hefley

For a while now I’ve had on my heart to start sharing stories of how God’s has been and is providing in our own personal lives. Maybe it’s not so much for your sake as it is for my own… to recognize and remind myself of what God’s doing is invaluable for our future.

Just because there's not really any photos that go well with this story I'll just give you some of our family instead...just to remind you; "this is us, and we love having you in our lives!"

So here is my first little story, a fresh one as of this week:

Just the other day I came across this bible verse:

Luke 12:33 “Sell your possessions and give to the poor…”

As we’re preparing to move to Norway we’re in a unique position where we are getting rid of things anyways. Not everything will make it across the ocean. In fact as little as possible will make it across the ocean due to shipping cost. But there has been the struggle in our minds and hearts about what to do with the things we leave behind. Should we sell them and make as much money as possible to have a start up fund when we get to Norway and need to start purchasing new things? Or should we just give our things away and bless others, trusting that God will somehow work it out so we get what we need when we need them over there too?

Not until just the other day when I read that verse did this matter get settled in my mind. We are not going to sell our things for our own profit. What we sell will be sold to provide for the poor, and items that can be donated directly to the poor will be. When I spoke with Daniel about this he agreed, and what a joy it was to have this matter settled, knowing that we’re doing the thing God wants our family to do.

It’s fun to partner with God when it’s clear what His directives are. That gives us grounds for trusting that He also will work things out so we’re provided for as well.

A fresh photo of our family, from last weekends trip to Grand Junction. Goal for our trip: seeking wisdom from pastor frinends of ours about this next stage of our lives.

The fun thing is that just last night a friend happened to ask me if I possibly could make a list of needs; things we needed to get still that would be shipped to Norway. WOW! I don’t know if anything will come from that list thing, and really that’s not the important thing about this either. The thing with real value here is how God clearly sent me an encouragement to show me He has it all under control. Isn’t God cool?! Really, with real possibilities to get labeled a freak, I still have to just “shout it out”; I LOVE MY LIFE! It is such fun to get to be part of what God is doing, to see Him actively at work in the lives of people around me and in myself, challenging us to mature and live out the lives He planned for us all along. So cool!

We are embarking on a new adventure; 2 ½ months on the road with our 3 little kids. This ought to get interesting! =) If you want to follow our adventure be sure to RSS our blog so you can get our updates. The RSS button is at the bottom of this page.

How old are these kids we'll be hauling around, you might ask...The answer is they are 2, 4 and 6. We're insane, I know!!

Now, why on earth are we spending that much time on the road? Well, here is the low down. In September we got asked to start praying about taking over leadership of Trondheim Vineyard, here in Norway. That was 12 days after God had spoken clearly to both Daniel and myself about moving back to Trondheim. Thus we’ve been spending time with the congregation here as much as possible this spring, and they’re bringing us along for a leader/pastor conference in Kopenhagen, Denmark in June, and then later in July for a Summer camp for Vineyard Norden (Norway, Denmark and Sweden) somewhere in the Swedish forests. But before that we’re heading back to Trondheim for a couple of weeks to fellowship with the church in their home city.

Trøndelag, my future home. The city of Trondheim should be along the fjord somewhere, but don't ask me to pin point it for you yet...I need some more time getting used to things here before I get that good.

Right now the kids and I are at my parents place while Daniel is finishing up his second trip to Kosovo this spring. He’ll be back in a few days, and by then the kids and I hope to have our road trip started. We’ll go spend time with some friends and let him meet up with us en route to Trondheim. Between our two Vineyard events this summer we are taking our family for the first ever trip to Kosovo together! Only Daniel has been there so far, and it’s time for us all to go. For those of you that don’t know what we’re presently doing check out the website of the ministry we’re part of www.waterforlife.org.

One of the wells Daniel and his university inters have helped the locals in Kosovo to restore and seal off with now safe drinking water.

Right now we’re helping a small village of 800 in Kosovo to get safe water. Presently they are drinking contaminated water from open wells that run dry 3 months out of the year. We’re helping raise the money for the work, and then training them in how to cover their wells, put in pumps to avoid the dirty bucket being dropped into the water, and how to build water storage tanks they can collect rainwater in and save up for the dry season. For years the kids and I have been part of this from the sideline, sitting at home either at our place in Colorado or at my parents place in Norway while Daniel’s been there on his own working with the people in Kosovo. But it’s time for us all to go. It’ll be an adventure for sure! Am I a little nervous; yes, but do I think it’s the wrong thing to do hauling my kids with me to a (to me) completely foreign country; no.

