How Am I Doing? Goal Check up....

Some people like to call them New Year's Resolutions, but I like to call them my big "What I'd Love to Do This Year" list.  I truly believe in setting goals to help give you direction, a sense of purpose, and way to measure how things are going. Back in August I share some of my personal goals with you all I wanted to update you on how things are going...

1) Increase my knowledges and studying time of the Bible over the next year
I've not been stellar at picking up my Bible and reading from it every day for myself but I have been working on finding stories in the Bible to read to my children.  Reading the parables that Jesus shared with others has been how I've been reconnecting with the scriptures. Trying to summarize those stories to my little ones has been good for me to reinforce those stories I remember from my Sunday school days.  My mom gave my children Max Lucado's The Story for Children, a Storybook Bible for Christmas and it has been so refreshing for me to read through these stories and everyone in our family listens intently every night as we read the Bible together.  I have been looking into find a new study Bible and getting lots of suggestions from family members, but I need something else to give me a direction on where to start and how to apply it to my everyday.  I'll keep working on making more time to do my own studying but for now reading to my kids has been at least a move in the right direction.

2) Work with my husband to develop a set of short term and long term "family" goals and for us as a couple
Our short term goals for the past 6 months has been to get this new house of ours built without breaking us mentally and emotionally. Building a house alone can be stressful to a relationship, but doing it after  living overseas for almost 4 years and trying to start life all over again can be tough.  I can tell you that I have a wonderful and hard working husband and we have been plugging away to keep our family strong during our transitional time.  We have committed to attend church regularly, committed to eat dinner together as a family as much as possible, and we've finally started talking about planning a big family vacation.  Granted we haven't gone out on a date by ourselves in over 6 months we do try to squeeze in at least 10 minutes a day to have a meaningful conversation together.

3) Diligently teaching my children about God and His ways and making Him a part of our daily experiences
This is one of my top priorities.  With all the changes going on in our lives over the past year, I wanted to make one thing constant with my little ones - God is always with us no matter where we are or what we are doing.  We listen to the Christian radio station in the car, we are reading stories from the Bible together and from the daily devotional books they got for Christmas.  We talk about the stories we've read from the Bible and we the stories they learn about at Sunday school each week.  At night we talk about things that made them happy, things that made them sad, things or people we could pray for.  Going to church is an exciting event for them and it's helped my little guy come out of his shell a bit.  If I don't accomplish anything else in life other than keeping God in my children's lives then I have been successful.  My next activity to start introducing to them is learning to memorize Bible verses to further our understanding of God's word.

4) Develop a template for organizing my household duties
I feel I have set up a pretty good system for planning meals and making up my weekly grocery lists.  I still need to get my head around keep my house clean in a more efficient manner.  I'm going to leave this goal to sort out when I get in my new house and figure out what I'm going to have to do to keep in organized. I will keep you posted....

5) Create a gardening and landscaping plan for next summer
I just checked out some gardening books from the library yesterday to get the juices flowing.  I am going to break out my binder full of articles I pulled out of Better Homes and Gardens magazines for gardening inspiration ideas.  Also while I was repacking up my basement last weekend I held out all my gardening and landscaping books, so we'll see what develops in the next few weeks as we prepare for some spring seeding.

6) Identify things we would like to have for the new house and set up a budget to be able to make or buy them
Ohhhh....I have my very BIG "wish list", but I am trying to make myself wait until we are in the new house before I start buying or making. Reason being is that I have a garage full of boxes that I haven't seen the inside of for 5 years and I'm thinking there are some hidden treasures in them that I can reuse, refinish, repurpose, or just plain remove from my house.

7) Evaluate family finances and work with my husband to identify key areas I can help us save or invest money over the next year 
Building a new house vastly affects your expendable income and ever decision we make affects our future finances.  We have discussed the pros and cons of every single item going into our house from toilet paper holders to investing in higher quality products and construction practices to help save on energy costs down the road. We even took on doing all the electrical labor with the help of my totally awesome dad to help us save quite a bit of money, so we could invest in other things.  It's been a little bit more stressful but will be worth it in the long run.   Once all of our house decisions are done we'll celebrate a little bit and then start hankering down on ways to reduce, reuse and recycle all through out our household.

9) Develop a healthy meal planning method and learn new meal preparation methods to meet nutritional and health needs of my family over the next year 
After returning to the US and getting back into routine doctor checks, we've been advised (like most Americans I'm sure) to eat better and get more exercise.  With high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels being a few issues our family, my challenge is to again focus on lean meats, more whole grains, less salt, and keeping us from eating out too much. Of course we splurge every now and the holidays are tough when you aren't always in control of the menus, but we're starting anew this month.  The library has been an amazing source for "healthy" cookbooks, but I'm looking forward to taking on some new recipes this year.

