{"id":2705,"date":"2010-11-15T09:10:28","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T14:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/?p=2705"},"modified":"2010-11-15T09:11:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T14:11:00","slug":"making-your-home-a-haven-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/15\/making-your-home-a-haven-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Your Home a Haven Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this post, I am participating in Making Your Home a Haven<\/a>, and Marriage Mondays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I skipped a Marriage Monday post last week and there was so much I wanted to say about the challenge being over and what I’ll be doing in the coming weeks! I am very happy to read recently on Courtney’s blog that she has a December challenge coming up to remind us to stay close to the true meaning of Christmas during that incredibly busy time!<\/p>\n

Lighting my kitchen candle every morning has reminded me to start each day with kindness and saying a little prayer for peace every time I saw it burning throughout the day has kept me focused. I keep burning my candle and I will get a new one when this one is gone and will continue this practice. It’s been a quick and simple reminder to be kind to those around me and to make my home the haven I have always aimed for it to be.<\/p>\n

I’m looking forward to the December challenge because it’s coming at a time when I have decided to make myself sleep 7 or 8 hours a night. I usually get about 5 hours, sometimes 4 and last week I was going on about 3 hours a night – every night. Why do I do this to myself? I have a long history of wanting to do so much that I fill my plate till it’s overflowing and there is no time for sleep. Many of my friends could argue that I manage my time well, but just like the cute girl in a size 5 dress, I think I can do so much better. \ud83d\ude09 <\/p>\n

Yesterday, I plunked down and made a schedule of all the things that need to get done for my sister’s birthday weekend here in the woods, and whatever I couldn’t fit in the schedule (that obviously included my regular life stuff), I dropped. I still want to try those things (like making croissants from scratch) but I can do that for next month’s girl’s weekend. Usually, I’d just cram those other things into the wee hours of the morning, but I am refusing to let myself get stressed out by things that should be fun. So now I know what I’m going to do for her birthday weekend, I know when I’m going to do it all and I know that there is time to get it done without losing my head. And last night? I got 7 hours of sleep AND I got the garbage out on time this morning!<\/p>\n

Plus, we just moved from the biggest, busiest city in the country to a cute house in cottage country so shouldn’t my life be more laid back? Which also goes back to the Making Your Home a Haven challenge, a laid back house is always a more inviting house. I have always been a pretty laid back parent – with very clear lines drawn in the sand, but I need to learn to be a lot more laid back with myself. I have found that the flurry of Christmas knitting has actually helped me a lot in this, and actually the last time I felt nice and laid back was when I was at the end of my pregnancy with Wee One #3, and my husband was terrified that I was going to go into labor early like I had with our first two kids, so I was stuck in the house. So I knitted for three months – and it was wonderful! <\/p>\n

It slows me down because knitting isn’t something you can rush! You can get faster over time (we call my sister a ‘turbo knitter’) but it is a process that just takes as long as it takes and there isn’t much you can do about it. So now, I get my chores done early, usually before the kids have even gotten on the school bus in the morning, get in a blog post, get in a workout and then off to the living room I go with the littlest one to watch Christmas shows and knit!<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I’m posting about Snickerdoodle cupcakes and cookies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this post, I am participating in Making Your Home a Haven, and Marriage Mondays. I skipped a Marriage Monday post last week and there was so much I wanted to say about the challenge being over and what I’ll be doing in the coming weeks! I am very happy to read recently on Courtney’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[270,91,99,271,286],"tags":[326,388,387],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2707,"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions\/2707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soverydomestic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}