Some of the village boys we'll hopefully get to know this summer.

I’d love to share our adventure with you. Keep your eyes posted for the next update! I think one of the first updates will have to be the miracle of how our car in the States sold so we could have a down payment for the car we’ll now be driving all over Europe this summer. I am so thankful to God for this car. Imagine us trying to haul 3 kids and luggage for all these different events/situations on public transportation! I get sweaty just thinking about it…

Friends; a card in the mail and a fun update is what I wish I’d sent you for Christmas, but this year I chose not to stress, and try to simply focus on what Christmas really is about. The Christmas shopping has been minimal, and I knew myself well enough to know that a Christmas letter would be stressful and definitely steal from the real Christmas joy, thus I decided upon not even trying to do one. But Daniel and I live such rich lives, blessed tremendously by what God is letting us be part of,  so I really wanted to share some of it with you. Thus comes a year in review on blog. =)

JANUARY:

Daniel started school! When we first moved from Hawaii to Fort Collins to continue the work with Water For Life, Daniel was wondering about going back to school to learn more about water, and to connect with the water professionals in this town. God totally worked a miracle, and landed Daniel a chance at studying, tuition covered, through some random guy we met at a store. Well, obviously it wasn’t random, because only God could be behind such a crazy story, and the outcome was that Daniel got to start his masters degree this month. It all started a year back when Daniel chewed the kids out in Norwegian at the store, and a guy sitting close by asked him what language he was speaking. Little did we know that he was a professor at CSU that later would take Daniel on as his student and pay his tuition! God, You are just fun!

Celebrated our surprise baby's (Mikayla) first birthday at Great Grammy's house in Grand Junction, and a few days thereafter Mikayla finally started crawling!

At the end of the month, just as we celebrated Signy Margrete’s 29th birthday started a journey for her that felt like hell, but ended up with a good outcome. She started having panic attacks, and anxiety to a level never before experienced, and started a long journey of discovering lies of the enemy she’s started believing about herself, and how tiredness and sleep deprivation had gotten her eyes off of God and onto the stresses of life. The next 1/2 year was hard, but God provided a way out, and today she can say that she’s free and restored.

FEBRUARY:

Our preschool! School year 2009/2010 four moms got together and ran a preschool/discipleship group for our kids. On this particular day I was teaching the kids about the armor of God. Can't you tell? =)

Signy Margrete finally took a step of obedience and got baptized. Yes, she was baptized as an infant, but had for years been convicted that she needed to make a public declaration of her faith like the early Christians did in their baptism. Thus, finally at age 29 she got it done. =)

Calem and Emma Joy...do I need say more?

Still can't walk, but I'm trying...really I am!

Calem is quite the little artist! He does have quite a talent and interest in drawing.

MARCH:

March weather in Colorado is a little easier to handle then the Norwegian March weather...

APRIL:

Let the celebrations begin!! Calem turned 5 on April 14th, and with Emma Joy having her birthday a month later she got celebrated as well. Our kids sure didn’t lack attention for their big days. =)

Grandpa and Great Grammy came to help celebrate Calem and Emma Joy!

Then Nana (Grandma) arrived with cakes...

...and cake overload, but what fun cakes she had made for the kids!

…oh, and yes (!) Mikayla started walking this month! =)

MAY:

We celebrated Emma Joy's 3rd birthday and the last day of preschool together at a fun bouncy castle place. What a fun celebration for a little girl!

Then we turned right around and started getting ready for our trip to Norway. Suitcases sure are fun to play in! Daniel had his finals at school, and 5 days later we were flying across the Atlantic!

We love morfar (grandpa) and the tasty Norwegian waffles. M-m-m!

JUNE:

Beautiful Norway!

As Daniel and I got ready for our trip to Norway this spring a very strange and powerful homesickness for Norway filled us both. This has never happened before in all our travels to and from Norway, and we decided we’d better pray and ask God if this was His doing. As we were praying with some friends both us and them got clear direction from God about us moving back to Norway, timing being sometime spring 2012. WOW! This is definitely something we had not anticipated!

As I (Signy) was enjoying this beatuy one night (yes, this is summer night in Norway) God spoke clearly to me and challenged me to lift my eyes to Him and look at Him for who He is, not for what He can do for me. That became the end of a long journey of dealing with almost constant anxiety as it showed me the path to freedom! Read more about all of this in previous blogs if you wish.

