I love decorating!  I love setting things out to create a mood in a room.  I love pulling out my Rubbermaid bins marked “Fall” and looking through to decide what to use this year and where to use it.  I love looking at how other people decorate and then using their ideas to create my own.  I love lighting a candle, making coffee and having people over after I’ve just redecorated.

But, I hate cleaning, especially deep cleaning.  I hate scrubbing the floor boards that get all scuffed up.  I hate cleaning windows.  I hate using the attachments on the vacuum to clean the corners and along the walls.  I hate cleaning the bedroom doors that some how get disgustingly dirty.  I hate cleaning the shower and cleaning behind the toilet.  I hate cleaning out closets and under beds.  I hate really just diving in and doing what needs to be done.

And not just cleaning, but I also hate the home maintenance that you have to do.  I hate scraping paint off wooden trim in and outside the house and then repainting.  I hate cleaning out the dryer vent duct work.  I hate pulling weeds.  I hate replacing or repairing things that have broken.  Pretty much I hate things that involve labor… I think I’m pretty lazy.

So what do I do?  I constantly only surface clean and then decorate to make it warm and inviting.  And usually it is pretty warm and inviting for guests (as long as I know they are coming).  But then if you look closely, you’ll see the layer of dust, you’ll see the dirty floorboards, you’ll see the unrepaired cracks and chipped paint.  Which, really those things wouldn’t be so bad, except that ultimately these types of things when ignored become bigger more expensive jobs down the road.  These types of things ultimately lead to my home losing its value.

I think I do that with my spiritual life too.  I decorate and surface clean up myself a lot.  I get a new outfit, I fix my hair and put make-up on.  I go for a run.  I talk about God, talk to God and read the Bible.  But I think it has been staying on the surface, safe level.  I don’t really get flat on my face before God and say, “Here I am, chip away at anything in me that is not worthy of you, repair anything that is not fully focused on you, replace anything that is not bringing you glory.”  Instead I’m saying, “OK, lets not worry about what’s down deep in my heart, let’s just take what’s here and make it look good.”

Ultimately I am not living fully surrendered to God.  I’m not sure what I’m scared of, maybe I’m not sure really how to… but I know that ultimately, like my home, if some of these things in my heart are ignored, they will lead to bigger problems down the road.  And these things will ultimately lead to me losing my value – not my value to God, I’ll always be fully loved – but perhaps my value in my service for God and my value in my relationships to others and my value in my quality of life.

And so I press on… and maybe this weekend I’ll tackle one of the deeper cleaning jobs in my home and perhaps I’ll stop talking about fully surrendering to God and really let him start chipping away…

The stink is gone!!! Remember last week’s dryer with the rancid smell (You can click here if you missed that story), well the scrub down with vinegar, the thorough cleaning of the vent line all the way from dryer to the attic and then to the roof, with Jeff on the roof, and then the drying of a vinegar soaked cloth to send vinegar lint up into the vent area seemed to do the trick.  But the funny thing is I find I’m actually still not letting clothes sit in the dryer for extended periods anymore.  Rather I seem to be folding them as soon as the dryer stops.  And I’ve figured out a new way to ensure the clothes get put away.  I fold them at the kitchen table and put piles at everyone’s seat.  I then tell them if they want to eat dinner, they have to put their clothes away first.  (We’ll see how long this lasts though… it’s only been 5 days.)

Also, when I was upstairs in the attic cleaning out the dryer vent line, I brought down my fall decorations.  I love decorating for fall.  I usually do it right after the kids start school, so I’m actually a few weeks behind.  But anyway, I use all harvest types of decorations, rather than Halloween so I can leave it up through Thanksgiving.  But as it gets closer to Halloween, I’ll stick out a few jack-o-lanterns too.  All this rambling, leads me to my question for the day (thanks to my friend, Carrie getting me thinking about it): why do stores and neighbors seem to think it’s perfectly fun and acceptable to decorate as if it was a scene from a rated R horror movie?

