In this post, I am participating in Making Your Home a Haven, and Marriage Mondays.

So far in this challenge, we’ve started a routine of lighting a large candle every day in the hub of our home to help us to be mindful of creating a peaceful environment and to say a little prayer for peace when we see it. We’ve started listening to softer music in our homes to set the mood to our homes as welcoming and inviting. I have honestly noticed a difference – and our house is usually really laid back and approachable as it is.

This week’s challenge is to clean up the clutter. I know I mentioned this already recently, but when we moved last month, we eliminated all of our clutter. No really. However, there are three areas that need to be better organized. My accessories collection (I have an unhealthy obsession with sparkly, clinking and/or plastic jewelry and headbands), my craft supplies (this is way more under control that my headbands lol) and my husband’s office.

Spiritually though we are to be looking an our internal clutter. I was going to run around my house and show off my tidy bookshelves and my organized laundry room and pantry with all the labels facing out in neat rows like the grocery store – but that’s not my struggle. I can keep my home free from clutter – I have a serious issue with internal clutter. That’s what I have to work on this week.

When I’m putting wee one #3 down for a nap, and I’m sitting there knitting away, quietly at peace with myself, the internal clutter starts. I start thinking I should have done my fitness DVD twice that day because I had time and I was just lazy, or that I should move yardwork day from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon so the kids can be playing out there while I’m working. Sometimes, it’s even other people’s clutter, like my husband’s cousin’s relationship issues or problems my friends are having in their jobs or marriages re-sorting to do lists in my head that are actually written down somewhere else. It’s mental clutter because it doesn’t matter if I did my fitness DVD once or twice once it’s done. If I’m thinking of switching yardwork days I should just do it and be done with it, it doesn’t require hours of mulling over. Neither, of course, do problems other people are going through! Seems like a little issue till I realize that I haven’t accomplished much in an afternoon because I’ve been fretting over my sister’s relationship issues or my best friend’s fight with her boss. It’s not that I shouldn’t ever think of these things, it’s that I should not let them rattle around in my head when I should be focusing on what I’m doing, being in the moment, to stop myself from snapping at those around me – those whom I love the best simply because I’m distracted and not giving my full attention. Does anyone else have this problem?!

So that’s what my focus will be this week, cleaning out the mental clutter and fighting to stay present.

In this post, I am participating in Making Your Home a Haven, and Marriage Mondays.

I have been looking forward to this challenge!! When I mentioned it to my husband, we both thought how perfect a time it is for this challenge to enter our life, as we are just getting settled into our new house. We’ve been here for a month this weekend, and we’re all unpacked and solidifying our schedules and routines.

This week, we are to light an extra large candle and say a prayer for peace in our homes and families every time it catches our eye. I lit mine around 6:30 this morning, so I’ve already said a few prayers for peace. I have been pretty open on this blog about being a bit of a ‘self help junkie’ where I’m always pushing myself to be better, but it’s not that I ever think I’m perfect. So, so, so very far from it. I struggle with daily frustrations and obstacles. Maintaining my patience with my children when they are misbehaving and staying cheerful when my husband is feeling grumpy or stressed out are challenges I face daily. Those are two other things I will pray about when I see my kitchen candle throughout the day.

From an example on Courtney’s blog, I’m focusing on staying engaged with my family, smart in my time management, content with my life and to keep praying everyday. <3 These examples are some of the reasons we left the city for the woods!! It's only been a month, but I do feel that the slow down of our lives has helped our family already. Wish me luck with my patience this week!!

This summer, I came across a blog called Women Living Well, and it quickly became one of my favourites. I have been striving to be a better than average wife and mother for the last five years and though there are a lot of lessons to learn along the way, it is clear that I am getting better all the time – and not from sitting on my butt hoping! 😉 The first post on Women Living Well that I read was about her summer marriage challenge, which I fell in love with and participated in. I know my husband was thankful and I really enjoyed it. Even if the challenges were things I was already doing or working on, it was nice to have an entire community of women all doing the same things right along with me!

This challenge, which focuses on making your home a nice welcoming place to come home to, could not happen at a better time because (as I endlessly keep posting about), we have just moved to a sweet house in the middle of nowhere and I am here literally all of the time – hoping to make it a welcoming home for my family.

