Motherhood and Feminism

I'm taking a break from my staying home series. I will get back to it soon, but for today I wanted to ponder something else.

I recently got a copy of The Way Home by Mary Pride. While I have found it a great encouragement and confirmation that choosing to be a wife and mother is my calling at this stage of my life. I waited a long time to be blessed with this stage, living until the age of 35 as a single woman.

It also has got me thinking at the same time. It has focused much of my previously rambling thoughts about how much our lives and culture are shaped and influenced. Even amongst those who claim the name of Jesus Christ, and who give voice to seeking to live according to God's will there seems to be more of this world than of God influencing life choices.

Before I go further I will openly admit that I am NOT perfect. I haven't got it all figured it. Part of the reason I am writing this post is because I am working on this in my own mind and life right now. Most of my time and energy is poured into my children, as it should be with little ones, and this blog is my creative outlet that helps to keep me from being totally absorbed by the world of toddlers and babies. It is also the creative outlet that prevents me from talking the ears off my wonderful husband every night because I need to express to process.

The Way Home looks at how feminism has undermined biblical womanhood. It doesn't surprise me either. I can remember the conversation I had with the career advisor when I was a teenager. I was asked the question of what I wanted to do when I grew up. My answer did not compute. I said that I wanted to get married and have children. I was asked several times and I always gave the same answer. I was told each time that I must want to be something else, as just being a wife and a mother was such a waste of my talents and abilities. This was about the same time as Mary Pride's book was first published.

I didn't really understand what feminism was back then. All I knew was that what I really wanted to do with my life was to be a wife and a mother. I had always known that was what I wanted to do, what I was created to do. I guess that is part of the reason why I could never make up my mind what kind of career to have. Even after college once I entered the working world I could never settle down to one particular profession. So every few years I would try something new. Yet everything I did do helped to prepare me for the job I will have for the rest of my life. No matter what else happens I will be my husband's wife and my children's mother.

I feel so blessed to be in the position I am in. It was not so long ago that I was trying to accept that I may never be a mother to my own children. As I type this I have two incredible little boys asleep in their cribs for nap time.

Still I come back to how far even the Church has strayed from God's plan for families. Every time people find out that we want more children they act surprised. We already have two, isn't that enough. And this is from the very people we worship beside on Sunday mornings. When people find out that I stay home and we choose to live on a single income we are told that we are very lucky. We are not lucky at all, nor are we wealthy. We have chosen to live without many things that others think are necessities so we can live on a single income. We sacrifice the good so we can have the best, God's best.

God's Word says plainly that wives are to look after the home and bear children, yet even conservative Christian radio stations air programing that assumes wives are also working in full-time jobs outside the home. When couples are preparing for marriage it is not shocking to hear them be advised to wait a few years after marriage before starting a family. They "need" to get to know each other for a few years before they add children, or they "need" to save for a home, or establish their careers, or, or, or. Even in the face of biblical counsel that a newly married couple be freed from civic responsibility in their first year of marriage for the very purpose of starting a family together.

There are also those who say that we cannot teach that wives should stay home, because there are those families who cannot survive financially unless they have two incomes. Until less than a year ago on paper we could not afford for me to stay home, yet we have survived and even flourished on our single income. Living by faith will not always make sense on paper, but it will work in practice when our trust is on the Creator of the Universe.

I don't know what the solution is. I don't know that there is an easy solution to combat compromise. All I know is that God has made clear His will in His Word. We each have to choose day by day and moment by moment to either obey or disobey. I will admit there are moments when I long to rebel and do my own thing, but somehow I come back to the point of obedience in the long run.

I know that obedience is rarely politically correct these days. Our secular culture is so very far away from obedience to God's Word. I know even most Christians will wonder away by compromising with the secular world. Yet there is something so incredible waiting for us. When we wonder and stray God is still waiting with open arms to welcome us back to that path of obedience. He is ready to forgive us when we come before Him with repentance. He desires to show us the way that may be more difficult but that is also more blessed.

I willingly turn my back on the philosophies of feminism, and secular humanism. I don't think either have done me any real favors. How I respond to those who are my sisters in faith but who openly embrace these things I am still working through. Maybe one day people will once again cherish the role of wife and mother, as they did before feminism tainted our culture. Maybe one day this will not be a difficult and misunderstood road to walk along. Until then I will continue to whole heartedly embrace my role, and pray more will join in this blessed and joyful life.

Staying Home, Part 3 - Food 101

Aiden learning to make a healthy version of Chocolate Cake

If you haven't read Part 1 or 2 of this series you can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

In this post I am going to focus on cooking and eating at home. I love to cook and create tasty meals for my family. I am blessed to have had a Mum who let us help her in the kitchen from a young age. She was not much of a cook when she first got married and was still learning while raising us. She had a tight budget and few of the luxuries of today, but she managed not only to feed us good healthy meals, she also managed to raise 3 children to be really good cooks themselves.

