The Ones about...Stuff Archives - Page 3 of 4

Thanks Hershey’s

June 5, 2011 by Jules 3 Comments

How many of you have laundry stories? You know, the ones that involve pens, markers, wallets stuffed with valuable recites, gum, pictures, anything non-launderable. Yep, I have even washed a diaper! For real! The hubs apparently carries them in the cargo pockets of his shorts...so much for going the extra mile to checking the top 4 pockets for the infamous wallet (washed at least 3x before). But today's shout out goes to Hershey's!

THANK YOU Hershey's Krackel Miniatures for making(apparently) washable and inpinatraitable wrapping! My load of laundry was saved! How anyone could forget a Krackle in their pocket I'll never understand.

Filed Under: Cleaning, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: candy, Hershey's Krackel Miniatures, inpinatraitable, laundry, pocket, stories, wrapping

The “Monica” Closet

May 31, 2011 by Jules 2 Comments

{reference for the title}

I am an admitted, recovering, HOARDER!

It's hereditary. Everyone's trash is my families treasure. Don't get me wrong, we don't save things like banana peels or something...well, unless we can come up with a great use for them. We are organized in our clutter. We have piles of scrap metal, appliances, clothes, non-perishable food, movies, furniture, cars, decorations for every holiday. The list goes on and on. We share our piles when someone is in need, it just might take a little digging.

I digress...as a RECOVERING hoarder- God Does call us to be a good steward of the things he blesses us with and I am NOT slamming my family or the billions of people who life this way but I believe He has called me, in my life, to live like the birds, depending on Him day-to-day to provide our needs.

This is our attempting to live a hoard-free life of "poverty", according to most of American standards, so that we may (Matthew 28:19 NIV) ^"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we have abundantly basic needs and even wants for our entire family."

The "Monica" closet may be under control right now but my next task it the guest room closet where I am storing all our things we intend to "get rid of" via giving to friends/family, a yard sale, consignment sale, and ultimately the good will.

These are just a few scriptures and or websites with godly insight that I've refered to before in our journey.

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

Joseph's Preparation: Genesis 41:41-57

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

David Platt's Radical, the book

Gospel Poverty mentality

That being said...I now attempt to organize every space in my home to make it comfortable and super functional as well as keep my heart in check and out of the "stuff mart". Because of the physical goal, just like in the '90s sitcom "Friends" Season 8 Episode 14 "The One with the Secret Closet", I have over organized and this closet is where all the stuff goes that doesn't fit into an already existing category. Just another area I fail in my life as I am trying to fix things my own. I will praise God in these times to because when I am weak He is strong. When I have the false sense that I am somehow "handling" things without Him the destruction and fall come as a result of my pride and haughty spirit (Proverbs 16:18).

~Confessions of a Recovering hoarder~

*To see the newest attempt at this challenge click to see the original post.

**Friend me on Facebook to see the 1st attempt at the "Monica" closet.

***Insight in to the life of true Hoaders

Filed Under: Being a Help-Meet, Cleaning, The Ones about...Stuff Tagged With: 31 days to clean, calling, clean, gospel poverty, hoarders, julie rothacher, organize, Radical

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

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

Here Turtle Turtle Turtle!

May 18, 2011 by Jules 4 Comments

I have had a ROUGH morning! Can't even really put my finger on why. One of those days where you wake up later than you wanted to, moved to slow to get ready before the hubs has to leave for work, ya eat a wholesome poptart and DP breakfast, the toddler and preschooler are finding all the "bad choices" they can to get lots of your negative attention, the preschooler has decided today is not the day she is going to become fully potty trained but instead is going to full-out poop and pee herself, lunch consisted of ham and cheese sandwiches, and all ya wanna do is scream then hide in the quiet pantry and eat oreos...melodramtic, I think not.

God decided to change my afternoon!

As both my girls headed upstairs for nap and the babe was still snoozing, I looked out my front window to watch a women shoving something out of her car into my side yard. She proceeded to poke at it and stare at my yard... I RAN to grab my shoes, threw them on as fast as I could, all with a huge smile on my face. As I hurriedly unlocked the front door I watched the car drive away. As quickly as possible, without bringing awkward attention to myself from my across-the-street neighbor and alerting him to my craziness , I wide-strided it across the yard in the vicinity of where I saw the yard-pocking women drop off something. I'm sure if that neighbor had seen me he would have thought I was a crazy eyed little kid looking to get into trouble.

I FOUND IT! That's right, it was a TURTLE!!!

Isn't he CUTE?!?! (Could she have sat it any closer to the curb?)

I snapped this shot, watched him for a moment (hunkered down like a preschooler investigating something on a field trip), and then, as if there were any other options, picked him up and carried him quickly over to my house all the while trying to figure out where I was going to keep him. hmmm... This will work until the girls get up from nap and I introduce them to our new friend:

Sooo excited!!! Eeeee!

This may sound just plain silly to all you sane people out there but here's a little background and what I feel God is trying to tell me on this HORRIBLE day.

When I was a child, one of the things my mom Always let us do was "save" turtles from off the road! We could be driving along, in a hurry to somewhere, I'm sure, and we would see a turtle in the middle of the road. It never failed, whether it was her idea or my brothers and mine, we would "save" the turtle by just moving it to the side of the road or on some occasions, TOOK IT HOME! I usually don't advise taking them home. Most of ours, if kept in a box, did not like lettuce, ripped up grass, and dirt we threw in there to create a lovely habitat for them.

Every time (and I DO mean Every time) I see a turtle in the road, to this day, I want to "save" it. I once "saved" a turtle during the 1st year of my marriage. One the way home, on my 45 minute commute, I found a turtle and naturally brought it home. When I arrived home, bearing my treasure and grinning ear to ear, my hubby just raised his eyebrows in confusion as he stared back and forth at me and my new friend. "Why?" he asked. I was taken back..."why"...why would I need a reason? That's just what you do. He proceed to explain to me that it was not a good idea to "save" turtles. Reasoning: danger factor- for me to be in the middle of the road just like it is for the turtle, sickness factor- wild creature, weirdness factor- it just is, and the turtle factor- this is not his home, wilderness is, they don't really eat lettuce and carrots, and so on. Ok ok, I hear ya. So I submitted to his God-given and obviously well placed authority. No more turtles coming home. I placed that one in our giant, treeless backyard, hoping it would live there and like it! I checked on him the next day and some how he'd escaped my fenced in paradice...boo!

This morning was different though! For some unknown reason, a random stranger in a white station wagon (also hold a place in my heart), cruised down my cul-de-sac and chose my yard of all the other well-wooded yards to place this little guy in. YAY! Our Father is good! There are so many little nuggets I could pull from this but today I'm going to walk away with: my Heavenly Father knows me! He knows my past, present, future. He KNOWS me! He knows me today. He knows I had a rough morning. He knows a silly turtle in my yard would make me smile! Tears are coming just thinking about how loving He is toward me. He's not disappointed in me. He's not upset because I lost my cool with my babes this morning. He isn't giving up on me because I wasn't seeking His detailed will from my life today. He knew I needed some encouragement today and He knows me so well that He places a turtle in my yard to jog a silly memory from childhood, renew my joy, and give me inspiration to interact more meaningfully with my girls this afternoon!

What kind of turtle stories do you have? I'd love to hear them. PLEASE share.

*side note: I intend on putting the turtle in our backyard while the girls Ooo and Awe over him, give him a name, have a lesson about adorable little turtles, and then set him free!

**UPDATE**

Pics of my girls spotting and chasing the turtle