Archives for May 2011

Another Dream

May 26, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Think I'm about to yard sale my 'dream'... Scrapbooking- just not practical n this season of life.

Can't deside...sort by -letters, paper, decor. -by theme -yard sale and trash pile. The task of cleaning my "home office" (craft closets sub for me) for the 31 days to clean challenge has become a spiritual struggle for me today. Torn.

I love the idea of having personally made scrapbooks and even enjoyed making the few I have BUT the desire to use the materials that taunt me from within my craft closet are just stressing me and bringing out my selfish pity party. It's sooo not fair that I have not time for myself. It's not fair that I don't have an organized space to keep my projects sprawled all over. It's so not fair that...you get the picture.

I am currently working on reorganizing my time. Managing each set of 24 hours I'm given should help me feel as though I'm begin more productive...right? I can't decide if I'm throwing in the towel on something that as possible or if this is something God is calling me to purge from my life at this time. BTW I have the same 24 hours all these other, overly productive, moms, and wifes have and been abundantly blessed with tons of random supplies (minus the books), a huge walk-in closet that I am currently using to house all my craft supplies, and my house is 3000 square feet.

Just a few stories in scriptures I'm sifting through today:

Abraham's Promise: Genesis 21:1-7, Genesis 22:1-19, Hebrews 6:15

Joseph's Preporation: Genesis 41:41-57

Rich Man's Store House: Luke 12:13-21

Got any godly advise or stories to share out there?

Filed Under: Cleaning, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: 24 hours, 31daystoclean, clean, dream, home office, julie rothacher, organize, purge, scrapbook, wash

Our Town

May 25, 2011 by Jules 3 Comments

Last Year's "1st Time Around the Block"

Last year around this time we were living in a different town, in a different house, with only 2 babies instead of 3. This was my original idea for something fun to activity play with my (then) almost 2-year-old. Masking tape on carpet + big blocks= roads and buildings. I mapped out the town while she was down for nap, using the tape as an outline for the roads and the Xed out sections where of course going to be the city blocks where building were. Silliness. Although it was a good exercise in sorting by color and then stacking/building blocks, it was not practical, especially for her age. She could care less about the "buildings" and it only made sense to drive ON the tape...not in between.

We did have fun though. "We" even used other toys in our town:

Curious George by the YELLOW buildings of course

Our King Kong on a tall tower

And every town needs a flying Superman!

My perfectionist self did finally let my kid play...hehe

A year later we tried this fun activity again.

This is NOT our "1st Time Around the Block"

- Stress - Expectation - Details - mom-input + a sibling= FUN!

bahaha Roads, roads, and more roads for all of our cars and little people. This is a product of a rainy day, 2 energetic toddlers, a desperate mom (who was trying to make lunch), and 1/2 a roll of painters tape. *Bonus: it's Still on the floor~ covered by the playroom area rug. I'm love'n it!

My 3-year-old (in June, as she'd tell you) daughter, Mags kept coming to the kitchen to tell me, "the cars keep 'getting' the little people." She had to help each, individual, little person go to bed so they'd be safe from the cars "getting" them (yeah, I know...I don't get it either). and Yes...entering the kitchen each and Every time she successfully helped a little person make safely to bed to announce her accomplishment. That's a LOT of little people to help in one morning.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: around the block, cars, fun, little people, masking tape, paint tape, play, preschool, roads, toddler

31 Days to Clean: Day(s) #19-21

May 21, 2011 by Jules 3 Comments

31 Days to Clean Having a Martha House the Mary way

Day 19 – Finding Joy in the Self-Disciplined Life

Mary Challenge: Do a study on words “self-discipline” and “joy” in the bible.

I used to consider myself a disciplined person. USED TO! I really struggle in this area right now. I know the importance of it both for a functional, less-stress life as well as for the Christian life. I really enjoyed the word study! Gonna be working on this one. I am still working on "fighting fatigue" by getting up at a regular time. Not Disciplined...

Martha Challenge: Bathrooms – Clean out and organize your medicine cabinet and closet. Throw away old cosmetics, beauty products, medicine, and junk in general! Update your first-aid kit.

