Proclamation: 2015, the Year of Organization

I do hereby proclaim that  during  the year of our Lord, 2015, I  will  organize our home and my life.

 I am posting this   with 

 here!

 because  this is  really a spiritual exercise for me...  getting my house in order.....  our home and my physical  home in which the  spirit of God dwells.

The last several years of my life I have been necessarily caught up in  caring  for and  interceding for my  aging parents  and their business....  as well  as  various and sundry  church activities that  have basically  drained the lifeblood from me.....  in order to attend to business I had to let  many things go.... myself.... my home,,,,  primarily..... I have posted recently   that my mom  passed  away right after Christmas,   while My dad  did  right before Christmas of   2013...  so this chapter of  my life  is closed and I intend a fresh start  in 2015!  My daughter and I  spoke  about  these things quite a bit while she was  here  a few weeks ago, and  since that time, I  have made  some  changes already....  I am cutting  back on  obligations   at church  a bit....  I will  follow  through with  my commitments I had already made,  but   there are  areas   which I have  cut  out  entirely  for a time. but the biggest change  for me personally  is the great satisfaction I am having  regarding   my   decision to organize the house.  I am committed to doing one    project everyday....   great and small.
Vocabulary words relatively new to me are:

Purge........... Donate............ Throw away...................Repurpose

It all started  with  the Christmas decorations....  I  had about4  plastic bins... after purging the   worn out, tacky, and  out of style/tired  items I  have  room to bundle up all of my Christmas linens into  bags and pack away in the bins as well... That  made me so happy to find   that  empty space in my  hutch and linen closet!

It seems that  suddenly I found I enjoyed throwing away  stuff... like Amanda   told me,   regarding books,   If you cant   imagine yourself reading it again... or ever.....   donate!  I have  donated  4 bags so far and have  another  bag  ready to go.  

Now I can    find  bookshelf space for all the books I had lying all around the house!

I also  found purging old Christmas cards  fun!    That was a very novel thing for me...I mean I  retired from teaching 11 years ago...  I hardly think  I could ever really repurpose  those any more!

 Getting the  house   decluttered  as we  are  deciding  what else we need to do to put it on the market  as we are downsizing....  I  really needed to  organize  my paperwork....

Ikea  helped me  greatly with  that.

 Yesterday's project was   clearing out   all of my   silk flowers  from the  basement storage room  ...  goodness  they  were  stuffed away in various  boxes,  bags,     a royal  mess....    This    project meant quite a bit of  throwing out  the sad and  broken,     donating   flowers  that  do not match  my home anymore.... ( I used to   go  Victorian with  pinks and mauves  about  15 years ago)   does this qualify  me  as a hoarder....  aha... no more!!! Now they are  assorted seasonally   in  labelled tubs  ...   that was part I.  The storage room itself needs more  decluttering and   arranging to make space for  new  shelving....  that will come a bit  later...

Today's project involved  something  Lynn inherited years ago from his brother...

he had been wanting to    get these pennies  in sleeves  forever so long...  because of the nasty weather  and our desire for a low key project today... we   did just that....

 We rolled  126 rolls of pennies.....  wow  $63.00... and grimy fingers.... yuck! I guess you could say  we  repurposed those pennies into  hard earned cash!

 I think  my daughter is delighted with this   resolution I am  determined to keep... this proclamation to  reinvent  myself  and  my home!

New Beginnings (continued)

Our wonderful pastor has begun a dynamic teaching on stewardship, which he defines as the measure of our lives in ministry, or more simply put, walking in the Spirit. We are to die to self and live under the Lordship of Christ. Pastor used John the 13th chapter to demonstrate that Jesus' act of washing the disciples' feet was not only an example of servanthood in humility, but also, we need the daily washing because of our life walking through this sinful world- our flesh becomes tainted and a daily washing with his Living Word will help us self evaluate our walk and convict us to make needed corrections as we grow in sanctification. Toward that end I am beginning a Read Through the Bible in One Year program whereby I start in Genesis and read 3 chapters every day and 5 on Sunday. Because I am a few days behind, I really need to step it up tonight and tomorr0w to catch up. I am excited because this will my first time to ever do this! Sad to admit there are books of the Bible I have never read.

New Beginnings

Well, it is the third of January and we spent a good portion other day pouring over our finances, contrasting income and expenditures for the past several months and establishing a budget for 2009. Very eyeopening endeavor! I am now praying that God will empower us with the wisdom and fortitude to stay on top of spending this year.
This is also time to resolve to become more organized in not only house hold managemnt, but in organizing the basement storage, clothing closets, photo/slides, pantry supplies, and begin to establish better menu planning and food purchasing! The time of flying by the seat of my pants is over. I really desire to improve in these areas.