Sadly I meet a lot of people who cannot say the same thing. Too many women I talk to about the home will confess that they can barely put a meal together, never mind make healthy nutritious food from scratch. Feeding their families is a chore they would rather avoid, so avoid they do. Instead of simple but delicious food cooked at home they resort to take out, frozen convenience foods and the most expensive of them all, eating out. Many of these same women also confess to a longing to be homemakers, but cannot afford to give up paid employment. It is to these women (who are sadly too many in number) that I dedicate this particular post.

If you can find a way to control the spending on food life on a single income becomes a lot more possible. Glean what information is useful to you and your circumstances and let the rest be. Below are some of the things that have made living on a single income while still enjoying good food possible for our family.

Set a budget

This may seem simple, and in many ways it is. You might be surprised at how much money you will save just by setting a budget for food/groceries and then sticking to it. We currently have a monthly budget, but there were times it was fortnightly, as that is how often my darling husband gets paid. Once the budget is spent then no more trips to the store until the next allotment comes around. Now that we have children to consider we make extra effort to not run out of budget for the essentials like milk or eggs.

Eating Out

Make eating out and take out food a special treat. Try not to allow for weekly trips to restaurants as it will encourage too much overspending. There are ways to have easy to prepare meals if you are at work all day without having to go out to eat. In our 8 Week Menu Plan we have one night designated for eating out or take out food. We are in the process of expending to 10 or even 12 weeks, but we will still only have one night for this treat.


Become a copy cat

Learn how to make your favorite restaurant meals at home. I have found Allrecipes.com a great resource for new recipes. Then there is always a Google search for the recipe of a particular dish. The Internet is full of people ready to share recipes they have made or found that taste just like that dish you always have to have at your favorite restaurant.

Quality

This is a big one in our home. My husband and I both enjoy really good food, and really good food starts with really good ingredients. There are many areas in our life where we are willing to cut corners, but quality of food is not one of them. We both would rather have less quantity lying around our pantry in favor of better quality. It will also help remove the temptation to eat out more if the food at home tastes really good.





Buy the best quality ingredients your budget will allow for. It really does make a difference to the taste. Growing up in Scotland meant that grass fed and finished meat was just ordinary meat. It took me a while to realize that one of the reasons beef and chicken both tasted so different to me was because they were corn fed. We are slowly switching one food item at a time to a better, healthier variety. We recently switched our beef to grass fed and finished. We can only afford to do this by purchasing half a cow at a time, as the cost per lb is significantly less when bought in bulk. My next target will be butter from grass fed sources only. I haven't even began my research yet, but I will try to find a local source before I resort to imported Irish or Danish butter.

This is a process with a lot of learning along the way. Probably the easiest way to start is by choosing organic produce. Start with those items that are most important to you. We use a lot of potatoes and onions, and these are also 2 of the worst vegetables for absorbing chemicals from the soil. As a result we made these our top priority for switching to organic. Next we focused on "The Dirty Dozen" that we use most frequently. Once Aiden started drinking regular milk we also made sure to only buy organic milk. I would like to switch to raw organic milk, but have not yet found a source.



Water

If you live in an area like ours then you probably don't drink the water that comes from the faucet in the kitchen sink. Our water quality is so bad we don't even use the ice maker in our freezer for making ice. When I first arrived in 2008 my darling husband was using bottled purified water for cooking and drinking. This quickly became prohibitively expensive when there were 2 of us. We decided to make the switch to filtered water. We did not want an expensive plumbed in filtration system, nor did we have that kind of money to spend. Neither did we like the idea of the plastic jug filters that required regular replacement filters and could only filter small amounts at a time. We knew there had to be a solution and we set ourselves a budget of $250 to find it. After a lot of searching online we found The Berkey Water Filter. It comes in various sizes. The filter elements are cleanable and the tank is stainless steel. Once of the sizes was priced at exactly $250 and came with free shipping. We have been using our Berkey for over 3 years and we have cleaned the filter elements twice in that time. It still works really well and the water tastes great. One of my favorite aspects to this particular filter system is that is leaves the essential healthy minerals in the water. After the initial cost it has cost us nothing and provides enough filtered water every day for both drinking and cooking.

Spend money to save money

It may seem counter-intuative that to save money by cooking at home it is wise to invest some money on good quality key kitchen items. I highly recommend investing in a few really good quality stainless steel pots, a cast iron skillet, a slow cooker and a few good baking dishes. These items are important to me because while I like to cook I don't particularly relish the cleaning. Having good quality pots makes clean up easier. Easier clean up means you are more likely to actually cook food at home. It is important to remember that this does not have to happen overnight. Use what you have and slowly replace with better quality as you can afford to.