10) Implement an exercise plan and plan physical activities to help attain and maintain a healthy weight and physical condition for whole family for the next year. 
This goal has been a horrible struggle for me.  With both kids at home most of the time and a hubby who works long hours, its very hard to find or even make time to get out and exercise.  I refuse to spend loads of money to go to a gym so I tried to exercise using the Wii.  Even this weak attempt is now an issue for me as my 3 year old son throws a fit when he doesn't get to play "games" after mommy's done exercising.  Our rental house has not been an ideal place for space to get away and exercise or to even indulge in safe family walks outside, so I'm praying that our new neighborhood will be more conducive to family exercising and activities.  I'm going to start scouring Craig's List for a weight set and a treadmill soon, and my friend Cathy has inspired me to potentially looking into boxing bag.

11) Maintain and grow my relationships with friends and extended family
God bless those wonderful people who put up with our house building madness and continue to be our friends and support us through all of this. It has been great to be back closer to family and old friends, but what I've found out about our American lifestyle is that we are ALL so busy!!!  What I loved about life in England was that we seemed to take more time to spend time with people - have a cup of tea, have a glass of wine, spend two hours+ out for dinner with others talking about holidays, good food, and life.  I find myself becoming too busy myself, but I'm going to dig down deep here soon and get my "British" influences back in my being and make more time for people.

12)  Make new friends.
Friendships and family support is what keeps me afloat in life and it's been a trying year to have left some of the most amazing friendships I've ever had and starting life all over again.  I have been blessed by God that every time I have had to go through this process that I have been successful at making new long lasting friendships.  I just have to keep telling myself that it just takes time to get settled.  (But I so wish God would help rush it along a little faster - ha ha!)

13) Family service projects
So far we've done a few things to help out others, but it never seems to be enough.  This fall we went as a family to purchase items to fill 4 Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes - that was hoot carting around Walmart picking out things for other kids.   What a great lesson to teach our little ones and a tradition we intend on keeping every year. We made up lots of Christmas goodie bags and boxes for the people working our our house, working for my hubby, and our neighbors.  We are also big recyclers and each big load of stuff we bring to the recycling trailers uptown helps generations to come.  We are excited to come up with some more things to do together.

14) Develop "Making Something of Myself" series on my blog
I've been doing so much research into loads of different topics that I can't wait to share with you all.  You would think I was a crazy person if you saw me taking notes as I walk through the grocery store aisles, checking out 8+ "How to..." books at a time from my local library, and this mess of a binder that I keep all my notes and ideas in.  I am so passionate about improving the way I do things and so excited to share with you all what I find out.  The real world does hit me in the face pretty hard and I remember that I actually have to do things on a daily basis to keep my family going.  Needless to say time blogging has to come second, but I'm going to keep plugging away and take advantage of my "after bedtime" time to write about some really cool stuff I'm trying out.

My S-T-R-E-T-C-H Goals....

I've actually accomplished one of my stretch goals!!!! I set up a shop on Etsy.com and have made over $400 in selling some of my homemade creations.  It all got rushed along when a wonderful lady requested that I make her a zebra tree topper for her zebra themed Christmas tree this year.  Shortly after I made that transaction, I completed 3 of my Quiet Books and sold all of them in a week's time.  I sold a crayon tote and a few of my tool belts and I am so pumped up to start making more items to post on my shop.  It's not a lot of money for the time it takes to make all these things but the feedback I'm getting from my buyers is so wonderful and I'm making things that people are going to treasure for generations to come.

As far as my website goes, my husband was a dear and thought about getting me some web software for Christmas to start my site but thought I would get better use of a Professional Series Kitchenaid Mixer in the short term.  I can't complain about that, but I'm still going to look into it this year....some day....

"Things I'd Love to Do Pretty Soon" List

Again the above are some great goals for me to keep striving for throughout this next year, but I've identified some key "Things I'd Love to Do" list items that I'm working on as well:

1) Do everything I need to do to get my new house ready to move in, get my current house ready to get moved out, and move into my new house within the next month!!!!!

2) Create more quiet books for Etsy and fulfill customized project requests from other customers.

3) Create decor for my new house - items for kids' bedrooms, master bedroom, living room, and kitchen/dining rooms like pillows, window treatments, framing photos, etc.

