Family Control Center

This is not going to a spiritual uplifting post but a little more practical.  From time to time I will make posts here regarding things that are working for us as a family and for homeschooling.  This is one of those posts.

Towards the end of December, I always had to look for a new calendar for the kitchen.  This calendar was the family calendar where everyone could see at a moment’s notice who had what, when, and where.  I had to buy the big calendar with the 5 spaces for family members names (Travis and I shared a space).  The spaces never seemed big enough and I had to buy a new one every year.

This year I have done something different.  I can not take credit for this idea.  I saw it in a Real Simple magazine.  This is our new Family Control Center in the kitchen:

I spent the same amount of money on all the supplies for this as I do on a calendar every year (about $25.00).  We love it so far.  It does require some work up front and through the year but next year I will be set because I will everything from the year before.  I am keeping the same color theme for 3 months at a time.  I made up the little circles for events.  As an event is scheduled, I write the time, person’s name and what they will be doing.  I then pin the morning events to the left side of the square, the afternoon on the right side and the evening events at the bottom.  Recently, when I took a trip I also wrote the flight # and the time on the circle.  Travis was able to check at a moment’s notice as to when I was coming in.  It also helped him throughout the week while I was gone to manage the things that the children were involved in.  As you can see from the picture, I did not take into account the width of ribbon when figuring out the placement so Saturday ended up being the smallest block.  It worked out okay for us because most of our stuff is during the week.

If you want directions and supply list, let me know.

God’s Extravagance

Sometimes I forget that part of God’s character is to be extravagant to those He loves…His children.  Ephesians 3:20-21 says, “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen.”  While some may be offended that I chose a picture of a Christmas tree overflowing with presents from underneath its branches, to our family it represents so much more.  This has been a tough year for our family.  You see, we made a choice to step out and follow God last year in helping planting a church in Wesley Chapel.  We clearly heard and knew that God was calling us to this endeavor.  Travis left his position at the church that we were attending to follow God.  We were confident that God would supply our needs but we could have never imagined what God had in store.  Travis has officially, as of January 1st, 2010, been unemployed for a year.  While God has provided sporadic income throughout the year, we have had no regular income.  Each month this past year, we relied on God to meet our needs on a daily and monthly basis.  Never once this past year could we not pay a bill or not have any food.  My children even jokingly say that they “never even had to miss one snack!”  With Christmas drawing near, we had already been telling our children that we probably would not exchange gifts this year.  But once again, God came through even though we never asked.  Not only did He come through but did immensely more than we could imagine.  These gifts came from many different avenues and places.  One family even decided to take the money that they would have used to buy gifts for each other and buy gifts for our children instead.  Every time I walked by tree, my eyes welled up with tears.  Not about the gifts but about God’s heart of love behind the extravagance that was poured out on our family this year.  He could have just given us a few gifts and we would have indeed been gratefully.  Instead He chose to overwhelm us with His extravagance!  Glory to God and to His church through whom He works in amazing ways!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.