Our most recent purchase was a stand mixer. I have wanted one of this particular brand for many years. When I first arrived we could not afford one. So I waited. After almost four years it is finally in my kitchen. Now as someone who likes to cook and bake it is not going to change what I make, but it certainly takes a lot of the elbow grease out of bread making for me.

That woman's touch!

Try to make your kitchen a beautiful and cheerful place. This doesn't have to cost much. Decluttering the counters and adding a favorite picture or photo collection can work wonders. Personally I made sure this was the room our CD player/radio was placed in. I enjoy singing while I cook, so having a source of music is important for my kitchen. More meals will be cooked at home IF you enjoy spending time in the kitchen.

Grocery Lists

We have found that keeping a running grocery list is really useful. We try to avoid going to the store for 1 or 2 items. To combat that temptation we keep a running list. When either of us notices that we are getting low on a particular item we add it to the list. By adding before we run out we are able to wait until a scheduled trip to the store before replenishing our supply. Our scheduled trips are staggered between the 3 stores we regularly use, with each one scheduled once a month. We also have a scheduled milk and produce store trip once a week that Rob will do on his way home from work. By having a list AND staying out of the stores we avoid the temptation to spend more money on items we don't actually need.

Make ahead

When you are cooking, make extra and freeze it for later. Rob prefers freshly cooked food and would rather take left overs the next day for lunch. However I have found that freezing side dishes works well for us. I do this with stuffed potatoes, mac'n'cheese, cooked rice, mashed potatoes, soup and stock. I'll cover instructions for these in another post dealing specifically with cooking from scratch.

Have fun

The most important part of cooking and eating at home, for me, is to have fun. If being in your kitchen and preparing meals feels like a drudgery then you won't do it. If you have fun while you work, and enjoy what you do, you'll begin to look forward to meal preparations. As I already mentioned I like to sing while I cook. I will also dance to the music if I'm in a particularly playful mood, or if Aiden needs entertaining at the same time. He finds my silly dancing quite amusing and will watch and giggle while I work.

If you have made it this far you might be feeling a big overwhelmed. I never intend for these posts to get so long, but that is usually how they turn out. I'll leave the details of how to cook from scratch for the next post. Meanwhile I hope you can start to enjoy your kitchen and make it a place where you have fun and create wonderful food for the whole family.

Staying Home, Part 2 - How we live on a single income

In Part 1 I shared why we chose to live as a single income family. Now we will cover some of the practical realities of our choices.

Reduce & Reuse

We reduced in some areas and reused/re-purposed in others

Areas we reduced:

We sold one of our vehicles and became a one vehicle family. This saved us on insurance, maintenance, gas/petrol and time. The gas/petrol and time is saved because instead of my making a special trip for groceries during the day while Rob is at work he picks up groceries on the way home when he is driving by or close to the store anyway. With Rob doing grocery shopping alone we are able to stick to our list and he gets in and out quicker than when we have the children at the grocery store.

We cut down on packaging. We buy fewer prepackaged goods than we did at first and stick to produce etc that doesn’t come prepackaged. We also buy bulk quantities of some dried goods which also cuts down in packaging. This saves money and time. The packaging costs are built in to the cost of items so the less we have the less we are paying for. It also saves us time sorting through recycling too.

Eating out. This is a big saver for us. We both like to cook and we both like to eat good food. So when we want a fancy meal we make it ourselves. It is now rare for us to eat out unless we are on a trip somewhere, and even then we like to buy groceries and prepare food if we can. Even a visit to the dollar menu can quickly add up to more than the cost of a much healthier home cooked meal. If you don’t know how to cook invest in a couple of good books that will teach you step by step, or invest in a cooking class. It will save you money in the long term.

We moved closer to where Rob works. Reducing his commute by 30 minutes each way every day saves us a lot of money when fuel prices continue to rise, not to mention lower maintenance on our car as it builds less wear and tear. As an added bonus it gives Rob an hour extra every day to spend playing with his children instead of sitting in the car.

Areas we reuse/repurpose

Clothes never get thrown away in our home. If they are too worn to wear they go in the rag box. When I’m looking for fabric for a project I’ll check the rag box first. When I was pregnant with Seth I decided to make some newborn sized fitted diapers/nappies so we would not have to buy throw away diapers until he was big enough for our stash of prefolds. I used a large pile of old t-shirts to make some very cute diapers/nappies. The total cost of 24 fitted diapers in newborn size was less than $10. The only supplies I bought for this project was Velcro and elastic. I had everything else. I recently looked at the price of these items to buy premade and they ranged from $15-$25 each. Even though Seth was a big baby and quickly outgrew them I still saved the money for the 5-6 weeks of throw away diapers/nappies. We saved at least $50 even with just that little use.

