All the Updates
Life has been so busy lately, I haven’t had much time to focus on writing posts — so an update is needed! Lots has happened since the summer (time has flown by) and we are mostly settled into a routine of preschool and weekend activities. DH is at Costco now with the older two, and I’m home with Reagan, cleaning, sorting, purging… which leads to my updates. Here’s what I’m focusing on these days!
Whole House Purge
We’ve been in this house 5 years now, and added two children to the mix, and our STUFF has accumulated. I’ve been feeling more and more anxious lately about keeping things neat and tidy (I don’t mind a little untidiness, but I hate feeling like the mess is out of control), so I’ve decided to go through a complete purge/clean-out of the entire house, one room at a time. Inspired by some posts by my favorite bloggers (included below), I’m addressing one room/area per day and should be complete with the process by late November! Just in time for the holidays… when we get more STUFF. *sigh*
I’ve found these posts really helpful, and especially Laura’s free printable for Decluttering Your House in 28 Days!
https://andreadekker.com/full-house-purge-update-1/
Minimalist Mindset
Along those lines, I’m continuing to follow a mindset of moderate minimalism (how do you like that alliteration, ha!) — meaning that I recognize the tendency to get bogged down with a lot of material things in life, and in our household I want to encourage an approach that is less focused on earthly things and more focused on spiritual things.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…”
Matthew 6:19-20
This is a constant struggle, as we are surrounded by the temptation to gather new things all the time. Lately, even the grocery store has become a battleground for resisting the urge to buy unnecessary things, and teaching my children that we don’t need to buy more than we actually need. Birthdays and Christmas are coming up–which are busy gift times in our family with November and January birthdays–and so I’ve decided to follow the ‘Four Gift Rule’ going forward for our immediate family gifting. I have fond memories of Christmas growing up where we excitedly came downstairs to find a special gift waiting from Santa, and then sat together opening gifts one by one. Enjoying giving and receiving together as a family. Although I’m sure there were some hectic holidays when we were younger, this is the overarching memory of Christmas with my family, and I want this to be the tradition in my household as well.
The Four Gift Rule helps pare down the commercialism of mindless gift-giving, and focuses on the personalized needs and wants of the receiver by gifting according to a simple list (and it rhymes!):
- Something you WANT
- Something you NEED
- Something to WEAR
- Something to READ
I love the idea of using this little ditty to help us align our joy of giving with the joy of receiving, and teaching our little ones to truly understanding and appreciate what this means.
4 Gifts for Christmas: How to Make Your Family Happy With Less
Simplifying & Streamlining
My worklife has been super busy lately and, truth be told, there are many days when I’m struggling to keep up. Added to the demands of mothering and homemaking, this leaves me pretty stressed by the end of the day and feeling burnt out. I’m still referencing the short-and-sweet book Do More Better by Tim Challies to help better align my personal mission with my current commitments, but also seeking out resources to refine my business goals in the near future. I’ve been 100% freelance for 5 years now, and I feel a change coming on. Whether that means scaling back business hours, or maybe just refocusing the type of clients I take on, I want to be sure that my work is not overwhelming my family schedule or undermining my other life goals.
Here are some tools I’ve been referencing:
https://www.braidcreative.com/blog/business-coach-or-new-brand
I’m totally open to new resources for this process from other work-from-home moms and creativepreneurs — anybody out there??
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