Amy J. Bennett

Extraordinary Faith for Everyday Life

Works for Me Wednesday: Winter Coats

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OK, to really get this tip, you have to know I’m located in the South.  As I type this in late January, it’s 61 degrees outside.  All the rumors about us being unable to handle cold weather is pretty much truth.  Unlike my northern extended family, we don’t own a snow shovel.  We don’t own a snow blower.  I don’t even have an ice scraper in my van.  And most of all, we don’t have a place in our house set aside for all the jackets, shoes and other paraphernalia you need during the cold months.

Most of my northern family have basements.  In those basements, many of them have cabinets that hold all the shoes.  Shoes don’t go to the main level of the house.  There are also lots of hooks and cabinets for coats. 

And we?  Don’t. 

We don’t have room in our garage for this type of thing.  Our hall closet is small and packed.  So what happens during the winter months when we do need coats when we walk in the house (with our shoes) is lay them on the closest surface.  Some of my friends here have a coat closet and actually use it.  My mom has a coat rack near her garage they use.  But us?  Mine is usually hanging on a chair somewhere and the girls are usually on the floor in the playroom.

Well.

Here’s what we did to fix it.

We decided to use the outside of the hall closet.  When we were visiting an organizational store recently, I had the idea to get an over-the-door set of hooks, that I normally would have thought to use behind a door for towels or robes in a bathroom or closet, and put it on the outside of our hall closet door.  Now, it’s not that pretty but now we don’t have to try to squeeze our coats in and out of the closet, the kids can use it and it’s near the front door.  Best of all, we can take it down easily during our warmest months and stuff all the coats back in the closet for storage.

Here it is with the front door closed.

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However, our front door is usually open and they’re mostly hidden.

 

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Depending on your weather and house floor plan this may or may not work for you, but it works for me!

This post is linked to WeAreThatFamily.com

Top Ten Tuesday: Tax Time

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toon642

I love tax season.  I know, you don’t hear that very often.  But let me explain.

  1. I love numbers.  For a few years there, I would do my taxes by hand but then still get them done so I could see how close I was to the right answer.  Why yes, I did give myself a test on taxes.  *sigh*  I know.  The geekness knows no bounds.
  2. I love getting extra mail.  I know!  My life is boring.  But knowing I’m getting important! mail! and often! makes me happy during January.  I normally lo-uh-ove the mail but January has a special place in my heart.  I’ve been known to call companies on February 1st asking where in the world my 1099 was.
  3. I love office supplies.  So organizing all the papers into categorized stacks and then putting one of those huge alligator clips on them makes me happy.  My kids love office supplies too but they get like 2 pieces of paper and try to use these huge clips when a paper clip would do.  But tax papers?  I NEED the big clip.
  4. I get to make lists.  I love lists.  I make lists just so I can check things off.  I’m not even joking.  They say you get a little shot of adrenaline when you check something off.  Clearly I need as much excitement as I can in my day.
  5. I get to print and highlight lists.  The geek in me loves running reports in mint.com, paypal.com and our bank so I can find deductions.  I like downloading the exports and formatting them in Excel and printing them and highlighting them.  How often do you really get to use a highlighter for a legit reason these days?
  6. Finding deductions is like a scavenger hunt.  Once I have all these lists printed and highlighted I always go back to previous years and see what I’m missing. I search my email for other deductions I might have missed.  When I cull something up, it’s like I hit the jackpot.  YES!  Another deduction.  It’s like a game!  Try it!
  7. I enjoy seeing if we met our giving challenge.  Our goal is always to give a higher percentage from the year before so I love that challenge to gather all the numbers and see if we met our goal.
  8. Call my silly, but there’s a satisfaction I receive going to see our tax office.  It’s run by a local family in town that knows everyone else in town.  It’s in an office in a house.  The linoleum has to be from 1976.  The dad and daughter do the taxes and the wife answers the phone.  It’s just so homey and small town and I like the tradition of it.
  9. But if I’m honest, the biggest reason I love tax season is since having kids, we usually get a hunk of change back.  Except for that one year I actually made money on the Internets and it physically hurt to write that tax check.  That year wasn’t fun.
  10. And just to drive home the point, the very best part is having those returns randomly show up in my bank account.  It’s always so depressing to go into mint.com and see my bank account drain every single day but during tax season?  Surprise!  Random huge deposit in your account!