We also are always looking for ways to repurpose/reuse in the kitchen. I buy dried goods in bulk and store in old jars that were once the packaging on something else. I have a row of flour and sugar jars that originally contained biscotti. In the pantry I have rice, pasta etc in old catering size mayonnaise jars. I wash out jam/jelly jars and reuse to store sauces in the freezer. If it can be cleaned out and is re-sealable then we will find a use for it. I even reuse old laundry detergent bottles to store my homemade detergent. Empty spray bottles of cleaning fluids are refilled with homemade versions to do the same job (those recipes/tips are a whole post in themselves.)

Plan a menu

Early on in my blogging life I shared an 8 week menu plan we were in the process of implementing. It has since had several revisions and we are currently looking at expanding it to 10 or 12 weeks, with only a few firm favourite meals repeated (who wants to wait 12 weeks for pizza or burgers.) Having a menu plan works for us. We like a lot of variety in our meals. We like to cook. What we don’t enjoy is having to think about what to cook. Now that we have small children it is even more important to take some of the thinking out of the process. I’m even working on a menu plan for breakfast, lunch and snacks for myself and the children. I like knowing what to take out of the freezer, what to put on the grocery list and what to do when my almost 2 year old has a hungry day and wants to eat every 30 minutes.

We’ve been using the menu plan for about 3 years. We know almost instinctively what to buy at the grocery store. I still keep a running list on the fridge that we use to do the actual grocery shopping. Rob will take it with him on the days he has to pick up groceries on the way home. Otherwise we shop for groceries once a month, which is generally how long it takes to have a list big enough to justify a special trip for groceries. This strategy has saved money in another way. We stay out of stores, so we reduce the temptation to impulse buy. When we don’t go to the store for only 2 or 3 items we are not tempted to buy another 10 items we don’t really need, costing us money we had not planned to spend (even if the item is on sale, it only saves money of we would have bought it regardless of the sale.)

Menu planning has also helped us to avoid the temptation to eat out or order take out food. On those days when I can’t get even 5 minutes in the kitchen without a meltdown from one of the children it isn’t a disaster. We both know what is ready to cook and either of us can have dinner on the table just by following our menu. I will say at this point we are not slaves to the plan. We will readily swap around meals within the same week, especially for a meltdown day. Having crockpot/slow cooker meals has also been a blessing on those days too.

I’ll have to do a post just on food, as this is a big area of spending for us, and also an area where we can really save when we need to. I’m sure it will be the same for you too.

Go Green

Some of the choices we have made that make us kinder to the environment are really areas where we save money, and being green is just a happy side effect.

When we were pregnant with our first born we had no spare money. I already knew I wanted to use cloth diapers/nappies. I knew it was kinder for the baby and their delicate skin. I also knew it did not have to cost a lot of money to get started. Rob was sold on it as I explained how we could build a stash of cloth diapers/nappies cheaply and just how much it would save us financially over 2 years. We used a gift card to buy our initial 5 dozen cotton prefolds, then we just paid for the waterproof covers and fasteners. Total outlay for us was only about $30. The actual cost if we had not had the gift card would have been about $90. We did end up using throw away diapers/nappies for  the first 6 weeks until Aiden was big enough for the prefolds. Again we used gift cards for most of that cost, but it was more than $80 for that 6 week period, almost as much as the cost for a complete cloth set up. We did add 4 pocket diapers/nappies later to use overnight, and then we bought more covers and 4 more pockets when Seth was born. The pockets cost about $20 each. Add in a few extra fasteners and for 2 boys we have spent less than $300 in cloth diapering supplies in the last 2 years. We also have enough supplies to last several more babies, as we currently only use about half of our supply since we wash 3 times a week. The more babies we have the more we will save in this area.

Homemade detergents and cleaners are another money saver that has the added benefit of being green, but since I’ve already promised another post on this topic I won’t go into details here.

We have a small car, a Nissan Versa. It fits the same number of people as most of the larger vehicles we see on the road. However it not only cost us less to buy it, it costs less to operate too. It is more fuel efficient than the larger vehicles. With the right kind of car seats we should be able to fit 3 children in the back, which is exactly the same as those fuel guzzling SUVs we see on most of our neighbours drives.

So this has turned into a much longer post than I originally intended. I’ll continue with posts on food and cleaners, and a few other things we do to make that single income count.

Staying Home, Part 1 - Why?

While Rob and I were preparing to get married we had several conversations about me working after we got married. We agreed that I would in fact stay home, even before we were blessed with children.

Yet during the first year of our marriage I did work outside the home. I worked part-time. I did not at that time work at home (our marital home) at all. Truth be told during the first year of our marriage I never stepped foot inside our home. Rob lived there, in Florida, and I continued to live with my parents, in Scotland. We were going through the immigration process and it took a full year to get my visa that would allow me to move in and live with my husband. While we were waiting I continued to work.

When I immigrated to the USA and finally got to live with my precious husband I no longer worked in paid employment outside our home. This was not always an easy a choice. Less than a month after I arrived Stateside my husband had his hours cut at work. Living on a single income became a very tight squeeze. We again visited the idea of me finding paid employment. Again we made the decision that I should stay at home.