When I walk into a drug store, I really don’t want to have to block my kids from a bloody, evil-looking display.  Last night at dinner, my boys were talking about how they only want to go trick or treating to the left of our house because the houses to the right are too scary.  Now I know that in my imperfection, I allow my boys at a young age (thanks to having a big brother) to watch and see way too much that other (better?) moms don’t allow their kids to watch: Star Wars, Clone Wars, Transformers, Pokemon… So I’m sure there are a lot of moms saying, “You’re not one to talk.”  But I don’t make anybody else’s kids watch those things… well I guess my boys are walking advertisements for them, and they do have lots of battles outside, and probably have introduced several friends to them… but still I don’t think anyone really has to shield their eyes when they walk past my house… and I wish I didn’t have to do that for my kids when I walk by other homes.

But I’m pretty sure my ramblings here won’t change anything, so I’ll continue to distract and shield my boys’ eyes and focus on the cute pumpkins and gourds and apples and hay bales and corn stalks and signs that say things like “Happy Fall Y’All!”  We’ll go apple picking and pumpkin picking and riding tractors full of hay and running through corn mazes and trick or treating and have a great time and we’ll try our best to ignore the other stuff.  Happy Fall Y’All!

♥Becki

My dryer stinks… I mean really stinks.  If you don’t remove the clothes right away when you open the door, you are accosted by a rancid smell.  So I close the door.  Let the dryer spin for another 10 minutes, open it and take the clothes out and they smell decent enough.  Not april fresh, but not anything that will make the person next to you notice… at least I don’t think so… at least no one’s mentioned it to me.  (no, dryer sheets don’t help)

When the clothes are removed from the dryer, the dryer itself still stinks.  So of course I swagbuck searched (I don’t google, I search through swagbucks so I can earn stuff for free like Amazon gift cards.  If you are still searching on google, why?  You are just giving them the advertising money… click on the swagbuck box on the bottom of my page and check it out.)  Anyway, I searched the Internet for stinky dryer solutions and it appears I’m not alone, and it seems there are many different ways to approach this.

1. Wipe the inside of the dryer clean with vinegar.  Since the only vinegar I have right now is apple cider vinegar, I think I’ll wait.  (btw, apple cider vinegar works well as a fruit fly trap – just sit the cup out and have fun counting the multitudes of dead fruit flies floating… I stopped at 45ish)
2. Take out the dryer drum to clean out any lint or anything stuck in there and then clean with vinegar… um, thinking this will be a last resort.
3. Clean the entire vent line from dryer to the outside of wet lint and or dead animals – yuck!  hoping it’s just wet lint.  For us, this involves climbing around in the attic and getting on the roof and cleaning out the little pole thing that sticks up.  But Jeff and I’ve cleaned out wet lint before and never had this smell before… usually it just slows the dryer down.  So truly hoping it’s not an animal of some kind.
4. Change the electrical cord… not really sure why this would help, but apparently it helped a few people enough that they took the time to type about it.

I have a group of Penn State girlfriends that would get together for dinner on the third Monday of every month.  It was a great way to stay connected and also to get a night out.  We’ve gone through pregnancies, miscarriages, births, new homes, job changes, sending our kids off to school, homeschooling, and unfortunately moves.  One of the girls (the one who got us organized) moved to Michigan.  Another moved to DC and then this past month to Cameroon, Africa!  So for the past couple of years, our once a month dinners became twice a year or so.

Anyway, when we were meeting every month, we would take turns deciding where to meet.  One month, one of the girls, Tricia, decided to meet at one of those ceramic studios.  She reserved us a room, ordered pizza and brought drinks.  We arrived and I was overwhelmed at the choices of what to make.  One of the girls decided to make a “Special” plate.  Being someone who is not especially creative when it comes to crafts, but good at copying, I chose to do the same thing… in fact most of us did.  So we painted and talked and ate and laughed and painted some more.

