For the second year in a row, Jason and I have set reading goals for the year. We have had fun setting the goal, figuring out how to read more, and having fun competing over those reading goals. So listen in today as Jason and I share our mid-year check up on our reading goals. 

Listen to the Podcast:

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If you want to follow along with our reading challenges, or jump in with your own (start ANY TIME!!) then check out the 2018 Christian Reading Challenge for Women and the 2018 Christian Reading Challenge for Men! You can also catch up and listen to my January and February reading challenge update. 

Books Mentioned in This Episode: 

The Wheel of Time (specifically book 4)

The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch 

Jonathan Edwards by George M. Marsden 

Reset by David Murray

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The Invisible Hand by R. C. Sproul

God in the Dock by C. S. Lewis

Expository Apologetics by Voddie Baucham

The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah MacKenzie

Growing in Gratitude by Mary K. Mohler

The Backyard Homestead

Devoted by Tim Challies

The Consequences of Ideas by R.C. Sproul

The Crown: The Companion Book to Season 1 

Alone with God by John MacArthur

Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney

Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards by Steven J. Lawson

The Passionate Preaching of Martin Lloyd Jones by Steven J. Lawson

The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon by Steven J. Lawson

Make more time for reading with our favorite way to meal plan: 

Please welcome our sponsor to today's episode, Hello Fresh! They are a meal kit delivery service that delivers fresh and delicious ingredients to your door that you can make into meals in about 30 minutes or less. 

When we got our first Hello Fresh box, honestly, I had no idea what to expect. I’ve been intrigued by these box meal kits in the past but with so many options, it felt a little overwhelming. So when I got the chance to try Hello Fresh, I jumped at the chance. 

Well Jason and I both have been extremely happy with the box! It has been really fun to cook with Hello Fresh! Okay so how does it work? You get three meal options to choose from: Classic, Veggie, or Family. We got the family box and as a huge plus, all of our kids devoured the meals!! 

Each of the meals comes packaged in it’s own bag with all the ingredients in the perfect portion for that recipe. So you literally just pull the bag out of the fridge for that recipe and everything is ready. I did not anticipate this being one of my very favorite things about the service. 30 minutes before dinner, I literally just pull out the bag, grab my full color recipe card, and take the items out. 

I had no idea how much mental energy actually goes into planning my menu, shopping for each ingredient, and assembling it all…all before the cooking even begins. Plus, as a bonus, it had me cooking more involved recipes that I’ve felt like I had time for (even though they were only 30 minute recipes). 

So you are getting delicious and nutritious meals delivered to your door for less than $10 a serving which is pretty amazing! Especially if you are in a rut of eating out a lot, this can be an incredible switch! AND if you go through my special link for todays episode, you can get $30 off your first box.

Do you ever wonder what God's Will for your life is? Join myself and Jen Wilkin as we discuss how we can know God's Will, how to study the attributes of God, and why that's important! Listen in here:

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Links & Resources: 

In His Image by Jen Wilkin

None Like Him by Jen Wilkin

Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin

 Video and audio resources from Jen at her church

JenWilkin.net

God of Creation – Jen’s new Bible study through Genesis 

FREE Mrs. Meyers Summer Cleaning Kit! 

For all of my listeners, Grove is offering a wonderful Summer cleaning kit for FREE! All you have to do is check out with $20 in your cart (see all of my amazing suggestions here) and your order ships for FREE with your $20 order PLUS the summer cleaning kit. 

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I got to interview Crystal Paine earlier this month all about her grocery budget challenge (link to session 133). She is challenging herself to stick to $70 a week for her family of 5. After I got off the phone with her, I started talking to Jason about the challenge and we both agreed that we NEED to do this for our family! So listen in to how we are doing it: 

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Our Grocery Budget Challenge for June:

Jason and I have really been needing to work on our grocery budget. We needed to sit down and take a look at what we've been spending and then come up with a budget to try to stick to! So we've been excited to undertake this challenge...but it's been tough! 

