A Home with a Center

Oh, the Habits We Gain When the Spouse is Away...

2010-08-26T10:28:00.003-05:00

After a breathtaking year of change, loss and discovery, I find myself in an interesting situation. My husband, having lost his engineering job more than a year ago, embarked on a grinding schedule of overnight shifts mixed with haven't-been-to-sleep-yet daytime shifts to support two jobs. His sacrifice all those months was extraordinary, but now he's back to working a"day job" at last. Hurray!

The interesting part is facing the habits I've gained while essentially being a single woman. Staying awake for days at a time, wearing sweaty workout clothes far beyond what's socially acceptable, obsessing about writing projects instead of keeping a healthy perspective and eating, eating, eating. My beloved, after all, was at work or asleep most of the time, so our joint accountability structures flew out the window.

I'll cut myself just a little slack by saying that the loss of someone very dear to our hearts and the diagnosis of a chronic illness raised the depression factor enormously. But did all those months really fly away in a blur of insomnia, bad television and angry prayers?

So, here I am, overweight with a sadly depleted wardrobe, wondering how I'm going to fall asleep at ten p.m.! As I've commented to girlfriends this week, it's time to "step up my game." Get back on a schedule. Stop writing through the night. Eat actual meals instead of grazing. Relate to another adult regularly. Allow God to heal me instead of shaking my fist at Him.

Here are the lessons I hope will keep me standing when the next tsunami hits:

1) Sometimes I have to experience great pain to learn what's most important.
2) Taking my mate for granted isn't an option.
3) Getting lost in my circumstances isn't a permanent state.
4) Even when I think I'm beyond hope, God brings me back.
5) Alone isn't where I want to live.
6) I should have reached out to my friends much earlier.

Learn from my mistakes. Really. It's so much easier than fighting your way back.

Dancing On the Edge

2010-02-19T21:24:00.007-06:00

It's been a long time since I've posted to this particular blog, but recent experiences have nudged me back into writing. Here's the question that's been worming around in my mind lately, "Are we dancing on the ledge most of the time and just don't realize it until our families suffer tragedy?" Or, "Does God's hand hold back danger every day, without our knowing?"

Dark thoughts, indeed, probably brought on by the recent loss of a beloved young man from our family. An "accident," one of those senseless things that's over in an instant, taking with it someone we love.

That's been enough to engender deep thoughts in the middle of the night, but it's what's happened since that's truly put my mind down this path. In the midst of healing from this great sadness, I've become keenly aware of the "near misses," those almost accidents that could have ended badly, but did not.

Two siblings involved in auto accidents but unharmed, a sister in Christ nearly, but not quite, sideswiped by a semi, a balcony breaking loose but not completely giving way as we stood on it, a husband losing a wheel only after he stopped his truck. What could have been tragic was, instead, only frightening. I attribute each of those people being spared to God's direct intervention.

So, in the wake of a fatal accident and a string of loved ones being spared, my theory is this: we have no idea of the obstacles in our paths each day, how closely we dance to the edge of the cliff. It is by God's great mercy that our families are spared injury and destruction, and I'm praising His name even as I mourn the one who is gone.

Psalm 32:7
You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Good night all. Now go hug your families.

How to Teach Kids About Substance

2009-10-10T18:40:00.006-05:00

There seems to be an epidemic sweeping through our culture--a round-eyed wonder for things that are very superficial. There's an inordinate amount of time being spent oohing and ahhing over people who look good and say pretty things, when there's little time being spent looking for substance. So, what's the cure? I have a couple of ideas for ways we can teach kids about substance in a world gone mad over fluff.

Consider the Lilies of the Field: One way to show children what really matters is to start with the basics. Take your young ones out to where they can see the stars and talk to them about the vast distances between planets. Show them how perfectly designed flowers are for their habitats. Talk to them about the cycle of the seasons and the timelessness of space. Now that's something to be impressed by. Somehow, Kate Gosselin's haircut begins to pale by comparison.

Take a Page from History: Biographies of great people are a wonderful way to show kids what matters. Whether a founding father, a football hero or an activist for civil rights, there are people who have lived their lives in ways you'd like your kids to emulate. Find their stories and share with your family what made that special person someone to admire.

Experience the Remarkable: There are breathtaking experiences to be shared through the arts and sciences. Think of the books that inspired you as a child. What kind of art do your children find fascinating? Visit museums, exhibitions or book-readings. Take them to see worthwhile movies. Experiences that stretch their minds and spirits can be building blocks for a life spent pursuing excellence, rather than appearance.

Share Family Stories: Draw the timeline of your family's history and share the stories that will teach your kids what makes families strong. Every family has black sheep sprinkled in; make sure your kids know about the people who perservered through hard times. Hearing about my father's large family and how they survived the Depression firmly planted important lessons in my mind.

