The funny thing is, the first thing that popped into my mind to do about it was not to “rest” in the sense of sitting down, but to make some pizza dough.  I’m starting to get into the idea that you can start something in the morning or the middle of the day when you only have five or ten minutes, and then let nature take its course as you finish off other things the rest of the day.  I have started to fall into this rhythm of making dough in the morning (sometimes with the boys), and then letting it rise in the afternoon while they nap, so that we can bake it in the late afternoon or early evening.  Eli has grown so accustomed to this routine that when I ask him what makes the dough rise (I’m trying to explain the power of yeast or leaven) he says, “It rises when we take our nappies.”

Making dough with yeast can sound daunting to many – it takes time, planning, and there are some failures along the way.  But I like that it requires something of me that goes beyond just opening a can or bag.  I like that it asks me to be patient, to persist when there are kitchen failures, to analyze and research when something has gone wrong, and to rejoice when something turns out really well.  In return for the time and effort I put in, I get a sense of accomplishment and confidence.  And saving money is not a bad benefit, either :).

While I am trying to improve how I do things in my primary sphere of influence, I don’t really have many big goals written down for this year.  I really should, I know, but I still feel like I’m in that zone where “big hairy audacious goals” will only make me feel bad about what little I can accomplish.

On the other hand, it is worth considering that maybe sometimes, if you start out with a little fuzzy assertive goal, it will eventually grow into a big hairy one.

So.

I really want to sew and create things.  But I don’t always have time for a major project.  This led me to start thinking small – really small.  As in a yo-yo a day.

For those of you unfamiliar with yo-yos, they are little discs of fabric that are stitched with a running stitch around the edge, then gathered up into a little pouch.  They were all the rage a long time ago, and they are really cute, plus they fall into the category of “round things that make me happy.”

This is my little fuzzy assertive goal:  to sew one yo-yo a day.  They take about five minutes per yo-yo, so I think it’s doable.  They help me feel a little saner, because there’s something calming about stitching quietly and having something to show for it (which is quite different from the daily grind of boys and repeated cleaning/cooking).

By the end of the year, I should have 365 yo-yo’s.  I’m hoping to string them into a garland for the Christmas tree, and they will serve as a reminder of how little things done daily can add up to something significant.

Once when I was processing through some things with a counselor after working for five years in Uzbekistan, I mentioned that I wasn’t much of a brainy person.  She started to laugh.  “Are you kidding?” she asked, “you have more thoughts running through your head in ten minutes than most people.”

That may or may not be a good thing . . . after all, just because you’re thinking doesn’t mean that you’re thinking good thoughts.  You could be worrying (guilty here) or doubting (guilty again) or a doing a host of other things.

But let’s assume the best and say that you’ve come across a few thoughts this week that made you stop and wonder.  Thoughts that encouraged you, or inspired you, or even compelled you to live differently.  For me, here are a few that caught my eye this week:

From the Prudent Homemaker:

“If you have $1 to spend on a garden, spend 90 cents on dirt and 10 cents on seeds, and your yield will be so much higher!”

How true this is not only in gardening, but in life as well.  A lot of what we become or produce is related to the soil we’ve cultivated for ourselves.  We inherited two garden plots with the house we are renting, and I’ve cleared the soil, but have yet to do the hard, and seemingly unglamorous step of prepping it for future plantings.  I spent quite a bit of time this month organizing and clearing things out in our basement – it too was kind of like a soil preparation, because it cleared the path for seeing what we could do with the space down there.

From Miss Mustard Seed: 

“I had a plan for my life and it changed. . . I want to share it because you may have had a plan for your life and it had to go on a shelf and God may have something for you that is so much better . . .”

I loved this story – you really should click over on the link above and read it yourself.  I resonated with it because I had a plan out of college to go into public policy, and ended up homeschooling five kids for five years instead.  Now I am in a new role as mother and wife in the Midwest – it doesn’t feel as glamorous as the previous one, but this post reminded me that God’s story never ends, and can often spring up out of the most humblest of circumstances.

Last semester there were times when I felt overwhelmed by my life situation.  We had intentionally become a one-car family to save money (as well as the stress of having a second used vehicle that could generate more risk for needing repairs), which left me at home for most of the day with three little, active boys.  Even though we were on a law school budget, we still found ourselves eating out more when I was just too exhausted or busy to cook what I had planned on.  Even though we had our own washer and dryer, the laundry just seemed to pile up in ways it hadn’t before.