While I think it is so neat that Crystal is doing $70 per week for a family of 5, it's just not feasible for us to cut down that far. But part of this, is because we are trying increase the health of our food. So while we want to be wise stewards of our money and we want to cut down on our spending so we can save and give more - the ultimate goal for us is not to get our grocery budget to the lowest possible. 

The quality of our food is very very important to us. So we could fit our grocery budget down or keep pairing down if we sacrificed on the good quality but that's not the goal. I want to increase the health of our food while at the same time trying to be frugal about it. So I'm going to be sharing how we are cutting costs while not sacrificing our health. 

American's are spending less and less on food...and that might not be a good thing.

"Here's the story. Thirty years ago, the average household spent about 17% of its income on food. Today it spends about 11%. It's a global trend: Food is getting cheaper relative to incomes everywhere with rising incomes. But there's also a distinctly American thing going on here. We spend less of our cash on food than any other country -- "half as much as households in France," according to Dorothy Gambrell." - Cheap Eats

A chart on their website shows that American's are spending just 7% of our household budget on food, the lowest of any industrialized country. The UK is 9%, Canada 10%, and all the way up to Egypt which spends 44% of their household budget on food. 

In 1900, a whopping 43% of a family's annual income was spent on FOOD (source). By 1950 this dropped to 30% as processed and cheaper foods became more widely available. And as more women moved into the workplace and home cooked meals as home started to become less and less. This same study shows that the number had fallen drastically to just 13% in 2003. 

First things first: Setting a budget

I would begin by adding up your last three months worth of grocery spending AND eating out. The number might be shocking if you haven't been following it! I know that our worst months are when we eat out without really tracking it...that number really climbs as a family of 7! 

Then Jason and I just kind of low balled what we thought we could try for in June. We seriously just picked a number and said "Let's try it!" It would be great if we could shave off a few hundred dollars (especially in eating out)! 

And then we decided to look up the USDA Food Chart to see how our number stacks up against their plans. So I wrote down each family member and their ages and what we should spend. And our made up budget landed exactly right on with the "thrifty" plan. Now that we are a few weeks into our challenge, I think we will probably end up closer to the low-cost plan...

Do you ever feel like your days are on repeat? Are you exhausted just thinking about tomorrow? Do you feel like you are on the hamster wheel of little kids? Or a chronic illness? Or just having a hard time finding a little joy in your day? Today we are covering all of that and more! Listen in: 

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Encouragement for you mama! 

I came across this question recently in a homeschool group I'm apart of. This gal was just posting the question to the group and got some great responses from it. But when I glanced and saw this question, it tugged at my heart. It might be because I can deeply identify with her, it might be because of the twins, and it's probably because I hear moms/women express this all the time. Here's what she asked: 

"I have twin 4 year old twins and a 1 year old. Mommas, I'm exhausted! Each day feels like a repeat of the day before. Each day feels like a struggle to stay calm and release the desire to go hide for a bit. Is this just this phase of life with little ones or is it just me? Does anyone have any encouragement (or empathy) or suggestions, like a chapter of the Bible you dive into during hard seasons of life? Thanks!"   

Here's what we cover in today's episode: 

You are NOT alone in these feelings. 

Yes, this is part of this season of littles. It is physically exhausting and that's okay! 

To break the monotony, trying adding one new thing to the schedule to break things up! 

Add in something for YOU: You do need a few minutes to yourself!! We give and give and give. Don't be afraid to stop and refuel yourself every once in a while. 

God doesn't promise us an easy and care free life. Life is hard, and life with littles is exhausting and physically demanding. But we are called to serve. So when you are feeling burnt out and overwhelmed, make sure you are digging into that relationship with God as best you can. Schedule a once a month coffee date with your Bible, etc. 

Leave the Bible around the house, don't neglect that all important relationship. 

