Tomorrow, I am going to take photos of my daily routines and stuff that happens around the house here. A few blogs are doing it, and I'm such a joiner!
But for now, I have a teeny bit of time to post a little catchup.
I prayed about getting a new dryer because I heard from a neighbor's little girl (who has a BIG MOUTH) that the landlord was going to make everyone get rid of clothes lines.. and that we were the only ones with one (she said it with such a smug face too) SIGH. So, ok, forced to stop hanging the clothes outside lest we get in trouble and in violation of the lease (yeah it's mentioned but our unit is waaayy in the back corner and no one can see ours except nosy neighborhood kids. >_<
Anwyay, so I tried to forgive her (working on that) and prayed about the dryer and maybe one would be on freecycle or craigslist, as well as a dresser for one of the girls' rooms and also how we needed more twin sheets, at least fitted ones since we only have one set per bed.
Well listen to this!!!
The next day!!! a dryer was offered on Freecycle, and I was the first to request it. I had to wait a couple days til I could get it, but finally I was on my way - and 3 doors down the street from my house was a dresser sitting in the yard with FREE on it. So I called my 17 yr old who was at home and told her to get her friends and go get it and bring it home. She texted back that it was in great shape.... and had 2 sets of twin sheets in the drawers! I almost had to stop driving LOL. And then later that night, my oldest came back from her fiance's house with a twin mattress they gave us. she put it on her bed and I was able to put her old twin mattress on Zoe's bed. Poor Zoe had been sleeping on a mattress from our old foldup portable bed. We'd not been able to get a 4th twin mattress, so we just used that fold up on on the top bunk. I know it was horrible to sleep on, but finances never allowed or to be honest some weeks I just forgot to get one and spent the money on something else. It happens! A twin mattress doesn't usually get written on a shopping list.
Anyway it was all such a blessing!! I'm now almost completely caught up on laundry. In fact I doubt there's enough dirty clothes in the house right now to fill one hamper. WOOHOO!! Praise God!
Another thing going on around here was having to do something with the kids mouthing off and just not doing anything to help out. So we sat them down for a family meeting the last time my MIL was here. Poor Christopher was about dead - he ended up having to go to the other town 2 hours away every day Mon-Fri but thankfully he didn't have to drive. Another guy volunteered to drive! YAY! Then, he had to work Saturday and Sunday at his own store. Unbelieveable. ANYWAY!!!... I had been telling my mother in law about how we needed to get the kids into helping out and doing chores and being held accountable. Well, I had to get to work halfway through the meeting and Christopher was tired, so she took over. She made a chart of chores and who would do them when. It was a good start, but I knew it was not going to last. After two days of them whining "so-and-so has less stuff to do today than I do! I have to do EVERYTHING, It's NOT FAIR!!!" ugh. Plus I was still nagging just as much.
So, I changed it up. Corina had mentioned how in our old house, each kid had one chore and they knew they had to do it and if it didn't get done they were in trouble. So I went with that. I though about how they'd done with the different chores and realized if I gave Rhiannon laundry, we'd all be wearing dirty clothes or go naked, so I gave her dishes. I gave laundry to Corina as well as dumping the garbage at the dump once a week (I see no reason in paying the city to dump it for us). Faelyn is to keep the living/dining room area picked up and neat and vacuumed. Zoe is to keep the animals fed, watered and litter box scooped.
It worked really well, though I was still nagging them a little bit. It started to look like we just had no way of *making* them do their chores... until one night Christopher wanted to talk to me.
He said we needed to really start taking tithing right off the top before budgeting anything else, and then we need to take off money for girls' allowances off the top before anything else. Then what's left goes to bills and expenses. Ok, it you knew Christopher at all.. well you'd know how my jaw dropped to the floor and I had to put it back on my face ala Daffy Duck! This is the man who was a proclaimed agnostic and did not want to go to church and felt organized religion was terrible... I'm still stunned y'all! This new church we're going to that he just loves has made such a huge change in him and our marriage and lives. I am ALL about tithing to them! It's God's money anyway! We're totally blessed to have as much as we do. I just know tithing is going to bless our family abundantly!
Ok, so about those allowances. He said they'd round up to the nearest 5, so Z would get 10, F and R would get 15 and C would get 20. I asked hubby for the stipulation that if they did not do chores to my satisfaction could we not give them out, and he did me one better. He first thought of a family fun fund, but then decided to pay into a Faminy Fun Fund as an allowance, and if anyone did NOT get their allowance due to bad behavior or not doing chores, then their money would go to a Mom&Dad Movie Fund. HAHAHA! Oh the look on Rhiannon's face when I told her that. Priceless! So, as it gets closet to payday you can see Corina getting more and more about laundry lol. She wants that 20 bucks! I know she's about out of gas hehe. The others are still kind of lazy about them, but Rhiannon usually unloads and reloads it at least once a day. Certainly never without being reminded and even then nagged even longer, but she is 13. I've sure we'll pay them all this first time to let them get a taste of it hehe, but from then on, it's all about their behavior.
I'm really excited about this. Mostly because Christopher is stepping up and being Head of the Household. It's so awesome to see God working in him. Awesome stuff!
But for now, I have a teeny bit of time to post a little catchup.