OK, now I promise I’m not just a money-hungry dork.  I’ll claim the dork part but that’s it.

Tell me, do you love tax season or hate it?

This post is linked to ohAmanda’s Top Ten Tuesday.

Old Navy Clearance Haul

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I normally feel guilty about buying so many clothes and sharing it on top of that, but I can count on my hands the clothes I bought for myself in the last 18 months. Plus, you’ll see these were such great deals there is no guilt here!

 

 

Weekend Recap and Catch-up

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How’s that for an SEO-friendly title?  I just know someone is googling for people’s weekend recaps.

So hi. 

I’m still here.  I still love blogging.  I love writing.  I love you.  If you’re still out there.  I guess you are if you’re reading this.  And if no one does, I suppose this is like me talking to myself in the middle of the woods.  It wouldn’t be the first time I talked to myself, so I may as well keep going.

The last two weeks have been hard emotionally for me.  Lexi has come unraveled a few times and it’s led to some glaring issues and things that need to change, a lot on my part.  I’m trying my best to spend as much quality time with them as I can.  I’m having to say no when I don’t really want to say no. I’m having to bite my tongue.  I’m having to pay attention.  Really pay attention.  In other words, it’s been taking a lot of my time and exhausting me a little.  But in the most wonderful ways.  This parenting gig is something I happily signed on for and while hard, the good is so good it’s worth it. 

In super duper good news, I’ve been working from home a lot more lately.  I’m SO thankful.  It’s such a huge answer to prayer and could not have had better timing.

We stayed in Friday and ate pizza and watched TV together.  Saturday I took the girls to the Nature Museum, Moe’s and the library.  For whatever reason they really latched on to the rocks and minerals at the museum and most of their books were on those.  Kids surprise you sometimes.  Lexi was scared to death of the big bears and elephant.  I embarrassed her when I started praying over her right in front of the monkey display.  We were all alone in the whole hall but she still said, “Stop, Mom, you’re embarrassing me.”  I think it was the first, but certainly not the last.  The library we went to after that has this wonderful spiral staircase.  My parents used to take me and my sister and I loved that thing.  We were climbing to the second floor and Emma was complaining about so many stairs but it was one of those moments of passing down a tradition that is part of what makes parenting so fun.  After that, we went grocery shopping and came home to wash laundry and have dinner.  Exciting times, I tell you!  I heard someone once say that the more bored the parent was, the happier the kids were.  I really think that’s true for my girls, at least.

Today we went to church, had lunch with Scott’s family, went shopping just the 3 of us, spent some time at my parents’ and then came home to an evening of leftovers and wrestling.  Church, shopping, family.  You know it’s a good day.  In fact, I might have to do a haul video on all the stuff I got at Old Navy.  I honestly don’t think I’ve bought myself anything outside of a few shirts for Christmas since the end of summer.  Today I didn’t spend more that $5 for a shirt and most of them were $3.50 so it was GOOD.

Beyond that I’ve been reading some good stuff on adoption (and getting scared to death) and eating better (and doing absolutely nothing about it) and watching Elevation’s revival services (and getting some wonderful words).

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Updated Chair and Hall Bathroom

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OK, so here are a few small updates that we’ve made around the house that I haven’t taken the time to tell you about. The first is another Christmas present from Mom.  I picked out the fabric and she recovered it for me.

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Isn’t that fabric fun?  It is totally me and makes me so happy!

When we were in Maryland, I scored a new shower curtain and rugs for SIX dollars each at Ollie’s.  Not a bad transformation for less than $20!  You can see older pictures here and here.

 

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Amazing how a little color and pattern changes things, huh?

Prayer

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I love, love, loved this video from Beth Moore today on prayer.  I know, like you, there are so many people around me hurting and sick.  They need us on our knees interceding for them.  I have been so lax at this and I admit it.  This video really inspired me today to do a better job and I hope it does the same for you.

 

Watch live streaming video from livingproofministries at livestream.com

 

She has a post that goes along with this where folks are leaving their ideas that work. The only thing I can contribute is that writing my prayers out has helped tremendously.  It’s been awesome to look back and see where God answered.  Not being boastful, though, I have not written them down on more days than I have.

