Making Your Home a Haven

Yes, it is week three over at Women Living Well of

This weeks challenge has to do with removing stress, both from our homes and from our spiritual life.

Lets start with the home - Courtney challenges us to find a few areas that cause visual stress in our home (also known as CLUTTER!) Over the past few years, last year specifically, I worked really hard to declutter our house and get rid of all of those things that just took up space. This year I've focused on simplifying our family life.  I've done fairly well on accomplishing my goals but I'd like to show you a dirty little secret.  Well, it really isn't little and it isn't a secret because anyone can see it when they walk in my house!  Are you ready?

 This is my desk area.  Notice that there is very little space.  The basket and binders are my current projects.  (Notice I didn't even show you UNDER the desk!)   But wait . . . .

 This is my desk overflow.  Yep.  This stuff is also projects, paper, kids lessons and more that do not fit on my desk daily so my table begins to hold my "desk" stuff . . .until we need to eat.  Then I move it all to our bed . .. then I move it when we go to bed . .. it just goes in circles.

 That book shelf back there . . .yep, that is more "desk" LOL  It is something I've tried to utilize for organization but I just haven't made it work yet plus the kids like to pull the bins off of it that belong to "them" and open stuff up. 

Oh wait, he isn't part of the desk but he is so cute I couldn't resist HA!

There ya have it!  That is my problem!!!  I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make my wonderful roll top desk work for me.  Trying to keep it organized and clutter free just about drives me NUTS on a weekly basis. I just need more space!  I've thrown around a few ideas for additional storage but I don't want to add more furniture to the living room.  So, I need to really figure out some other solution.  I'm tired of the clutter; tired of moving stuff around; and tired of not being able to find things (Like a hole punch that I was looking for tonight and still haven't found!)  That is the clutter area I'm focusing on currently. 

As far as the spiritual part?  It is a simple truth - practice repentance daily - it will set you free!  You'll get rid of that spiritual weight you carry!  You can check out Women Living Well to read Courtney's full post and see a video she posted as well. 

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I'm loving . . . this fabulous fall weather.  Cool days, blue skies, and bright sunshine.  Not to mention the grey, rainy days that you only get in the fall! 

I'm loving . . . .working on the stuff for my sons birthday party on Saturday.  I'm not a huge party planner and many others do it better but I just have fun making it  . .. fun!

I'm loving . . . that even though we only went to the local farm stand to grab pumpkins (it was TOO cold and blustery this weekend to go as planned) my boys can't stop talking about the "Punkin Pach".  I guess seeing hundreds of pumpkins lined up in rows is impressive to them!

I'm loving . . . that my kids love to play together (yes, they still disagree sometimes).  Today, they were sitting on the porch, eating a cookie, and just giggling away. 

I'm loving . . . that we got to go out to eat on Saturday to one of our favorites.  We had planned a trip to the pumpkin patch/orchard but due to the weather, we took off and went to Toys R Us, just to walk around, and then to dinner.  Something we don't do often so it was great!

I'm loving . .. my family :-) 

 What are you loving today? 

"Banana's for you" Date Night Idea

Not long ago, I posted about the 120 Day Challange that I was working on completing.  As part of that challenge, I recently put together this date night for my Hubby! 

On the morning of, I put a cute little invitation in his Lunch Cooler so that he would find it once he started digging for his sandwich later in the day.  (To get your copy, click here - I tried to make it generic)

After the kids went to bed (they go down fairly early), our date started with making dinner together.  Since my theme (which you will understand why in just a few!) was "Banana's For you"  we made Banana Sour Cream Pancakes,  and Sausage Patties (Darryl ended up making eggs too because he was so hungry!).  Then, for dessert a little later we had good old Banana Splits!!!

Now, where did this inspiration come from??  For Christmas this past year, I picked up the game Bananagrams for Darryl's stocking and we have yet to play it! It was a hot item last year on lots of blogs!

It's a form of scrabble but without a board.  We had fun playing it and will play it again - it would be a great game to play with older elementary kids and above too.

Doesn't he look so serious?  He won.  :-) 

So yes, this was a successful date night - we had fun, got to eat hot food, and just hung out together! 

What dates have you done recently?