Calem with a real life reindeer! That's exciting for a 5 year old!

Calem on his very first row-boat experience! We love having uncles and aunts that can take us on fun outings!

JUNE/JULY:

While mamma and the kids enjoyed the Norwegian summer with family, pappa and a bunch of university students from the States made their way to Kosovo to help a village of about 800 people get safe water.

One of the "before" drinking sources in the village - full of contaminated water.

Daniel and the crew working on a new and safe water source. It's hard work, both with the actual hands on part and the fund raising part that takes place beforehand, but oh how rewarding when people's lives can be changed!

Hehe. =) Daniel checking out the storage tank they built to hold water for the 3 months their wells run dry.

Daniel and part of the crew inside one of the water tanks they were building together with the locals.

JULY:

The family gathered back in Norway, this time visiting Signy's sister in Bergen. "Roadtripping" was the word for the summer, and we got to spend time with so many of our close friends there. Some we hadn't seen since our wedding! Priceless to be able to connect again!

Trying to get a decent photo of our kids together, but that's not easy as I'm sure most of you with multiple kids already know. =)

The kids enjoying the summer temperatures (meaning freezing water) at the lake where mamma grew up. Isn't it just gorgeous?!

AUGUST:

I (Signy) got my very first night away alone since the kids were born almost 5 1/2 years ago! The 2nd night of my school reunion Daniel came to join me for our very first night away together for equally as long a time. Way overdue vacation! =)

On our way home from Norway we had a one week stop in Pennsylvania. Our friends, the Rissler family, invited us to come help out at a Discipleship weekend at their church. We absolutely loved our time there, and honestly I think they just used the weekend at the church as an excuse to get us out there so they could spoil us with some vacation time! They arranged for us to spend time with an Amish family, something Signy Margrete had secretly been hoping would happen in her lifetime, and they took us to Valley Forge to learn more of the American history, of course on top of much fun time with our friends whom we haven’t seen since the Discipleship Training School we lead back in 2006.

Mikayla checking out the Amish rides.

George Washington's room at Valley Forge.

This is what it looks like when a family of 5 lives out of the suitcase for 3 months.

Back in Colorado we started the new phase of our lives – educating our kids! God spoke clearly to Signy Margrete about keeping the kids home this year and strengthening their foundation in Him. He also promised her that He would take care of the academics, and He’s definitely kept His promise. Calem is doing math from 1st grade work books, and is starting to read. All with minimal effort from mamma’s side. He is very quick at learning, and remembers things like no other. It’s been a joy to be on this journey, but also humbling as I recognize how much work a parent take on when they choose to home school their kids! Phew!

Emma Joy - so proud to be big enough to start school!

Calem - so excited!

SEPTEMBER:

At the end of August Grammy (Daniel’s grandma) announced that she would be moving to Alaska to be close to her oldest son, thus we spent the next month and a half driving back and forth between her place and ours to help with what we could and to spend as much time as possible with her while we still had a chance. The drive is over 5 hours, not counting the numerous breaks needed with kids, but by the end the kids had gotten quite professional at long distance survival in the backseat of a van. =) A plus about spending so much time on the Western Slope is that we finally got Mikayla dedicated at our friends’ church over that way.

Mikayla's dedication Sept 5th! Pastor Dave and Marilyn have now dedicated all three of our children =)

September 10th, Daniel and I sat down and prayed about where in Norway God wanted us to settle. The answer was very clear; Trondheim. It was so clear in fact that we both realized that there had to be a very specific reason for God to want us to be there, something more than running our part of Water For Life from there. Thus we started asking God about this. 12 days later we got THE BOMB, right in our email inbox; Our pastor from Trondheim Vineyard asked us to start praying about becoming the senior pastors of the church as he was moving on to do another church plant. SERIOUSLY?!! The church members are praying over this with us at present time, but thoughts that have been going through our minds a lot the reminder of this fall have been ‘CRAZY’ and ‘INSANE!’ =)

Calem also started his running career this month. He has run 3 one mile races this fall, his very first one ticking in at 8 min 32 sec. His good friend Jade also runs the races, and they do their best to beat each other. =)

We got our very first pet! Not sure how excited we are really, but it was a neccecary distraction to try to get Calem to forget about wanting a dog. Dogs and our lifestyle do not go well together! Neither does a fish for that matter, but it's easier to pawn off on some friend when we go traveling. This poor dude has been transferred so many times over the last few months I'm afraid he's going to have a heart attack one of these days. =(

OCTOBER:

Seeing Grammy (Great Grandma) one last time before she moves to Alaska. (Her brother, Uncle Marv, in the background)

Then life returned to normal for a while (whatever ‘normal’ means). Daniel busy studying, Signy Margrete and the kids doing school, play dates, leading a small group of women at a church bible study etc.