If you feel inclined, I’d love for you to leave any prayer requests, or even just something unspoken, in the comments so I can pray for you specifically.

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

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candy-shop (image courtesy of http://www.stopthecandyshop.com/)

When I went to Catalyst in 2010, I was blown away by Christine Caine who heads up The A21 Campaign, a non-profit which aims to abolish human trafficking.  As a follow-up, they also showed a promo for a short film/parable bringing awareness to child sex trafficking called The Candy Shop.  I had the pleasure, or should I say discomfort, of finally watching it today for Trafficking Awareness Day. 

Did you know Atlanta is the LARGEST city in America for trafficking and comes in at tenth in the whole world? That’s 375 little girls just a few years older than my Emma and Lexi that are taken advantage of every single month.  Just last month, the FBI said a pediatrician was arrested for child pornography.  The thought sickens me.  But we simply cannot ignore the nausea.  We feel helpless but there are organizations making a difference.  The A21 Campaign works all over the world to restore victims, prevent new ones and bring perpetrators to justice.  Street Grace is the organization that partnered with the film company to produce The Candy Shop film.  Here are ways to partner with them and make an impact:

 

It’s so disheartening to think about these things but we can’t be like the people in the film that just say it’s none of our business or believe the lie we can’t make a difference.  We CAN.  Let’s do it.

I’m Not Above a Little Stalking

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Have you seen that quote on Facebook from parents about how you will question, stalk, annoy, etc. your kids just to make sure they’re safe because you love them?  Well, I would look it up for you if not but I’m on my lunch break writing this at work and something about looking up stalking in Google feels like it might raise some red flags with HR.  Plus, all I really want to say is I completely agree with quote and did my first bout of stalking this weekend.

Emma had a friend invite her to sleepover on Friday night and her mom said she could just walk home with this little girl since they only live two blocks from the school.  At first, I was like, oh no, this is different and Emma is going to freak out.  See, every day since she was 3, I have taken her and picked her up from whatever school she was in.  And she cried the first 3 weeks of Kindergarten even when I walked her in.  So, when the mom asked me this on the phone,  I had to put her on hold and ask Emma if that’s what she wanted.  See, Emma has said that she really, really wanted to be a walker on multiple occassions but we just don’t live close enough.  But here we were with a chance for her to actually walk home and well, I just didn’t know how that was going to go over.  She gave me a sheepish grin and agreed that yes, she wanted to walk.  Then, of course, Lexi started to freak out because she didn’t want to walk to the van alone.  Change!  My girls are not good at it! 

Friday afternoon came along and Lexi was saved because I had to pick up a friend’s son too.  As for Emma, I hadn’t seen her all day and was on pins and needles to see how she was going to do.  I seriously wouldn’t put it past her to be in near tears walking the two blocks.  There are two ways she could have walked home so I parked my van on one of the streets so I could see the alternate way too.   We waited.  And waited.  I just had to see how she was doing.  Lexi finally started suggesting we just head home even though she was pretty interested in seeing her big sister too.  I started seeing other parents and their kids and still no sign of Emma.  Then all those horrible things started going through my head of kids just being picked off the street in white vans (because it’s always a white van in my head).  So, I told the kids, ok, now I’m getting worried it’s been so long, we’re going to have to go look for them.  So I started to take off, looking back in my rearview just to make sure I hadn’t missed her.  I turned left at the corner and was then one street away from the alternate route.  And there was Emma and her friend on the other street. 

She was crossing the road and drinking from her reusable soda can we bought a few weeks ago.  You could tell she was having fun and talking a mile a minute.  And then she spotted the van.  I rolled the windows down at the stop sign where we met and she was all, “Hey, Mommy!  Hey, Tucker!  Hey, Lexi!”  And then I was all, “I gotta go, there’s a line behind me!”  And we were off, headed home and I watched in the rearview mirror as she finished her walk. 

She had no idea I had waited a good 10 minutes for her.  It just happened that we met at the stop sign. She just figured I had just picked Lexi up and was on my way home.  I guess it shouldn’t be a big deal.  Kids walk home all the time.  But for us, it was a first.  One of those Mom Moments where you look at your kid and go, You’re growing up, stop doing that.  

And it won’t be the last first-time she’ll have with her mommy stalking her through it.