The Making of M.O.M.

Last Christmas my parents generously gifted us with a vacation.

An all expense paid vacation for two. Just me and Luke (or is it Luke and I?). Anyway, Ella was a nursing 6 month old, I knew that my trip to Guinea-Bissau would come about the time she was weaned. And well, there was all that other life to be done somewhere in the midst of babies nursing, mission trips, schooling and such.

Finally, we have booked our vacation. The trip included airline tickets, hotel accommodations and even spending money and childcare. Seriously. We are just so blessed.

I've never been much of a beach bum myself and I love, love, love the mountains. Over the course of 11 years of us being together, I think I've finally converted Luke. So rather than head to someplace warm and tropical we are heading the mountains. The BIG mountains. We live near the Appalachian mountains so we figured we needed something to compare them to.

After much debate and looking at tickets and travel time, we settled on Colorado. Rocky Mountain National Park here we come!

We leave late Wednesday night and don't return home until late Sunday evening. Our children and dog will spend copious amounts of time with their MeMe and PawPaw and we'll get to sleep late, enjoy mountain air, sleep late, make spontaneous decisions on dinner, sleep late and hopefully see lots and lots of snow.

My soul is aching for some down time with my husband. Time for us to laugh with each other, talk about our dreams, goals and desires, pray over our future and that of our children and just hang out. We've reserved a tiny little cabin in the Rocky Mountain National park and I couldn't be more thrilled at the idea of settling in and not leaving for a couple of days.

Over the course of the last few weeks, we've made decisions for our family that have reduced much of the stress I was previously feeling. And while I'm not yet able to fully discuss some of those decisions, I will say that knowing we have a plan and that the plan is one to a happier, less stressful home is freeing.

I feel like this little get away is a the 1st stage of us finally letting go of some of the fullness in our life and looking forward to what God has placed on our plate. We were making decisions based on what we felt we needed to accomplish rather than what God desired for us to accomplish.

At any rate, the next time you hear from me (at least on the blog anyway) I will be snuggled down under some warm blankets, hopefully sipping some hot tea while the world outside is slowly covered with beautiful white snow.

Approximately 53 hours until our plane take off. But really, who's counting? (Oh wait, I am.)

I am not an organized person by nature. My VERY organized, structured, sterotypical Type A husband would agree that I'm about as far from a natural organizer as possible. Even when I was a kid I remember my room could be a wreck and yet, somehow, I knew exactly where things were.

That's true now too. I know where things are, usually. I can nearly always tell my husband detailed directions on how to find something that's, in his eyes, missing.

"It's on the counter where we used to have the fish tank in a blue basket."

Just before Luke left for Guinea-Bissau he was searching for a watch. I gave him those instructions and he came back later saying, "If you have time, could you find that watch. I didn't see it."

I went to the location I had told him, looked, and it was there. It was just in a blue basket under another blue basket. But still, right where I knew it was.

Even though I could totally function on a day to day basis with my personal (and often chaotic) style of living, I'm beginning to realize that with our ever-expanding family, real organization is key to having a thriving, enjoyable and even manageable home.

In fact, while we were gone out of town and Luke was in Guinea-Bissau, I had someone come and clean our house. That was on Saturday. We got home Sunday and by Monday the house was a wreck. By Tuesday, I didn't even want to be home.

I want our house to be a haven for our family. I want it to reflect the love and joy I get from having such a large family. I want it to be a peaceful retreat from work for my husband and a loving, organized, clean environment for my children (and myself!).

But y'all, this comes so unnaturally for me. And by unnatural I mean it would be like a shark eating seaweed or a horse walking on its back legs.

I have great ideas for organization. I have even tried a few of them. I've tried Fly Lady. My BFF Amanda sent me this book and I'm slowly reading through it, gathering ideas and desiring (desperately) to implement them. I've tried bins and sorting and chores for our kids. I've tried systems and procedures and processes and what-not.

It all lasts about 2 weeks then we seem to have chaos hit our lives (sickness, travel, new baby) and then BOOM, we're off the wagon again and back to a cluttered, poor functioning house.

If you're a super organized, very clean living person, I'm sure our house would drive you nuts in about 57 seconds. Don't get me wrong - our house isn't up for an episode of Hoarders, and for the most part it isn't gross (I mean our kitchen/dining room floors stay pretty nasty) but it's just cluttered and unorganized and generally messy.

I found this blog where she's posting about 31 days to an organized home. I'd LOVE to try it but, honestly, I don't want to invest my time making our house more organized if we can't stick to the plan. Maybe I should try Fly Lady again. Or maybe there's another system or life-style change I could try.

Really, I just want to ask you:

What works for you to keep your home orderly, tidy and clean?

Whether you have 10 kids or no children, I find that this is an area where everyone likes new ideas, tips, tricks and methods. I'd love any ideas, sites, references or links you could provide!

Thanks!