The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways

I think the Lord knows that I am a little hard-headed.  I've had a couple of neat experiences of late akin to Corrie Ten Boom's "fleas" that didn't at first seem very exciting, but have proved to be great blessings.

First, here are the blessings:  My home is now clean and set-up for home schooling.  We have created a much healthier environment for learning. A lot of little improvements on our house are also in the works.  It is good to make progress...  These are things that we could have done easily without any "fleas" except I'm so hard headed. . .

The Lord knows me.

He knows I hate change. A few weeks ago I started reading a book entitled, "Leadership Education" by Oliver and Rachel DeMille, and within it are 55 ingredients they have found to be essential to set up the best possible home environment for folks in core and love of learning phases to gain a great leadership education. (Explanation on phases of learning here.)  These ingredients are awesome. You can tell that the DeMilles have really sought for inspiration as they've continued their own educations and mentored their children and others. I've really enjoyed learning about and starting to practice a lot of these ingredients slowly with our family.

There were a few, though, that I just sat on the back burner and said, "I can't. Not now... too hard." All the ingredients particularizing the organization of a leadership education home: The Family Room, The Closet, The Entertainment Room, The Bookshelf.   These I knew were important, but I couldn't see how I would do it.  I teach voice lessons in the pretty front living room, so I didn't want the TV there, but at the same time, I knew having all the big comfy couches in our family room facing the television set as they currently were was not a good educational environment in the least. Your couches face what you value most. All hail the television set? Oh dear!  And I thought, "A locking closet for school activities? How and where? My cabinets are full. My shelves are full. Most of the books are on the built in bookshelves in my bedroom." I knew they needed to be more accessible to the family at large, but how? No room in the family room. No room anywhere.

I said to myself, "I know this is important. I know that there are changes that need to be made, but I just can't do it.  I don't see an easy solution."  And I set it aside.

And then my husband's job changed.

Suddenly he was faced with a longer commute, possible higher pay, and he, being an advocate for healthy change, suggested that we start looking around at houses with the possibility to get some land up closer to where he would be working.

He sold me at "Get some land."  I come from farming stock, and while we've made do with our small suburban lot, the idea of having somewhere for my kids to run, and play, and do real family work more safely, and more freely was extremely tantalizing.  So we looked at some houses, we gave it some prayer, and we both felt like we received the answer, "Get your house ready to sell."

Uh, okay.

So we started that stressful, horrible process, fired up by our intent on putting an offer on a spacious house we quickly found with fantastic storage accommodations on about two acres of land with very pretty trees, backing up to a bubbling creek, and including with a large workshop built on to the garage, that close to work, close to church, and close to a great library but in a quiet, peaceful location.

To make a long story slightly shorter, I packed up our entire house, in order for us to get new carpet laid, so it would be easier to sell. We wanted to save money so we moved all the furniture with some friends help and ripped the carpet out ourselves. We have two young children and a baby, people, so this was no small feat.  At the same time, we ripped off a section of rotting siding from the house to replace, dug old unsightly deck posts out of the yard, and since I was the one packing I made some important decisions about the large amounts of stuff we somehow had accumulated in our house these last several years. The prospect of moving suddenly turns a lot of "treasures" into junk, haha!  You know it is a truly successful "purge" if you have to go to the donation center three or more times.  Wow.

During the middle of this process we found out that the dream house we wanted was not going to be a possibility for us.  No bank would finance it for a number of reasons that I won't go into here.  Here were the fleas, and my tears, and a lot of feelings of "WHY? are we going through this right now??"

Be grateful in all circumstances.

We kept looking for houses. I realize now as I look back on it, every time I was ready to give up and postpone getting the carpet and moving things around, a new house would catch my interest and I'd keep plowing along, packing and prepping the house for sell, just in case.  The weekend we got the carpet in, my older kids were at my folks' house for super fun Grandma and Grandpa time, so I got to thinking (really thinking since there were no kids talking)... everything is moved out.  How do I want to move it back in?

Leadership Education style... that's how!  I thought, "We may not be here for long, but we can attempt a different organization and see how it goes. Can't hurt anything, right?"

Change accomplished.

The front living room is now home for our computers, TV, piano, speakers, etc, and has officially been knighted "The Entertainment Room."  We use said entertainment less often, and it feels good. And my concern about voice lessons? They've been rearranged so that there is space between lessons for mom and kid time/baby feeding time rather than being back to back as a long block on lesson day. We don't even miss babysitter TV (usually).  It is better to help the kids find good activities to do during those short lessons anyway.  Victory!

The Family Room couches and recliner are now closer together and facing one another about ten feet apart in front of our cozy fireplace over which hangs a picture of Jesus Christ.  Good bye television idol, and hello cozy reading and discussion zone! Our couches face what is important, members of our family and our Savior, both things that warm my heart, like the cozy fire in the fireplace also within that circle. Freeing up wall space by moving the couches made room for a table and large bookshelf in the Family Room, doubling as the school room, that used to be upstairs in the craft/guest room, which was an under utilized room.

About that old craft room: We got rid of the guest bed in the "moving" purge, so we moved all the toys into the center room... now the "Play Room," and moved the girls to the old guest bedroom.  The entire upper level of our home is now useful instead of a storage and toy disaster.  It is so much easier to help the children clean one room together, the play room, rather than clean up and organize toys in separate rooms. Just beds and clothes are in their bedrooms. How nice and restful! The kids helped make this organizational decision and seem to like the results, too.  They always play together anyway, so there is no real need to separate toys. Added bonus for me, the playroom looks full ... we are less likely to get more and more toys that multiply like bunnies (stuffed animals, etc.), when it looks like we have enough toys already. Yay!

With the move of the TV to another room, I moved the media with it, freeing up a large child-locked cabinet in the living room with many shelves. School supplies and art supplies from the craft room are now on these shelves. I also reorganized music, games, and many activities and chose to put "school time only" things in a locking pine chest that used to house music I never looked at (which will soon be gone through carefully and re-homed).

I could keep going with this, but won't.  Essentially, my entire home is reorganized (nearly) in a way that makes WAY MORE SENSE for our family.  We utilize rooms properly, have the most important schooling things all in one room (rather than in multiple locations all over the house), and since we got rid of tons of stuff, it is a lot easier to clean up everyday.

AND, the urge to move is gone for now. Maybe we'll get some land someday, but for now things are looking pretty good where we are.  It took the urge to move in order for us to actually get organized for leadership education in our home. It took new carpet because all the moving around wouldn't have been worth it without doing that. Terrible pet stains from previous owners and some from our own pet (now Grandma's beloved pet) made the new carpet essential.  I'm grateful that we looked for houses, that we got new carpet, and that now I'm much more organized.

The Lord works in Mysterious Ways...

Rumors can stop flying.  We're sticking around for now.