We have certain clutter hotspots in our house, just like anyone does. The worst offenders are the kitchen counter and the antique desk in my bedroom. The counter catches everyone’s junk. The desk catches everything that I need to clear hurriedly from the kitchen or dining area if someone comes over. And then it sits.  This desk has been totally cleared off three times in the past month. Right now it looks like this.

Do I need this stuff??

I’m just being totally real here. It’s an ongoing, constant battle with the clutter. Or battle with myself? Maybe a little of both. All of that stuff, except for the framed picture and the wooden caddy, was deposited there when we had friends show up unexpectedly, right after school one day. We hadn’t put away our school things yet, and I just quickly deposited everything from the table up on my desk so we had an open dining room table to sit at.

That was a week ago. There are also some craft supplies, our taxes from this year and last, a cribbage board and card decks, and a Cake Wrecks book. And it all looks like junk.

The kitchen counter, right this second as I sit here and type at 3:43pm on Thursday afternoon, looks like this.

Better Homes & Gardens... or not

I took the picture about a minute ago. See that nice big counter top?  It’s just COVERED with stuff. Cups, cups, more cups, miscellaneous boy stuff, my daughter’s laptop, leftover mixing bowl from her making truffles, my purse. Ugh you name it, it ends up occupying space on this counter. I’m better about this area though. I will have this cleared off and clean in just a little while.

The counter gets cleared 4-5 days a week at least. It’s my ongoing project. Mess, tidy, wipe, repeat. And repeat, and repeat and repeat.

Please do notice, however, that the sink does NOT have any dishes in it! I have really been sticking with and following 28 Days to Hope for Your Home, enjoying it as well as using it to kick me in the butt on a daily basis. I need this. If you have this same clutter problem in your home, then YOU need this, too. One small habit at a time, begin changing the way you do things and overcoming the natural tendencies that you wish you’d never developed in the first place!

Just for the month of February, Dana is offering 28 Days to Hope for Your Home for only $4– that’s 50% off!

28 Days to Hope for Your Home includes:

• Twenty-eight days of specific instructions to help you develop four basic (but essential) home management habits.
• Insights into why these concepts seem foreign to you.
• Practical tips to keep you from giving up.
• Bonus sections with realistic strategies for laundry management, meal prep, and decluttering.
• More than 45 pages of all new, exclusive content!

This book is NOT for the “mildly disorganized!”

Now I’m off to clear the kitchen counter. Again. What do you have to clear off ALL the time?

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“But I don’t want to do math.”

And complain.

“This is so borrrringgg!“

They ask repetitive questions.

“How much longer?“

And sometimes, just sometimes, I wish that they were more… responsive. More… upbeat.

More… programmable.

Know what I mean?  Wouldn’t it just be amazing to announce that it’s math time and hear, “Yay! I love multiplication!”

Or to pull out the library books on Ancient Greece, and hear, “Oh this is SO INTERESTING!”

And be constantly pestered by the likes of, “Can we just read one more chapter? Please?”

Or at the very least, what about “Yes Mother dear, we enjoy our studies.  Please teach us some more?”

Ahem. I may have embellished just a tad on that last one.

Yes, may I look at the 10 year old blond robot there, the one with the Lego accessories? Oh, thank you!

But our kids aren’t robots, any more than we are Stepford Wives. (This is where I admit that I spent over half an hour on YouTube, trying to find a suitable video to post here to help make my point!)  Stepford Wives are submissive, sexy, smiling, obedient robots without  independent thoughts beyond how to please their men. I don’t know about you, but I live in the real world, and I’m not like that. Not much anyway, and my kids? Not even close. They didn’t even come with an instruction manual!

So how do we survive those days when I have to bind and gag  sit with the children to ensure they have pencils in their hands and workbooks on their laps?

Patience and grace. God gave it to you, and you have to extend that same grace to them. Sometimes grace is sacrifice.

Consistency and discipline. Even a regular routine, one that has the same general order each day but not necessarily built on  a massive planner sheet with colored sticky notes (you know the one I’m talking about) makes a huge difference. By discipline I don’t mean regular beatings or harsh treatment of any kind. I mean logical consequences for not doing what they are supposed to be doing. For example: Homework before activities. For my bigger kids, this sometimes meant taking a math book to Missionettes and doing homework in the hallway for the first half of their meetings!

Rewards and fun. It doesn’t need to be anything over the top, but adults don’t work for nothing and kids shouldn’t have to either. There needs to be a reason besides the fact that they are students, which is obvious. Getting done early (or maybe on time but with a good attitude) could bring something special, like a bike ride. Our daughter J used to get done before lunch and hop on her bike to take carrots to a horse that lived about 2 miles away. It was her special thing she was only allowed to do if she got done early enough, because she had swimming in the early afternoons and didn’t have the chance later on. It was incentive enough for her!

