Thankful thought 2

I have a really great set of in-laws. From my husband's parents to his siblings and sibling-spouses and cousins and cousin-spouses to my only brother's wife. And my first son-in-law! They are the best.   They should be called "in-loves" instead of "in-laws" because that is a more apt description of our relationships. 

I am fully aware that not everybody enjoys the same blessing.  Guess that explains all those jokes that tear down and erode these affiliations.  That makes me sad.  Families get enough attacks from the outside; we don't need to be destroyed from within, too.

I am thankful for all my in-laws.  If any of you are reading this, know that I give thanks to God for each one of you individually.  You inspire me to be the best in-law that I can be so that I can bless you back.

And, if you don't have great in-laws, then how 'bout you decide to be the very best one YOU can be, just to upstage 'em! :)

Bribing kids

In my opinion, bribing kids is perfectly acceptable.  We do it to adults all the time.  I mean, really, would you go to work if your employer didn't pay you, just for the fun of it, every day???

So just figure out how to bribe them appropriately. 

Here's an idea that worked wonders for me when my kids were little.  Book bucks.  I wanted them to love to read.  For a lifetime.  So I needed a way to establish that habit.  I knew that if they read enough good books long enough, they would love it forever.  Just needed to get them to that point.  Modeling it myself didn't seem to be working.  Nor did lectures on how good it would be for them.  So I resorted to bribery.  And proud of it.

Here's the deal -
I made a list of a whole bunch of things I wanted them to read.  (Consult Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt for ideas.  or online lists like 100 books every child should read) Then assign point values to them, based on age appropriate-ness and difficulty.  You are in charge and you can make the point value whatever you want it to be.  Personally, I was pretty generous because my goal was to reward the desired behavior.  Quickly.
I printed up "book bucks" to hand out upon completion of each book and I provided each child with the list of books and assigned points. 
Finally, I came up with levels of rewards.  5 points might get  you out of kitchen duty one night, 50 points might be a new Beanie Baby and 100 could be an ice cream date with Dad.

It worked.  The kids read like crazy. Before too long, they each became an avid reader. And the bribing tapered off because they read just for the love of it.

  We still have a closet full of Beanie Babies.  And ice cream dates with Dad continue to be a sought after prize...reading or not.

Thankful Thought 1

Exactly four weeks from today, we will sit down to calorie overload.  Not sure where we'll ring in the holiday or with whom but it will be scrumptious and marvelous. 

Today I am thankful for taste buds.  I praise God that, in His generous creativity, He gave us taste buds.  He could have, ya know, just made food functional.  He didn't have to make it taste good.  Nor was He obligated to give us so many different things that taste so good.

Taste buds.  Thank you, Lord!

How 'bout you?  What are you thankful for today?

Clean floors make me smile

Clean floors make me smile. I love it when my carpets are well-vaccumed, my bathrooms floors are free of gunk, and my treasured pine floors are conditioned.  I feel like they are smiling at me so I smile right back.

Now, you gotta understand something about me and cleanliness.  I'll own up to disliking clutter and messiness but I am not the poster child for household management.  My motto regarding housework is"Lower your expectations".  Good enough is good enough for me.  Cleanliness?  Well, isn't that why we keep up to date on tetanus shots?    I have friends whom I dearly admire (ok, and secretly envy) whose homes rival the surgical floor of ARMC.  It is a delight to drop in on them and appreciate their dust-free ceiling fans and cobweb-less chandeliers. Heck, their silverware drawers probably don't even have crumbs in them!  Really!

Lower standards work for me.  I can happily use a windfall of free time reading a book or baking granola or calling my Mom - the splatters on the microwave don't make me feel one bit guilty.  (Speaking of Mom, she will clean those splatters when she visits anyhow.  This way, I give her something to do.  Actually, when I think about it, I am not lazy at all.  Instead, I am really being thoughtful,  Kind. To make my Mom feel so appreciated.  I am glad about this.  Told you this worked for me).

Also, not having high expectations means I am perfectly happy to delegate.  Yes, the infamous chore chart.  Kids do the work.  All in the name of child-training, you understand.  And I am happy with fairly mediocre performance.  (None of my kids follow this blog so I think I can get away with that...)

All that said, clean floors make me smile. I don't know what it is about a clean floor that makes me happy.  (Good thing that's not the only source of my joy...)  And I had been frowning for quite some time at the floor in the kids' bathroom.  It didn't even meet my low expectations.  Been this way for, well, I am not secure enough to admit how many different kids have been assigned this bathroom and for how long, so just know that the floor was really bad.  They all insisted they had scrubbed and scrubbed and this was the best it could look.  Well, tonight I had a windfall of free time, no current book to read, trying not to eat so much granola and had already talked to my Mom...soooooooooo I took a stab at it.

Turns out the kids were right.  I used every cleaner in my arsenal and untold amounts of elbow grease and not much progress showed.  Oh well.  Default to the low expectations. Rejoicing that my self-esteem didn't take a hit from the green nail polish on that floor, I went on about my business.

Short while later, my knight in shining armor came through with something he called solvent (???) and said Betsy told him I couldn't get the floor clean so he thought he'd try this.

You can now turn as green as that nail polish, envying not only my clean bathroom floor but also that tall,dark and handsome man that lets me share his name.....and knows what "solvent" is.

I am just smiling.  At my floors.  And at him.

Thanksgiving Challenge

November is peeking around the corner.  I have no idea how because it was February just last week.  I haven't even adjusted to writing 2012 when I note the date.  I will get it down pat just about the time I have to change to 2013.  Sigh.  Life is really hard.

Nonetheless, November is here and with it, comes Thanksgiving.  Of all the holidays, this one is the best.  (Now, don't jump all over me for not choosing Jesus's birthday.  December 25 isn't even His birthday and it doesn't feel like we are celebrating Him that month anyway.  But that's another post).

Thanksgiving is about just what it says - giving thanks.  I want to celebrate ThanksLIVING.  I want my posture to always be one of thankfulness. I want my children to live like that and I want to model it.   Gratitude.  To God.  And to others. Authentically.

In past years, I have taken each day of November to post on Facebook something I am thankful for.  This year, I am going to aim to blog it. 

I challenge you to do the same.  I'd love it if you would post on here.  Thankfulness needs to be public in order to be thanksgiving.  But share it somewhere.  On here.  On Facebook.  Twitter.  Better yet, in person.  But each day of November, let's all name something we give thanks for. 

And we might like it so much that we live that way December-October, too.