Homemaking (An Index to My Blogs)

Dear friends,

I have a whole bunch of posts about homemaking on two of my blogs.  I've finally compiled an index of most of them below in several categories, and I have also created a page for them with a link at the top of this blog which I will try to keep updated with future posts.  There may be other homemaking posts currently on my blogs that I have not added to this index yet.  You can probably find them in these category tags: Homemaking at Virginia's Life and Homemaking at Come Weary Moms.

You might also like my newest post on my main blog: Twenty Years, Ten Kids, One House.

Homemaking Inspiration:

• "The Blue Bowl" and Thoughts on Making a Home
• Refresh and Renew: Quilt and Pansies
• Who is the Proverbs 31 Woman? Not Me Yet!
• Busy & Creative at Home (with links to organization blogs)
• Knowing That She Hath Wings
• "My Glorious Dishtowel" Redux and More 
• Creativity AND Order (They Aren't Mutually Exclusive!)
• Let Our Ordered Lives Confess the Beauty of Thy Peace...?

 

Room-by-Room in our Home: 

• Kitchen Organization Ideas from a Mom of 10
• Decorating and Organizing Bathroom Areas on a Budget
• Welcome to Our Living Room
• The Impulsive Decorator's Room Redo #1: The Front Hallway
• Turning Angst into a Clean Closet
• A Desk for Mom (Featuring Habitat for Humanity)
• A Space of My Own (My Desk Again)
• Not-So-Extreme Makeover: The Front of Our House

 

Season-by-Season in our Home: 

• Easy Autumn Decorating on a Dime
• Autumn: A Pretty Home and Yummy Food on a Budget
• Easy Christmas Decorating on a Dime
• Easy Spring Decorating on a Dime
• Springtime in My Front Hallway

  

Home Organization Tips: 

• First Steps to a Tidy Home / Children & Chores
• "Bin There, Done That" (Or How to Keep School Clutter from Turning You Into a Basketcase)
• Organizing First Aid Supplies, Medicines and Supplements
• One Mom's Trash is Another's Treasure
• A Place for Everything
• Household Organization: Clutter, Clothes Storage and Chores

Laundry: 

• Organizing and Laundering Your Linens
• Mt. Washmore (Laundry for a Large Family)
• Doing the Wash: Grandmother’s “Receet”
• And You Wonder What I Do All Day?
• "My Glorious Dishtowel" Redux and More 

Food:

I have a whole page of links about food and grocery shopping!    It's not always completely current, but you can find it here: Food.  You can also see entire blog posts with the tag of Food at Food Glorious Food at Virginia's Life and Food at Come Weary Moms.

  

Click away, my friends, and welcome to my home!

Virginia Knowles

www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com

Sanctuary (Big Words)

"The circumstances of my life can be so troubling.  

The outward look is not always promising.

What counts is the inward reality, 

the inner focus and perspective and gaze.

It will not happen if I do not purposefully cultivate it --

tend to it, water it, nurture it.

Here the joy, pleasure and delight are revealed.

Here is the sanctuary.

This is not necessarily a place, 

but a space I carve out 

for myself to be in God's presence.

It's a space in my heart and in my time ~ ~ 

a pause, an embrace, a calm rest.

I can carry it with me back into the fray.

Sanctuary is awareness of God's presence...

   sacred
    set apart
      serene
        sacramental
          simple
            shalom
              shield
                salvation
                  safety.

One of my daughters gave me this Psalms journal for my birthday two years ago.  It has short passages from Psalms with room on the facing page to write my own reflections.  I started using it during a particularly frazzled season of life.  Then I stopped.  I picked it up the other day and was struck by a verse with the word sanctuary in the day's passages:  

"Lift up your hands 

in the sanctuary 

and bless the Lord." 

Psalm 134:2

Sanctuary is what I wrote about, and that's what you see in this blog post.   It's another frazzled season of life with the kids starting school and me starting a new teaching job, and lots of other stuff going on, not all of it pleasant.  (Like grieving the loss of my mother.) I need sanctuary.  And that means investing the time that I don't think I have, with the God who turns a meager pile loaves and fishes into an abundant feast.  I come weary and leave refreshed. I think I'll go back and read something I wrote a while back:  Busy, Dizzy and In a Tizzy: Christian Contemplation for Moms and Other Frazzled Folks. 

You may also like the more recent entries in my Strength in Hymn series:

• His Eye is on the Sparrow
• Let There Be Peace on Earth
• Be Thou My Vision
• Sweet Hour of Prayer
• For All the Faithful Women
• Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
• Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

This is the first post in my new Big Words series!  More on that later...

Grace and peace,
Virginia Knowles
www.ComeWearyMoms.blogspot.com