Once again. LOVE organizing! Sadly, I still had a drawer in my dresser full of randomness from our move last year. You hear me...a stuffed full dresser drawer of stuff. My hubby and I had recently "purged" in loo of the book Radical but we were both surprised to find more things that could go.

Our medicines (except night time ones) are kept in the kitchen cabinet so we had already cleaned up, organized, and updated.

Day 20 – Time

Mary Challenge: Take an honest appraisal of your time. Write out how you are using the hours in your day, and keep a log; be specific. This is a good exercise to do, because once you can figure out exactly how you are spending your time, you can then pull the weeds of wastefulness and work towards a more productive and time wise schedule (which we’ll be talking about on Monday).

Plan on logging my day soon. I just haven't had time. Bahahahaha No, seriously though. I know this will be a helpful task. I so want to find those "weeds" that need to be tended to. I have the same 24 hours-a-day these other, much more productive, moms have. Gonna do it...I'll give an update soon.

Martha Challenge: Bathrooms – Wash mirrors and inside of windows. Wash window treatments and walls. Dust ceilings.

Check! The mirrors where a pain because they are those huge plates the full length of the counter tops. Ugg! I am very glad only 3 of the 4 bathrooms have tiny windows and no curtains (although I haven't cleaned the blinds)! As I've said before:

Confession: didn't do it (wash walls/windows that is)...yet. Upstairs time is scares at my house with 3 under 3. I haven't figured out a way to work upstairs while they are not sleeping in their rooms. I did wash window treatments and finally hung the ones in the girls room (rather than the sheets blocking the light). I hate washing/dusting blinds though...any helpful hints?

oh, and I'm 5'2"...ceilings...prolly never happening. Maybe the cobwebs in the corners with a broom ;o)

Day 21 –The Importance of a Plan

Mary Challenge: Take some time to prepare a plan for managing your home.

1. Envision the goal.

2. Formulate a plan.

3. Do the necessary work.

Martha Challenge: Bathrooms – Clean toilet, scrub shower and tub, clean floors.

Gonna take this time to brag on the handsome hubby: I could NOT have done the bathrooms with out his help. He did a little bit of everyting- scrubbed a tub, wiped down counters, ran up and down the stairs entertaining children, helped purge, took out trash, scrubbed some toilets...you get the picture.

I had fallen behind with my 31 days to clean and wanted to knock out all of the bathroom "Martha Challenges" all at once to get back on track and get ahead. Mission complete!

Master Bathroom

DANG! That's a bed full-a-stuff! PURGED!

Kid's/Hall Bathroom

The girls bath toys had gotten a little out of hand and were leaving puddles on the floor so we got a new ($1.oo) baskets to store some in to make rotating them out easier. I can't believe that giant pile of stuff was all in these cabinets and drawers. In each bathroom, we pulled everything out and only put basics back in. I am also trying to retrain myself to fold the towels different from I was trained as a child so they will fit flatter, higher, and more stable in these wide cabinets.

Guest Bathroom

I have always tried to provide essentials that an overnight guest might have forgotten or that would make their stay more comfortable. The baskets in the after picture are old baskets I had in a closet that I spray painted black, along with lots of other beat up ones, so they would all match.

Who's ready to visit??? We're ready to host!

What makes you feel comfortable at someones house, over night or just for the afternoon?

Filed Under: Cleaning Tagged With: 31 Days to Clean Sarah Mae Julie Rothacher Bathrooms Clean Wash Walls Tubs Tiolets Windows Hubby

A Journey of God’s Goodness

May 21, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

Today's post is a guest post from my amazing Hubs, Matt Rothacher!

A journey of God’s goodness

When guests come to our house I often find myself telling various length versions of how we came to reside in 5 Concord Drive, and my wife asked me to share one of those versions here (she was vague on the length so if this gets really long, she brought this upon herself)…

About a year ago my lovely wife and I began to feel that God was moving us into a new place of ministry and, as with any move, perhaps the most important facet is where you will live. My bride loves looking at different houses and so anytime a new church would contact us it would free her up to scour the internet looking for our next home. Now, I’m not as big of a house enthusiast as my wife, but I did get excited to search for our next abode, so I helped in the internet hunt. As I did, I stumbled across an enormous house in the area of town we were looking for a price well below the norm. The house was listed on multiple sites, but the majority of those only had a single picture of the outside. With much effort, I found the one site with pictures of the inside. The aesthetic condition of the inside appeared to be a big part of why it was priced where it was, and I set my heart on it.

