When I moved to “Small Town USA” in the early 1990s, the hubby and I pretty much dreaded the holiday season for one reason: it required us to get a sitter on the weekend (That can get pricey for 3 munchkins.) and travel an hour and 15 minutes (one way) to the northeast of us to embark on Christmas shopping at a Fort Worth suburban shopping mall. The first challenge upon arriving there, no matter the hour? Finding a vacant parking space.

Then, there was fighting huge crowds in every store we shopped. I vividly remember one foray into Bath and Body Works and waiting a full 45 minutes to buy stocking stuffers and candles. I’m still not sure that was worth the effort.

Part of the frustration was that our kids’ hand-scrawled Christmas wish lists were often misspelled or illegible. And they almost always wanted the one toy no one could ever get.

2 John

One could fairly argue that both Obadiah and Paul, the authors of the books of Obadiah and Philemon, are fiery in the way they write. Obadiah probably had a chip on his shoulder about Edom since they probably participated, either directly or indirectly, in the demise of Judah. Paul is well-known for his controversial writing and his inability to tolerate immaturity from some believers. Today we delve into a book authored by someone often referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved,” aka John. And John is the antithesis of Obadiah and Paul.

John writes like a poet and a “lover.” This is true of four of the books he authored in the New Testament: the gospel of John, 1st John, 2nd John, and 3rd John. His last authored book, The Revelation, is much more brazen, most likely because it’s the result of a prophetic vision he was given about the end of the world. Let’s be honest–the end of the world isn’t going to be pretty. Writing about it as if it is, is probably inappropriate.

Book Club Fans: I’m reading about silencing my mind today in Twirl. That will happen when someone clunks me over the head with a hammer.

Fast 5 Topic for this Week: We’ve figured out why Philemon probably did what Paul asked him to do. Now, it’s on to hear John, the beloved apostle in 2nd John. No, not the gospel of John at the beginning of the New Testament…2nd John…towards the end of the New Testament.

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Howdy, Word Fans! Last week’s word was knackered. I had a sneaky suspicion someone was going to know this word and actually two family members both got this one right. Merriam-Webster officially defines it as: tired or exhausted. This is a British expression, so I guess the relatives spent a week in London recently when I wasn’t looking. What is even more interesting is that knacker is a noun and has little to do with knackered. Go figure. 

Last summer something crazy happened. A friend of ours was looking for dressers that she could purchase cheaply, then update so that they could be useful pieces of furniture in our home. I had two such dressers and invited her to come and take a look at them. As a young mother she looked at my mostly tidy home and said, “I’m never letting you in my home; yours is way too orderly!” I laughed. If she only knew. Back when I was her age, I was just as ashamed of my messy, dirty, should-be-condemned home as she probably was. What changed?

To be honest–the kids moved out! It’s much easier keeping a home tidy if you and your husband are the only residents most of the time!  But, even before we had kids, I was a messy, lackluster homemaker. Obviously, my habits and mindset have changed. How?

Flylady.net. That’s how.

FLY stands for “Finally Loving Yourself” and was created by Marla Cilley. She, herself, describes an unkempt home until she finally took “baby steps” to get not only her home in order, but her life. The first baby step? “Shine your sink.” This probably sounds counter-intuitive since messy homes really have much direr situations in our homes than just dirty sinks. In reality, it’s brilliant. Why?

In my case shining my sink involved me taking all the dirty dishes out of my sink first! And after I had cleaned my sink thoroughly and made it sparkle for the first time in years, there was absolutely no way that I was putting those stinky dishes back in my clean sink! Thus, without really thinking about it, I finally unloaded the clean dishes out of my dishwasher and reloaded my dishwasher. If you’re a neat freak, you probably don’t understand a dishwasher full of clean dishes, but if you have 3 or more kids and no hubby to help you with the “arsenic hours” of getting kids from one activity to the next, making dinner, supervising homework, ensuring bath time goes off without major floods and putting your kids to bed, then you know how difficult it can be to get the clean laundry out of the laundry room and into your drawers and closets and how difficult emptying a dishwasher becomes. 

