Making Our Home a Haven

 It was fun to see last night that Monica who blogs at The Homespun Heart was planning on having a Make your Home a Haven week. I think it is fun to join in with other homemakers as we work on making our homes something that is welcoming to our family and others and a place where God is honored. It is my goal to try to have a home like that and I hope to encourage others in that as well. I like the idea of every so often really focusing on that goal and thinking and writing on it to help cement in me what I should do and how I should be. So I am joining Monica (and hopefully others) this week in striving to make my home a haven.

Last night I made sure to set my alarm clock so that I could get up in good time and get plenty of undisturbed prayer time. Often I just listen for Ken's alarm clock and then figure I still have a few more minutes and I often sleep later than I would like. So this morning I was up and out of bed at a bit before 7am. (still not that early but we aren't extremely early risers around here.)

I was able to spend some good time in prayer. One thing that I really wanted to talk to God about in depth was Jonathan and his math. He has been quite frustrated with it again lately which has caused me to get frustrated with him and then in turn he has not been happy with me. It hasn't been good and I needed God's help. I am happy to report that today's math lesson went quite a bit better!!! Praise God. I will continue to pray on this.

One of the verses that I spent time meditating on today was Ephesians 4:15 & 16 which says: "But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love." I have really been thinking lately about how we speak to one another in our home and wanting to make sure that it is full of gentleness, kindness and love and not ever words that will tear down (I posted about this yesterday too with some other verses that I am trying to emulate.) I have decided that we will talk about a verse like this each day this week and add it to our memory verses. We do want to grow up into Christ and be part of His body that works together in LOVE!

For breakfast I did add candles to the table (the flowers and pears were already there for decoration). Breakfast was Hash browns (which is a favorite of Ken's and all the kids) , eggs, grapefruit and milk. I am so happy that we can all eat together as a family (though Ken is usually in a hurry and out the door to work pretty quickly but at least we have a few minutes with him too).

 Monday's are my big cleaning and laundry day so besides our school work we:

• are doing all of the laundry (as of now it is still in progress).
• mopped.
• cleaned the kitchen.
• washed some dirty walls that were needing attention.
• cleaned the upstairs bathroom.
• cleaned the living room.

I am still hoping to work in my office and work some more on the project I have been really pursuing lately of getting rid of clutter. Last week I really worked on getting rid of clutter and made a lot of progress. I am exciting to get working on that again this week. I have been going through papers, clothes, e-mails and more. I am realizing more and more how much simpler it is to live with less stuff and when I only handle things like mail, etc once or as few times as possible.

 Those are some of the things I am working on to make my home a haven. What about you?