Move Beyond the Physical: A sure cure for materialistic admiration is to open the door to the spiritual. If your faith makes you appreciate people rather than things, long-term commitment, love and generosity rather than appearances, why not share that with your children? Giving them a glimpse of the spiritual can open a whole new perspective on what's admirable.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had the time to filter everything children hear and see? We don't, but we are able to help them build a framework for filtering it themselves. Exposing your kids to ideas beyond popular culture is a great way to start. I'd love to hear what you're doing to short-circuit the silliness worship in your homes.

Your Mom Was Right About Sharing

2009-10-05T10:48:00.004-05:00

Taking a quick break to advocate for something that's really helped our family. Here in the Heartland, we're blessed to have PrairieLand Food, a food buying cooperative available to stretch our grocery budgets.

PrairieLand is a 501(c)3 non-profit made up of folks who give our time to help the community in a zillion different ways. In return, we're able to order food shares at a reduced price. Here's the cool thing...it's open to anyone who volunteers, no membership is required and there are no income guidelines.

This particular food co-op is available to folks in Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, but I urge you to look for a cooperative food buying club in your area, too.

Here's how our food buying cooperative works:

Members pre-order shares that are announced each month by the co-op managers. PrairieLand Food shares are made up of five meat items and five or six veggie or fruit items for $24. Is that incredible or what? Examples of recent meat items are pre-cooked frozen turkey breast strips perfect for making fajitas, two big packages of frozen chicken fried rice or shrink-wrapped deli sliced turkey and ham. The more shares sold, the more food we're each given.

We're also able to order Monthly Specials at amazing prices - everything from four steaks and two lbs of jumbo shrimp for $20 to a Christmas baking box that contains everything you need to get started with your Christmas cookies.

On a specified pick-up date, food shares are delivered by truck, divided into individual share boxes by volunteers and picked up by members who pre-ordered. Here in our town, there are about a dozen distribution sites, usually churches or union headquarters.

When picking up their shares, members turn in their volunteer hours for the month. All it takes is a couple of hours a month doing anything that helps someone else--mowing your neighbor's lawn, tutoring, or any other kind of kind act performed for free.

What could be easier? I priced the items in my share from last month and found it was actually $44 if purchased at local grocers. I don't know about you, but my family definitely needs that kind of savings right now. It's also an amazing way to gift families in need...we've ordered extra shares for people on hard times; all it takes is $23 more and another couple of hours of volunteering.

So, if you're in the Plains States, why not check out PrairieLand Food? If you live elsewhere, investigate local food buying clubs or co-ops or start your own. Buying power is buying power, right? If you had enough people buying the same food at the same time, I'm willing to bet you could negotiate discounts with food manufacturers and distributors in your area. Here's a cool article I found about setting up a food co-op from scratch.

I hope I hear from some of you about how cooperative food buying has helped your families. Building strong, sustainable families is, after all, what this blog is all about.

Why Our Government Isn't Family Friendly...

2009-09-03T16:12:00.008-05:00

I'm asking my readers to suspend their search for helpful information for a single blog post so that I can get something off my chest. Deal?

Okay, here's my big rant for the week, courtesy of not one, but two, government agencies. Mind you, I'm not particularly in love with the federal government right now anyway, but until today I hadn't realized the (dare I say it?) conspiracy behind the bureaucracy.

Before you close the blog with mutterings about conspiracy theorists, let me assure you that I have facts to back up my suspicion that our beloved bureaucrats really don't want to serve the average citizen. What I've decided they want, instead, is to perpetuate an on-going structure that includes jobs for themselves.

So in the spirit of our legal tradition, may I present the People's Exhibit Number One: the unemployment compensation process. Six weeks ago, my husband was laid off in the aerospace industry. Since that time, we have received zip, zero, nada in unemployment compensation, thanks to an incredibly arcane system of gobbledygook one must navigate in order to file.

Here's the short version--somehow, in the bowels of the government halls of disinformation, it had been falsely recorded that my perfectly fit hubby was actually on full disability. Because someone, with perfect bureaucratic logic, decided not to maintain an unemployment office in the largest city in our state (one in which thousands of people are currently unemployed, by the way) it is impossible to speak face-to-face with a live person to clear up such a misconception.

Actually, he did speak with a live person by telephone, but only after calling daily for two weeks only to be told each time that "the system is currently receiving too many calls, please call at another time". Brilliant customer service.

He finally learned from a real human being that it is not possible to clear up such a misunderstanding by phone or over the Internet, even though it is possible to file for unemployment, turn in weekly claims and close your file by such methods. He was told he would be required to fill out a form which they would mail by the blindingly quick US Postal Service (see more about them later), mail it back by the same method and wait for a decision to be made whether or not he deserved unemployment compensation.