4) Plan a family vacation and weekend outings for this spring.

5) Prepare for a garage sale this summer.

6) Find exercise equipment and get fit!!!!

My 2011 Christmas Wish List

I read the neatest little book to my kids tonight called "The Spirit of Christmas" by Nancy Tillman and something about it really hit home to my heart.  I couldn't help but think that the special magical feeling I used to have as a child at Christmas time and now how that has been taken over by stress and worry of making Christmas happen for everyone else.

This year even with setting up the Christmas decorations, buying up my Christmas cookie ingredients, and attempting to start my Christmas shopping I hadn't been feeling that magic yet.  But this little book really put things in perspective for me.  It's not all about all these "things" we try to do or buy or make or decorate, but that Christmas is about love.  It's remembering the miracle of the birth of Jesus and how much God loves us no matter what we have or what we do.  So my Christmas wish list this year has a different focus to help remind me of the real meaning of the season and fill my heart up with the magic of God's love.

So this is what I'm asking God for this Christmas:

1) Good health and safety for my family - without them I am truly nothing
2) More patience with my children and husband so that I can be a true reflection of Christ in their eyes
3) Discipline to really start making time to exercise - not just to lose a couple extra pounds but to keep me healthy and keep me strong and fit to keep my family running well
4) Humility to keep me from being so stubborn and selfish in my ways and to forgive much faster - "I'm Sorry" are such powerful words, but sometimes so hard for me to say
5) Peace within my heart to be content and not wanting to rush life along
6) Love to overflow in my heart not only for my family and friends but for those who challenge me and those I haven't even met yet
7) Self-confidence in my abilities and talents and to keep challenging myself to step out of my comfort zone and keep pushing towards my dreams and goals
8) To feel okay about treating myself to things
9) More initiative to reach out to others - friends and family - all this moving around in the past year has really kept me in my shell and I thrive being out of that shell
10) More faith to truly serve God with all my heart, my soul and my mind


But for fun, this is what I would put on my wish list to Santa:
1) Bright red shiny industrial-sized KitchenAid mixer with all the little gizmos that go with it
2) 4 round trip tickets to Singapore via London so I could see all my favorite international friends and family
3) A pair of black tall boots and a couple new outfits to make me look a little more posh than a total stay at home homely person
4) Some home exercise equipment so I can actually be able to do the exercise I want to do

A Plan to "Make" Better Use of My Time

"The Virtuous Woman uses her time wisely. She works diligently to complete her daily tasks. She does not spend time dwelling on those things that do not please the Lord." (from 10 Virtues of the Proverbs 31 Woman - http://avirtuouswoman.org)

For past several weeks I looked at how I had been spending my time. What I found was that when I was not focused and not organized, I didn't utilize my time very well. It's not that I was doing things I shouldn't have been doing, but that I was not really doing things very efficiently or timely. I also found I was not very passionate about doing "work" and my daily tasks felt like a burden instead of a joy. I know that this all probably had to do with me not feeling like I had anything big to be working for - no real goals. The Proverbs 31 Woman changed my mind and heart though. I believe that the Proverbs 31 woman was constantly focussed on her goals in life - goals that are based on how God wanted her to live. She was diligent about completing tasks and she maximized her time in reaching those goals. She is the reason for my new motivation and direction, and now it is time for me to act.

To come up with my action plan, I gleaned back to my time management training and my old Franklin Covey Plan. Through those exercises I learned some fantastic methods of setting goals and prioritizing tasks in 5 simple steps. In the past my goal setting sessions mostly focussed on achieving work-related and company goals, but now I have a different job as mom and wife and it is time to get personal. Personal goals and priorities often change as the seasons of our lives change like when we get married, have children, lose a loved one or friend, move, change jobs, and so on. As I shared before, since our big move back from overseas I've been a little lost. Going through this exercise has definitely gotten me back on track.

Here are the five steps I went through in my exercise. Take a look at then yourselves and you can see how I responded to each later on. I do encourage you to try this out for yourselves...it's pretty interesting what you'll find out about yourselves.

Step 1 - List Out Your Values

First, let's define what are values. Values are things that you think are important to the way you live and work. When you feel good about doing certain things or feel comfortable behaving a certain way, these define your values. If your world feels all messed up and what you are doing feels wrong, then you aren't aligned with your values. So how do you define what your values are? Simply ask yourself these questions and write down your responses: 1) What makes you happy? 2)What makes you proud? 3)When do you feel fulfilled and satisfied? After you make a list of these people, events, and whatever, then start looking for similarities and group them together. Pick the top ones that you feel best define who you really are especially the ones you wouldn't be afraid to share with the world (as I am going to do with you all).