Well now, 6 years later, every time I use the plate, I think of my friends and smile.  And I do use the plate a lot.  Here’s what I use it for:

• Birthdays:  The person of honor gets their birthday dinner served on the plate.  (Or sometimes, they get their round layer cake placed on the plate.)
• Guests:  Whenever we have company for dinner, I try to remember to set it at the guest’s spot.
• Something special at school: A school concert, good job on a test, getting a “Gotcha” Award (being caught doing something good)…
• First day of school: This year, I couldn’t decide who should get it, so I put 4 cupcakes on it – 1 for each of my boys, including my husband who is a teacher.
• Just because: I randomly give it out just because that person is special to me because they are my child or my husband 🙂 and because they are special to God.

Being that I have all boys and they are likely to not notice such things, I always point out when the “special red plate” is being used and why.  And I usually notice the honored person sit a little taller and smile a little bigger.  My hope is that my boys (including my husband) and my guests will know that I really do mean it, that they are special to me.  And I’d love it when my boys are older, if they’d look back at their childhood and remember the “special red plate”… and maybe make sure they had one for their own children.

♥Becki, imperfect artist

P.S. If you don’t have a “special red plate” you should find a ceramic studio, get a group of friends together and go make one.  (If you’re local, I’ll come too… I’m thinking I need a dessert size plate as well…) Or you can google “special red plate” and lots of places to buy one will pop up… although I think a home-made one is a tad more special 🙂

True confession: I get extremely irritable when packing and trying to get my family of 5 out of the door for a vacation.   Jeff (my husband) dreads the night before and morning of a vacation.  I’ve noticed that he tries to find the balance of staying out of my way and being helpful.  But I don’t know if I will ever allow a perfect balance, because nothing seems to be just right for me.

Once we are all in the van and we pull down the street, everything’s great.  I return to Dr. Jekyll, or is it Mr. Hyde?  Whatever it is, I become sane and nice again and expect Jeff and my boys to ignore the fact that I was just monster mom and monster wife.

What is it about packing that stresses me out so much?  I don’t know.  I usually can do it pretty quickly.   We have never gone anywhere that we couldn’t buy something that was forgotten and everywhere we go has laundry access.   So I don’t think it really is the packing that is the problem.

Sometimes it is a puzzle trying to make everything fit in the van, but we always do.  So that really isn’t the problem.

What is the problem?  I think it’s the expectation that in addition to getting everything packed and ready to go, I want to leave the house cleaner than normal.  I know that I don’t want to feel let down by my own house when I return from staying some place much nicer.  So I try to make our house as perfect as I can while packing and organizing and trying to get 5 people out of the house and into a van.

So I’m thinking I either need to let go of that expectation of coming home to a perfect house (or as perfect as my house can be) or I need to learn to delegate.   Well actually it is probably a combination of both, because if I’m delegating some of it to my 10, 7, and 5-year-olds, I definitely have to let go of the expectation of perfection.  We don’t have any trips planned for a while now, so I have plenty of time to come up with a new battle plan and attitude about getting us out of the door!  And hopefully next time, I won’t transform into Mr. Hyde, or is it Dr. Jekyll?  Whatever it is, it’s not fair to the rest of my family.

♥Becki, imperfect packer

P.S.  In light of not being too hard on myself… I’m reminded that we’ve had a history of chaotic events coinciding with vacation departures.  Last year as we are packing the van, I realized that I left my purse inside the unlocked van overnight and it, along with our vacation cash, my credit cards, my checkbook, a few gift cards, and some receipts that I needed to be reimbursed for were stolen.  Then earlier this summer as we were packing the van to leave for the beach, we noticed that our 7-year-old was limping and his ankle was swollen.  Apparently the fall he had the night before was worse than we thought.  So we had to delay our departure as Jeff took him to urgent care to have it looked at and get an x-ray.  Thankfully it was only a bad sprain, but still…

The other day I put a new pop-up drain, drain pipe, locknut, flange, ball rod, gasket, tailpiece, slip-nut on our bathroom sink… and it all works!  Since we are low in funds, I try to figure out how to fix things myself instead of paying someone to do it.  This can be a good thing and a bad thing…

