun to use as well!
Next it was snack time. I will be assigning each mom a month to provide snacks, and one of the moms made the cutest sunflower cupcakes for the girls!
The meeting ran late, and we may need to start it earlier in the future, but overall we had a wonderful night, and one my friends even came over to visit afterwards!!! It is always nice to have visitors, but even more so with hubby gone! Thank you Amy for staying and chatting, it was fun!!
Frustrated…
As I mentioned before, I am working on starting a local Little Flowers Girls Club. Our 1st meeting is tonight, and I am frustrated!
I had a difficult time finding out exactly how many girls we would be having this year, and our local bookstore (which is allowing us to use their meeting room) didn’t want to place more than one order for books, so I am short materials for tonight.
Thankfully I do have about half of member’s guides, the leaders guide, craft companion, etc which I had ordered last year, in addition to the supplies for the craft I planned for tonight, but what I don’t have is a Member’s Guide for each girl with the coloring page for tonight, as well as the list of assignments for the coming month. We will be ordering a book for each of the girls, so I thought it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to copy the assignment/coloring page this one time. I assumed wrong.
I called the company just to make sure and she said no. They don’t allow ANY exceptions. Even if you have already purchased a book for each girl, you still can’t copy out of it. (We will be making notebooks this year, and I hoped to add the saint coloring pages. If we want to do this we will need to take apart the books, or trace the pictures.)
I understand the need to protect copyrights, and sell the books, but I also think that if each child has or will have their own purchased copy, that this should have been okay, and that you should be able to use the images for crafts etc. Oh well… On to plan B.
Well, I had better go, I now have to spend the afternoon typing or writing out the assignments for the month and coming up with a coloring page for St. Catherine of Siena, so half of the girls (who are mostly too young to trace themselves) will have something to do.
Things like this make me REALLY appreciate the publishers of coloring books like Fenestrae Fidei, who allow the original purchaser to make copies for family and classroom use, and talented women like Charlotte, who share their talents with all of us. I believe that God will reward them greatly for their generosity! I am just bummed that neither of them have an image of St. Catherine of Siena!! 😉
I’ll be back later tonight or tomorrow morning, and I promise I will be more positive then! 🙂
Update: Thanks to a very sweet friend, the girls have a beautiful page to color tonight! (As well as a couple additional options that were just emailed from another friend.) You all are truly amazing! THANK YOU!!!!!! ♥
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
This weeks Little Saints theme is “My Five Senses”… This afternoon the girls worked on learning the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. It was quite fun, and I thought I would take a second and share a few of the video clips. 🙂 (Just ignore my goofy laugh!)
Rascal wanted to show the girls how it is done:
A New Bouncy Chair
Remember this home video of Snuggles?
I sat Snuggles on the recliner for a second so I could vacuum, and then had to grab my camera! He is so funny!
The Fire
Photo Credit: InciWebA Good Day
Carrying Our Cross Daily
I just listened to a wonderful (12 minute) sermon on “Carrying our cross daily” which was just given on Sunday, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
It was very inspiring, and something I very much needed to be reminded of this morning. If you’d like, you can listen to the whole sermon here.“There are things that God gives us to, in a way, bring more sanctification into our day to day life…
…Sometimes God wants to give us larger crosses…
…So these crosses, apart from our day to day crosses, God gives us extra large ones if he sees we are able to carry them…
…but He never gives us a cross that we are not able to carry. And so we know the way to holiness is by making sure we carry our crosses in the best way possible…”
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