Step 2 - List Out Your Goals Based on Your Values

Goals are simply things you'd like to do or achieve. Now goals that align with your values seem to be very powerful because you can be very passionate about them. I actually like to write down my goals because there is something about physically writing or typing them that makes them more real. Technically speaking when writing goals you want to make sure they are SMART - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. That's a mouth full, but you want to make sure that they aren't too general, that you can measure how you are doing, they are realistic so that you can actually achieve them, and you need to set a time limit on them.

Step 3: List out activities and tasks to achieve those goals

Start making your "to do" lists. These are things you could be doing on a daily basis or certain time of the month or year. For now just list out all the things you think you need to do to accomplish your goal. Often these might need to be listed out in chronological order as certain tasks my depend on something else getting completed.

Step 4 - Priorities those activities and tasks

I am the "queen of making lists" and I know I can get out of hand when comes to listing out all the tasks and activities I could do to accomplish my goals. But I remembered something from my Franklin Covey training called The Pareto Principle that states "20% of our tasks will account for 80% of our success." Ultimately you will need to prioritize and pick those few things that will have the biggest impact on achieving what you want to do. Prioritizing also helps when planning out when you can do line up those tasks/activities in your schedule.

Step 5 - Set up blocks of time during your week to accomplish those tasks

This next step requires some planning. You need to be able to plan out slots of time each week for activities/tasks that you want to do to work towards your goals. It's kind of like the story of filling up your "life" bucket up with the big stones (your biggest priorities) then the little stones (day-to-day gotta do stuff), then sand and water fill in the rest.

Pick a date and time to visit with that friend you've been missing, pick a two hour slot on one day to work on decluttering that closet you've been wanting to do forever, get that date night with your spouse marked on the calendar in bright red letters, whatever is important to you, plan some time for it.

I do want to thank everyone who took part in my survey about how you plan out your time. No matter how you answered I do feel that a little planning can help us all out. If you just go with the flow and let all the little stuff fill up your time, you may not ever feel like you have the time to do things that you think are truly important. And honestly it doesn't take that much time to plan out the big things for your week. It take as little as 30 minutes at the beginning of each week to plan some direction for the next 10,080 minutes to follow in the rest of the week!

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Now after looking at the how I went through my exercise, this is what I came up with for my values, my goals, and the process I'm working on to implement my plan.

What Are My Top Values?

• My faith in God
• My family
• My marriage
• Relationships with friends and family
• Serving others
• Personal time to be creative
• My health

My Goals :

(I have listed a few activities/task under some of my goals on how I want to accomplish them. Over the next few months I'll share with you some more in depth things I have done and plan to do for each.)

1) Increase my knowledge and studying time of the Bible over the next year

• Read from the Bible daily
• Find a good devotional book to help me relate scriptures to everyday life
• Participate in a group Bible study or Christian book study on a quarterly basis
• Take notes during weekly sermons and use for further study

2) Work with my husband to develop a set of short and long term "family" goals and for us as a couple

• Set aside at least 1 hour a week to talk specifically about our goals and activities to achieve those goals - family trips, service projects, finances, house management
• Set up a "date-night" at least once every two weeks - staying in or going out

3) Diligently teach my children about God and His ways and making Him part of our daily experiences

• Find books with stories from the Bible to read on a daily basis
• Read from the Bible to the children on a daily basis - starting with Proverbs
• Find a verse a week to start learning and memorizing

5) Develop a template for organizing my household duties within the next three months

• Set up a weekly/monthly whole house cleaning schedule
• Implement a weekly decluttering mission somewhere within the house
• Do weekly pantry and fridge/freezer inventory, research grocery ads, and develop weekly meal plans to create weekly grocery shopping list
• Create chore list for children to start helping out with daily cleaning

6) Create a gardening and landscaping plan for next summer

7) Identify needs for new house and develop budget needed to make or buy items along with timing for purchases needed by end of August 2011

8) Evaluate family finances and work with my husband to identify key areas I can help us save or invest money over the next year

• Identify possible profitable investment opportunities to benefit the family
• Identify and implement cost savings techniques - make our own vs store bought purchases

9) Develop a healthy meal planning method and learn new meal preparation methods to meet nutritional and health needs of my family over the next year

10) Implement an exercise plan and plan physical activities to help attain and maintain a healthy weight and physical condition for whole family for the next year

11) Maintain and grow my relationships with friends and extended family (forever)

• Set up times to meet friends in person - try to meet with at least 1 person/week
• Host events for friends to attend at my home or away at least every other month
• Line up regular sessions to talk on Skype with friends far away (monthly or weekly)
• Send personal messages via email or Facebook messages at least monthly
• Keep personal blog updated each month for others to follow us
• Get a comprehensive calendar of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, etc to help get cards/presents out on a timely basis (I am soooo horrible at this right now)

12) Make new friends in the next year

• Reach out to new people at school, church and neighborhood by inviting people over for play dates, coffees, parties once the school year starts back up.

