Challenges Update!

After a very busy week visiting family and celebrating the life of my dear Grandfather who went to glory last week, I am back into the swing of things. 

I am working on Courtney's challenge to create a harmonious home.  This week, the focus is on music. I thought I'd break our usual habit of sitting on the lounge and eating over the coffee table (yes, I know), and set the 'big' table, complete with my week 1 challenge candle. I popped on my ipod for some quiet background music.


We said grace.

We started to eat.


There was a sense of peace in the house


and then...


"Hun, do you mind if I put the news on?"


I stopped myself from laughing out loud!  Oh well, I tried!  Maybe tomorrow!


Do you ever plan something to benefit your spouse or family and then realise it might not be something that they value? 

I had a little more luck with my declutter challenges this week.  I started with my bookshelf. Here is the 'before':

Yes, there are books stacked on the floor. And everywhere else!  I pulled out everything and wiped it down, one shelf at a time. I have a large number of children's books that I use for work that have been in the wrong spot for years. I wanted them lower so the books I use all the time (my Christian books, exercise books and reference books) were at a more logical height. Doing one shelf at a time (that is, taking out what didn't belong and stacking in what I wanted there before moving on) made it a much easier process than pulling everything off and getting overwhelmed!


I was surprised how many bible study books and devotionals I had multiple copies of. Here are a few other surprises I found: 

• A folder (that I thought was long gone) containing every bank statement I had ever received for an account from kindergarten to the end of university!!
• Three years worth of sermon notes from university bible lectures. I thought I would look at them again some day, but I realised that without the sermon context most of my notes don't make any sense! They also had pictures of birds and elephants and stars drawn all over them... to help me concentrate I guess... The whole folder went in the bin!
• 4 years worth of subscriptions to a Christian apologetics and theology magazine. While this might 'one day' be useful to me, it will 'right now' be more useful to people who borrow them from our church library. 
• 20 or so Bible study leader books (copies!) which would be far more useful to our churches current youth and children's ministry than to my book shelf... 
• 4 bibles that don't belong to us!  Going back to their rightful owners!

I also found 6 items that would be useful for other people I know so they have been bagged up to be passed on as gifts too. 

So.... 50 mins later (yes, I was astonished how quick it really was!)

Oh how I love challenges that make me focus on getting things done! 
The second week of the challenge (I'm a bit behind) is to look at the master bedroom. I have only recently reorganised the bedroom, however this week is our churches annual spring clothing collection for Anglicare. So I took the opportunity to go through my cupboards, and despite having only recently sorted my clothes I still found some items I no longer need. Mr. Awesome has agreed to go through his clothes later this week. I will report on his progress! 


It is wonderful not to be so tied to our things that we hoard them. Giving things away to be used by someone else (rather than just sitting around!) is a great feeling! 


What 'one day' things could be more useful to someone you know right now?