I’m participating in Kitchen Stewardship’s Spring Cleaning Carnival, Get the Antibacterials Out. Also a GiveAway

Look Here: Kitchen Stewadship

Kitchen

Okay  we are in the kitchen, for me my husband is out of town for the week and while I miss him terribly, I do like the fact that I can work on big projects because if I don't finish I can leave it and get up and work on it the next morning. So we are in the kichen and if you have a lot of time then lets tackle all the cabinets and pantry if not then just choose one or two cabinets or maybe just the pantry and lets get to cleaning. Don't take on to much at one time though because you don't want to get overwhelmed. Here is what you should do to get a good cleaning.

Lets say you are working on your pantry you should first make a plan just a simple one of what you want this space to be, does it hold all your food. Does it just hold certain items etc.

Now lets clean it out, I use my kitchen table I pull it into the middle of my kitchen and pull everything out on the table.

Sorry it is sideways I forgot to fix a couple of them so they are sideways, here is my table I have moved.

Here is all of my stuff on my table now my pantry is empty. Now you need to go through everthing make sure there isn't anything that is so out of date you can't eat it. Also if there are a bunch of things in there that you thought you would eat or your kids said they wanted but havn't eaten put it in a box to take to a local food bank.

Now wipe down all of your shelves and you might even want to put some new contact paper down to liven it up. I didn't do that because I am trying to do all this organizing without spending a dime because there are no dimes to spend in this house. So I know you can do it too. Don't stress!

Now you can start organizing and putting things back. I consolidated and I tried to containerized things that were alike. Also I want you to know that I did not spend a dime on this I hunted arount my house for bins or baskets that I was not using. So everything you will see in the following pictures I already had.

Okay ladies I want to see you spring cleaning challenge, maybe it was a closet or pantry or maybe your whole house! Leave a comment with your blog post if you have one, if not just let us kno what you did. The Challenge will be open until the beginning of April I will set a date soon! So start cleaning and posting.

Spring Cleaning Extravaganza with a Give Away!

Well last Saturday was the first day of Spring and what a wonderful day in Texas we had an inch of snow by sunday morning. Trust me I know, extremely crazy. Well in honor of Spring and global warming we are having a spring Cleaning extravaganza with a green give away! The Give away prize is some of my yummy Laundry detergent and Carpet deoderizer. You will have a choice of scented or not if you have bad allergies I can make it unscented.

Okay here is how it will work. Everyday this week starting with Tuesday I will give you a place to declutter and organize. Also I will put up some before pictures and after and what I did to get there. You will need to be sure to post on you blog about your spring cleaning project and post some of your pictures. Make sure to leave a comment with your blog addy, and if you don't have a blog make sure to leave a comment and let us know what you are doing for your project! I will choose the winner over the weekend! So lets have fun ladies.

You want to get a head start tomarrow we will be in the kitchen and I will post more tomarrow about mine! Pick some cabinets or a pantry and get to cleaning!

My Little Green Project Update!!

Okay so I told you I would give you some updates. I have some pictures of my little garden. We are still working on it I need more soil because all we have here in texas when you dig it up is clay so I have to get soil but that will have to wait till my husband gets paid. We still have onions to plant and I have my green bean seeds to plant and if I can find a cheap or used trash can I am going to plant potatos like laura suggested here at heavenly homemakers. You have to scroll down a bit it is called gardening 101 planting potatos in a container.

Here are my plants, that we planted and the yummyness in the jar in the back is a mocha coffee mix I knew all of you would want to know that.

This is from the top and if you look on the left close to the top you can already see a baby strawberry!

Okay the top two are my pots I am planting in I have one long one for Strawberries one long one for onions, two of the large round ones are for tomatos and the other large one is for Jalapenos. I also have a smaller round one that is for the cherry tomatos. Then the bottom picture is the patio the part where the chairs are I cleaned up and the pots went there.

Here are my children they helped plant well they mostly made more of a mess than anything but i was really fun. Also if you notice my fiercly feminine skirt for today. If you don't know what I am talking about read about why I am chooseing to where skirts every day here. This makes a perfect gardening skirt because it is a light weight denim that is darker in color so it won't stain. Also my little squirts are pictured my big squirt Madyson, and my Littl Squirt, Major.

Here are some of the plants that we have planted in the pots. It is very exciting.  

Madyson is running over to one of the tomato pots and she wanted me to come and see because she was telling me that one of them was growing, I made the mistake of telling her one day when she was complaining that it was raining so much that it when it rained it made the plants and flowers grow and she takes eveything literally. So I had just watered and she was sure they were growing already.

The Little Green Project!