13) Identify at least a monthly service project for my whole family to take part in with in the next six months

14) Develop the "Making Something of Myself" series on "Things I Like to Make" blog as my service project to my followers

My BIG Long-term S-T-R-E-T-C-H goals:

1. Develop my "Things I Like to Make" blog into a full fledged website and gain sponsorship to help with server hosting costs have thousands of regular followers
2. Set up a "shop" on etsy.com to sell homemade crafts and sewing projects to others
3. Set up a mini catering/party planning business for small events
4. Create a book with all my favorite "Things I Like to Make"

(Obviously my stretch goals are way out there, but you've got to have them. They are the dreams we have and keep us going.)

How I Am Planning Out My Time

I've been trying this method for a couple weeks now, but on Sunday nights after kids have gone to bed I take a little time to plan out my week. I sit down with my "weekly" calendar and plan out our meals, make note of some key activities going on that week and form a "to do list" for certain days.

I don't try to overload any particular day as I need to be flexible, but by writing down my top priority activities I have a constant reminder that those are things I need to make time for. Of course as little things come along each day, I do add to my to do lists, but they flow in around my big tasks.

I made my own "weekly" calender out of card stock and they laminated it with contact paper. You could buy a nice dry erase calender at an office store or if you have a nice desk calendar that would work as well. On mine the lines and side categories and days of the week are permanently on the paper, but I use a dry erase marker write on it each week. I have it hanging on the side of our fridge along with a monthly calendar so we can see what's coming up in later weeks and a magnetic list pad hanging up to keep a grocery list. Throughout the week as we run out of things I add to the list, but after I get my meals planned I fill in the rest of my grocery list.

Ultimately I would like to lay things out on a yearly and monthly calendar to refer to as well when I do my weekly calendar. Soon I will have my goals printed out and stuck next to my calendar as a daily reminder of what I am trying to accomplish and have on hand during my weekly planning session. For now, this calendar along with a small pocket calendar that I carry in my handbag is how I am trying to stay organized.

I know that this all may seem fairly ambitious of me, but I think you've got to start somewhere and think big picture. But all of these goals are in line with my values so I am passionate about achieving them. Also these are things that pretty much encompass everything I would already be doing in a day but it gives me some direction and sense of accomplishment.

Over the next several months I'll be sharing with you how I'm doing with my goals and pass on knowledge I gain while working on them...hope you are as excited as me for this adventure. Please let me know what you think about this goal-setting process and if you are trying it yourself. I would love to hear comments from you so that we can help each other out.

Time to "Make" Something of Myself

For almost 4 years I had a wonderful opportunity to live in England. This adventure not only allowed my family and I to meet amazing people of all different cultures and backgrounds, travel throughout Europe, and live a "fairy-tale" life, but most importantly it set us on the track of me being a stay at home mom.

Now back to the US one of my greatest joys is that I get to continue staying home to raise our children and manage our household. Life definitely is a lot busier since we moved back as our young children are rapidly growing up, we are building a new home, and I have lots of ambitious thoughts of new projects to work on. Well, about a month ago I got horribly overwhelmed with everything going on and I broke down. I had no focus, no organization, and no sense of what my purpose was (an ongoing struggle I have). It was then that I realized I needed to step back and find a way to get in control of the chaos.

I began soul searching for the best ways to utilize my time and energy that would best benefit my family and allow me to serve God the way He wants me to. After lots of prayer I got turned to Proverbs 31: 11-31 where the Bible outlines the "Wife of Noble Character." Of any person to model myself after I found the Proverbs 31 woman would be an excellent choice. In my little bit of research I found loads of information about how this woman was as a wife, a homemaker, a good neighbor, a teacher, a mother and a person...and she is amazing! Ultimately I decided I wanted to "make" myself like her. Since this blog is about "Things I Like to Make" I thought that this would be an excellent tool to utilize in sharing with you my "life project" along with all the fun recipes and crafty projects I've shared with you so far.