Why was this important to us, especially when we were not yet parents? There were a few reasons for us. I'll start with the least important and then go on to the more important reasons.

Firstly Rob was given some advice from one of the friends who led him to the Lord. This friend shared from the wisdom of being married for nearly 20 years, and living on a single income while growing and raising a family with his wife. He told Rob that if we were planning on having children and for me to stay home with them it would be wiser for me to stay home from the start. That way we would not get used to having a second income, even if we chose to save all of that second income. This was one of the best pieces of advice we received when we got married. It was not always easy to live on one income, so how much harder who that have been if we had to make a bigger adjustment from 2 incomes.

The second reason for us was that we did indeed want to have children. We were older when we got married and knew that we could not take fertility for granted. We had both seen friends and family struggle with fertility issues. The reasons for this struggle were many, but one that seemed to be shared by all those we knew was that the wife not only worked outside the home, but she also had a lot of stress from both the job and trying to juggle keeping the home and other outside commitments too. We wanted to given ourselves the best possible opportunities to be able to have children, so adding a stressful outside job did not make sense, even in the midst of a very tight budget. It was also much easier for both of us to stay healthy when I am home cooking everything from scratch instead of eating mass produced convenience foods or resorting to eating out (which also makes it more difficult to stick to a budget.)

More important than either of these good reasons, was the most important reason of all. We understood that God's will was for me to stay at home. When we searched the Scriptures we could find no evidence that the Lord desires women to work outside the home. In fact we found very much the opposite. Women who were busy outside of the home were always portrayed as wicked women, rebellious and discontent. In the New Testament women are clearly instructed to be "keepers at home." Even widows of child bearing age were instructed to remarry rather than rely on welfare. Widows who are older were to be looked after by their adult children/grandchildren rather than resort to welfare. Those widows who had neither of these options were to receive welfare from the church only if they had proved themselves to be hard working at home, and not prone to laziness.

But what about the Proverbs 31 woman? I have heard that used as justification for working outside the home. Yet this woman, who is worth is above rubies, is not shown as working outside the home. Rather she looks well to the ways of her household. She uses her spare time to be industrious for sure, but the things she does are at home industries. She buys land to provide more food. She makes clothes for her family, and makes some extras that she can sell to merchants. She prepares food to feed her family. She is indeed the ultimate stay at home wife and mother. She uses all her waking hours for the benefit of her family, while being home to look after her family.

I will continue with Part 2 - How we live on a single income. I'll share some of the things we have learned to help us live within our means.

Budgets, Budgets, Budgets.

It's budget time of year here. My wonderful husband is the Deacon in our Church who heads up the Finance Committee. I am also responsible for setting the budget this year for our Ladies Ministry, after taking on responsibility for that ministry a few months ago. We are also continuing to work on our personal family budget. So my days are filled, after chores, with various spreadsheets full of budgets. Until this year the Church Secretary has done the administrative side of budget season, but it has now become my job, as my beloved's secretary. I must confess I rather enjoy the challenge. I like to keep my mind busy, and thinking through layouts, formulas, and sub-headings on spreadsheets gives my mind a little extra exercise.

It is not lost on me that I am taking this one as we are deep into a recession. Money is tight everywhere. We live on one income, in a two income society, so I am very aware of how every cent counts. Now that I have got used to prices over here and actually thinking in dollars, it is great timing to be surrounded by this work. It is making me evaluate where the money goes. At the same time I don't want to get caught in the trap of a "poverty mentality" and never be able to enjoy a luxury or two occasionally.

I really enjoy Italian food. I also really enjoy cooking Italian food. My favourite thing is a freshly made tomato sauce with basil and garlic served with some homemade ravioli. I want to cook from scratch, but fresh tomatoes are way too expensive compared to tinned tomatoes. Somehow the taste is so much better when the tomatoes are fresh. So last weekend we went to Walmart and got a few tubs for the patio, some potting soil and a couple of tomato plants. We also picked up a basil plant for the herb tub. I already had pepper seedlings I had grown from the seeds of a couple of peppers we ate recently. We deliberately picked two different varieties of tomato. One will be ready for harvest in about 7 weeks and the other about 4 weeks after that. We also picked up some organic tomato seeds that I will start in another few weeks. This will give us a bountiful harvest of tomatoes to provide months worth of fresh tomato sauce. A true luxury that will cost more in time than money. Already my mouth is watering in anticipation of the first batch ready for the pot.

