Okay, so now I am ready to share some practical ways that I manage my home.  Some of these I am a pro at J, some I am still working on….always a work in progress!

I have noted some basic things here on a piece of paper, and even asked my husband what he thinks I am doing to make things work fairly well around here.  Mentioning my husband, and his advice brings me to my first, and I believe most important avenue to peace in my heart. 

Seek your husband’s advice. 

Ask him what things are most important to him in the education of your children, the keeping up of the home and your role as his wife.  A couple of months ago I had ANYTHING but peace in my heart.  I was really struggling with pressure from the world in the educating of our children.  I was feeling greatly overwhelmed by the tasks before me in ONE single day (I was still VERY sick with this little one growing inside of me) and I was struggling with anger as a wife (the anger was coming from pure selfishness). 

So, in my hour of desperation I begged God to take me back and show me where I took a wrong turn.  The answer was simple, really.  I was trying, once again, to carry it all on my own shoulders.  That evening I went to my husband, had a good cryJ and asked him for help.  He told me exactly what his expectations were for the children’s learning each day and explained which things were important for him to see done once he came home each night.

Some days my husband will add something he really wants to see done and I do my best to see to it that it is done.  This gives me such a peace….even if the dusting wasn’t done or the floors mopped on their specific day.  Knowing my husband, the King of our home, is relaxed when he walks through the door, gives me so much peace.

Do your very best to get organized.  This has not always been my strong point and I still find myself, from time to time, looking around my house and wondering when the tornado hit!  The good thing now is that MOST of the time we are keeping things tidy so when it does seem to completely fall apart, we can get it put back together in a day’s work. 

I do NOT do all the work in my house.  My children are a part of this family.  A loving family PLAYS together AND WORKS together.  Not only are my children to a point where they do much of the work in the house, but for the most part their attitudes are very pleasant when it is time to do so.  We have trained our children to do what they are told, when they are told, with a happy heart.  Just this morning I reminded my son that when he is doing his normal morning chores he needs to imagine he is cleaning God’s Kingdom.  We wouldn’t want to leave a filthy sink for our King, so we work and make sure it is done right.  Of course, there is still room for remembering that a 5 year old is NOT going to do the same kind of cleaning job a 13 year old will do.  We have to know our children’s abilities and then expect them to do their best.

SO, one of the things we do in our house several times a day to keep a tidy, peaceful home is chore time.  We have 5 chore slots in our day.  We have before breakfast chores, after breakfast chores, after dinner (lunch) chores, afternoon chores and before bedtime chores.  Because they are split up like this they do not take very long and our home stays pretty put together.  Keep in mind….not EVERYTHING is in tip top shape in our home.  There is always something to be done, but may not be done in a day.  I have learned over the years to be able to let some of these things go and still have peace in my heart.  I am just not a strict, schedule oriented person and I begin to feel overwhelmed if I try to make myself to be that way. 

I will share my most recent schedule AND our chore system in a later post.  We use a bright colorful chore chart that the children have loved! 

One of the main things is to learn to be able to relax and just let some things go.  I use to stress about cleaning windows, dusting high shelves and on and on….but I finally asked myself, “In 20 years am I going to care so much about those things….what will I remember????  Time with my children, or being obsessive about cleaning the things that CAN wait?”  The trust is the time will come when those things WILL need to be done but we do not need to stress about them.  It is best to make a time for these things to be done (and be flexible as well because…life happens!) and then put it to the back of your mind until it is that time.

This is all the time I have for now.  I will begin a part three hopefully later today touching on things like ‘being content at home’ and training your children to be an asset to the home. J

Many blessings to all!