You guessed it...in the unfailingly failing bureaucratic tradition, no form was ever received, but they did manage to get the letter to us telling him that "because the applicant failed to provide the information required, he is no longer eligible for unemployment compensation."

Deep breath. Is it any wonder that many of us are a wee bit skeptical of having the government involved even further in our healthcare? If you think dealing with an insurance company is maddening, hold onto your bedpans, folks.

I did promise to give two pieces of evidence, so here's the People's Exhibit Two: in good wifely fashion, I wished to support my hubby's desire to find meaningful employment by taking up more of the financial slack and so applied (online, no other method possible) for a job with our local postal encoding center. The promised testing packet was never delivered and the job opening announcement was closed before I was allowed to finish the process.

A buddy of mine works there, too, and gave the HR office a call to learn why they hadn't sent packets out when they were so obviously in need of help. The HR bureaucrat told her it was obviously a mistake, to have me call her and she'd get one to me pronto. You can probably guess the end of this story.

Said HR bureaucrat's secretary refused to let me speak with her boss, said she had no idea why someone would tell me I could call her and engaged in some world-class fingerpointing to the effect that "they won't let us interfere with the process except to do new hire paperwork and I shouldn't be calling them, anyway." Yikes. And to think my taxes paid for this woman to pop gum in my ear.

So, my theory stands. The gov no longer exists to serve the people. It is, instead, a leviathan of fingerpointing, double-speaking tools who have forgotten why their jobs exist in the first place. And that's a crummy way to support American families living through a recession (yep, it's still alive and well in Wichita, KS).

Whew! Thanks for letting me vent. My advice for the day? Vote the entrenched out of office, clean house in all government agencies and put the jobs up for bid across the board. I think that's change everyone of us can live with.

Kate

Back from the Wars!

2009-08-31T10:12:00.008-05:00

Long time, no type. I was reminded that I hadn't added any new content during the time my hubby was out of work, so here we are at last.

That actually brings me to the topic of the moment - staying balanced through life's wars. If you're like I am, you begin to neglect healing activities such as blogging, prayer, working out, checking in with accountability partners, and so forth to take care of people you love when they need support.

I honestly don't remember the last time I stepped foot in my gym, but it was sometime right around the big layoff. My weight loss partner thinks I've died, and I've obviously been neglecting this blog. I have managed to stick with my spiritual journal, but I'm a wreck physically. So, why do we, as moms and wives, do that?

The knee-jerk answer is that we rush to rescue. Part of our DNA (and our spiritual hearts as women) instructs us to nurture, protect and comfort. When the major breadwinner gets a pink slip, maybe we type resumes and prop up their egos. If a son or daughter is failing a class, we help find tutors and listen to them vent.

And all that's okay. What's screwy is letting ourselves fall into disrepair as we glue everyone else back together. Bear with me as I offer an illustration. In Shorin Ryu karate, the practitioner "plants" herself in wide, deep stances so that, no matter now hard an opponent kicks or punches, she's well-centered.

Even if she's defending someone else from an assault, she never forgets to plant herself into those deep, "rooted" stances. She remains like a deeply rooted tree throughout the assault, fending off blows until the fight's over.

Sounds pretty transferable to real life, doesn't it? Why can't we remember to hold our stance when the wars come? Nope, we leap out into space, completely abandoning the habits that keep us healthy, in defense of the people we love. How silly is that?

So, I'm challenging you and myself at the same time. Figure out how to maintain your firm stance when the assault comes. Stick to the things you know will keep you strong, and I'll try to do the same. After all, we're not much of a center for our friends and family if we can't even keep our own footing.

What Makes You Valuable?

2009-08-11T07:51:00.006-05:00

Here's a question to ponder today: "At what age does a person become less valuable?"

Your immediate response, like mine, may have been "What a silly question! Age doesn't determine our value!" I invite you to slow down, though, take this question out of the box and look at it for awhile.

It is, I believe, the defining question for our families. The answer to this question could very well become the basis for our value in future society. So, what's the answer?

To craft my own response, I decided to take an approach becoming popular in political circles. I changed the question to this, "When is a person not a contributing member of society?"

That question opens up a whole new line of discussion, doesn't it? For example, we can wonder if an unborn child, unable to work, pay taxes or vote, has any value to a society. We can puzzle over whether Grandma, trapped in a hospital bed with little recognition of her family, still contributes much to the greater good.

Mull those thoughts for yourself, but here's a peek into my own: the value of a person is not based on what he or she can do for me. That "other", that living being sharing space with me on the planet, has value whether or not I assign it.

To bring it down to everyday life, I simply asked myself, "Did that person's value end when she could no longer communicate? What about her history? Did a lifetime of love, support, or even rage, disappear when dementia took over?"

The lessons learned from living with other people, whether they warm our hearts or chill our souls, help shape who we become. Even if we believe their value is based on the perception of others, doesn't that mean they've contributed?