And then one day it hit me – life wasn’t going to get any easier.  Well, maybe it would when the boys wouldn’t be so needy one day, but for now, I couldn’t expect Michael’s workload or my boys’ needs to decrease.  So there was only one solution:  I needed to up my game.  I couldn’t give myself a raise, but I could give myself a break by changing how I did things.

A commitment to constant improvement in how you do your job is often one of the secrets to success in business, but keeping house is often overlooked.  We look at housework and keeping the domestic fires stoked a category where just good enough is good enough.  But we rarely (at least I haven’t) sit down and ask, “How can I make this scenario better?”

“Why does that room constantly end up looking like a bomb went off?”

“What would it take for the laundry to get done?  For me to not pull out my hair because the stains aren’t coming out like they used to?”

“How can I change things so that my responsibilities are easier to meet?”

Sometimes stopping and re-evaluating is the key to a smoother day.  For me, I realized that while I loved intricate recipes, this time of my life required more freezer meals, soups, and crock pot meals.  I needed to buy more of our groceries at the beginning of the month because it gave me more meals to chose from when things got hectic unexpectedly.  I realized our laundry detergent didn’t work the same way here that it did in a different state, so I decided to buy the more expensive kind that was worth the increased stain-removal.  I started training myself to sneak downstairs to fold as much laundry as I could while my husband played with the kids after dinner.

I also tried to be kinder to myself.  Instead worrying that my kids were going to grow up feeling neglected and require years of therapy because I couldn’t get to everything, I told myself as I did each task to do as much as I could.  And surprisingly, I often got more done than I had planned.

It’s not about perfection – just improvement.

How are you upping your game?

And here’s why:

1.  They don’t cost that much to make – Pork shoulder typically is less expensive than ground beef.  Corn tortillas, crisped up a little with cooking spray in a cast-iron pan, and a sprinkle of feta/cotija cheese, some cilantro sprigs, red onion, and sweet corn and a squirt of lime juice – all of these things are low-budget yet so tasty.

2.  They are beyond easy to make.  Cut up the pork shoulder into 2 inch chunks, toss with the juice of two oranges and limes, 1 tsp. each of cumin, oregano, and salt, and simmer in a dutch oven for several hours until tender.  Then shred the meat and broil it (with some of the fat from the pan) until it’s nice and crispy on the edges.

3.  They make it easier to live on a budget and still feel like you can do take-out without too much effort – I can’t say the same for Indian or Thai food, unfortunately, because I love it and can make it, but it ends up using half the dishes in my kitchen.  This is definitely our new go-to way to make pork, right up there with slow-cooker pulled pork sandwiches.

I did a lot of freezer cooking over the weekend, but still tried to finish a few dishes I had started, like the Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Spaghetti, some candied walnuts to go on salads, and homemade croutons.  The weather was in the 50′s, so the older boys played outside, by themselves, for over two hours today, happily digging in the dirt and running their construction vehicles around, and I barely had to pop my head outside to break up a fight.  I’m hoping this is the beginning of a new trend.

This morning I went to pick up a free compost bin that is distributed through our county’s recycling program.  Sadly, the county does not offer recycling pick-up service yet, and that was probably one of the biggest culture shocks when we first moved here from the Bay area, where they were so picky in places like Berkeley that if you didn’t sort your recycling just right they wouldn’t take it.  I still have to get my act together enough to where I can take it somewhere and drop it off, but for the time being, I think I’m going to start with composting the vegetable scraps/etc. since I would theoretically only have to go to my backyard to do it.

Speaking of culture shock, I also went to get my drivers license last week while I still had free babysitting.  I packed a book, but my husband said I wouldn’t need it – no joke, I walked into the place (which I could barely find because it was tucked next to a dance studio) and there was no line.  The only reason it took as long as it did was that the lady was so friendly as she processed my application and tried to tell me about this great hotel west of us that serves legendary fried chicken.