As with the last challenge, tips and ideas are posted every Monday to be applied the following week. I am still doing most of what we started doing during the marriage challenge, so hopefully whatever I pick up from this will stay with me as well! Great idea Courtney!!

Week 1 we are to light an extra large candle every day, and to say a prayer for peace in our homes every time it catches our eye. Courtney mentioned she’ll be placing hers in a high traffic area in her home so it will catch her eye often and I think that’s the best way to go about it.

Week 2 focuses on setting the tone of the home with peaceful music and to remind our families to avoid harsh words, tattling, and general back talk. I listen to a lot of loud and maybe if I’m totally honest, aggressive music. Since we moved to the country, I have been collecting more ‘fitting’ music, but so far the only switch I’ve made has been to classic rock because that’s the radio station that comes in the best and I have a thing for radio. I will make the change to Glenn Miller and Bing Crosby, both remind me of my grandparents. 🙂

Week 3 turns attention to decluttering problem areas in our home and also in our spiritual lives. When we moved a few weeks ago, my husband had the genius idea to leave absolutely everything we do not use in a storage area in the basement, to avoid clutter in the living area. So far, so good.

Week 4 encourages us to keep up the activities of the first three weeks and to add in some tender family time and gives some ideas. Our family watches a lot of movies together, we go for walks to the shore a lot since moving to cottage country and baking has always been a serious family event around here. We are to ask our families what they think about this challenge so far during these tender times.

The last week of this challenge is to focus on the kitchen and cook meals that smell great, to involve the whole family in cooking. This one is very us as it is, lol. Anyone who reads this blog know my kids love to help in the kitchen and my husband is always around to lend a hand. In our new house his office is just around the corner from the kitchen so he passes through it all day!

I am really looking forward to this challenge. I’ve been reading Sugar Pie Farmhouse a lot. I love that site so much. The point that is always driven home on that site is to play some uplifting music, put on an apron and pop a pie in the oven. It’s all about creating a happy home, so I’m ready to jump into this with both feet!

I’ve been participating in a challenge set out by Courtney at Women Living Well for a few weeks now, and I’ve yet to blog about it. Since I don’t tend to get too personal around here I was holding off but frankly I don’t want to deal with keeping up two blogs, and so much of the rest of my life is touched on in this blog – here we go.

Seeing as how I’ve missed a few posts on this topic already, I’m just going to touch on each week’s topic and what the participants should have written about. Essentially, Courtney created a challenge for like-minded women to put their marriages first and try to be the best they can be. I’m always down for trying to be the best me I can be, so let’s have at it. Plus it’s my blog. So there. 😛

The first week was an intro post, talking about what the challenge is about (done above), the second post was to be about remembering when we dated our husbands and the third was Monday, about praying for our husbands.

Here’s my intro: I’m doing this challenge because I’ve always been one of those sometimes annoying self-help book loving eager beavers. When I got pregnant for the first time, I read everything I could get my hands on and plunged in with both feet. That was 10 years ago and we have 3 kids now, but I’m still reading books and going to classes and workshops on how to be an even better mother. All along the way, I’ve been doing the same with my marriage, so this challenge makes perfect sense to me.

So, part 2: We met through mutual friends and spent a lot of time together in a large group, eventually we had fallen head over heels for each other, but we didn’t want to mess with the dynamic of our group of friends. So we just didn’t say anything to anyone – including each other. This went on for at least 6 months, until one day we were sitting around listening to music and we spent a night talking and talking about talking and finally admitting to each other how we felt. I was 18 and he was 20. We got married exactly a year after that conversation and had wee one #1 shortly after that.

Part 3: Prayer is a fantastically personal thing, but it can be done a sentence at a time over the course of a whole day. It can be lighthearted and down to earth, it doesn’t always have to be something you set aside a chunk of time for. Courtney suggests we use our wedding rings as reminders to pray for our husbands throughout the day. If you know there’s an issue your husband could use some help with, you already know what to pray for. Otherwise, his health and well being are always a good start. Every time I have noticed my wedding ring in the past couple of days, I’ve had a positive thought about my husband and said a little prayer for him. Life is all about the power of positive thinking, people! 😛

*Most people who are participating in this challenge posted photos of themselves with their husbands from their dating years. My husband is not fond of any of our early photos. I will put a recent one in the sidebar for you, but no dice on the wedding pics. 😛