Encouragement

Do you have trouble sleeping? Is there a constant to do list running in your head? Do you always think you’re about to forget something? Y’all, this is my life. Between work, kid, my side business, church involvement, and blogging I have always felt like my to do list wasn’t complete or something was going undone. Well, y’all, I have the answer! Ok, I have MY answer and maybe this will work for you too … A Nightly Brain Dump In the middle of searching for ways to reign my house and routine, I read Emily Ley’s “A Simplified Life.” This book was amazing. It was all the best parts of “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” plus an overall approach...

Two days after Christmas, my husband and I moved from a four-bedroom house to a three bedroom apartment. After the flood, we had sold our house and moved to a rent house with plans to buy not long thereafter. Then my husband was laid off. And suddenly those temporary lodgings became a bit more long-term. So when Christmas rolled around, and we still weren’t ready to buy a house, I was pretty annoyed with the situation. Moving into a smaller apartment seemed like a step backwards instead of forwards, which stressed me out immensely. A few days after we moved, my daughter told me, “I don’t want to go to our new home, Mama. I want to go to our...

It was the first week of January, and I took stock of my family tribe. We all sat in the living room, and it was clear that after a month of celebrating Christmas, we were exhausted. We had a blast traveling, visiting family and at holiday parties with friends, but we had reached our energy limit. After the kids went to bed, I told my hubby, "We don't have any plans so far this weekend. I think we should plan to do nothing and get some rest. We need it before we go back to a full week of work and school next week." He looked very happy at this prospect. The next day was Friday and after school, I...

2017 came in for us as a bit of a whirlwind. Our house flooded in the August 2016 flood in Baton Rouge and we lost basically everything. We saved a few clothing items, my kitchen table and some shoes for our family and that was it. Suddenly, we were moving into our finished house with a lot less than we started with. I immediately started processing what I need to replace – beds, dressers, couches, etc. We live in a relatively small house (under 1500 square feet) and have learned that I function best when I have open space. I am working on a life where I appreciate what I have and am not striving for the “next best thing”...

Everyone at some point had their parent say to them, "Do as I say, not as I do." As a kid, this drove me crazy. However, now I can see why parents are quick to rattle off this command. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's an easy out to justify your own bad habits. And it makes us feel better about choosing to do one thing and hoping our kids will do another. I think it's completely natural to give our kids a list of dos and don'ts because you want what's best for them and hope they become thriving members of society one day. In fact, the older our children get, the more we think about what rules are important to...