Emma posing for the camera...

...Mikayla attempting to do the same.

Our three little treasures! Aren't they cute?!

NOVEMBER:

Fall is here, and we've been raking leaves! Mikayla is a little unsure about getting thrown in the leaves with the other two. =)

The kindergarten/pre-K group at church that mamma has been volunteering at this fall. Calem is the tallest guy (blue shirt) in the middle of the photo. =)

DECEMBER:

As we were heading into Advent this year it was becoming more and more apparent to us how God has put a lot of people in our lives this fall that are struggling financially and/or are in a difficult situation somehow. Christmas this year has gotten a new focus as we’ve spent much of our time and resources on helping people in need in various ways God has shown us, and we eventually ended up hosting a family of 4 in our little 2 bedroom apartment while they were hunting for a new home. It was tight quarters, but we’re used to it from all of our travels, and what a joy it was to be able to help a family that was in a desperate situation.

This has been a year of so many blessings. We are very excited about the fun things God is letting us be part of, and the many blessings given to us by friends around the world. We love you! We thank God for you! You are a joy to us, and we can’t wait to see each one of you again! Thank you for sharing this God-journey with us!

Much love (and some silliness) form us to you! We love you!

What an honor God bestowed upon Mary as He chose her to be the mom of His salvation plan! Yes, I’ve experienced enough pregnancies, labors and years of trying to rear little kids to know that it can not have been all glorious, but still; to be picked to be the ONE to carry Jesus into the world is quite something!

For some reason I’ve always had this picture of Mary being the perfect young girl. I’ve always had tucked in my mind the thought that she must have lived a sin free life, always been pleasing both to her parents and to God for her to be picked for such an important job. I don’t know if I’ve ever put words to those thoughts before, but that’s definitely the picture of Mary I’ve been carrying around all these years.

Doesn't she just look perfect? No wonder I thought she was sin free!

Today as I started delving into the story of what happened around Jesus’ birth one word hit me; GRACE. My Norwegian Bible actually tells of how Gabriel was sent to Mary to say “Rejoice, you who have been shown such great grace by God…” (Luke 1:28)  and “Do not be afraid, Mary, for God has found that He will show you great grace.” (Luke 1:30).

The American Bible translations I checked all refer to Gabriel’s message to Mary as “favored one” instead of “the one God has shown great grace” as my Norwegain Bible reads. I looked up the original Greek word, and it does in fact refer to the act of freely being shown grace or kindness to.

By definition grace means that we get good things we don’t deserve. That implies that Mary didn’t deserve the great gift God was about to give her. She wasn’t a perfect person. Neither am I. Mary and I are in the same boat. We are both sinful people, yet God decided He wanted to bring the world freedom through her. Realizing the enormity of what God did through a sinful person, a person that simply did not deserve it gives such hope to the rest of us. Despite the fact that God knows our past, and being outside time as He is he also sees the many mistakes and the pile of sin we will commit in the future, still He chooses to let us be part of His amazing plans! Thank you, God, for not counting us out, but letting us still get a chance at being part of the game.

Me - still part of the game...not "because of", but "despite of"

I was reading my Bible a little while back when a small word – IT  – popped out at me and reminded me of my own story

1 Samuel 4:

Now the Israelites went out to fight against the Philistines. The Israelites camped at Ebenezer, and the Philistines at Aphek. The Philistines deployed their forces to meet Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand of them on the battlefield. When the soldiers returned to camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why did the LORD bring defeat upon us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the LORD’s covenant from Shiloh, so that IT may go with us and save us from the hand of our enemies.”

The Israelites put their trust in the ark instead of in God, with fatal consequences…that day 30,000 foot soldiers got killed and the ark was captured by the Philistines.

How often don’t we place our trust in something else than God?

This spring when I was struggling with anxiety and fear I actually thought my focus was on God. I could tell as much as that my struggles were of a supernatural nature more than a pure physical one, therefore I spent much time talking to God begging him to show me the way to freedom. “God, You can set me free!” was on my mind a lot.

