Is The Simple Homemaker a Christian Blog?

I am a Christian.

Wait! Don’t run away screaming and unsubscribe! Hear me out.

I know sometimes Christians get a bad rap…and sometimes we deserve it.

I know everyone has met Christians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. Sometimes that’s me. I’m not perfect.

I know everyone has met Christians who get down on others, get a little judgmental, make you think they have it all together. Sometimes that’s me. I’ve got a bad case of “human.”

I know everyone has met Christians who are a mess, grumping at their kids, disrespecting their husbands, getting speeding tickets, mismanaging money, forgetting to put on shoes before heading to the grocery store, and getting weighed down by life. Sometimes that’s me. I can be a mess.

Sometimes that’s me–the imperfect, overly human, messy Christian.

Not only am I a Christian, but I am married to a Christian.

My husband is contemporary Christian musician, Stephen Bautista. He will be the first (second if I get to it first) to tell you that he, too, is imperfect. He will also tell you that it is because he is not good enough that he is a Christian. If you’re already perfect and can get to heaven on your own laurels, what do you need with a savior?

That said…

If you bounce around my blog, you won’t find pages of intimidating God-speak. I only use Bible verses where they are relevant. When I want to share with you the benefits of cleaning with vinegar, I’m going to talk about vinegar, not preach a sermon. When I want to share with you a simple recipe, you’re going to get the recipe. When someone asks me how to homeschool a preschooler, I’m going to talk about homeschooling preschoolers. When we discuss decluttering, we’ll talk about decluttering.

But…

If you bounce around my blog, you will also see that I don’t hide my faith or promote anything that opposes my beliefs. I can never, nor will I ever try to separate my faith in Christ from the rest of my life. It is part of who I am (remember me—the imperfect, overly human, messy Christian). It is what gets me through trials, sorrows, messes, fear, disappointments. It is my constant motivation, my sustenance, my being.

And…

Faith in Christ is what truly simplifies my life. Regardless of what happens in this life—and the Bible assures us it ain’t gonna be pretty, although the Bible says it more eloquently—I can look forward to heaven. No matter what crossroads I encounter, I have Biblical guidance. Despite the trials of life, I know not to worry, not to fear, and not to despair. I am never alone, never forgotten, and never without hope and a reason for joy. That is the ultimate in simple living.

I never want you to feel unwelcome here, nor do I want you to feel I am forcing my faith down your throat with every recipe and simplifying tip. If, however, you want to know more about my faith, please contact me. I am always happy to share my treasure.

9/11 Remembrance in Action

The cement of this union is

the heart-blood of every American.

~Thomas Jefferson

September 11, 2011 is the tenth anniversary of the most devastating attack to occur on modern American soil. Many innocent people lost their lives, and heroes rose from the ashes.

While Americans commemorate 9/11 as it approaches each year, many groups have organized service and volunteer opportunities in honor of the 9/11 tenth anniversary. They are moving beyond waving a flag or posting a “Remember 9/11” status update. Instead, they are making a real difference.

If you wish to join in a 9/11 service opportunity, the following sites can show you what is happening in your neighborhood.

The September 11th National Day of Service and Remembrance at the Corporation for National and Community Service encourages all Americans to remember the sacrifices of September 11, 2001, by serving in a “spirit of compassion, unity, and service.” Links to local service opportunities are available.

Action America “stands to unite and activate Americans everywhere to turn the events of 9/11 into positive action.” Action toolkits are available to assist you with your service project.

At 9/11day.org, you are encouraged to “describe what you will do this year, a good deed, charitable activity, or other plans, to honor the 9/11 victims, survivors, and those that rose in service in response to the attacks.”

Scholastic offers 9/11 lesson plans, classroom activities, and volunteer opportunities for children to get them involved in uniting America through service.

Consider joining the 9/11 tenth anniversary commemoration by performing a simple act of service in your own neighborhood.

Take lunch to your local fire station, help mow a neighbor’s lawn, volunteer at a local agency, or pick up trash along the road. Simple actions can combine to make an enormous difference and unite a community.

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all!
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.

~John Dickinson

When Life Isn’t Simple

There are times in life when simplifying means eliminating. We recently had such an experience, and, sadly, The Simple Homemaker (the site, not the person) was temporarily eliminated from my life.

Those of you who are my Facebook buddies may already know that our oldest daughter was recently and suddenly hospitalized twice and diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. The diagnosis took over a year, but the crisis situation she reached almost over night brought it all to a head.

Learning about and caring for a Crohn’s patient has not been simple. Combine that with natural parental worries about a child’s future, her longterm health, and her current pain and treatment, and something had to give.

One huge aspect of living a simple life is knowing your limitations and priorities.

During the past few months, my limitations did not extend past my main priority–my immediate family. Even our schooling took a back seat to the real life lessons of caring for a sick family member, learning new cooking techniques, practicing compassion and service, and using discernment to translate the conflicting information from doctors, dieticians, and a myriad of “experts.”

There was no “me” left to spread. This is where life’s hardest lessons come in, at least for someone as independent as I tend to be.