Remember: you are doing a very important task. BUT we have to be careful that we don't make an idol out of it. 

Links & Resources:

Finding Joy in Your Home Free eCourse 

Defending Your Choice as a Homemaker

Practical Ways to Set the Atmosphere in Your Home

Are you Delighting in God and Your Family Today?

This is our second year running our Christian reading challenge for women and our Christian reading challenge for men. And with it, we often get the question about reading fantasy, media choices, and how to approach this as Christians. That's what we are chatting about today! 

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How we approach reading fiction 

Jason and I love reading fiction! And among our very favorite fiction reading are fantasy novels. So the very first thing we need to cover: is it Biblical to read fiction?

Jesus taught primarily through stories. There is something about hearing or reading a story that helps you connect with it better, learn it, and remember it. Stories tug at our heart strings, stories have a way of drilling in a point and making it come alive. We can learn through stories, weep with stories, and come to know God more through stories. 

"I’ve found that most people who tell me that fiction is a waste of time are folks who seem to hold to a kind of sola cerebra vision of the Christian life that just doesn’t square with the Bible. The Bible doesn’t simply address man as a cognitive process but as a complex image-bearer who recognizes truth not only through categorizing syllogisms but through imagination, beauty, wonder, awe. Fiction helps to shape and hone what Russell Kirk called the moral imagination. My friend David Mills, now executive editor at First Things, wrote a brilliant article in Touchstoneseveral years ago about the role of stories in shaping the moral imagination of children. As he pointed out, moral instruction is not simply about knowing factually what’s right and wrong (though that’s part of it); it’s about learning to feel affection toward certain virtues and revulsion toward others. A child learns to sympathize with the heroism of Jack the Giant Killer, to be repelled by the cruelty of Cinderella’s sisters and so on.

When you think about it, that’s how the Scriptures often work. The Proverbs, for instance, paint a vivid picture of the revolting tragedy of adultery (Proverbs 7). Jesus doesn’t simply speak about God’s forgiveness in the abstract. He tells a story, the prodigal son, designed to shock (a son who would spurn his inheritance) and to elicit sympathy and identification. The apostles do the same thing. They employ literary, visual language meant to appeal not just to the intellect but to the conscience through the imagination. Think of the Apostle Paul’s language of “laboring until Christ is formed in you,” or his use of literary themes in the OT (“fruit of the Spirit,” and so on)." - Fiction and Literature: An Interview with Russell Moore

We also know that reading out loud to our kids is one of the most beneficial things we can ever do with them. If you haven't already, go get Read Aloud Family by Sarah MacKenzie right now. 

"Fiction and poetry provide authors a unique way to glorify Christ that more overtly intellectual genres, like theology, simply can't. These genres that aim directly for the heart and soul—rather than aiming at the heart through the mind—do not argue for belief, they show what it looks like and make you feel it. Theology, devotionals, and other books in the “Christian Living” section of the bookstore talk about belief explicitly. Their goal is to explain truth as clearly as possible. Fiction and poetry, on the other hand, tell the truth, but tell it slant. They offer an author a way to give his beliefs flesh and blood by enacting them in the confusion of the real world. In fiction, belief is not what you look at, but what you look through.

On her blog Crystal Paine has been doing an awesome challenge that has been so encouraging to me personally! She's doing a $70 a week grocery budget challenge for their family of 5...and it's even inspired a big grocery budget challenge for our family from talking to her (info on this coming soon)! 

If you are wanting to work on your grocery budget, meal planning, or anything of the sort, you have to listen in to this encouraging episode!! 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Links & Resources: 

Follow Crystal's $70 a week grocery budget challenge here

Crystal's Blog: Money Saving Mom

Follow Crystal on Instagram for tons of deals and to follow her challenge

Follow Crystal on Facebook for her live videos!

Get a personalized song from Songfinch!  

