Life Blessons

Explore the Archives: June 2010 on Life Blessons

I'm still plugging away at manually creating a browser-friendly archives page for all my past blog posts, month by month. Here's a look at what was going on in my life, way back in June 2010. From a sweet post about how my husband and I first met (believe me, it was the antithesis of romantic!) to a nugget I gleaned reading one of my favorite books about the faith that still encourages me today, I hope you enjoy getting to take a little step back in time with me:

Archive Posts from June 2010

I'll share another post in a couple of weeks with the next installment of archives, but you can always jump ahead and browse all the posts in the archive.

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My Secret Weapon to Decorating My House

Things around my house have been unpacked for months now. Furniture is in place, dishes are organized in the cupboards, clothes placed in a row on hangers.

But then there’s that whole aspect of decorating, which takes a lot more effort than just taking something from a box and finding a home for it. Decorating takes time and thinking about arrangements and tweaking each one until you get it right. It takes effort.

And too often—when there are dishes that need to be done and laundry to be folded and shoes to be put away—the last thing I want to do is try to figure out what I want to put into frames to fill that empty hole on the wall.

Of course, no one says you have to decorate. But, for me, it’s those little touches that make a house feel like a home. So I love decorating—when it’s complete and not necessarily the long, drawn-out process it takes to get there. Sometimes that can be so overwhelming that I just ignore it, put it off until later because there are other things that need to be done.

But I’ve found that one of the surest ways to conquer the apathy toward decorating is pretty simple: Invite people over. Invite people over before everything’s done, even before everything’s out of boxes or organized or looking presentable. Invite folks over, and I’ve discovered that out of nowhere, a desire to unpack and unfurl and hang and hem pops up out of nowhere.

And in just a couple of hours or days, so much more gets accomplished.

That’s what’s happening right now around my house. In a month, we’ll have family down for a week to visit. So the paint cans—which have sat untouched for a couple of months now, since we did our last bout of painting in the bedroom—came out and curtains are getting hung and artwork being made.

It’s not that there’s an expectation that we have to impress them—no, that’s not it at all. Everyone we’ve invited over have been true-blue kindred spirits who could care less whether anything matches.

Instead, I think it has to do with what I mentioned earlier, that decorating makes a house feel like a home to me. And so when those folks come over, I want it to feel like home to them, too.

And so, here I am, painting again…

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A Cleaning Schedule for People Who Hate to Clean

We all have our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to anything, even homemaking. Mine? Well, I enjoy making a lot of everyday stuff from scratch (from salsa to salad dressing). But housecleaning is not a strong suit of mine.

I do take care of the laundry and dishes and keeping the kitchen countertops and floors swept, but as most of you know, there’s a lot more to a clean house than just that! Everything else? Well, I kind of just don’t even notice it…

Which is why my husband actually ends up doing a lot of the deep cleaning around the house, from cleaning the tub to vacuuming the carpet. I mentioned before that it’s part of that “two are better than one” thing that happens in marriages: He takes it upon himself to take up the vacuum and the cleaning supplies while I handle the clutter around the house. Together, the house ends up looking well kept.

But, since my husband already spends more than forty hours a week slaving away, I really want our home to be a place where he can relax and a refuge for him after a long day’s work. It’s not that he really minds cleaning (I nabbed a good one, I tell ya!), but I just want to be more proactive.

So that’s why I started keeping a housecleaning schedule. But not just any schedule, where every day I have to take up a specific task like Mondays are for mopping or Tuesdays are for toilet scrubbing.

I’ve tried those kinds of schedules but found that after a day or two, I just get bored with them. And then abandon them completely and go back to my natural way of cleaning, which is that when it gets dirty enough to tell, I clean it. (But usually that just means that my husband tackles it before I get around to it!)

No, my schedule is one that takes advantage of my desire to mix things up. The beauty of it, in fact, rests on its flexibility. (Keep on reading if you want to download a printable copy of my schedule!)

Because the way I have it set up, is that I have one list of all the cleaning chores that need to be done around the house that I normally never think of or get around to doing. Then, once a day, I’ll look over that list and decide what items I want to check off, depending on my mood or my ambition.

I have the list framed in a picture frame behind glass so that I can use a dry-erase marker to check off each item as I go, and then every Monday, I wipe the slate clean and begin again.