And that unborn child I mentioned...does her value rest on whether or not she'll complicate my life? Or is it possible she has significance equal to my own? Gets kind of sticky, doesn't it, when we begin to decide who counts and who doesn't?

I'll leave you to your ponderings. I hope you reach a conclusion that allows you to value the people in your families, friendship circles and even your enemies.

It is, after all, a lot easier to live our own lives when we aren't looking over our shoulders, wondering if we're being evaluated by someone else.

Where's Your Family's Security?

2009-07-30T11:54:00.006-05:00

A big event in our family this week has made me reflect about where my security lies. My husband lost his job in a layoff, an event I'm sure many of you are experiencing, as well.

The ripple effect of this particular layoff might be huge, after all, the months leading up to the loss of his job haven't been filled with big paychecks or deposits to our savings account. The difference this time (yes, we've experienced this before) is that it's drawn us together as a couple.

Here's why I think that's happening: we've been blessed to find a church in the past six months where the teaching is consistently focused on real-life application of Biblical truth. That kind of true-to-life preaching has challenged both of us to grow spiritually by leaps and bounds.

To me, that's another example of God's inimitable timing. He knew we'd be facing a tough time and He provided what we needed to get ready. That strong connection to His truth has given us the inner security to get through whatever comes next.

So, my family's security isn't shaken by the loss of our major income source. We're still made in God's image, He still loves us and we're going to be okay. Hope that's where your family's security lies...it's the only thing that makes sense in these unpredictable times.

Two Wretched Lessons from Reality Television

2009-07-20T08:03:00.011-05:00

As I'm listening to women tell me about their home lives, I'm hearing something that saddens and angers me. It's the extent to which reality television has influenced not only their homes but the world with which they interact

I've merged their frustration into Two Wretched Lessons from Reality Television. Perhaps you can relate?

Rude is the New Helpful

Been to the hair salon lately? Tried to buy clothes at a mall store? Chances are, if the person "serving" you was under twenty-five, they've fallen victim to the "when I'm rude I'm being helpful" mentality.

Thanks to reality television, they see actors (you didn't think it was really unscripted, did you?) rewarded for making snotty, condescending comments to those they're being paid to help. These ugly snippets were taken from recent reality TV, "Oh, my God! Aren't you embarrassed to wear that in public?" and "Girl, if my hair looked like that, I'd never leave the house!" or my personal favorite (not), "No wonder your boyfriend left you! You're a size twelve!"

Is it any wonder that service personnel now entering the workforce think it's helpful to make rude comments to people paying them for a service? Is it a surprise that many teenagers and twenty-somethings attack each other's hair, clothing, homes, vehicles, and taste in music or partners, in the name of being "helpful?"

One thought for parents battling the "rudely helpful" trend in your own family: tell your kids they'll be the only ones making money soon, if they can learn to offer helpful suggestions with courtesy. I know they're the only ones I'm paying these days!

Your Value is Based on My Opinion

Here's a more insidious trend that I believe is based not only on rude reality television, but a generally secular culture. It's the "you only have value when I say you do" mindset.

We all make value judgments, but the filters being used by some folks to make those judgments seem to be based on extreme arrogance. Here's how that sounds, "I don't like brown hair. You have brown hair, therefore, you are STUPID and UGLY and YOU NEED TO CHANGE!"

If you don't believe that kind of mental bias goes on around you, force yourself to watch one thirty minute "reality" TV show, preferably one that portrays young girls competing for a man's attention. (By the way, while we're making value judgments, ever noticed that aging rock stars with bad hair are the ones usually being fought over? Go figure!)

Next, listen in on what young people in your life say about other people. The hateful comments levelled in all directions on these wretched reality shows should give you a clue why your teenager might be labelling girls "skanks and sluts"(those are the ones I can use on this PG-rated blog).

Two tips for parents:

1) Turn off the trashy television and tell your kids why.
2) Teach them early that people have value because they're made in the image of God, and that doesn't change even when others say they're worthless.

I'm opting for a life based in reality, aren't you? The trash-talking meanies are lousy role models and "unreality television" is one more way popular culture attempts to devalue the individual. I hope this blog post starts a conversation in your family about what's real and valuable. Let me know what you learn, I VALUE your comments!

What Difference Do Five Minutes Make?

2009-07-17T12:39:00.000-05:00

I was sitting here working in my home/office/Chihuahua kennel, feeling a little overwhelmed with what needs to be done. Hated those dishes in the sink and cringed at an amazingly creative cobweb growing in the corner behind me.

To stop the inevitable flood of self-recrimination (maybe you've heard that tape yourself, "If you worked harder, your house would be clean all the time"), I made a deal with myself to make five minute forays into being Bree Hodge (the clean freak on Desperate Housewives).