I am really excited to share with you the sponsor of today’s podcast episode: Songfinch! Songfinch is a personalized gifting company that brings stories, feelings and memories to life through one-of-a-kind songs. With personalized songs starting at $99 and delivered within 7 days, their community of professional songwriters will handcraft the best gift you can give.

I was able to create a song for Jason for our 9th wedding anniversary. I had no idea what to expect but the process was super easy! They gave me several ideas and suggestions for the kind of details to fill out when creating my song. I got it back to me in less than a week and Jason and I are both THRILLED with how special and sweet the song is. I don't know how they did it, but they perfectly captured Jason and I and our family in our sweet song. You can listen to our custom song here. 

Personalized songs start at just $99 and you can get $20 OFF your Personalized Song From Scratch (which is what I did!) with coupon code: HOME at checkout ?

Get $20 OFF your personalized song!!

Medical Disclaimer: Today we are chatting about essential oils. I use these oils in my home and today I'm sharing how we use them. Please be aware that I am not a doctor, a certified aromatherapist, and have no formal training in aromatherapy. Please always do your own research before using essential oils. This episode today is for entertainment purposes only. 

A couple of weeks ago, I did an episode on essential oils 101! If you've never used oils before and you want to dip your toes in, then this is a great class to start with. But since then, I've had people asking for more in depth tips on using essential oils. So tune in today.

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How we use Essential Oils in our Home: 

The two main ways I use essential oils in my home are for cleaning and health and wellness. I first began using essential oils in my home to clean with because it seemed like the easiest way to get started. Plus, I was slowly figuring out how to swap out toxic cleaning items with more natural ones in my home anyway! 

To start off with: Dr. Axe is a fantastic resource for essential oils. Search essential oils on his website, or for specific concerns or oils and a ton of stuff comes up! In fact, he has an AMAZING book on essential oils that I've been drooling over for a long time. I like the fact that it is NOT brand specific! 

Essential Oils for Cleaning: 

My favorite oils for cleaning include Tea Tree, citrus oils (especially lemon), a deodorizing blend, and a germ fighting blend. Young Living has their very popular Thieves cleaning line which you can purchase pre-made cleaners with the Thieves essential oil! 

I just saw (from searching) that Plant Therapy has their own cleaning kit!! This would be a fantastic way to get started with cleaning oils. It includes: Tea Tree, Lavender, Lemon, Germ Fighter, Peppermint, and Citrus Blend. The only one I would add to this pack is the deodorizing blend for laundry!

 

Dr. Axe's Tips for Essential Oil home use from his article 101 Essential Uses and Benefits.

Air cleaner: Diffuse cinnamon essential oil in the air and enjoy its anti-microbial properties.

All-purpose cleaner: Add three drops each of lemon essential oil and tea tree oil (melaleuca) to a few ounces of warm water, then spray countertops to naturally disinfect.

Bathroom freshener: Put a cotton ball soaked in lime or lemon oil behind the toilet for a bathroom refresher.

Bathtub scrub: Mix one-half cup of baking soda, one-half cup of vinegar and five drops of bergamot or lime oil; use as a scrub for a sink or bathtub.

Dishwasher fluid: Add a few drops of lemon oil to the dishwasher before washing for a spot-free rinse.

House fragrance: Diffuse clove, rosemary and orange essential oils when guests come over, and they will talk about how amazing your house smells.

Kitchen odor eliminator: Add a few drops of clove, cinnamon or citrus essential oil to a simmering pan of water to get rid of cooking odors.

Mold killer: Add tea tree oil to your diffuser to kill mold and other pathogens in the air.

Pest killer: Combine orange and clove oils and then spray to kill pests on contact.

Produce washer: To clean fruit and vegetables, add two drops of lemon oil to a large bowl of water, then wash.

Choosing to spend the bulk of our time, energy, and attention on our family and our home can be a very unpopular decision these days. I know there are people in my own life who don't understand the decision so when I got a question from a reader about this topic, I knew it was a good one to address. 