I found a website (http://avirtuouswoman.org) that outlined 10 virtues of the Proverbs 31 Woman that inspired me to discover real life applications to carry out these teachings. For the next several weeks I want to look at these 10 virtues and with your help come up with some great ideas to "make" me and you more like this amazing woman. Upfront I'm going to say that I know that I am definitely not perfect and I'm not an expert, just a woman who wants to be a better mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter, and servant. Not everything that I say and do is right for everyone else, but maybe my blog and the things I share can help inspire others.

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The 10 virtues of the Proverbs 31 Woman (as outlined by http://avirtuouswoman.org) : (After each virtue I'll share a few quick ideas of things I'd like to look into more for each and get more ideas from you.)

1) Faith - a virtuous woman serves God with all her heart, mind and soul. She seeks His will for her life and follows His ways.

• I've got a line up of new books that I look forward to reading and helping me with my Bible studies along with finding new ways to "make" my kids better people, how to "make" gifts for others, and lessons on how to "make" my life more by living with less. I am looking at sharing highlights from each.
• Books include: A Mom After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George, REAL Moms...REAL Jesus by Jill Savage, Growing Grateful Kids by Susie Larson, and Living Less so Your Family Has More, by Jill and Mark Savage, Homespun Gifts from the Heart by Karen Ehman, Kelly Hovermale, and Trish Smith

2) Marriage - A virtuous woman respects her husband. She does him good all the days of her life. She is trustworthy and a helpmeet.

• What ways to be a helper for your husband and "make" life easier for you and your husband
• A way to a man's heart is through is stomach, so some good eats to make your man
• Gifts to "make" for your husband

3) Mothering - She teachers her children the ways of her faith in Heaven. She nurtures her children with the love of Christ, disciples them with the love of Christ, disciplines them with care and wisdom and trains them in the way they should go.

• Planning positive activities, crafts and games to do with your kids that don't cost a lot
• Making toys and clothes and homemade gifts for your kids
• Creating keepsakes
• Recipes to make for and with your little ones

4) Health - She cares for her body. Prepares healthy food for her family.

• Healthy meal planning
• Ways to make things from scratch to avoid some of the negatives of processed foods
• Well illustrated recipes to easily make great food
• Tips on keeping your fridge and pantry stocked

5) Service - She serves her husband, her family, her friends, and her neighbors with a gentle and loving spirit. She is charitable.

• Entertaining others economically
• Setting up "service" projects for you and your family to make something for others
• Making homemade gifts for others

6) Finances - She seeks her husband's approval before making purchases and spends money wisely. She is careful to purchase quality items which her family needs.

• Save money by "making it yourself"
• Grocery buying tips that can help you save money
• Frugal living tips
• DIY projects
• Making memories without spending a lot of money

7) Industry - She works willingly with her hands. She sings praises to God and does not grumble while completing her tasks.

• Plan out housecleaning tasks on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly schedule
• Meal planning and preparation
• Gardening ideas

8) Homemaking - she is a homemaker. She creates an inviting atmosphere of warmth and love for her family.

• Things you can make yourself for you home and DIY
• Gardening and landscaping ideas
• Keeping your home organized
• Keeping up on your house cleaning activities
• Recycling and reusing things in your house
• Everyday crafts

9) Time - She uses her time wisely. She works diligently to complete her daily tasks. She does not spend time dwelling on those things that do not please the Lord.

• Setting priorities and planning out the important things
• Creating calendars and checklists to make life easier
• Organizing areas of your home

10) Beauty - She is a woman of worth and beauty. She has the inner beauty that only comes from Christ. She uses her creativity and sense of style to create beauty in her life and lives of her loved ones.

• Making things is a outlet of creativity to show your inner beauty
• Making homemade gifts for others shows others how much you care

I'll also be creating new sections in this blog and improving others as we go on this journey. I am hoping to include ways to save time, save money, and make life easier in each, but adding in the structure of following the 10 virtues above as best I can.

• Homemaking
• Recipes and Meal Ideas
• Entertaining
• Crafts and Sewing Projects
• Gift Ideas
• Kids' Corner

Need Your Help

I need your help on this journey so please share your ideas and opinions with me because I would definitely like to help to "make" us all more how we want to be. I'll be posting some questions up on Things I Like to Make on Facebook and also on this blog to gather some information to help put each newsletter together so give me all your input through comments on each.

Also any additional thoughts you have...please email me at corrina_dea@yahoo.com.