A House of Order

We at Team Mudgett have been learning a lot and have received many blessings from Heavenly Father.  Our house has been on the market for a little over a month now.  We had been praying to know what we need to do in order to receive the blessing of having the house sold and man did we get answers!  Our answer was that we haven't been good stewards of what we have right now, once we do what we need to do to get that in order.  Over the past few months, we got ourself in debt trying to get the house ready and with some other unexpected bills.  While there was nothing we could do to avoid it(we told ourselves) we haven't made any progress in getting out of it.  So, one morning I woke up and realized that we shouldn't be in debt at all.  If we had saved more we wouldn't be in the situation.  Anyhow, I did some math and realized that if we work hard and limit our spending we can pay off all of our debts (barring any unforseen financial bill) by June when the payment for our flooring is due.  Once we have that debt paid off, we need to the money we were using to save.  Just like in the Old Testament when Joseph interpreted the kings dream about years of plenty and years of famine.  We need to save and invest our money wisely.

Next, our physical house needed to be put in greater order.  So, I have been trying to make sure it remains that way.  I clean all the dishes at night.  On Saturday's I make sure that the house is straight and the food we need for the next day is easily accessible and easy to put together so that we can use our time doing family things, spiritual things, and relaxing.  I have started making menu's for the week, which I always found very difficult to do before, but, when I decided to do a pattern it made it much easier.  I just make sure we have 3 vegetables and a main dish at every dinner.  For dessert I can cook some berries with flax meal and oats (which is a very tasty dessert especially if you add a little ice cream) or we can just have ice cream.  We have found that with that pattern we eat well, healthfully, and inexpensively usually about $10-15/day for all meals for the family.  Eating this way has also helped us in our quest for health and lose weight!

With Drew working during the day and doing his masters program at night it doesn't leave much time for family things.  SOOOO, I have been working to make sure that the house is in order so that he doesn't need to do to many chores on top of all of his other responsabilities.  Also,  we need to cut back on the things we do outside of the family.  Last week, we had several evening things which really threw off Anna.  She gets stressed pretty easily and really needs routine and structure.  So, in the evenings now she normally takes a nap from 5-7, then before bed we take our Mudgett family walk (when its not icy out), she gets a bath (unless her skin is too dry), a few stories, and then nurses to sleep. We end up having great times as a family (the walks not only help us have time together but help us keep healthy).