Well, freedom did come, but only after God challenged me on my focus. Early June God spoke clearly to me and said “Lift your eyes to me!” Seriously?! I was really surprised when God spoke those words to me…I hadn’t done anything but praying and clinging to him all spring!

The beauty I was looking at when God gave me the challenge: "Lift your eyes to me!"

I was surprised, but it didn’t take me more than a minute to see how right God was. My focus had become what God could do for me, instead of me lifting my eyes to Him, looking at Him for who He is. My eyes had slid down to the circumstances I was in and to all the yuck that’s in the world – and it scared me. Freaked me out is actually a better description.

...and He kept reminding me night after night; "Keep your eyes lifted - look at Me!"

The time since God gave me this challenge has been used to train myself to not let myself get caught up in what’s going on around me, but rather resting my eyes on God. It’s difficult at times, and I can feel the anxiety trying to rear it’s ugly head when I’m not faithful at keeping my eyes on God. But oh how freeing it is when I obey God and get to reap the great freedom that comes with it!!

My prayer is that I will never again get caught up focusing on the wrong thing, but to only put my trust in God! He is the only one that can bring complete FREEDOM!!

As I was sitting on the toilet I grabbed one of Mikayla’s little books from her to-read-while-I-practice-going-potty-basket. The book was about Eeyore’s missing tail, and how Tigger helped him find it. The last picture shows Eeyore with his tail back where it belongs, and Eeyore smiling because of it, but honestly it’s kind of a sad smile. As I kept looking at the picture it dawned on me; Eeyore is depressed!

Ever since I was little it always bothered me that Eeyore always was so sad. Much because of Eeyore, I didn’t really care much to read books about the 100 acre wood creatures. It simply bothered me to see Eeyore!

Now I’m a grown up, and I’ve experienced a year of depression myself. Looking at the picture of Eeyore, I have to say it almost amused me to realize that I now can sympathize with the sad donkey.

Lately I’ve been working my way through a book study called “The friendships of women” by Dee Brestin. Today I was asked to answer the following question: “In what ways has suffering caused you to be more empathetic and less judgmental?” Well, I haven’t experienced the kind of suffering the author was describing in her book; loss of a spouse, but I have experienced hardships of other kinds and with God’s help made my way to the other side of them; depression, panic and anxiety, guilt and condemnation, and feeling that you are at the end of what you can handle because of exhaustion.

God has seen me through these things. I am thankful and blessed to be able to say that I am free! Have these hardships shaped me? Definitely! Am I more empathetic and less judgmental then before? I think so. My heart hurts for the ones that are going through these things that I now have firsthand knowledge of. I pray that God will always that pain to be fresh in my mind so that I will never stop empathizing with the ones going through such horrors!

After this last bout of mine; a year of anxiety on and off, I’ve been surprised to find how many deal with the same thing. My eyes were never open to people suffering this way before I experienced it firsthand. Now I realize that it isn’t only Eeyore and me that have been bound by depression and/or anxiety. It’s actually pretty common.

My prayer is; God, would you show us how to help see each one suffering be set free?!

As most of you, my possible-blog-readers, probably already know I grew up on a dairy farm, in a small community way back in the mountains of Norway. The farm that’s been in my family for generations, ever since one of my forefathers traded for it with a woman that didn’t like her neighbors, is situated right on a big freshwater lake filled with glacier run off water. It sounds cold, and yes it is too, but the water does travel a distance before getting to our place, warming it up enough for people to enjoy swimming in it during the summer. At least I used to enjoy it…after Hawaii I’m not sure I’ll be capable of swimming here anymore, but I promise I will give it a try. For now though it’s raining and closing in on freezing during the night, so there won’t be any swimming attempts for a while yet. =)

Daniel and a friend jumping into the freezing lake a few years back. Might I add that they screamed like girls!

I arrived at the farm Saturday afternoon by car. My dad had sent one of his cars to Bergen with my sister so the kids and I could drive home instead of dealing with the bus! Bless him! It even gave me an opportunity to stop at IKEA! Oh, yeah!! Loved it! Now there will be new shoe storage for our hallway as soon as we return home to Fort Collins! =)

My brand new shoe cabinets...well, in actuality they probably will be used for more than shoes, but non the less I'm excited. I've been waiting to use my Christmas money for this!

