Jesus came as and lived among the Jews while he was on earth. Following the commandments given to Moses was an integral part of their lives - at least for the religious in the crowd. Before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples of a new commandment that was to be followed by all his disciples then and throughout history, including today.
A new command I give you:
Love one another.
As I have loved you,
so you must love one another.
John 13:34
This is one of the main differences between Christianity and Islam. Islam teaches to kill those who won't convert. Christ taught to love and pray for your enemies. Just a little side note...
How about loving your spouse/family? It is so easy to expect certain behaviors from our family members. The challenge for 2012 is to love them the way Jesus loves us. It can be difficult, but can be done with his help. Just ask...
And...um...it's not a suggestion. He expects us to love one another - to put aside our selfish sin nature. That's why it's called a commandment. Just sayin'...
Middle East Update
The United States and Israel had planned a joint military exercise in light of the ongoing threats from Iran. Unfortunately, the Obama administration cancelled our participation in the exercise and it makes us appear weak and frightened by the threats.
Fly Lady
I hope you enjoyed blessing your home yesterday. If not, don't beat yourself up over it! I wasn't able to complete my home blessing yesterday, although I did do some of it. I plan on moving the bulk of this week's home blessing hour to Friday because we are going to be a host home for a DNow weekend and will have teens in our home Friday and Saturday. That is the thing I love about Fly Lady, you don't get beat up for not being perfect and you can switch things up to suit your needs!
Tuesday is plan and play day - plan out your week (menu, grocery shopping, mending clothing, anything else that needs planned) then enjoy some "play" time.
This week we will also introduce Fly Lady's Morning Routine and Before Bed Routine. Write these down on 3x5 cards (or print them on your computer and make them pretty) and tape them to your bathroom mirror. Doing these ten things every day makes your household run so much more smoothly with very little time spent.
Morning Routine
1. Get up 15 minutes before the family
2. Make your bed
3. Swish and swipe your bathroom - surface cleaning vanity and toilet
4. Get dressed to lace up shoes, NO EXCUSES (it's amazing how much this really does help!)
5. Eat breakfast
Before Bed Routine
1. Shine your sink (simply take everything out of your sink and clean it until it shines)
2. Check calendar (so you don't have any surprises tomorrow)
3. Lay out clothes for tomorrow (I don't have a place to lay out clothes, so I just choose my outfit)
4. Put things in your launch pad (Fly Lady has a basket near the door she uses to go to her car in which she places the things that she needs to take somewhere)
5. Go to bed earlier than last night (so you can do #1 on your Morning Routine!)
When making your cards with the Morning Routine and Before Bed Routine, you do not need to include the comments in parentheses. They are simply there as explanation if you have not been on her website.
I would also recommend that you read a verse or a chapter in the Bible or an entry in a devotional book every day as part of your daily routine, then talk to God about what you read. I was taught that one must do this every morning. That is pretty difficult for some people, especially moms with young kids. I spent a lot of years feeling guilty because I didn't have that quiet time with God before my kids got up. Yes, that is an amazing way to start your day. But, if you can't, spent a few minutes with Him at lunch, or nap time, or before you go to bed. And you can talk to Him about anything any time during the day or night.
Household Cleaning Tip
My mom loves to clean and her house has always been sanitary clean! I used to stress out about my house being perfect when my mom came for a visit, but soon realized that she would clean while she was there whether we (my girls and I) deep-cleaned or not. So, we basically did a Home Blessing Hour before she came...much less stressful!
Now that the girls are grown and gone, it is much easier to keep the house picked up. And now that I am no longer working outside our home, my house is cleaner than it has been in the past and I quite enjoy Monday's Home Blessing Hour. But, it is still very freeing to only have to do certain tasks on certain days, especially when my chronic fatigue is acting up.
One of my biggest dislikes when the girls were young was folding clothes. I didn't have a problem sorting and washing clothes and taught the girls how to do laundry as soon as they could reach the buttons on the machines.
Funny story - I had sent the girls in to sort clothes one day and soon heard screaming and laughter. I went in to see what they were doing and caught them shooting their dad's underwear at each other! My honey wasn't amused and requested that I be the only one to wash his BVDs from then on. Even thinking about it still makes me laugh...
The mistake I made with our laundry was two-fold. I didn't clean out the lint vent basket after every load (it could have caught on fire and burned the house down!) and I put all the dry laundry in a basket and dumped it on the couch or a bed. Several distractions later, the pile of laundry would be moved to another location and sometimes would take days to get folded.
The solution was surprisingly simple, I now take items out of the drier one at a time and fold them or hang them up, except for socks and undies. I do make a small pile of these items and put the pile on the kitchen counter where I will see it and remember to fold and put them away. I also put away the folded and hanging items immediately. This does two things: eliminates the piles and eliminates wrinkles. It all takes about 2 minutes!
Ok, I know I'm 54 years old, but Mom still teaches me things...like how to really clean the drier lint vent. I always clean the basket after every load (I put the lint into old cardboard egg cartons to make fire starters for the chiminea or camp fires) and occasionally would reach down into the vent to clean out more lint. Mom called me in for a lesson in using my Swiffer duster to clean the vent. It was pretty simple. Push the duster down into the vent and swish it around to get all sides of the vent. This works if your vent is on the top of your drier or down in front like mine.
There is always some lint that the basket doesn't catch and it can add up quickly!
Two weeks' worth of lint not caught by the lint basket -
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