Friends, never be afraid to say, “I can’t.”

Never be ashamed to ask for help. There is no nobility in climbing a mountain alone when your friends, family, or church have ropes and a climbing team in place…or, better yet, a ski lift. Life is less overwhelming when you say, “Help me,” and take the hand extended to you.

That said, The Simple Homemaker is back. Thank you for your patience and your prayers. My life is less simple, but my philosophy about focusing on the important aspects of life and not cluttering the queue is stronger than ever!

Related article:

You may also enjoy hearing from Joy at Grace Full Mama about asking for help.

Photo courtesy of Bernhard Kohl. Thanks, Ernie!

Why Simplify?

When I talk about simplifying, I often hear a cacophony of agreement from people wanting to clear out their garages or offices, get rid of a few children’s toys, or sort through their wardrobes to find those 80s skinny pants that frighteningly seem to be back in style and might still fit. (Listen. Those pants were a bad idea the first time around. Two wrongs won’t make a right.)

True, simplifying involves getting rid of too much stuff. The stuff we need to banish, however, is not just the mass of junk taking over our garages, closets, and desks. It’s also the stuff taking over our bodies, our minds, and our family time.

What does simplifying mean?

Simplifying means getting rid of physical clutter, resulting in a tidy home that is easy to care for and therefore more time for your family.

Simplifying means getting rid of the need to have stuff, resulting in less spending and therefore less debt.

Simplifying means getting rid of the numerous obligations that call you away from your home, your family, and your main priorities, resulting in less stress and exhaustion and more family time.

Simplifying means getting rid of misconceptions about health and cooking and learning simple ways to feed your family delicious, healthy foods, resulting in healthier bodies.

Simplifying means getting rid of expectations and the need for perfection, freeing you to enjoy life as it is, your home, spouse, and children.

Simplifying means getting rid of the worries that control your mind, resulting in a calmer, healthier, more stress-free life and a happier person.

Simplifying means getting rid of the chaos that may be your life right now, and enjoying a simple schedule with simple, realistic goals, freeing you up to be efficient, productive, and at peace.

Simplifying means getting rid of a lot of different kinds of clutter that is only robbing you of joy, peace, and memories with your family.

You may think removing things from your life is hard, but with each loss comes a gain.

Lose junk. Gain family time.

Lose a spendthrift mentality. Gain control of your finances

Lose outside obligations. Gain a calmer life.

Lose cooking misconceptions and perfectionism. Gain simple, useful skills to feed your family.

Lose expectations. Gain joy and contentment.

Lose worries. Gain peace.

Lose chaos. Gain efficiency.

Personally, I think the gains look a lot better than the losses.

We are embarking on an adventure to declutter our lives, simplify our kitchens, find joy within our homes, form realistic and flexible schedules, organize areas of our homes, toss the 80s skinny pants, and release the burdens we all too often place on ourselves when we clutter up our lives with stuff, debt, misconceptions, and obligations.

It’s time for some nitty-gritty simplifying. Stay tuned!

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Nix the Negativity

It used to be my natural tendency to look for what was wrong with every situation. I was a real hoot. I still battle this negative outlook at times.

Negativity adds complexity to life where it doesn’t need to be. Negativity steals joy and diverts gratitude. It contaminates a healthy get-up-and-go attitude with a crippling lay-down-and-die approach to life’s challenges. When we focus on the negative, we miss…well, we miss the positive!

I said I was simple, not profound.

I am on a mission to rid myself of negativity. So far so…heading in the right direction.

One thing I have noticed in my battle against discontent is that, instead of being truly content as things are, I will sometimes use negativity to talk myself out of discontent. Even though I am much better than I used to be, I still sometimes use negativity to make what I don’t have look bad instead of using gratitude to make what I do have look good.

Confused? Here is an example.

The old me would subconsciously formulate unwritten lists of exactly what was wrong with every place I had ever dreamed of living, just to make where I currently lived appear that much better. And if I couldn’t think of anything bad, I would come up with a whole lot of worst-case scenarios that would undoubtedly happen if we moved there.

Somewhere there is a psychotherapist just itching to get a look at my brain.

The truth is, I can find joy anywhere. Life happens anywhere. Blessings rain down anywhere. But sometimes in life we pass through valleys, and, in my case, those valleys are laced with discontent and negativity. I have come a long way. I know I have, because when I hear others speaking the downer lingo, it hurts my sensibilities. But there is plenty of room to move on up the positivity scale before falling off into the oblivion of unrealistic.

Just as with kicking discontent, nixing negativity requires more than just trying harder. It requires a change in perspective.

Whenever a negative thought races in, I chase it out with a positive one. Gratitude, positivity, and a will-do attitude are powerful weapons, my friend. They help put the bad situations in perspective and keep them from overcomplicating life.

Oh, psychobabble! Perhaps, but it works.

What about those people who are downers in your life?

We all know people who can suck the joy out of a popsicle. Perhaps your joy-sponge is a parent, in-law, or spouse. You don’t exactly want to put them out on the curb with a “free to good home” sign. So why not become accountability partners! Ask them to join you in your pursuit of a positive attitude. Or play Pollyanna’s Glad Game with them by finding something to be glad about in every circumstance. Counter negativity with intentional joy. (Warning: negative people detest this. I know from experience; I used to be one. So do listen respectfully and be understanding before joying them.)