Are other recent luxury decision was regarding our drinking water. My beloved used to suffer from kidney stones, which he has assured me is more painful than childbirth could ever possibly be. He was told it was probably caused by a mineral build up from the water he consumes. So he switched to bottled purified water. This was great for him while it was one person living on one income. But with me at home all day our water consumption rose more than double. After months of discussion and research we finally found our answer in a Berkey Water Filter. It arrived on Tuesday, and I got it set up Wednesday morning. I got to enjoy the water first, and it tasted so good I had no problem motivating myself to drink water all day. Then Rob got home and had his first taste. He loved it too, so much he thought it tasted a lot like the normal water from my home area in Scotland. It was an investment, but it will easily pay for itself in less than eight months, and it's healthier than either mains water or purified water.

So my goal for the rest of the year is to find at least one idea a month that will save on spending while adding to the sense of luxury in our lives. Afterall our lives are to be enjoyed rather than endured.

With a break from spreadsheets fulfilled, it's back to budget work until dinner.

The busyness of life

The last few weeks have been busy around here. With the approach of daylight savings time, the start of spring and the increase in temperatures my beloved has been in overdrive for us to get finished with all our house decorating. When I arrived last September our entire house needed to be painted. Although Rob had been living in the house for over a year he was waiting for my arrival to begin painting. Before I ever saw the house I thought it would be a few weeks to complete. When I saw how big the house was I knew it would take much longer, just not this long. We are on the home stretch now, with just our own bedroom to paint. Even the garage got painted before our bedroom. After all the delays we looked forward to completion. Then last week a friend asked me to help look after her toddler for a few days, as he couldn't go to daycare. I happily obliged as I enjoyed a change of pace. Needless to say I didn't make any progress in the decorating in those few days. Rather I got to enjoy seeing my home through the eyes of a young boy, and marvel at what a wonderful playground our home is. Carpeted stairs seemed to be the favourite toy, as both days saw hours spent climbing and playing on the stairs. As I remembered back to my own childhood I believe my brother and I also would spend a lot of time playing on the stairs in our home. No need for expensive toys when there is a house to play in.

Then we also had some terrible news last Friday. My husband and I help in our Church bus ministry. We run one of the bus routes for Sunday mornings. My husband is also the AWANA Commander. That is our Wednesday evening children's ministry. I help in by being director of the younger children (Sparkies.) On Friday night we got a call to let us know that one of the children had suddenly died. He was only 12. He had died in his sleep on Thursday/Friday. This boy was on our Sunday morning route and also one of our AWANA boys. He lived with his father, as his mother had left when he was very young. He had only just got saved three weeks ago, and now he is home with the Lord. The funeral is tonight, at the same time as our AWANA group. His family has very little by this world's standards, and do not know the Lord. Our entire Church are wrapping around this family during this difficult time. The family don't even have any money to pay for the funeral. This boy was not one of the popular children. He could be very difficult to love, but he was still important to God. He is in glory now, but there is a shattered family still here to be ministered to. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must feel like to loose a child, never mind to go through it without the comfort of my faith. Yet we will continue to reach out to this family after the funeral is over and the other visitors have gone. The grief will take a long time to process, but we have a hope to offer this family and so it is our duty to continue reaching out to them in the coming months and years.

This week also sees my first Ladies Fellowship at our Church. I am eager to get started in this ministry, but also a little nervous. I have no idea what the ladies are expecting from me, or what previous fellowships have been like. I am launching this ministry with an afternoon tea, so the next few days are going to be busy with lots of baking. Regardless of the trims and expectations though, the important thing for me is to bring a refocus to our ladies. It is time to stop looking for entertainment and start looking for opportunities to serve. I am going to challenge the ladies with the verses from Titus 2 about the older teaching the younger, and being keepers at home. It is a message that is definitely needed here in Florida, where everyone lives such fragmented and isolated lives. Lord willing the message will begin to impact the women in our Church to make a real difference in each others lives as well as reaching outside ourselves to serve too.

Well it's time to close and get a paint brush back in my hands again.

Keeping My Home

It is February already. This is going to be another busy month. This month will also see me celebrate six months of living here in Florida. The first six months has gone by quicker than I could have imagined. The first year of our marriage seemed to last for eternity while we were separated by an ocean. Now we have been living together as husband and wife long enough to become some what settled in our routines.

As I think about the time we have had together I am thankful. I am also aware that I am not yet all the wife and homemaker I should be. For the last few weeks I've been struggling with fatigue. Rob hasn't noticed much difference in my home keeping, but I have. I am aware that there are days when I have to remind myself to rejoice in washing the tile floors. Doing such a chore means I am here with my husband. We have a home for me to clean. I have the mobility to clean. There is much to rejoice in when washing tile floors. It is my joy and privilege to serve my husband by keeping our home.

So how do I get through the days when I find it difficult to find the energy to finish all that needs doing?

My first strategy, no matter how I feel, is that I have a list. My general weekly list is on the refrigerator door. It is split into the five days that Rob normally works, and the work is split between those days. At the bottom I also put the tasks that are done daily. This is only a list of the tasks that are done every week. We have a large home, and this allows me to pace the regular chores across the week, so everything gets done properly and regularly.