I prayed about getting a new dryer because I heard from a neighbor's little girl (who has a BIG MOUTH) that the landlord was going to make everyone get rid of clothes lines.. and that we were the only ones with one (she said it with such a smug face too) SIGH. So, ok, forced to stop hanging the clothes outside lest we get in trouble and in violation of the lease (yeah it's mentioned but our unit is waaayy in the back corner and no one can see ours except nosy neighborhood kids. >_<
Anwyay, so I tried to forgive her (working on that) and prayed about the dryer and maybe one would be on freecycle or craigslist, as well as a dresser for one of the girls' rooms and also how we needed more twin sheets, at least fitted ones since we only have one set per bed.
Well listen to this!!!
The next day!!! a dryer was offered on Freecycle, and I was the first to request it. I had to wait a couple days til I could get it, but finally I was on my way - and 3 doors down the street from my house was a dresser sitting in the yard with FREE on it. So I called my 17 yr old who was at home and told her to get her friends and go get it and bring it home. She texted back that it was in great shape.... and had 2 sets of twin sheets in the drawers! I almost had to stop driving LOL. And then later that night, my oldest came back from her fiance's house with a twin mattress they gave us. she put it on her bed and I was able to put her old twin mattress on Zoe's bed. Poor Zoe had been sleeping on a mattress from our old foldup portable bed. We'd not been able to get a 4th twin mattress, so we just used that fold up on on the top bunk. I know it was horrible to sleep on, but finances never allowed or to be honest some weeks I just forgot to get one and spent the money on something else. It happens! A twin mattress doesn't usually get written on a shopping list.
Anyway it was all such a blessing!! I'm now almost completely caught up on laundry. In fact I doubt there's enough dirty clothes in the house right now to fill one hamper. WOOHOO!! Praise God!
Another thing going on around here was having to do something with the kids mouthing off and just not doing anything to help out. So we sat them down for a family meeting the last time my MIL was here. Poor Christopher was about dead - he ended up having to go to the other town 2 hours away every day Mon-Fri but thankfully he didn't have to drive. Another guy volunteered to drive! YAY! Then, he had to work Saturday and Sunday at his own store. Unbelieveable. ANYWAY!!!... I had been telling my mother in law about how we needed to get the kids into helping out and doing chores and being held accountable. Well, I had to get to work halfway through the meeting and Christopher was tired, so she took over. She made a chart of chores and who would do them when. It was a good start, but I knew it was not going to last. After two days of them whining "so-and-so has less stuff to do today than I do! I have to do EVERYTHING, It's NOT FAIR!!!" ugh. Plus I was still nagging just as much.
So, I changed it up. Corina had mentioned how in our old house, each kid had one chore and they knew they had to do it and if it didn't get done they were in trouble. So I went with that. I though about how they'd done with the different chores and realized if I gave Rhiannon laundry, we'd all be wearing dirty clothes or go naked, so I gave her dishes. I gave laundry to Corina as well as dumping the garbage at the dump once a week (I see no reason in paying the city to dump it for us). Faelyn is to keep the living/dining room area picked up and neat and vacuumed. Zoe is to keep the animals fed, watered and litter box scooped.
It worked really well, though I was still nagging them a little bit. It started to look like we just had no way of *making* them do their chores... until one night Christopher wanted to talk to me.
He said we needed to really start taking tithing right off the top before budgeting anything else, and then we need to take off money for girls' allowances off the top before anything else. Then what's left goes to bills and expenses. Ok, it you knew Christopher at all.. well you'd know how my jaw dropped to the floor and I had to put it back on my face ala Daffy Duck! This is the man who was a proclaimed agnostic and did not want to go to church and felt organized religion was terrible... I'm still stunned y'all! This new church we're going to that he just loves has made such a huge change in him and our marriage and lives. I am ALL about tithing to them! It's God's money anyway! We're totally blessed to have as much as we do. I just know tithing is going to bless our family abundantly!
Ok, so about those allowances. He said they'd round up to the nearest 5, so Z would get 10, F and R would get 15 and C would get 20. I asked hubby for the stipulation that if they did not do chores to my satisfaction could we not give them out, and he did me one better. He first thought of a family fun fund, but then decided to pay into a Faminy Fun Fund as an allowance, and if anyone did NOT get their allowance due to bad behavior or not doing chores, then their money would go to a Mom&Dad Movie Fund. HAHAHA! Oh the look on Rhiannon's face when I told her that. Priceless! So, as it gets closet to payday you can see Corina getting more and more about laundry lol. She wants that 20 bucks! I know she's about out of gas hehe. The others are still kind of lazy about them, but Rhiannon usually unloads and reloads it at least once a day. Certainly never without being reminded and even then nagged even longer, but she is 13. I've sure we'll pay them all this first time to let them get a taste of it hehe, but from then on, it's all about their behavior.
I'm really excited about this. Mostly because Christopher is stepping up and being Head of the Household. It's so awesome to see God working in him. Awesome stuff!
A Christian's first giving should go to buy medicine, food and essentials. See www.tithing-russkelly.com
ReplyDelete1 Tim 5:8
8 But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
KJV
So good to read an update. I had been thinking of you and wondering how things were going. How wonderful to hear how God has blessed you with the items you were needing! I love it when He reveals Himself in the little details of life.
ReplyDeleteI hope your new system brings some much needed peace and freedom to your daily schedule. When everyone helps out it sure does take a burden off!
I am also so pleased to hear of your husband's interest in seeking God and His ways. I can tell through your writing how much you love each other and I know this means so much to you. Imagine how much it means to our Lord!!
If you have a minute to swing by my blog, please do so. We've had a bit of a crisis, which I shared about on there, and would covet your prayers! God bless you!