Sunday was my dad’s 54^th birthday. On a spur my mom called her siblings to see if they wanted to come celebrate with us, and lo and behold all of her three siblings with family took the 3-hour drive (each way) to join us! It was such a joy to be able to see them all. I was wondering if at all I’d be able to connect with each of them, and here I’ve been less than a week in Norway and I’ve already spent a whole afternoon with them!

Monday was a day off from work for most Norwegians due to Pentecost, though that of course did not include my dad as most holidays do not for farmers. It did however give me an extra day with my mom and my youngest sister before they left our farm to go back to school and work. When we live as far away as we do every hour counts! =)

View from our balcony. Isn't it beautiful?!

Tuesday and Wednesday; that farm is quiet. Only my dad and my youngest brother, Hans, are left at home with us. I’ve made it my goal to make sure they both get fed dinner each day, as that apparently has not been highly prioritized lately. But no sir (!) as long as I’m around dinner it will be!

Another picture I took at our farm a few years back. I love how green and lush it is here, and I love all the water!!

As far as Daniel goes, I’ve really not heard much from him, but I do know he’s alive, though sick with a cold. He’s not feeling very well and is still jetlagged too, so he’s having a hard time getting the sleep he needs. Feel free to pray for him. =)

More to follow as I get a chance at writing. I’m currently sharing internet with the rest of the household, and am bound to writing from the office, a place not suitable for the kids, so journaling will happen on nights when I’m not too wiped to stay up.

When I started blogging a while back I had every intention of being more faithful at writing, but by now I’ve had quite a break from thehefleys.com…

I started a blog series on “finding simplicity”. Since then my quest has taken quite a different form from what I envisioned. I envisioned being able to find great storage solutions, getting our home organized, and finding simple solutions that would make the household run more smoothly.

Over the last few months I’ve been dealing quite a bit with anxiety and fear attacks, and although I do believe some of that is part of the spiritual war we as Christians constantly find ourselves in, I’m also learning how much our physical well being, or lack thereof, plays into this.

By now it’s 5 ½ years since I’ve had a full nights sleep. My body has endured 4 pregnancies (we’ve got one little one in Heaven and three here), and the entire time I’ve not been pregnant, I’ve been nursing a baby. In fact I’m still nursing, and at times the nursing and pregnancies have overlapped for months. When we moved from Hawaii 1 ½ years ago my time outdoors got drastically reduces, and getting a proper work-out or even a proper walk outdoors where I don’t have to stop every 3rd step to wait on a toddler, hasn’t really happened since before Calem was old enough to walk on his own…which by the way happened when he was 10 months old! I’ve not been the greatest to ensure that I eat enough fruits and veggies and get the nutrition my body needs, and I am still struggling to get my 8 cups of water down each day. On top of that we can add the daily dealings with 3 kids under 5, a major move in 2008, quite a bit of traveling over the years and few breaks as we don’t live close to family who can take the kids for us now and then.

Back in 2007, just weeks before Emma was born.

Now I’m not writing this to complain. My only reason for listing these facts are to show how my body now has come to a point where changes really need to happen. Thus “finding simplicity” has gotten a new meaning to me over the last few weeks. Lately my focus has been on finding ways I can get outdoors, even at times get a chance at going for a walk on my own. I’ve actually read 3 relaxing, fiction books lately which truly happen very seldom (and when it does happen it’s normally mixed with feelings of guilt from all I’m neglecting), and I have tried not to stress over the amount of work that’s piling up before me. There are so many things I need to focus on, but for now I’ve realized that I need to relearn how to take care of my own body (and mind).

So today my plan is to spend as much time as possible outside with the kids. I’ve got loads of laundry that has to be done, but in between the loads I want to spend my time in the yard planting strawberry plants with the kids. It might be a little early for strawberries, but still I’ll give it a try.

Calem and Emma in our backyard when we first moved here 1 1/2 year ago. If you look closely you can spot a squirrel over by the fence.

The weather is beautiful: the sun is warm, there is no wind and we’ve got three squirrels racing each other in our backyard.

I need to get out there!

As I wrote in my introduction to my “finding simplicity” blog series I’ve been thinking for a while now about sharing my journey in the quest of getting organized and  getting to a place where I can run a smooth household. So some of the things I’ll be sharing in my blog happened a while back, this being one of them.

This all took place late fall 2009.