My next strategy is to have projects. I currently have several, all requiring different amounts of physical or mental energy. When my regular chores are done for the day I can then pick a project to work on. At present my projects include: priming and painting the downstairs bathroom; sewing a new church dress; cross-stitching a picture for my mother-in-law's birthday in April; restoring an old steamer trunk Rob inherited from his grandfather and completing the illustrations for a book I am writing for my niece's birthday in March. Some of these projects require physical energy. Some require mental focus. Then a few require less of both for when I am really weary.

Along with chores and projects I am learning I have to guard myself from committing to things outside the home. Before I even arrived my husband and I had committed to my volunteering at our Church school's library. I only go one day a week. It is tempting to increase the time I spend there, as it is a big job to reorganise an entire school library. However we both realise that one day a week is all that I should be doing. Ideally I wouldn't even do that, but we made a commitment and we will see it through for this school year. There are so many needs amongst the women in our Church. I am often tempted to take on more commitments than I should in ministering to these women. However I am learning that good is not the same as best. I am instead trying to be of use from my own home. I am willing to serve in any way the Lord requires of me, but look for ways to serve that don't take me from home. This can range from cooking meals for a family when the mother is sick, to counselling a woman in crisis. It can be opening our home in hospitality for overnight guests, or just for a family meal.

I have always believed that it is the wife's place to keep the home. I have spent thousands of hours since I was a teenager learning how to be a better keeper of the home. The theory was never a problem. The reality is more of a battle that I ever thought it would be. It is a battle against laziness. It is a fight against indifference. It is a war against a society that thinks keeping the home is a waste of my gifts and talents. Yet if anyone would ask my husband he would not hesitate in saying that it is worth every fight, battle and war. It is worth it when he comes home to a clean, neat and peaceful haven. It is worth it for dinner to be waiting on him as he walks in through the door at night. It is worth it when he gets to be greeted by a content and peaceful wife who is always happy to see him.

Keeping my home is the best way I can serve my husband. Keeping my home is essential to serving and glorifying my Lord and Saviour. Keeping my home keeps me at peace. Keeping my home helps me to build contentment in my life. Keeping my home is my work and my pleasure. keeping my home is what it means to be Rob's wife.

I am blessed that I can stay at home to keep our home. I don't have to go out into the world every day. I don't have to spend my life surrounded by messages that breed discontentment and unhappiness. I rejoice that I have a husband who understands and enjoys a wife who stays at home.

Praise God that His ways are always best.

Free to Serve

Choosing to stay at home has freed me to serve. In the last 24 hours that has become abundantly clear to me. A women in our Church is ill right now, with five children and a husband to look after. I am free to help her because I stay at home. Another family has been ill and their toddler can't go to daycare because of the illness. I am free to help them because I stay at home. Our church has several missionary families all visiting this coming week for our annual missions conference. We can host a family because I stay at home.

We live in a world where our families are fragmented. In previous generations it was our extended family who helped in times of crisis or illness. As women we turned to our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters and cousins when we needed help or advice. Who do we turn to when those very women are hundreds or thousands of miles away. My family are several thousand miles away and my husband's family are scattered across several states, with his closest relatives hundreds of miles away from us. Our situation is very common where we live in South Florida. Most families have few, if any relatives living in the same State. The women who are at home and available during the working week are usually either elderly, or they have young children of their own to care for. For the working women with children there is noone to turn to for help. Then there is me. I stay at home, making me free to help.

It is a great blessing to know I have a freedom few others choose. The sacrifices we make as a family for me to stay at home are more than repaid by the blessings of service. There has been noone in our Church recently with the time and the burden for our ladies ministry, and so it has been neglected. I am free to serve. I am excited about the opportunity to regrow this vital ministry in an atmosphere where women are feeling overwhelmed and discouraged. I have time to give. I have love to give. I have experience to share. There is a gap in our wall and I can fill it. I know I will be blessed so much more than I can ever bless others. It is an priviledge to serve. It is an honour to serve. It is my calling to serve.

There are many topics that are burdens in my heart, and over the coming months I will share and explore each of them. Right now my priority burden is service. It is when we freely, willingly, gladly serve that we can impact the world around us. There are plenty willing to teach and to lead, but where are the servants? The one woman who had the single biggest impact in my life and faith was a servant.