All right Laura at Heavenly Homemakers is having a little green project again this year. I was sitting there reading and thinking well what am I really doing that is green right now. I try to do things around the house I like making my own detergent all though right now we are using some from the store that was given to us so I didn't want to post about that so I was thinking and then a light bulb went off. Of course, I am going to be planting my garden this week so I will post about that. We won't have a big garden for two reasons this is my first garden and second we are not so sure about tearing up part of our backyard yet because it is not that large. If things go well this year I may build some raised garden boxes for next year. This year I am planting in some very large planters I have. We will have Tomatos, Onions, Green Beans, Jalapnos, and hot red peppers. I am also going to try potatos Laura talked about planting them in a trashcan so I think w are going to try it. I don't have any pictures yet to post but as we get started on it this week I will post some! This is my green thing for the summer, I will save a little money and eat some healthy veggies! Make sure to Head over to Laura's Heavenly Homemakers page and link up your green project!

Do we always just ask for things?

Sunday Monday!
Sunday Sermon on Monday Morning!
Forsaken? What does this word really mean to you or me or anyone?

Well this is what Webster has to say about is..
1. To quit or leave entirely; to desert; to abandon; to depart or withdraw from; to leave; as, false friends and flatterers forsake us in adversity. [1913 Webster]

But really what does this mean to you when do you use this word? When referring to our children they have forsaken us or when we talk about out cat's that have pooped in the garage 15 times and just don't get that every time I tell them if you d this one more time, I am really serious. Or is this a word you reserve just for God. Our Sermon yesterday was about this. The title where is God when I feel forsaken. Well it got me thinking and yes I think for me I only have used this term in yucky circumstances and more when my walk with the Lord is not where it should be.

I think the pastor hit it right on the head when he said we usually use this term with God in three main instances obviously there are more but the three main are when our health, finances or relationships are in trouble. This is true we don't think well why has God forsaken me when our dishes are piling up and there are a million loads of laundry to do and there is absolutely no more time because you have to run the kids to 50 million different activities.

Why is that? Our pastor said that a lot of times in our life when we feel forsaken we run as far from God as possible when we should be running straight towards him. I know that sometimes when I have all the distractions of things that need to get done in the house or the yard that needs to be tended to that they take priority over sitting down and digging in the word for an hour or so that day. What am I doing I am running away and letting things get in the way when I should be running to his word for guidance in my days.

Back to the big stuff when we have things going wrong in all these major areas of our life or even minor and we do feel forsaken. What do we do if we aren't running away usually we are praying and asking or even begging for the Lord to just fix it. I know this because I know of many occasions I have done this. I have cried in my living room for the Lord to just fix it. I need this Lord and I need that Lord. I know you say well the Lord said to ask me for it and I will do it. Yes it does say that in John 14:14 " You may ask Me for anything in My name and I will do it." And yes it is even in red in the bible I am using today.

Here are a few verses for you to consider:

1 Chronicles 28:20 (New International Version)
20 David also said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished.

Psalm 37:28 (New International Version)
28 For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off;

Hebrews 13:5 (New International Version)
5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."[a]

Deuteronomy 31:6 (New International Version)
6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

What if the attitude we had when we felt forsaken wasn't to ask for all these things to be fixed but to praise him. Praise him for the things he has done. You feel like there is never enough money, instead of asking for him to give you a promotion or a better job why not praise him for the job you have thank him and praise him for blessing you and your family with a job because so many people do not have a job. When you go to the Doctor and find out you have cancer and only have two months to live. Instead of saying where are you God, why have you let this happen just take it away. Why not praise him for the time you have had with your family and the time you have left to spend with them.

Please hear me and know that I am not saying I do this all the time or that you have to do this but we should all sing the Lord's praises and I know I am working and will continue to ask for what I really need but at the same time I will praise him for everything he is doing or has done for me.

Challenge for the week: I challenge you to read Psalm 22 and spend some time meditating on it and get out a journal or what ever you like to write in and write down those things that you worry about or you feel the Lord may have forsaken you in. Now underneath it write God Cares About These Things. Now draw a line underneath and write down some things you can praise God for they don't have to be big things but what ever you feel like you want and need to praise him for. Now I challenge you to spend at least one hour in prayer this week focusing on praising God for all these things and really pour your hear out into this. We will get back to it later this week.

Am I really in Texas?

Well it has been so beautiful here the past few days I just had to praise the Lord for it. We have had a couple of days with no rain some nice cool wind and just enough sunshine you could play outside for hours and not die of heat exhaustion. Also it has been so wonderful to be able to open up the doors and windows and not have to run heat or air in the house. I so praise the Lord for allowing this weather to help all of us here in Texas financially.

I woke up to find toilet paper roll unrolled in my backyard. You have to love living close to teenagers. Also it has been quite cloudy this morning but as I am sitting here writing this I am listening to my dog bark at the wind and see the wonderful sunshine come in through my back door. It is so cool outside 51 degrees this morning. It looks like we are going to get some rain tomorrow so I think we will have to go to the park one more day while it is not wet and have another picnic.

I know it sounds extremely crazy but I just can not get over how beautiful the weather is and also thinking I better get my seeds started today if we are going to be able to grow anything this year.