So, what difference does five minutes make? Here's a list of what can be accomplished in five very-focused minutes:

Unloading and reloading the dishwasher (really, I timed myself)

Running upstairs for laundry and throwing it into the washer

Sweeping puppy hair out of two whole rooms

Starting a simple entree in the crockpot

Folding that pesky load of towels sitting in the washer

Responding to email from friends who may suspect I've died

Watering my beloved urban veggie gardens

Weeding my choking flower bed

Updating my family calendar

Creating a shopping list

Those are just the things I've actually done in five minutes or less, now that I'm taking "clean breaks" throughout the day. The amount of work to be done hasn't changed, but it somehow feels more manageable. Just thought I'd share this with you, in case you're feeling overwhelmed. It even works if you're outside your home all day; don't commit the whole evening, just focus really hard for five minutes at a time on getting some part of your real life under control. I think I'm going to be amazed when I hear what you've managed to do!

So, What's It Gonna Take to Make You Happy?

2009-07-16T11:41:00.001-05:00

If I called you and asked you right now if you were happy, how would you answer? We probably all need more downtime and today's social tensions are making lots of us grouchy, but if we're cranky and bitter long-term, how does that play out in our families?

By families, I mean the people we gather around ourselves to share love and support. Whether that's a group of old friends or a whole bunch of babies underfoot, the question's still the same: "What, exactly, is it gonna take to make you happy, so that you can help your family be happy?"

I posed this one to women from widely varied backgrounds and heard answers I've probably voiced myself during one season or another of my life. Here were their top four responses:

"If we just had more money, I could relax."

"If my kids weren't acting like demon spawn, I'd stop being grouchy."

"If I was married to someone else, I'd be happier."

"If my boss would get fired, I'd be happy."

Any of those sound familiar? Here's what every one of them has in common, if you're willing to face it: They're Not True! Before you get your back up, let me explain. There's a grain of truth in every one of those reasons for discontent, but none of them should steal our happiness long term. I hope you'll stay long enough to learn what I mean.

Let's look at the first response, "If we just had more money, I could relax." The words to lock in on are "more money." I heard a great statement the other day, "I've never managed to out-earn my bad habits." Unless we're living in genuine poverty, the issue with money usually isn't the lack of it, it's how we manage it. Enough said. If that's your reason for being bitter, maybe it's time to get serious about getting control of your finances.

Number two is one of my personal favorites: "If my kids weren't acting like demon spawn, I'd stop being grouchy." I actually feel blessed to have had great kids and stepkids, but there have certainly been times I would have cheerfully put them out on a curb with a sign around their necks.

Here's the thing; if we wait for our kids to become better behaved before we're happy ourselves, what will we miss? I'm definitely a law & order kinda girl--I have zero compassion for moms who let kids run wild in public without making any visible effort to control them.

But there aren't many kiddos who are perfect, and basing our happiness, our sense of value and our overall disposition on our children's behavior gives them a lot of power they shouldn't have. Why not turn the tables on the kids and refuse to let them make you bonkers? Keep saying to yourself, "I love my kids, but they aren't going to ruin my day." Who knows? It might just help calm the little beasties!

All I'm gonna say about #3, "If I was married to someone else...", is that I've tested that theory a couple of times and it isn't valid. I have enormous empathy for women in tough marriages, and I've done my share of giving up, but I didn't become the wife I needed to be until I took the word "divorce" off the table.

If there's any way for you to remain married, if not ecstatically happy, especially if you have children, your future may turn out a lot differently than you can imagine now. Proverbs 37 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." I don't know what that means for you, but I'm telling you as a battle-scarred divorce veteran that the death of a marriage isn't usually delightful and it takes years to get your feet back on solid ground again.

Let's take a quick look at #4: "If my boss would get fired, I'd be happy." Having worked in corporate America for a couple of decades before becoming self-employed, I can tell you this one is pure hooey. There's always another bad boss, snotty coworker or workforce reduction waiting in the wings, so we might as well find our own balance at work and let the rest of that stuff work itself out.

Discover what it takes to feel calm and centered at work, whether that's through spiritual discipline, connecting with others for support or focusing on being the best at what you do. You'll live longer and you'll outlast the yahoos who used to make you crazy!

What I hope for all of us is a happy, centered life that allows us to enjoy every season that passes among friends and family. I don't know what's troubling you, but I urge you to move around that obstacle and find contentment even as you struggle. I promise the rewards will be more than you ever expected.

Stick and Stones...

2009-07-04T13:38:00.000-05:00

Spent time with some of my favorite women this week, and here's what nearly everyone had to say about the upcoming holiday, "We always spend time with my/his family but I'll come home feeling awful." Why? Because in those families, snide remarks and mean jokes are the order of the day.