And I had 3 very different kiddos at 3 very different ages of maturity who had all picked up my bad habits of not tidying up their own messes and creating good habits. So, I needed Flylady.net to help me get on track and do things responsibly. 

Flylady.net will send you daily emails to help you unlock the joy of having a tidy home you can actually invite people to see without 3 days advanced notice. When you no longer need the emails, you can “graduate” to merely consulting her web site for more complicated tasks. And Marla doesn’t stop there.

She feels finally loving yourself also involves doing at least 15 minutes of exercise every day and “saving dinner.” So, she has other organizational helpers on her site that help you conquer the nightly terror of planning decent, quick dinners for your family and helping you to begin to take care of your body. Her checklist style and “zone philosophy” just appeals to the detail side of my head. I find myself still printing off some of her lists when the house needs a top-to-bottom cleaning. 

I know what you’re thinking out there, you fellow messies! “Your home has NEVER been the disaster mine has.” Wrong. Once there was a ketchup stain stayed on my floor for a full 3 months and I never had the time to actually clean it up, even though it was solidifying on my floor like cement. It required a putty knife and a lot of elbow grease to clean it up. And no, not all parts of my home are presentable. The garages are still a disaster area and two of the kids’ bedrooms are still a work in progress, along with the hubby’s office, our bedroom, our bathroom and pretty much all the closets and drawers in the house. And don’t look in my refrigerator–there are still at least 2 science experiments growing in there at all times.  Most areas of the house are still ridiculously dusty because I still hate, hate, hate dusting. 

So, what has changed? My dishwasher gets emptied every day and reloaded every day. I can find the laundry room floor now and every week the laundry gets done from start to finish, including sheets and towels and laundered items either get put away or are neatly folded and hung in my laundry room. My living room is no longer wall-to-wall toys everywhere (and I have a large living room!). I banished those to the kids’ rooms a long time ago. I actually put out some seasonal decor now and put it away on time. 

The kids’ bathroom is now usually clean. (It was a huge science experiment once upon a time.) And the eldest son’s bedroom is now a beautiful guest room with a mostly cleaned out closet. It’s ready for guests with little effort now. And I exercise a full 99 minutes a day every day. (That’s as high as the treadmill will let me go, time-wise, and I am slowly working on training for a race some day.) I’ve lost 30 pounds and stopped eating everyone’s leftovers on the way to stacking up the dishes in that dirty sink. And clutter is starting to just irritate the stuffing out of me, so it’s getting easier to let go of stuff. The less stuff I have, the easier my life gets–all the way around. 

And miracle of all miracles–I am finally starting to love myself.

So much so, that I have developed my own system for working on the house as needed and no longer consult flylady.net religiously. And somehow I think Marla would like that. 

Thank you, Marla, for more than just a household organization system. Thank you for being so non-judgmental. Thank you for teaching me that taking care of my home is actually me taking care of me. 

Monday’s Post: How knackered are you?

You Might Also Like: My Favorite Things: Misfit Shine; My Favorite Things: Keurig Machines; and My Favorite Things: Tempur-Pedic Mattresses

Paul’s Letter to Philemon

The hubby and I rebelled against the “game system craze” of the 1990s and early 2000s, which irritated the stuffing out of our offspring. To quell their dissatisfaction we did buy educational and Christian games that could be played on the home computer for quite a number of years. I am the first to say that I am lousy at playing video and computer games, unless we’re talking about the Difficult level of Spider Solitaire or Pet Detective on Lumosity.com (Let me guess–there are Jim Carrey fans at Lumosity.com.) But, one game that I finally managed to master during the era of computer games at our house, was Onesimus. There were 33 levels to that game (I think?!) and it required the user to get Onesimus, the slave, safely back to Philemon, his owner. Getting Onesimus back to Philemon safely was no easy feat! And even the offspring took quite a while to finally master the game. Onesimus must have loved danger, because the boy managed to find all kinds of trouble on his way back to Colossae, probably the town where Philemon resided. Let’s just say it was easier to avoid that donkey in Donkey Kong. 