Here’s a closer look at my list:

(By the way, you can check out some of my favorite cleaning essentials here.)

You’ll see that my list isn’t completely comprehensive. That’s because I left off the chores that come naturally to me—like laundry and dishes and countertop cleaning. I already do those routinely, so I don’t need to be reminded by a list to stay up on them. You’ll also see that there are some things that are on there multiple times (like sweep the kitchen floors), because I want to make sure they’re swept at least that many times a week and otherwise I’ll go for longer between grabbing my broom.

The goal isn’t to complete everything on the list every week. The air conditioning filter only needs to be cleaned once every three months, after all. But since it’s on the list, then I can’t forget about it and can aim to repeat it every couple of months. So by tackling a couple of those seasonal or once-in-awhile jobs every week or two, they’re all taken care of in turn.

The thing about this list is that it works so well because if I didn’t have “Clean mirrors” staring me in the face, I probably would not have taken up my spray bottle and newspaper and spent thirty minutes going from room to room, wiping down each looking glass. But because of this list, I did.

If you want, you can download a PDF of my list here. It’s tailored specifically for my home and for my cleaning needs, but it can be a good starting point for any small home or just to inspire you to make your own list.

P.S. If you are new to this blog, thank you so much for stopping by! You can feel free to browse all my other posts about my journey toward a lifestyle of simplicity and DIY, as well as some of the ways my husband and I are learning to save money. I also write about my faith, my marriage and everything in between, which you can explore in the archives.

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Update About How My Freelance Writing Is Going

It’s been awhile since I’ve made any mention about how my freelance writing is going. (I think the last update I made about it was in this post. And here’s where I talked about the genesis behind this new career of mine.)

It’s been more than a year now that I’ve been freelance writing, and I’ve published a dozen or so pieces in print and online outlets. Most of them have all been for the design magazine I used to work for, which notably included my favorite assignment to date which was getting to interview the designers at Etsy and write about their creative approach to business and design. That article is only available in the print issue, but you can read an online exclusive I wrote as a companion piece to that story here.

At first, when I started out pursuing the freelancing gig, I was pitching myself left and right, brainstorming ideas, scouting new magazines, looking up magazine’s pitch guidelines—basically getting gung-ho to take this thing seriously.

It started off well enough but there weren’t many magazines that were biting the stories I was pitching to them. It seemed like a lot of work for little return, which was admittedly disappointing.

Then we bought a house and I didn’t have time to keep up the steady pace of pitching and pursuing, so I let that aspect slide and just took on new assignments with the couple of magazines that I’ve been working with. And even though we’ve been in our house for almost six months now, I still don’t seem ready to go back to that feverish pace.

There’s still plenty to do around the house, which keeps me busy enough. And then, when there is downtime, I like to spend it on the kind of writing I like best, which is writing for this blog.

Fortunately, my husband is fully on board for me to do what freelance writing comes my way but not feeling the need to be chasing down every lead and forcing the freelance thing. We’ve set our finances to live off of his salary alone, so that takes a lot of the pressure off me and makes it so that when I do get a paid assignment, it’s all extra, which has been great for financing some of our, uh, extras of late.

Even though I had high hopes for my freelancing career, which never took off quite as I’d hoped, I’m actually enjoying this season and the slower pace that’s come with it. In fact, I think that’s just what I needed after all.

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How to Hem Your Jeans to the Perfect Length and Make the Most of Your Wardrobe

Finding jeans that fit can be a difficult enough task without trying to get them the right length, on top of fitting every other part of your body. Fortunately, though, hemming your jeans is really simple and one I've done multiple times.

This tutorial is pretty simple, simply measuring, pinning and sewing a straight line. I've seen (and tried) much more complicated tutorials for hemming jeans (including keeping the original hem in place) but I was never satisfied with those. (The one for keeping the original hem in place? It looked great...until I washed the jeans and then it was always too wonky, so I never wear them anymore.)

Like they say, less really is more, sometimes.

So, without further ado, the latest tutorial in the Make the Most of Your Wardrobe series (and you can check out all the tutorials here if you've missed any).

First, you'll need to find some pants (obviously they don't have to be jeans, but that's what I end up hemming most of the time!) that are too long. Here is the pair I chose for this tutorial:

Step 1} The first thing you'll need to do is turn your pants inside out. Then, try them on and fold them up (just once) at the point where you'd like the new hem to hit. Pin them in place. Make sure to keep the cuffs even and straight on both sides.