The stories each of them told, of smirking comments, open disrespect for religious or political views or just plain meanness toward people their family members supposedly love made my heart hurt. In some families, not even the children are exempt! What in the world happened to the family being the one place a person could feel safe?

Some of the blame, I think, needs to be placed squarely upon the media. I can't imagine anything uglier than the personal attacks launched as "news reports" during the recent Presidential campaign. As faithful viewers saw these attacks occurring and their favored candidates silently condoning them, I truly believe the character of our nation suffered. The national sport, it seems, has become "piling on" to the latest victim.

But there are other reasons this pandemic of meanness has struck our family circles. Respect self/respect others training in our schools seems like a good idea, but those sentiments are pretty anemic without a spiritual center. Another major contributor is the flood of tasteless entertainment in which someone's pain is the greatest source of amusement.

Let’s get back, though, to the family itself. What I'm hearing from wounded women is that one person in the family usually sets the tone. They make jabs about weight, politics or other people's spouses, and if they get away with it, others begin to join in. It becomes a sort of feeding frenzy that doesn't end until someone gets angry, or worse, says nothing but stores up a lot of resentment.

If that's what we're experiencing when we get together with siblings, parents or offspring, we have to finally decide when enough's enough, don't we? That may mean backing away somewhat, or letting people we love know their comments cause us pain.

And, finally, there's a question for ourselves: "Are we setting up our kids to become adults who hate to come home for the holidays?" In other words, do we allow mean-spirited teasing to create victims in our own homes?

As we celebrate another holiday, we have a choice. We can actively discourage meanness in our families, or we can sit back and watch the games begin. I'm interested to hear what choice you made this year.

Fast Ways to Stabilize Your Family

2009-07-02T13:45:00.000-05:00

As I'm reaching out to women to encourage them about their families, I'm noticing some trends that you, too, might be experiencing. What I'm finding is that American families seem to be suffering in two main areas-- money and clutter. Because, in my heart, strong American families can still influence culture, I've pulled together some resources to help get your family back on track.

It's Always About the Money...

Ask nearly any couple what they fight about and you'll hear them say, "money"! It's hard to feel stable in your home when there's not enough cash to go around.

If your family is falling apart because of financial pressure, it's time for some intensive care. Don't wait another day to take serious steps to get your financial house in order.

Why the urgency? There's no way your homes will feel safe and centered until you're up to date on your bills. If financial stress is threatening your marriage, your relationships with your kids and how you feel about yourself in general, it's time to take action before you lose the people you love most.

So where's the hope? There are several strong, savvy financial management voices telling the truth to today's families about getting out of debt, creating a financial cushion and saving for future needs.

My favorites? Dave Ramsey , Suze Orman and Crown Financial Ministries. These folks are no pushovers! If your family is on the brink of disaster, they're not going to worry about whether telling you to stop spending hurts your feelings. But they will offer sound financial advice proven by millions of families to help heal budget blunders.

Clearing Out the Clutter...

Another huge issue in today's overscheduled, two-income families is the amount of clutter that accumulates. I've spoken to women in all economic classes who struggle constantly to keep the mess under control in their homes.

What's the answer? Systems. By seeking and using a systematized approach to your every day life, much of the clutter goes away. Can you organize everything at once? Probably not. Most people who get control of the clutter creature in their homes do it one area at a time. Here's an example of the areas in your family life that can be systematized to bring everyone relief:

Laundry

Dishwashing

Bill Processing

Lawn Care

Regular Cleaning Chores

Meal Preparation

Every one of these vital areas in your home can either spiral out of control, with no one making decisions or requiring others to help, or it can be organized and handled routinely without major stress. Which sounds better to you?

Need some help setting up your systems? These websites offer thousands of ideas for getting your daily life back under control:

Organized Families

Get Organized Mom

Life Organizers

So there we have it, the twin demons--overstressed finances and clutter--that keep our families crazy. Look through the links and start writing down your plan for getting a grip on your home again. Life is about to get a whole lot better at your house!

Kate

Four Budget-Friendly Date Ideas

2009-07-01T10:17:00.001-05:00

I've been neglecting my readers who don't have kids yet, don't plan to have kids or have pushed the last chick out of the nest. What you're telling me is that you need quality time with your honey but don't have the cash to make it happen. Here's my list of four budget-friendly date ideas to get the romance revving.

Ice Cream Social for Two: We (my hubby and I) discovered last night that buying three quarts of premium ice cream from our favorite ice cream retailer costs less than buying two double dip cones! Cappucino Chunk Chocolate in hand (along with two plastic spoons from the ice cream counter), we saw a like-minded couple in the parking lot eating their budget treat while sitting in the back of a pickup. Total cost for our sinfully rich date night? Three dollars and fifty seven cents!