Mrs Gray was a quiet, little, older lady in the Church I grew up in. From a young age I watched her quietly serve with no thought for herself. She had learned to serve from an early age. She had worked in a factory during the Second World War, where she lost part of a finger. She never made an issue of it. I only know because as a teenager I asked her what had happened to her hand. When I knew her she was already retired and a widow of many years. Her hands where crippled by arthritis. Still she quietly served. In my mind she was always in the Church kitchen. No matter the occassion Mrs Gray would be in the kitchen with a large kettle on the stove. She was always ready with a pot of tea and a listening ear. She discovered I had a love for cross-stitch and embroidery. It was a hobby she had loved too when she was younger. The arthritis in her hands meant she could no longer do such delicate fine work. The next time I saw her she had a large tin of threads for me. It was her lifetime collection. Without a second thought she gave it to me, a loud chatty teenager. In the midst of the turmoil of my teen years Mrs Gray was always there. She always had time to listen, and quiet wisdom to pour gently over me. Then one day the Lord called her home. It was a glorious day for her, but a sad day for our Church. We suddenly became aware of how important one quiet little servant could be. There was noone to replace Mrs Gray in the kitchen. Noone else wanted to serve the way she did. I don't recall that she was ever thanked publicly in our Church, until her funeral. It was too late then. Until the day I left that Church in my mid twenties, to move to another part of the country, noone had stepped in to replace Mrs Gray. There was not a single person in the Church willing to humble themselves to serve without thanks. We all had excuses, including me. I was busy with University, then going overseas as a short-term missionary, then when I returned I had to start a career. I saw the gap, but didn't think it was my place to fill. I was too young, too busy, too selfish.

It has been over ten years since I left that Church and began moving around the country on a regular basis. Finally I have stopped moving around and began to put down roots. I am part of a much bigger Church than the one I grew up in. Yet the need for those quiet little servants is just the same. I am called to be a servant. We all are. How we serve is unique to each one of us. For me, I want to serve like Mrs Gray did. I want to hear that "Well done, good and faithful servant." when I get to glory, just like she did. As a woman, as a wife, as a member of my Church, I have been given an incredible gift. I have been given the freedom to serve. I will never be just like Mrs Gray, but I can be just exactly like me. I am first and foremost, a servant of Jesus Christ. All I do should be in service first to Him, in reverence and humility.

May we each find the places where we are called to serve.

Why I stay at home

I realize that in the society I have chosen to live in I am very much in a minority. I do not personally know any other women who have made the choice to stay at home unless it involves children. Before I even arrived in America my husband and I had several discussions on the subject of me working outside the home. Since arrival we have again had the same discussion a few times. The immigration process took much longer and cost a lot more than either of us realized at the beginning. Economically it would make more sense for me to find a job until we become parents (if we ever do.) Yet we both continue to hold that the right thing for me to do is to stay at home.

This is not a decision we have taken lightly. Like I have already mentioned it would be better for us financially right now if I had a paying job. However we firmly believe it is God's will that I stay at home. Throughout scripture it is made plain that God's plan for women is to stay at home. The book of Proverbs in particular has much to say about the woman who does not stay at home, and none of it is flattering. Rather as instructed in Titus 2:5 we should be "keepers at home," which means being content at home as much as practically possible. The home is my realm of influence. The home is where I can best serve my husband, and my Lord. Staying at home is a positive choice. It frees me to serve, and it empowers me to make a difference in the lives of other people.

Choosing to stay at home also entails some other choices. We choose to only have one vehicle. We choose to enjoy what we have instead of constantly looking for new and better. We choose to have freshly cooked meals every day. There is no need for expensive and unhealthy convenience food when I am at home to prepare meals that taste good and contain less salt and sugar than processed food. My husband gets to come home every day to a clean house where there are no chores for him to do. He enjoys my staying at home as much as I do.

Every woman who wants to do God's will can make the move to stay at home, if she really wants to. We each have a choice to make. We can compete and strive out in the world, just like everyone else. Or we can choose the peace and contentment of home. It is a simple choice, but not an easy one. Many don't understand why any woman would not work, some even think we are lazy for wanting to stay at home. If you have worked outside the home it is a financial sacrifice. There probably won't be the regularly changing new cars, or the exotic vacations. There probably won't be regular meals out at nice restaurants, or days out shopping at the mall. Instead there is learning contentment with what you already have. There will be time to make it yourself instead of buying ready made. There will be time to think of ways to romance your husband at home. There is time to not feel tired and stressed all the time, which is the one thing I hear most often from the women around me.

While I know I don't have it all figured out yet. I have always worked before. I started working delivering newspapers when I was 10 years old, and I pretty much always worked right up until I made the move to Florida four months ago. Sometimes I worked and studied, and sometimes I worked two jobs. Since leaving home at 18 I had to work to support myself, and living alone I also had a home to keep. This is certainly the largest home I've ever had, and it requires a lot of cleaning. We are also still in the process of painting walls and general decorating. I sewed all our curtains by hand and am in the process of recycling old picture frames to contain some of the artwork that will adorn our walls. My days are full and busy. Yet the same comment is made by all those who enter our home. There is a wonderful sense of peace in our home. It is a peace that we work hard to maintain. It is a peace that comes from contentment with what we have. It is a peace that is nurtured by us both centering everything we do on God. It is a peace neither of us want to loose.

Staying at home is a choice. It is a choice I am glad my husband and I have made.