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Here's the question I got: 

"Lately, I’ve struggling with something and I thought you may have insight. I’m getting several questions from my friends and other peers as to why I have chosen to stay home with my young children and become a homemaker. I graduated from a large Catholic university and I also have my masters from another Catholic university. My schooling was not inexpensive and I’m still paying off some loans. But after my husband and I had our first child, we decided the best use of my time was taking care of our home. 

I have many people who question why I’m not working, why I got a masters degree if my objective was to stay home, or why I don’t send my children to daycare and just hire a housekeeper for the home. I feel like my responses are being taken as a criticism of their choices. Have you come across this issue? How have you explained your choice - especially to those who choose differently - without people becoming defensive?"

Let's clear some things up first: 

Let's talk about what it means to be a homemaker first. 

Do I think that all women are called to be homemakers? Yes, I do. Does that mean every women will be married? No. Does it mean each couple will have children? No. Does that mean that all mothers must stay home full time with their kids? No. I think God has weaved us all with very different stories and circumstances, or even for short times. 

What I do this means, is that our heart needs to be home with our family. If you are not married and don't have kids, there are still people you live with that you can love and serve. Are you a newly married wife without kids? You can bless your husband and show love by keeping the house and cooking. 

And if you have kids and a family, then caring for them includes all of the nitty gritty mundane moments as well. 

"Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." - Titus 2: 3-5, ESV

Homemaking is for all women

"Wherever you live, you are still a part of a household as defined by Scripture. You can still exercise dominion over your private sphere as a single woman. Consider that you shouldn't wait for marriage to learn basic household skills, like food preparation, laundry, and cleaning. There is nothing worse than waking up on the morning of a big meeting to find that you have run out of shampoo, or forgotten to pick up the dry cleaning, or left for hte office on an empty stomach because you ran out of food. Good household management is a characteristic of a godly woman. 

You are not just called to manage your home for your own benefit, but Scripture also requires you to use your home for the benefit of others (1 Tim. 5:10 specifically, and also Rom. 12:13; Heb. 13:2). No matter your living arrangement, you can still invest in the lives that are nourished there - show hospitality to roommates, friends, neighbors, church friends, or extended family."- The Measure of Success

Medical Disclaimer: Today we are chatting about essential oils. I use these oils in my home and today I'm sharing how we use them. Please be aware that I am not a doctor, a certified aromatherapist, and have no formal training in aromatherapy. Please always do your own research before using essential oils. This episode today is for entertainment purposes only. 

We've been covering a lot of natural and practical homemaking topics lately on the podcast which has been so fun! And one of the questions I keep getting over and over: is about essential oils! How to get started and how to use them. 

So today we are covering essential oils 101! Join along and listen in here: 

Listen to the Podcast:

We also recorded this blog post as an audio podcast. If you want to listen in instead of reading, click play below or do a combination of both 

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. 

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

My journey to Essential Oils

I've been using essential oils since 2012 and I was a skeptic at first. At the time, essential oils were only barely starting to catch on and most people didn't use them yet. Even today, with essential oils being widely used, there are still so many who don't use them yet. 

So when I first started hearing about them, I really wasn't sure what to think. They seemed like this hippy stuff...how could oils do all these amazing things?! But I had a few friends looking into them and decided to do some searching of my own! 

“Essential oils are natural aromatic compounds found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. They can be both beautifully and powerfully fragrant.” ~ Modern Wellness: What Are Essential Oils

Basically, essential oils are the pure and concentrated oil from that object. Orange oil is  the powerful and concentrated oil from the tree and peel.

” When we peel an orange, walk through a rose garden, or rub a sprig of lavender between our fingers, we are all aware of the special scent of that plant. But what is is that we can smell? Generally speaking, it is essential oils that give spices and herbs their specific scent and flavor, flowers their fruit and perfume.” ~ The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils, pg 13.