You see, back before school let out for the summer, our bathroom sink’s drain was clogged up.  So I poured drano down it, but to no avail.  I then tried snaking the pipe, but was unsuccessful at getting the clog out.  I knew I needed to call a plumber, but I figured I’d try the industrial strength drain cleaner first – the one that comes with the bottle sealed in an extra plastic bag for protection.  I put on my plastic gloves that I use when dying my hair and put on sunglasses to protect my eyes and poured it down the drain.  After waiting the appropriate time, I went back for the next step.  That’s when I noticed my problem…  maybe I shouldn’t have used that strength cleaner on the type of pipes we have, but it ate away at the pipes and my drain basically came out.  Ugh!  So I stuck a dish pan in the cabinet under the sink and knew I should probably call the plumber.

But then, the dish pan wasn’t so bad, we’d wash our hands, brush our teeth and the water would go down the sink and drain into the pan.  Once a day, I’d dump the dirty water from the dish pan into the toilet.  It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.  So I never called the plumber, and that’s how we functioned for 3 months.  Then on Tuesday, I went into the bathroom and the floor was wet, apparently I forgot to empty the dish pan and it overflowed onto the floor.  It was definitely time to fix this for real.

But still being stubborn and not wanting to pay a plumber to do something I could do, I put all the pieces into a bag and went to our neighborhood True Value Hardware store.  The workers there were so nice.  They picked out exactly what I needed, showed me how to install it, and even offered for me to call over to the store if I was having problems and they would talk me through it.  I went home and you know what?  I did it!  The flange is attached to the sink, the drain pipe is attached to the flange and the ball rod, which is attached to the old clevis, which is attached to the lift rod that now works as well to pull up the newly installed pop-up plug.  (Can you tell I’m impressed with myself and am showing off a little bit with tossing these plumbing terms around?)  And apparently that industrial strength drain cleaner I used 3 months ago which messed up the drain to begin with cleared the clog, because the water is going down the drain.

Well, before I go hiring myself out or thinking God’s calling me to be a plumber in my next stage of life (see yesterday’s post), I’ll admit that it seems like something might be dripping a little, so I still have the dish pan in the bottom of the sink cabinet.  But I do need to call in a plumber to clear out the line coming from my washer because right now, the washer drains too fast for the pipes.  I tried snaking that line, but didn’t get it clear, and after my last experience, I don’t want to go pouring the cleaner down it.  When he comes, perhaps I’ll have him, double-check my bathroom sink handiwork too.

So, now for the spiritual connection… I was thinking about how long we lived with that imperfection of the sink.  The sink was working, we’d turn on the water and wash our hands or brush our teeth, and the water would drain out of the sink.  But instead of going down the pipes, it would go into a pan that we’d have to empty.  The sink was functioning, but not fully the way it was intended to.  And we were content to use it that way.  Then I think about all of my imperfections.  I still can function with them, but not the way I’m intended to.  So I wonder, like the sink, am I content to go through life with my imperfections, or do I want to ask the Master Plumber to help fix them?

“Not that I already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” (Philippians 3:12)

♥Becki, imperfect plumber

Much to my oldest son’s dismay and my middle son’s delight Target, (and every other store) is filled with back to school stuff.  I love markers for 88 cents and glue sticks for 20 cents and crayons for 24 cents… So once it’s all bought and the kids are back full swing into school, how do you keep all their stuff organized?

Overall I’m not a very organized person.  I can come up with great plans and get everything orderly, it’s keeping it that way that’s my problem.  Which, since I live in a small (1000 sq. ft) home, I really should get better at doing.  But one thing I’m happy with is the boy’s school stuff.

Here was the problem, we have no foyer – you walk right into our living room.  Our hall closet is very tiny and the boy’s bedrooms aren’t that big either.  So where should the boys keep their backpacks, library books, shoes, hats, coats, and all the other things they need for school?  Two years ago, I came up with the idea to have some type of locker for each of them.