Love and prayer. Kids will love as they’ve been loved. If you aren’t showing AND TELLING them how much you love them, they will be much less apt to extend love to others. When we’re not sure of something in our own lives, it’s really hard to live it out when we step outside the family home. Show them you love them by quality time, which is time over and above homeschooling. Figure out your childrens’ love languages and make a point to speak them as often as possible. And pray. A lot. Surround your kids with prayer, that their hearts, their decisions, and their direction would be along the path the Lord wants.

What more could we ask?

Read past posts from the ABC’s of Homeschooling

Credit: If you know, please tell me!

What IS going on? I’d like to know. I want to know what the Lord is doing. I know my posting is slowing down, and that life is sort of swallowing me right now. Please forgive me, I am treading water at the moment. I’m praying and seeking direction, trying to find out what God wants me to do with this little piece of cyberspace that I enjoy so much.

Some things up for consideration:

• Bringing on a couple of feature writers, and adding a couple of subdomains that will be more topic specific.
• Removing most, if not all, affiliate advertising. It seems like I get lots of clicks but so few actual buyers (and payments) that it’s almost not worth my time, or my sidebar space.
• Writing an eBook. Lord help me! But it’s something He has been speaking to me about for several years, actually.

So I wait. And pray. Oh, and read my Bible. I am on Day 47 now of the Bible in 90 Days, and while I usually tend to fall a day or so behind on weekends due to my work schedule, I usually get caught up by Tuesday… except lately. I was 1-2 days behind for over a week, but I’m on the current day again. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get it read on my breaks at work tonight.

I love this. Reading the Bible like this, just jumping in headfirst and absorbing the entire thing, is amazing. It is life changing, every time. But it also takes a time commitment, which my is first priority right now.

I am not gone! I’m even still answering emails and comments. I’m just not in too many other places out in cyberland right now. All you ladies who comment on posts just bless the heck out of me, because I have been able to start building relationships with you, and that’s the whole purpose of The Momma Knows. I’m not a know it all who wants to share my unending wisdom (HA HA HA) with you. I’m just a Momma who knows a few things and wonders about a whole lot of other things. A lot like you. I’m still working on the de-crapification of my house and my life, because it’s far from perfect and could use some help.

Let’s do this life together. The Lord’s here. Let’s see what he wants to do!

And on that note, I’d LOVE to hear from you and see what you think about The Momma Knows, and if you have any suggestions, I am totally open.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which, if you click over and make a purchase, help to pay this site’s maintenance fees. Thank you!

Is this working?

What could we do differently?

What do I need to change so that he can be successful?

Am I showing my boys how to live, by living what I tell them to do?

Always, always take a little time to ask yourself questions. If there’s one thing I have learned in 13+ years of homeschooling is that there is always room for improvement!

So I question myself. I question my husband. I question my kids.

How are we doing?

Are you enjoying this subject, that project,  this commitment?

Is it time to kick things up a notch, or should we let this (subject, assignment, project) go?

I have much to evaluate right now. Curriculum and assignments. My goal of keeping the house up better and planning meals and shopping only for the menu. Reading the Bible in 90 days. (Day 43 today! WOOT! WOOT!) Not spending a lot of time on the computer. Exercising every day that I’m able. Running a few times a week again. Looking at a couple of new churches. Hard stuff folks. Character stuff. Health stuff. Faith stuff.

Question yourself. Pray and ask God what it is He wants you to step up and improve upon, and set a goal (or several small interim goals) and go for it. Ask your husband what he wants you to step away from, and be ready to listen. Asking questions is only half of it. You still have to take the action when you get the answers.  I know that for me, I often can’t see how over my head I am getting, but my husband always can and he is pretty good about pointing it out to me.

Am I taking on too much?

Am I not doing enough?

What are the non-negotiables?

Everyone has non-negotiables. Yours may be that you get up at 4am for the Good Morning Girls tweet-in, get your devo’s in early, and start your chores all before the kids get up. Or it may be that your kids get up early, knock out two subjects before breakfast, listen to classical music at lunch time, and practice piano every afternoon. They can be big, like GMG’s or small, like a single subject that your kids have struggles with. They can be ‘safe’, like no computer before school, or they can be daring, like running every morning, rain or snow.

So tell me, what are YOUR non-negotiables?

Read past ABC’s of Homeschooling posts.