Give it a try. When the can’t-do, won’t-work, why-me whine sneaks up on you, pounce on it with a will-do, could-work, thank-God attitude.

Life is too precious of a gift to spend mired in negativity.

When you look for the bad in mankind,

expecting to find it, you surely will.

~Abraham Lincoln, as printed on the

locket of Pollyanna Whittier

Related link: Trevor Lund’s Live Above the Negativity is a 40-day challenge to eliminate negativity from your life. Well worth the five minutes a day!

Simple, Safe, & Effective Homemade Weed Killer

Homemade weed killer is a topic we approach with perhaps a bit too much interest, and for good reason. We have a child with a very serious allergy issue. It goes far beyond what most people even realize allergies can do to a person. Therefore, we’re pretty serious about eradicating weeds. (Yes, our desert has weeds – lots and lots of weeds.)

We don’t like using chemical weed killers. They’re expensive and controversial.

(It’s not my mission to debate the controversy. Other people can do that. I just offer simple alternatives for those who want or need them.)

We have found it nearly impossible to physically remove every weed from our little ranchette by hand. Can you say, “Losing battle”? But we need to get rid of the future tumbleweeds for the health of our child.

So we improvise.

Here is the simple, affordable solution my resourceful husband concocts for homemade weed killer.

Homemade Weed Killer

Mix the following ingredients:

1 gallon distilled vinegar

2 squirts dish detergent (not dishwasher detergent)

1 cup salt

Apply it to the weeds. Repeat. Repeat. Aaaaannnd done…or maybe repeat.

As with all things pale green (not truly green), homemade weed killer will require repeated applications. It seems to work best on grasses and broad-leaf plants, but you can experiment as you wish.

It also works to use only the vinegar to kill weeds, such as in the cracks of a driveway. Little critters love to eat the vinegary plants. They’d love it even more if you doused them with a little olive oil and added pine nuts and croutons, maybe some freshly cracked pepper.

Of course, nothing is completely without controversy, and that includes this homemade weed killer. It is, however, better than Round-Up, and it is far better than having a seriously sick child throughout the nine-month desert allergy season.

Maybe someday we’ll discover a completely green and equally simple concoction, but until then we’re doing our best and not sweating the rest!

I haven’t the remotest idea where this homemade weed killer recipe came from. If it is yours, please let me know so I can credit you. Thank you.

Photo of Joshua Trees in the Mojave Desert supplied by Zemanta. No Joshua Trees were harmed in the making of this homemade weed killer.

My Centenarian Philosophy

The number of people who are over 100 years old is expected to reach 6 million by the year 2050. Geneticists and health analysts have tried to determine why some people live into their hundreds, but with limited success. While there are some scattered similarities, there is nothing definitive, except . . .

stress.

People who live to be over 100 years old can resiliently handle stress. Simply put, they do their best and don’t sweat the rest.

Personally, I drove myself to do better and sweated what I couldn’t manage for years, and I have the premature gray hair to prove it.

You name it, I stressed over it. Well, except dirt. I never minded a little good ol’ fashioned dirt. And children—I’d take a dozen of those.

As an example, I stressed for years over feeding my family a healthy diet. Considering all the modern definitions of “a healthy diet,” simply figuring out what we should and should not eat was a challenge in itself. Everyone had something to say on the topic, some utterly confounding. I mean, come on! Children aren’t supposed to eat playdough? I grew increasingly overwhelmed.

The final straw came when I was informed that the sea salt I was feeding my family was not good enough sea salt. Apparently there’s the good sea salt, and the good, but not good enough sea salt. I was destroying my family with an inferior level of goodness. I realized then and there that it was impossible to listen to all the health gurus and still remain healthy. The stress of getting healthy was killing me.

Is the stress of getting healthy killing you?

Several years ago I watched as a twenty-something mother, who was struggling financially, donated all her like-new plastic household goods and toys to our church garage sale. Why? She had just read that plastic may cause cancer. I wonder if she stripped her car of all its plastic before strapping her children in their metal car seats and driving home.

Getting healthy was killing her…and bankrupting her.

If getting healthy is killing you, follow my centenarian philosophy.

Do your best and don’t sweat the rest.

That doesn’t mean you should live on Doritos and cookies. give up exercise, and smoke a pack a day. Use your brain. Be responsible! It does mean that on the special occasion when you do indulge in a nachos supreme, enjoy it, savor it, eat it with a smile, a laugh even!

It will add years to your life.

If you’re hip to the groove of The Simple Homemaker’s stress-less (but responsible) life philosophy, stay tuned for future posts where I show practical steps for applying this simple life philosophy to every aspect of your life—family, health, housekeeping, homeschooling, you name it—the fun just keeps on going! For more simple, practical living tips, you can sign up for the newsletter below, like The Simple Homemaker on Facebook, and follow @TheSimpleHome on Twitter.

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