I searched online and found exactly what I wanted but my wallet said no.  So I kept hunting.  Then at Target I found the perfect thing.  I got these cabinets that have an adjustable shelf in them.  Inside my boys keep their backpacks, shoes, coats and all.  But on the outside, I can decorate them and make them look nice and homey since they are in my living room.  I like it so much, and think that even if I had a larger home I would do something like that just to keep their stuff organized and in one place.  (By the way, from the picture can you tell that we have an insane amount of Phillies hats…)

Have you found something that works for you?

♥Becki, imperfect housekeeper

So this morning I finally got around to putting away a week’s worth of laundry.  At least it was summer laundry so it was only 3 full hampers of folded clothes.  As I was stuffing, literally stuffing, the clothes into the drawers I wondered why on earth the drawers were so full to begin with.  After all, all of the clothes that we wore in the past week were in the hampers – how could the drawers still have so much in them?

I am not a hoarder and I get rid of stuff fairly regularly.  I also remove the clothes seasonally and put them in the attic.  So apparently we just have way too many clothes.  Which got me thinking about how much was the appropriate amount to have.  How many tee-shirts does a 5-year-old need?  What about a 7-year-old or 10-year-old?  How many shorts?  Whatever the number is, I know its less than what we have in our drawers here.  Probably the stuff on the bottom never even gets worn because I think I’m cleaning the same clothes over and over again.

Maybe I’ll get motivated one of these days to go through the drawers and thin them out.  But if I don’t, I think I need to be way more selective about what I save and what I get rid of at the end of the season.  And when I pull out the fall / winter clothes I need to not stuff the drawers so full.

But then, what I need to do throughout the year is something I learned from one of my roommates after college.  Whenever she got something new to her, whether clothing, shoes, or purses, she would get rid of something she had.  (It was very beneficial to be her roommate!)  If I did this with all of our clothing, then perhaps I would not be in the position I was this morning of stuffing the clothes in the drawers!

But regardless of the space issue… it’s probably better to give the clothes to someone who can use them rather than have them sitting in our house only getting worn once or twice a season (if that).   But, here’s my problem… as I’m typing this I’m mentally going through my shirts  and can’t think of any that I want to get rid of.  Same thing with my kids clothes… because even if they only wear it once or twice, they probably looked really cute in them…  And what if I couldn’t do laundry for 2 or 3 weeks for some reason… wouldn’t I want to be prepared?  I have such issues… am I alone on this?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-31) 

♥Becki, imperfect housekeeper

I’ve said it before, I’m not a good housekeeper.  My clean is another person’s messy.  Hopefully its never so bad that you’ll see me on “Clean Sweep” or anything like that.  I’m not a hoarder, so you won’t see me on “Hoarders” either, but the tables and counters are often covered with clutter.  Toys, shoes, maybe clothes will be found on my stained carpet in the living room.  I like to have all that stuff picked up before I sit down on the couch at night to relax.  But there still might be dishes in the sink and the shower probably didn’t get cleaned that day.

I often look around and get frustrated and look at other people’s homes and wonder how they keep them looking so nice.  I’m trying to find little things/tricks to help keep my home nicer.  But I’m also trying to not be too hard on myself or my family.  So lately I’ve thought about things that are good about having an imperfect messy house.  Here’s what I’ve come up with.

1. When a friend spills an entire cup of coffee on the living room floor I can point to all the other stains on the carpet in an effort to help her not feel bad.  (True story)
2. When a friend’s son draws on the walls in my son’s room in permanent marker, I can point to chipped paint and other marks on the wall and assure her that its ok, that one day eventually I’ll get around to repainting.  (True story)
3. Friends with imperfect homes don’t feel “bad” inviting me over to them or feel like they have to do a major cleaning/scrubbing overhaul first.
4. When my kids spill something, usually I can calmly hand them something to clean it up without stressing about it.  (I say usually because if they were being completely careless sometimes I get angry at the carelessness.)
5. I don’t take our cat “to the farm” after the millionth hair ball.
6. It is obvious to me that material possessions are not what’s most important to me.