To understand the whole picture of this gift I have to let you in on what God was doing in me apart from just relocate. For weeks, prior to beginning the interview process, my emotions had been going haywire. I would find myself tearing up when watching the Biggest Loser, which isn’t totally abnormal but I was crying when they’d step on the scale before any emotional twist came. It was always the same- I felt the need for the emotional release and tears would start to come out and then it was if someone just shut it off and the fullness would remain. Then God clued me in on what was going on.

I was sitting in the initial interview meeting with the staff of our new church, and noticed both of them using iPhones which of course set off my “I want one of those” rants, and they assured me that all staff received an iPhone. I couldn’t tell you anything else about that meeting after that but I came home telling my wife all about the iPhone and little else about the church. This caused me to stop and ask God why I was so excited about a silly phone. What I found is something I’m not proud of; I had lost my faith in God’s goodness towards me and my life. Now I could with great confidence and belief tell you that God desired to give you the desires of your heart, I just had become jaded to the fact that He cared about my desires. Or rather that my desires just never matched His for my life.

This poor thinking was a direct result of the birth of my first child, Maggie. I, like most men, really wanted a boy (for the record I would not trade my Maggie for a thousand boys) and the entire pregnancy I wanted this baby to be a boy. I knew though, from the very beginning, that she was not a boy. We didn’t find out the sex until her birth but I knew. I knew because I wanted a boy and therefore God would not give one to me. It was a horrible image of God, I knew this, but it was my image of Him. Apparently it was set in place almost two years before I realized it bothered God even more than it bothered me. So back to the iPhone and my question, “why this phone was so exciting?” God’s answer to my question was one that spoke healing into my heart. “I am going to prove my goodness to you through this move. I want to give you the desires of your heart even the ones as small and seemingly insignificant as an iPhone.”

I mentioned that the house was already listed well below average, so much so that you looked at the price, and then at the square footage and concluded: problem. Something’s gotta be wrong with it. We were sure that there was probably something wrong with the foundation and clearly the interior needed some immediate attention, but I loved it and began asking God to give it to me at a price our family could afford. We made an offer $25,000.00 below the asking price, contingent on there not being foundation damage, and they took it! Our home inspection found nothing wrong with the foundation at all, which came as shock to everyone but my wife and I. The price of the house versus the size of the house was so unbelievable to the bank financing our loan that they sent their own inspector and made a structural engineer come out to look at it; it passed again! Every step of the move God showered His goodness upon me with the house being the second biggest blessing of it. God capped off our move with a completely unexpected blessing. His name is Benjamin and he is the son of my right hand. My God gives the best gifts; he truly cares about the desires of His children’s heart!

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” –Jesus (Matthew 7:11)

*To learn more about My handsome hubby or to read Matt's blog click here.

Filed Under: Being a Help-Meet, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: 31daystoclean, desires, God is Good, home, iPhone, journey, julie rothacher, matt rothacher, Matthew 7:11

“I got Seberal fings to do today!”

May 19, 2011 by Jules Leave a Comment

"Maggie, you are supposed to be at the table for breakfast," I remind my (almost) 3-year-old this morning as I came downstairs with her little sister.

She boldly announces to me from her playroom, "Mamma, I got Seberal things to do today!" She continues with her "list" as she reluctantly follows me into the dinning room, "I got to Play wit my rug; get dressed, take a nap, get a pencil, get up, eat breakfast, go back to nap, go to Izzie's house (her sister). I got seberal fings to do in my kitchen."

Crack'n me UP!
"Be careful little eyes what you see (read). Be careful little ears what you hear. Be careful little feet where you go." My prayer that I will breathe life into children daily, not tearing them down. They not only repeat, verbatim, words and phrases we use or read to them but also quickly pick up on and reproduce attitudes, moods, and concepts being display before them. This "concept" has not only come from, I'm sure, me and my crazy "to-dos" but also from a simple silly book in our home (from my hub's childhood), "Frog and Toad Together" by Arnold Lobel.

Even better than this...she's got a shadow who is watching my every move AND her big sis!