With a new year starting and a third baby on the way it was time I took a seriously look at home my family and I were living; starting from the basics of everyday life to the deep stuff like our connection with church and God. I had so many ideas on how I wanted to live and how I wanted to dominate life and not let it dominate me. Somewhere along the way I got lost in the demands of everyday life and the procrastination and excuses that can enter your mind when you are trying to accomplish things. My mother would say its the Devil entering your life when he knows things are going well and your starting to or doing what God intended for you and your life. Now was the time I started living and showing my children how they should be living and how to really grasp life and live it to the fullest and with intention. To start living this way was going to take time, and some serious effort on my part. Even though I am the type of person who wants everything done right then and now, I realize in this instance Rome wasn't built in a day and neither would a intentional life.
The first step in living intentionally is having a intentional home. To begin with I took about a week of going through my home and organizing every nook and cranny to the best of my ability without purchasing any new items for organizational items or such. As I went along I wrote down what I needed for each room so that I could add these items little at a time without breaking the bank. My goal for the year is to focus on one room at a time, spending as much time as needed getting these rooms done without overdoing myself (remember I mentioned Im expecting baby number three as of now being 5 months pregnant). Having each room done and creating a intentional home for me at least consists of each room being organized, decorated and fully updated. Most of these projects would be entirely handmade by me, which meant really taking my time. Each room’s project will be documented for all of my lovely readers to get ideas on how to make your home perfect for you. I’ll be working on each room as according to what room needs to be done in matter of urgency/importance. For us that means the boys room (since baby no.3 is a boy they will be sharing), then our bedroom since baby will be sleeping in our room for the first 8 months or so.
Intentional living continues with planning a intentional day/week/schedule for ourselves and families. Now bit of a confession from me I love planners, spending money on planners and writing in planners. But until now I never really found one that I could stick with and make work for myself and family. I love cute and functional, who doesn't right? I had seen all the wonderful Erin Condren planners with all the extreme decorating, but never really thought that was right for me. After all I didn't really want to spend days on end decorating the planner more then making the planner work for me. But I finally gave in and purchased my first EC planner when they became available at my local staples. Now I don’t go crazy decorating, I feel like I’d rather save that effort for my scrapbooking but I do still like a little bit of decorating (to see how I make these planners work for me click here, link coming soon). To continue each planning a intentional day/week/schedule follow this link, coming soon.
Now to continue with our intentional living the beginnings we also need to have a intentional budget. This part is a little more complicated then the rest of our intentional living steps. When my husband and I were dating my loving father had made a stipulation on us becoming engaged/getting married we would have to complete the Dave Ramsey Finical Peace course. While some things he teaches are harder to come to terms and put to practice more then others, and somethings we don’t follow there are some very useful tools in the course. Teaching us how to budget correctly and that a savings account is important. Here is how I put to use those main ideas he first taught us many years ago.
Finally living intentionally continues with being intentional with my kids, which meant that I had to focus on many things for them. First installing a chore list for them, yes I am that mean mom that expects my kiddos to pull their own weight (because they need to learn to be responsible now and that hard work isn’t a bad thing, better now then later). Next I plan one fun craft/experience a week, this usually occurs on the weekends we either go somewhere or do something fun in the house. Finally I plan out each week for the kids from what they need to learn education wise, the devotions we need to be completing, any kind of Dr appointments etc they need or have for that week, and any school activities.
So intentional living isn't a easy switch we can flip and start doing immediately it takes time, practice. and trial and error to find what works and what doesn't for each of us. Now it does take fully committing ourselves to the process, everyday we have to work at living intentional. We want to move forward not backwards and even one day of slacking can cause us to fall back into that habits of procrastination/denial. Of course we are all going to have our sick days, but lets all commit to making 2016 the year we began to live intentionally.
More articles on living intentionally:
Coming soon.
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