Sleeping (or not) Under the Stars: Remembering how much fun our kids had sleeping in tents in our backyard inspires me to plan a campout with my honey. Since we already have camping equipment stored somewhere in the depths of the garage, it's a matter of digging things out and setting up the tent some Friday night. If you'd rather not have your neighbors listening in to late night giggling (honestly, there's just something about being in a tent...) load up the Jetta with a tent, sleeping bags and some simple no-cook grub and head for a local lake. No camping gear? I'm willing to bet a friend or relative has some stored somewhere. No fair buying anything! Improvise if you have to, but don't spend money on anything but gas.

Bookstore Concert Series: As we're wrestling our budget to the ground, my spouse and I are finding pleasure in the simplest things. For our wedding anniversary this month, we drove to a nearby coffeebar/bookstore ($2 or so in gas), bought one fancy coffee drink ($3.29) and got one free because our coffee punch card was full. A nice little serendipity occurred in the form of a free concert. For less than six dollars, we sat for an hour sipping our iced coffees and listening to great covers of Eric Clapton, John Prine and John Lennon songs. Check your local bookstores and coffee bars for free concerts and use those punchcards before they disappear!

Shall we dance? Here's one that's heavy on the romance but kind to the budget. Couples who love to dance often complain they only get to at weddings. Either spouse can surprise the other with romantic lighting and your favorite dance music. You should definitely dress for the occasion, even if it takes place in your living room. No shorts and t-shirts allowed! What could be more romantic than having your sweetie greet you at the door dressed to kill with a tango playing in the background? Sound a little silly for your taste? Think of it this way...would you rather dress up, go out and break the budget or spend the evening in your loved one's arms knowing your wallet will still respect you in the morning?

I know you're all much more creative than I am, so please add your ideas for low-financial-stress dates in the Comments section. Can't wait to see how you stir the romantic fires without burning down your budget!

Passionate Servants...What a Concept!

2009-06-30T22:21:00.000-05:00

Here's a quote that hangs in my writing corner:

"Vocation is where your passion meets the world's great hunger." Frederick Buechner

That one little sentence stops me short every time I read it! It raises two questions in my mind immediately: am I passionate about what I do for a living, and does what I do meet someone else's needs?

Not quite the same as "I hate my job but it pays the bills" is it? So, the deeper question, then, is this: "Can I become passionate about serving other people, even if it looks like slavery?"

Does that sound masochistic? I hope not! There's no way for us to build homes that are safe and sane for our loved ones when we're martyred by our jobs. What I hope for each of us is that we finally discover what we're passionate about and find a way to make a living based on that.

But as we're finding our passion and moving toward it as a vocation, what if we shifted our thinking in a way that makes a difficult job more bearable? What I think Buechner is also saying is that we can't be happy in our work if it's all about us.

A book I'm reading about marketing says something like this, "When you learn to serve, you'll start making money." See the subtleties? We're to find something we love to do, but do it in a way that serves other people's needs. What a concept!

So I'm going to start a people-watching experiment, and I urge you to do the same. Let's see how many people this week we catch being genuinely concerned about their customers' needs. I want to hear from you how those people seemed to feel about their jobs. I suspect there are lessons for us all in this.

'Til next time, also consider what makes you passionate. If it's not what you do to pay the bills, start thinking how it could be. That kind of contentment can't help but rub off on those you love. And what a nice little ripple effect that could be!

Why Food and Souls Are Connected

2009-06-30T18:39:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned I love Mondays? There's a wonderful thing that happens on Monday evenings at our house. Because we host a small group Bible study on Mondays, there's always a rush to clean the bathrooms and vacuum up the dog hair before our group arrives.

But we manage to eat dinner on Monday nights, and more often than not, we have extra mouths to feed. Our daughter comes by to pick up our grandchild after work and will eat anything I offer that she doesn't have to cook herself.

Our son who's moved home for awhile shows up sweaty and tired from a long work day, my husband drags in from the same. Bible study members show up early (it might be because our standing rule is "Anyone who shows up on Monday night eats").

So we have a hurried meal sprawled around the kitchen table, and I get to watch something wonderful happen. Our grown children interact, our granddaughter digs in to whatever Gma Kate cooks and my husband relaxes visibly. What a lovely thing to offer our families...the chance to relax, talk and laugh a little before we swing back into the evening's events.

I can't think of a nicer way to spend a Monday, can you? Just one more way we center our families, and all it takes is a meal.

Kate

Even a Hostess Zinger Has a Center

2009-06-29T09:45:00.000-05:00

I've been dreaming about eating Hostess Zingers lately...probably something to do with trying to lose weight. I'm sharing this thought because, as I long for one of those luscious raspberry coated, cream-filled spongecakes, I'm also thinking about this blog. So here's my deep thought for the day: Even a Hostess Zinger Has a Center, So Why Don't Our Homes?