Challenge #1:
Our loveseat was one of those rocking kinds, so here is what would happen; every time anyone would sit down, the couch back would bounce backwards and hit our wall. It really didn’t take long until our wall was starting to look pretty beat up. In fact it was getting so bad that I was afraid we would have to cut out a whole piece of our drywall and replace it in order for it to ever look decent again. We tried pulling the couch away from the wall, but with the amazing rocking function on that loveseat you pretty much had to put it in the middle of our living room floor in order for it to not hit the wall, which obviously would not be very functional.

...our wall ruining love seat...

Challenge #2:
Winter was getting closer, and with that our floors were getting REALLY cold! We live on ground level in a 4-plex with no basement. Our tile floors are literally put right on top of a concrete slab. That makes for some stinking cold floors!! I actually have to constantly wear thick, wool socks over my regular socks in order to function properly on these floors. With that said I was getting concerned for Mikayla who was nearing the point of wanting to crawl, and obviously wanting to spend time on the floor. It was way to cold to put her directly on the floor; we needed some kind of padding.

Mikayla on our tile floors (before the winter set in I might add...)

Challenge #3:
Our coat closet is really small. Well, in all fairness I do think it is a regular size coat closet, but the challenge is that is needs to hold all the outdoor clothing for 5 people, 3 of whom are children who needs more than 1 jacket each to say the least. We’ve got summer jackets, winter coats, raingear, snow suits, extra snow gear and the list goes on…it takes up a lot of space! What used to happen was actually that all the kids’ outdoor clothes ended up on the couch and stayed there until next time we would go out. Not very practical, very messy, and very frustrating!

SOLUTION:
So here is what we did; we sold the couch on craigslist! You gotta love guys out shopping on their own! Some guy came over, paid the $50 we asked, took the couch and was on his way! If it had been me, a female, out shopping; I would have looked at it, thought about it, told the people I’d get back to them about it and gone somewhere else to look for a better deal. Regardless, we got 50 dollars for the couch; enough to cover the cost of some great big foam mats to put on our floor AND enough left over to buy 2 sets of hooks to mount on the walls for our kids’ outdoor clothes. Hurray! Our life got so much less stressful, and so much less frustrating! Thank you God for bringing simplicity into our lives!

Our wonderful new foam mats. Now if we could only get Mikayla to stay ON the mats at all times, then maybe she wouldn't get so easily cold and sick! =)

I LOVE having a place to hang the kids' jackets!

For a while now I’ve been thinking it’d be fun to keep a blog of organizational tips that I test around my own home. Anyone that has visited my home could readily agree that some organization would be needed. It’s not that I don’t know HOW to organize; I love organizing! It could be my past time hobby!  The challenge is just to find the time to do it and to find the space needed for doing organization projects. Now I guess that is an oxymoron…obviously it would be better when living in smaller quarters to actually have things properly organized, but oh how hard it is to organize properly in small spaces!

Now I don’t really consider our place small. It is way bigger than the room + loft we had in Kona, but somehow I never seem to find a great way of doing things so this household can run smoothly… So, yes, writing this blog makes me feel a little like the hypocrite in the Bible that wanted to remove the speck from his friends’ eye when he had a log in his own. So please, bear with me; don’t take this as me lecturing to any of you, but rather as my attempt at getting our own home situation figured out, and maybe, just maybe the tips I find useful can help someone else along the way too.

Calem and Emma being silly in our never-ending messy home

By the way, there is an extra challenge involved…I don’t like spending money on buying all those fancy organizational tools that are out there. If you had unlimited resources (and an IKEA nearby) getting a home to function and run smoothly wouldn’t be so hard. Although that would be nice, it’s just not the reality for many. So here is the deal; I want to spend the money I’ve been blessed with on more important things (like saving up for us all to be able to go to Norway this summer), therefore my challenge to myself and us all is to only use things we already have around the house in our quest for simplicity. My promise is that if I do find that there is something I’d like to buy to make things easier I will only use money I get from selling something else that we don’t need anymore. Now isn’t that a thought; selling something that is really just gathering dust so that I can get something beneficial?! Amazing how logical that thought is, but still so often overlooked, and hard to do! It is hard to give up our things, isn’t it? My thoughts often linger on the following questions; What if we would need it again in the future? We’re for sure not going to get the real value of it if we sell it, right? There are so many reasons why we keep holding onto things, but I am learning and re-learning that things are just things, and not really that important.

The goal right now is to get us organized and for this household to run smoothly; SIMPLICITY!