Book Club: I’m right where I should be in Twirl by Patsy Clairmont. How far have you read?

Fast 5 Update: The offspring knew that Onesimus was a runaway slave of Philemon’s when they were children. Find out why on Wednesday.

My Favorite Things: Find out what else makes life easier for me this coming Friday!

Top Mommy Blog: If you enjoy what you read here, please click on the Top Mommy Blogs button to the right of this post. Thanks!

Last week’s Word of the Week (WOW) was hegira. Merriam-Webster Online says that hegira means: a journey especially when undertaken to escape from a dangerous or undesirable situation. Since we’re celebrating thankfulness in November, I am thankful that I don’t usually have to take hegiras these days!

This week’s WOW is knackered. I get my list of WOW words from Merriam-Webster Online by looking at their list of past Words of the Day.

Did you read the title of this post and have this response? “Say what?” I’m not sure I agree with the brand naming for this product, but I like the product itself, so I honestly don’t care what they call it.

After my brother’s death, I gained some of my weight back. I’m not proud of that, but a variety of things occurred to help me pack on the pounds. And for the record, I never returned to the “overweight” category, but I got darn close. So, how did I start combating that? I decided to give myself the goal of running a 1K. For runners that probably sounds lame, but after 4 heart attacks and several visits to the ER for anaphylaxis, I think I have to be extremely cautious about this goal. On the other hand I needed a goal that would force me to change up my treadmill routine. I’m now up to 5 minutes of running. That, again, sounds lame, but if you also know I haven’t run since high school, then maybe it’s understandable that 5 minutes of running is monumental.

Confession Time: I often loathe reading my Bible. (I’ll wait for my Christian friends to gasp in horror from that little statement.) It’s not that I don’t want to hear what the good Lord wants to say to me through His word; it’s just that a good portion of the Old Testament is an odd collection of writings about times I have difficulty relating to modern life. In the words of Beth Moore, “It’s not always about you!” and I agree. Sometimes I just need to study those ancient writings and wait for the Lord to tell me its relevance.

If you also sometimes struggle to to read your Bible often or you have decided it’s a total waste of your time, may I suggest some of the following tips to help with that? Here they are:

1. Find a translation that works for you. I’m currently partial to the Message (or the Bible According to Eugene, as I like to call it–Eugene Peterson is the author of this paraphrase.) because it puts difficult passages into everyday English.

Book Club News: Do you have your copy of Twirl? No? Well, what are you waiting for? Go here to get your copy of MIP‘s November 2014 Book Club Selection!

Fast 5 Posts: For 5 Wednesdays (with the exclusion of holiday Wednesdays!) I’m going to give my insights on 5 Books of the Bible. If you can’t read each of these books in one sitting, we need to have you evaluated for ADHD. So grab your Bibles (or beg, borrow or buy one, if need be) and find Obadiah and see what it says about Biblical times. I will do the same and let you know on Wednesday what I’m learning about this under-appreciated part of our Bibles.

My Favorite Things Update: This coming Friday is not only Halloween, but also another installment of My Favorite Things, so as you put out the bowl of candy (that your family will hopefully NOT consume right before that “witching hour” approaches), grab your laptop, phone or tablet and read the blog and wait for those cute trick-or-treaters.

I have been reluctant to divulge the exact location of my small town in Texas, for fear that one day, some stalker will decide to stalk me! Since this is highly unlikely because less than 200 people read this blog on a good day, let’s just say that my small town is prominently featured in Art Briles’ Beating Goliath. For those of you who are not football enthusiasts, Art Briles is the head football coach at Baylor University. And if that doesn’t send any bells or whistles off in your head, Baylor used to have one of the worst records in NCAA recent history. Until Art Briles arrived. Now, one of his quarterbacks has won one of the most prestigious awards in college football, The Heisman Trophy.

If that’s not impressive, then maybe this will get your attention: Earlier this fall Baylor was ranked # 4 in the country for football and managed to pull out an impressive win against a formidable opponent, TCU. And Art manages to do that with every program he takes on.