Stay with me as I flesh this one out a little. The problem, you see, is that I've been in one too many homes lately where no one seems to be a stable center. The kids seem to be in charge of the scheduling, the parents are afraid to set limits and there's a pervasive sense of cranky discontent.

Just like a Zinger that slipped past the filling injector, those homes have a hollow center. They're empty shells of family life, built around a silly notion that taking charge might hurt someone else's feelings. I'm not kidding, I've actually heard Moms say they're afraid of giving their kids low self esteem (or stifling their creativity, or locking them into gender roles) if they take control to make things happen in the family.

I hope you know I'm not advocating boot camp here. Legalistic environments don't usually result in great kids; the kids just hide their rebellion better. Let's admit, though, that out of control families aren't great places to raise kids, either.

So where's the balance? Having made almost every parenting mistake imaginable, I can now say that consistency dispensed with love gets the best results. It's tricky...I tell my adult children I didn't think some of them would survive childhood. But they did, and everyone of them is productive, compassionate and relatively well-balanced.

I'm still missing those Zingers, but I do have some hope for our families. I'm hoping you'll tell me how you've kept yours balanced, but I also want to hear your challenges. These families of ours are at the heart of our culture, so why not help each other find ways to keep them sane?

Why Is There a Cat on the Table?

2009-06-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

So, I'm exhausted from spending the afternoon in a household with absolutely no center. It's not so much the snot-covered cheeks and jammies still on the babies at 1:00 p.m. It's more the young mother's oblivion to the chaos swirling around her.

Before you color me judgmental, let me tell you that I've washed her dishes, brought her food and cared for her children because I know quite well what it is to be overwhelmed. But I don't believe I've ever sat sipping coffee and explaining my husband's deficiencies as the cat shared my baby's oatmeal.

Color me clueless, but I'm at a loss to understand how complaining about the evils of public education is a substitute for cleaning your home. Or how labeling your children as geniuses gives you a pass on teaching them not to smear feces on the floor.

I know, I'm blathering on when I'm supposed to be offering hope. So here's my first observation: If we, as mothers, want our kids to be able to live in polite society, we must first model civilized behavior in our homes.

I place the blame for some of the chaos I see in the homes of twenty-somethings on my generation, the folks who decided gender roles and living up to someone else's expectations were passe'. Even worse, we gave some of our kids the idea that if they were intelligent, they were exempt from the rules that weighed down uneducated schlubs.

But no matter how bright the parents, someone has to take the reins during parenthood and the babies aren't equipped. So here's my second observation: Children who raise themselves are probably smarter than their parents.

Harsh stuff, I know, but having spent the afternoon listening to the marital angst of someone whose three year old was watching the baby, I'm a little edgy. Do the rest of us get it right all the time? Heck, no. I could tell you stories from my children's childhoods that would turn Dr. Phil's moustache green. But my kids knew when Mommy said "No" she meant it, and they ate their meals without cats on the table.

Want your home to be less chaotic? Try setting aside your need for validation, stop telling your kids they're geniuses and set some ground rules for civilized behavior. You'll be amazed what your children can do when they aren't raising themselves.

Kate

2009-06-27T02:49:00.000-05:00

Becoming the Centers of our Homes

Welcome, friends, to a spot where you'll hear a great deal about my passion - making our homes places of peace and comfort and creativity, homes that "center" our spouses and children (and ourselves!), no matter what our stages in life.

My theory, you see, is that women learn things along the way from adolescence to old age that equip us to be the emotional hearts of our homes. An old-fashioned theory, to be sure, but can you argue with the notion that because some of us have actually carried another human being in our bodies, have turned great pain into wisdom or created beauty in desolate places, we are profoundly well equipped to offer nurture, beauty and wisdom in our homes?

This is no Goddess talking, I have deeply-held Christian beliefs and I'll share those along the way as they pertain to being the center of my home. I feel, though, that each of us has splendid gifts, whether by schooling, intuition or experience, that we can offer the people we love as we open our homes.

And there's a very good reason why we should. I believe, you see, that part of what's made our popular culture mean and cold and coarse is a lack of centeredness, a deficit of time spent in loving places with people who care about our souls and our bodies and our minds. Some of us have had to go outside our homes at stages in our lives to capture that sense of nurture, and that's a shame, but it doesn't mean we can't attempt to create a haven for others with what we've learned.

So here's what I'm offering: a sounding board for women from many backgrounds - corporate leaders, homeschooling Moms, empty-nesters - who've recognized a lack of "centeredness" in their families or marriages and hope to be the ones to fill it.

And I hope you'll share your hearts, too. Some of the best things I've learned about life I've absorbed from being around women with open hearts. So, please, open yours. We're going to learn a lot from each other!

From the center of my home to yours, I welcome you.

Kate