A couple of weeks ago our family of five went to see Cars 2 on opening night for $17.50 total!  That’s about $3.50 per person.  If it was 1981, that wouldn’t be so impressive, but for 30 years later in 2011, that’s a substantial savings.  How did we do it?  Living Social! www.livingsocial.com

Warning: this blog post is really an unpaid commercial for some ways that I’ve found to save/earn money.  I’ve had many people ask me if these things are legit, so I thought I’d write about them.  If that doesn’t interest you, no need to read on, come back tomorrow for a post that I promise will not have any commercials!

About a month ago, there was a Living Social deal for Fandango – buy 2 tickets for $9 total.  The tickets were good for up to $14 each including Fandango’s service charge.  I purchased a deal.  I posted the deal on Facebook – I know that’s annoying to some people, but I did.  I then used the link to purchase another as my husband Jeff.  So that was 4 tickets for $18.  But then, 2 other people used the link and bought one, and when 3 people purchase through your link you get yours free.  So that was 4 tickets for $9.  Then we bought one more child ticket for $8.50 for a total of $17.50.  (Actually, we used a gift card that we had for that, so we really only spent $9.)

I also purchased a $20 Amazon gift card for $10 through Living Social.  I buy all my coffee and ebooks through Amazon.  I’ve also started using Amazon instead of itunes to purchase music.  I made the switch because I earn Amazon Gift Cards through Swag Bucks.  (You can click on the swag bucks box on the bottom of the screen to go to the site.)  Since November, I’ve earned about $175 in Amazon gift cards.  (You can also earn merchandise, pay pal gift cards, home depot gift cards, maggiano’s/chili’s/south of the border gift cards, itunes gift cards and many more.  Amazon is just the best deal so that’s the one I take.)

Basically I click on swag bucks everyday and do a couple of quick tasks that takes a total of 30 seconds which gives me 5 bucks a day.  If that was all I did, it would take me 90 days to earn a $5 gift card.  But I also use swag bucks as my search engine and I randomly (usually twice a day) get awarded swagbucks from the search.  (Advertisers pay Google when you search on their site, they also pay Swagbucks, but Swagbucks share that with us.)  So that usually ends up being another 15 bucks (at least) per day.  So add that to the original 5 and it takes about 23 days to earn a $5 gift card.  Also if you join through clicking on my link, I get swagbucks when you search too!  But then there are lots of other ways to earn bucks – I usually earn a $5 gift card every week.   There are games to play, videos to watch, stores to shop at where you earn more bucks.  They have codes to find that give you bucks, and here’s the best one: if you purchase a Groupon through the Swag Bucks site than you get 160 bucks.

Groupon is a site similar to Living Social.  Basically you sign up for your area and they offer local deals.  You purchase the deal and then have it to use when you want to.  I’ve bought a $20 Old Navy certificate for $10, 5 Redbox rentals for $3 instead of $5, 5 Blockbuster Express Rentals for $1 instead of $5, bounce passes for Bounce U, $30 at Ruby’s Diner for $15 and many more.  (Remember that each of those I also earned 160 swag bucks so just for those 5, that’s 800 swagbucks.  A $5 gift card is 450 bucks so that’s almost 2 $5 gift cards.  Here’s my referral link for Groupon if you want to sign up for them to email you deals: http://www.groupon.com/r/uu22384671 – I include my referral link because I get $10 Groupon bucks when someone I refer purchases a deal.

There’s some other tricks I’ve learned too, but I think that’s plenty for now.  I’m taking my advertising hat off and hanging it on the hook.  Tomorrow I promise no advertising!

Oh… wait, let me put that hat back on a second… I have a good friend who just adopted a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old boys to add to her family which already has a 7-year-old and 10-year-old boys.  She posted on her facebook page that she purchased today’s Living Social deal for picture people – I know she wants to get a new family portrait.  If 3 people buy from her link, she’ll get it for free… so here’s her link if you’d like to get today’s Picture People deal: http://livingsocial.com/deals/72652?msc_id=9&ref=addthis-share2-18359904&rpi=18359904

Ok… seriously, hat is off and hung on hook!  See you tomorrow.