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Day 5 Before and After

Our happy kitchen window before...

Our happy kitchen window....a little happier

I loved the encouragement over priorities in the Mary Challenge For my 5 priorities I have #1 God

#2 My Husband

#3 My Children

#4 My Home

My Ministry

Day 4 After pictures

Here is the microwave oven and our conventional oven. My husband gets the reward for cleaning the oven. I sprayed it and when it came time to wiping it out I was working and Mr E cleaned it out for me!!!

microwave inside

oven inside

Glad that's over!!

Day 4-Before pictures

Day 3- After Pictures

Day 3- Before pictures

Here are the before pictures of the cabinets. I have completed the challenge but the kitchen is too dark to take after pictures. I will take them in the morning and post them then. Happy Fourth!

Day 2

The Mary Challenge was so precious! The Martha Challenge took about 1 1/2 hours. i faced our fridge...

I removed all of the food, shelves and drawers and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. And Voila!!!

Day 1 Home Challenge

I completed the first day yesterday. I wrote out a Mission statement to focus my heart. If you can't read it here it is in print: I want to make our home a haven so: -my family can rest and be blessed. Mike can be encouraged and recharge. he can inspire and be inspired. -my children can grow in grace and love to flourish in this world as faith-filled members that are well equipped for all God has for them to do. -we can glorify God in all that we do. A noble woman watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Prov 31:27 She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for the task. Prov 31:17 God is able to make all grace abound in you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 1 Cor 9:8

Clean Start

I love new beginnings. Whether it is a new week, new month, new year or a new season in life. We have had many doors closing in our family lately and have many changes resulting from these closed doors. I am finding myself needing to rethink or recreate the way I am doing a lot of things in our lives. Since our schooling ended in June I have been resting, playing and working on some disciplines that just weren't coming together during the school year. I was working on making weight loss a priority and was rewarded with a 15 pound weight loss which brings me to a grand total of 50 pounds lost ( and not to be found). I was praying about adding in more for the month of July and over the past 2 days and decided to work on decluttering/restoring our home. I did half of a 30 day challenge last year and am still reaping the benefits of that work. The rest of my house never got there and there are some pockets of my home that just really need attention. So....I am not waiting until July. Today is June 30th and that's good enough for me. So I am doing 2 things. I will complete the 31 Days to Clean:Having a Martha Heart the Mary way. It is available on 31daystoclean.com . It is available for immediate download and by Kindle. The author is Sarah Mae. I did the first half of this devotion and cleaning plan last year and totally loved it. I got stuck when we got to Day 15 and was to work on the bedrooms. It only has one bedroom on the plan and I kept thinking that I have 4 bedrooms and needed to do the work X4 each day. It would overwhelm me and I gave up. Now I am not going to do it in 31 days. I will complete the bedroom days one after the other until the bedroom is completed and then redo the same days with the next bedroom and the next until they are all done.

If you want to complete the challenges with me go to www.31daystoclean.com It costs $4.99 and is available as download, Kindle or Nook. You can also purchase it directly from your Kindle.

The other commitment for me this month is to go on a spending freeze. I have become very aware that I buy little things here and there (mostly books and knick knacks). It's not the spending that is a problem but the aquisition of more and more when I am trying to get rid of. Why would I work so hard to declutter when I am bringing more in. It's just counterproductive. I also am motivated by two large purchases/expenditures coming up. We want to send Emily to summer camp and it is $450.00. Also we need to purchase about $500.00 more in curriculum for Matthew's high school in September. I think by freezing my spending I will learn a lot about what is truly neccessary.

The Rules- Cause there always must be rules. 1. Try everything in my power to complete the daily challenge each day except Sunday. If we are gone all day do not give up. Restart the next day. I am taking off the 3rd week of July because my family is volunteering at VBS that week and it is a huge commitment with no room for anything else. 2. Freeze spending on any unneccessities. What is neccessary? Food prepared at home, fees for attending an event or parking, gas, bills. If it does not fall into these categories and I feel it is neccessary I will run it past Mike to make sure first. That's it for now. I will see if more rules are needed but it's simply. Cut the clutter, work hard and don't spend money. So Day 1 on the challenge is completed. It was fairly simple and I'm surely glad for that. So come Monday...Day 2.

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