Step 2} I am a big believer in double-checking your work (always served me well in math class, too!), so I'd recommend turning the jeans right-side-out and trying them on to make sure that you're happy with the hem placement, being sure not to poke yourself on the pins. If the hems aren't lined up or don't hit exactly where you want, take the time now to remove the pins and go back to step one, tweaking until you get it looking just right. Your patience and persistence will pay off in the end! Once you're ready, turn the pants inside out and get ready to start sewing!

Step 3} One of the key elements to a successful hem job is using thread that matches your pants as close to perfectly as possible. You want the thread to disappear into the fabric and barely be noticeable. Compare a variety of thread colors until you find the closest match!

With that in place, set up your sewing machine. (Here’s a newer version of the sewing machine I have. It’s computerized so it makes everything so much easier!)

Starting at one of the edges where the front and back of the pants meet, sew a straight line either just above or just below the original bottom of the hem. (In the pictures above, you can see that I sewed just above the original hem, but your original hem might be skinnier, in which case I'd recommend sewing a new line just below that.)

Because my new hem was pretty wide, I also sewed a second line about a quarter of inch from the bottom of the new hem. (Visible in the right-most stitching in the photos above.) I did this just to ensure that the new hem would lay flat and crisp. If you're only hemming your pants a little bit, this isn't necessary and is purely optional.

Step 4} Turn your pants right-side-out and check out how you did on your hemming job. If you aren't happy with how they turned out, you can always use a seamripper and carefully pull the stitches out and start over. It might be time-consuming, but it's worth it to get it right!

Finally, admire your new jeans! If you like this tutorial, you can bookmark it on Pinterest. You can also follow me on Pinterest here.

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A History of Rain in My Life (Or, Why I Enjoy Thunderstorms)

Lately it’s been raining a lot here.

Raindrops pitter-patter down. Puddles pool. Miniature ravines flow through the cracks in the dirt and cascade around pebble-sized boulders, bending the blades of grass that get in their way.

Branches droop under the sopping weight of the misty-eyed droplets, and leaves shine bright like polished silverware beneath the glistening sheen of fresh rain.

And I stand at my kitchen window and watch it all unfold.

There’s something soothing about the rain, the rhythmic songs it sings as it slaps the ground and fills the gutters. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always invited the rain. Looking at the skies turning gray and the winds turning cool and hoping that the rain is on its way.

When I was younger, my parents would let us sit on the front porch when it was raining. We had a porch swing out there, where I’d sit and watch the strings of droplets fall down like crystals all around me.

And when it began to thunder, we took no fear because my parents insisted that it was just the angels bowling and a clap of thunder was when one got a strike! We would yell and cheer and invite the thunder to boom again. Even now, I smile when I hear thunder rolling in.

I went to college at a school where you walked everywhere, even in the rain. Couched in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, it seemed that storms would find a way to settle over our little utopian university and stick around awhile, taking their time before passing through.

So much so, that in freshman orientation they advised each student to bring three umbrellas because you’d invariably go through that many. I got used to the routine of rolling up my jeans and learning to ignore the puddles that splashed my ankles as I made my way to my classes. It became something of a rite of passage, slopping your way across the cobblestone streets and kicking up dirty water as you went.

Over the years, rain has become soothing, something of a balm to my soul.

You know how sometimes, you just need a good cry? How there’s something cathartic when the tears fall? The rain does that for me. As it cleanses the ground and the cars and the sides of buildings, so it cleanses my spirit. The old and dirty and haunting yesterdays get washed away. Everything becomes fresh and new again as the clouds trail past.

There’s a Misty Edwards song that goes, “I’m waiting in this desert, just waiting for the rain. I’m waiting in the wilderness of promises yet fulfilled. I won’t leave this wilderness until I see the rain. I’m waiting for the rain…”

Because as surely as we know the rains will come, we also know they will pass. We know what lies beyond them, the Hope—that ever-present rainbow looming in the distance—that awaits us and points us to a new day.

As the lyrics continue, she sings, “I can see the clouds gathering now. Are you ready for the rain? Open up the heavens, and let it rain!”

I’m ready. Let it rain.

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