1.  Upholstering a piece of furniture

2.  Homemade buttermilk

3.  Homemade soap

4.  Homemade waffles

5.  Homemade sourdough bread

6.  Homemade jam/preserves

7.  Homemade curtains

8.  Kids sandbox

9.  Headboard

10.  Map wall art

11.  Personalized pillows

12.  Homemade roman shade

But that’s what the days after Christmas are for, and lucky us, we were able to take time off because Michael’s out of school.  We hit up Home Depot on the 26th to get paint for our bedroom (Martha Stewart Sharkey Grey) and bathroom (Martha Stewart Glass of Milk), and are spending most of this week finishing off the changes that we can afford to make in our master bedroom:  paint, new bamboo roman shades, and putting up a flat screen tv we got from parents for Christmas (thanks, Mom and Dad!).

The paint is 80% done, and already it feels more like our own place.  Although I’m not big on spending tons of money on your home and like to DIY as much as possible, I have to say that this process has shown me how much objects and things speak silent messages as to who we are or what we are about.  Staring at a loud wallpaper or a fading paint color was either seriously irritating me or dragging me down – it felt like I was living in someone else’s house.  I can’t re-do everything that “isn’t me” at once, and am content with and grateful for what we do have, but it’s nice to have small changes here and there that echo my own tastes and sentiments.

Even though Christmas felt crazy, the hopes I had had for some of our gifts were realized – we got a set of wooden blocks for the boys at a good deal, and they, along with a Goodwill vintage Tonka dump truck, have been played with a lot.  I put away the Lincoln logs and magnetic building blocks immediately, figuring that it’s probably best to have one building set at a time out.  Now that we are trying to teach Eli the days of the week, I may try to have certain building sets assigned to certain days to give him an idea of how days work.

And I can’t help it, but I’m already thinking about things I want to do in the year to come.  Are you?  What are some of your goals/desires this year?

The second highlight of that weekend was getting to visit a new Trader Joe’s that has opened in Kansas City.  I’m not really an emotional person – I don’t cry usually when I say goodbye to people, but I have to say, walking in and being greeted by TJ’s produce section and seeing the red baskets was almost overwhelming.  We tried not to act too excited as we threw all sorts of things in our basket and looked around saying, “What else do we need?  What else do we need?”  I was bummed though that they were out of chocolate mandarin oranges.

As for the rest of this break, we are laying low here at home, which is to me the best kind of break, especially when you have kids.  Life changes when you have an extra set of hands to carry the load of three little ones.  For one, I am finally getting to tackle my bedroom.  If it takes the last ounce of energy in me, I am determined to take down the two layers of wallpaper that have been taunting me and replace mini-blinds with bamboo roman shades.  We are also planning to paint the room a calming shade of Martha Stewart grey.  The room itself has a lot of potential – hardwood floors, windows on two walls, but beyond that it’s felt like a sea of cream – walls that need repainting, creamy blinds, and cream furniture and bedding.

One little tip I found yesterday on the internet for those who are hankering for some torture as they contemplate taking down wallpaper – dipping paper towels in water, wringing them lightly, and pressing them onto the wallpaper did wonders for making the original wallpaper come off.  I just sprayed water over the paper towels every five to ten minutes and kept it soaking for about an hour before I took a stab at it, and while it didn’t come off in sheets, it was much better than peeling centimeter-thick strips off one by one.

“What do you like about it the most?” I asked him.

“Well . . . I like that it’s so big.”

It’s funny how people’s perceptions can be different.  I think that Eli and I are in agreement that our house is the biggest we’ve lived in so far, but the past few weeks I’ve been tallying up a list of projects we’d like to tackle over Michael’s winter break.  The wallpaper of the previous owner just has to come down – even the layers that have previous layers beneath it!  I have a few painting projects I’d like to do and some mini-blinds that need replacing as well.  But I may have waded a bit too far into the deep end when I purchased some camel-colored velveteen to reupholster our sofa (not kidding – and yes, I tried to take it back, but it was a red-tag item, so now I have to try and do it – won’t that be a fun blog post or two!).

But my problem is, that sometimes I get so tied up in the projects that I feel like our house won’t be “us” until they are done.  I was starting to feel pretty downcast when I thought about all I wanted to do and then realized how little time or help I had to do it.

Hearing Eli say that he just loves our house was a gentle reminder that in a child’s eyes, the home is so much more than the furnishings or the wallpaper.  Heck, like he’d know that anything is dated anyway – he’s only four!