Ways You Can Use Essential Oils

Knowing how to use essential oils was one of the most confusing things to me about them when I first heard of them. People threw around words like using them “neat”, diluting them in a “carrier oil”, and I wasn’t sure how you actually used the oils – in everyday life!

Here are the 3 main ways that essential oils are used.

Topical

When you apply an oil topically, this is referring to placing the oil on your skin. 

Typically this means you are rubbing the oil on to some part of your body {i.e. the bottoms of your feet, your back, arm, ect}. When you apply the oils directly to your skin {without diluting it first}, this is often called applying it “neat”.

However, most essential oils are so powerful that they should not be put on your skin “neat”. So instead you dilute a couple drops into a teaspoon or tablespoon of a “carrier oil” and then you rub it onto your skin. It might seem that that dilutes the effectiveness of the oil, but actually using a carrier oil can help facilitate the absorption of the oil easier. 

Common carrier oils include fractionated coconut oil, jojoba oil, almond oil, olive oil, ect. 

 Aromatic

This is another wonderful way to use essential oils and can have wonderful effects. 

A great way to use oils aromatically is to use a vaporizer, diffusor, or humidifier to easily spread the essential oils throughout the house. There are many essential oils on the market in varying p...

As a mom of five young kids (5 and under), I get this question a LOT. How do we cultivate quality time with young kids (and at the same time actually take care of our house)!? Listen in to today's episode for advice from several mamas: 

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Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

Here's the question I got:

“Ideas for quality play time as parents of young children. How do you keep your kids busy while keeping technology to a minimum? Do you have ideas for playing WITH your young ones? Ideas for educational play? Ideas for getting young ones to play independently?”

I know I have some thoughts and ideas on this, but at the same time, I am in the trenches of this myself with my oldest two only being 5, my middle two being 2, and my baby is only 16 months. So I turned to the best source: Other women and what they have found to be the most helpful!! 

If you want to come over and read all the answers, you can do so here. 

Reading Together: 

I have found that for me and for them, reading together is one of the most bonding things we can do together. We have a new routine of a morning basket where we store our kid Bible, a hymnal, a few chapter books, and a few fun educational books. We alternate going through the books each morning, reading from 3-4 of them each day. 

We keep the reading short and quick! Reading together was one of the #1 recommendations from the gals I asked. Another great suggestion is listening to audio books together. You can even do this when you are running errands in the car, etc! 

In our basket: 

The Jesus Storybook Bible

Adventures with Waffles

Hymns of Grace Hymnal

The Usborn Children's Encyclopedia

Jame's Herriot's Treasury for Children (this is my current FAVORITE book with the kids!)

The Usborn Book of Science Activities (Volume two)

Do a dance party! 

This is another very popular suggestion I saw! And we love doing this!! I sometimes, but not always, participate in the dance party. But it's such a fun way to turn around the attitude in the home, especially on a cranky day. Or to get people moving and to have a little fun together! 

Singing songs together is another great suggestion. Singing fun and silly songs together is obviously fun! But we have started memorizing more hymns together. I love that we can all sing them together and they are learning them for Sunday morning worship. 

We have been using the new hymnal from the Master's Seminary: Hymns of Grace. Jason got it at a recent conference he went to and we love it! 

Impromptu dance party in the living room!!

Rotate Toys & Keep it special! 

I did this a few years into my parenting journey when I was frustrated with them not playing with their toys. So I took older moms advice and cleaned out half their toys. These toys went into the shed and about 6 months later I remembered I did this. So I packed up all their current toys - and then brought the long forgotten ones out and it was like Christmas day!! 

Shelley had a great tip: "Sometimes I would set up the toys in a fun way before my kids got up (train tracks or a farm or whatever). They usually jumped right into playing as it looked more interesting than the usual buckets of toys that they had to set up. Another thing my kids loved was to take a bucket of water and some paint brushes and “paint” the deck outside." 

Or just play in a box!! ;) That will keep them super busy as well!