thoughts on life
How to Talk To Your Spouse About Money
Few subjects can start a fight faster than talking about money. It doesn’t seem to matter how carefully the topic is raised: The second the money card is played, everyone seems to be on edge. Accusations of carelessness and being too controlling creep into the argument, and, suddenly, what started out so innocently can explode into all-out war. At some point, couples have to talk about money if they want to stay together (and don’t want to go broke). While every couple is different, the five simple tips for talking to your spouse about money I recently shared over at P&G Everyday might serve you as a good place to ... read more
5 Things to Do Every. Single. Day.
In the grand scheme of things, I suppose I’m really not that old yet, but I have to admit, sometimes I look at the world around me and I feel old. What happened to the “good old days,” that time before every moment of our life was consumed by the need to do something or go somewhere, before e-mail and texting and Facebook took the place of actual conversations, before a culture of overspending and celebrity worship and instant gratification? I don’t actually know if it has existed in my lifetime, but I long for a time when life was slower, safer, and just a little simpler, when a person’s word ... read more
Tiny Dancers
This is the once-a-year post where I get to gush for a few minutes while my mommy heart swells with pride. Just bear with me for a moment and I promise I’ll try not to go on too long. The truth is that being a “dance mom” is a role I never in a million years expected to play. I am 6’2″ and, having been tall and awkward my entire life, have always lacked a certain grace and rhythm that other girls seem to have. I normally avoid dancing like the plague. I’m not joking when I say that clapping in time during church is a stretch. Not surprisingly, I ... read more
6 Things No One Told Us About Being a Caregiver
It is incredible to me how one blink-of-an-eye moment can drastically impact your life. Since our car accident two weeks ago we have found ourselves dealing daily with the aftermath. Beyond the physical pain, there have been claims to file, insurance adjusters to talk to, paperwork to fill out, statements to make, prescriptions to fill, doctor visits to attend, and many, many conversations with our girls about what happened. My husband has led the charge, navigating this sometimes sticky process with wisdom and kindness and compassion. He is taking care of his girls, and we are all recovering well. While my disability at this point is pretty minor, it has ... read more
In the Blink of an Eye
Life, for the most part, is full of the mundane, the obvious, the expected. We go about our daily routines, get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, go to work or school, take care of the kids, make dinner, clean up, go to bed. Repeat. It is easy to become complacent, to take it for granted, to complain about the little things without realizing what a blessing ordinary really is. And then, in the blink of an eye, everything changes. We are jolted out of our reverie, forced to reevaluate, well, everything, and sometimes just get down on our knees and thank God we are still alive. Our wake up call ... read more
An Honest Look at Frugality
This is a guest post by Kristen @ Joyfully Thriving Hello. My name is Kristen and I am a coupon-clipping, sale-watching, frugal-living kind of gal. My father is a pastor and my mother stayed at home with four children, so I came into this frugal lifestyle by necessity. I didn’t know any different in my childhood years and it was good training for my adult ones. As I’ve grown older, started teaching, married and set up our own home, I’ve learned anew the value of frugality. There are so many wonderful things about living frugally, and the plethora of frugal living blogs (such as this wonderful one by Ruth) are ... read more
Keeping it Real… {My Dirty Truth}
This was not the blog post I had planned for this morning, but yesterday evening I happened to check my blog stats to see what posts people were reading. I was amused–and a little horrified–to see that, thanks to Pinterest, the most popular posts of the day were Why I Make the Bed: 10 Reasons I Keep My House Clean and Speed Cleaning. As I looked around my house, I couldn’t help but think to myself, wow, if they only knew….. Because in that moment every single room in my house was an absolute disaster, dishes piled in the sink, laundry overflowing from the hamper, clutter, sand, dust, and dog ... read more
Why We Won’t Let a Village Raise Our Kids
Earlier this week MSNBC released the following Lean Forward promo : Did you catch that? Here is what she said: We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility, and not just the households’, then we start making better investments. Say what?!! When did it become someone else’s responsibility to raise my kids? This clip terrifies me because I see the ramifications of it everywhere I look, not just in the world at large, but in my own community, my own church, myself. I see ... read more
Why I Don’t Always Use Coupons
I love saving money with coupons. I don’t always love using coupons. Because, let’s face it, clipping coupons—enough to really save a LOT on groceries—is a lot of work. Yes, the payoff is often impressive—I mean, who wouldn’t want to bring home $127 worth of groceries for less than $0.25—but the truth is that using coupons is not always feasible. I know many of you first found this blog by searching for help on how to start using coupons. You stumbled upon my Beginner’s Guide to Coupons, mastered the 8 week baby steps program, and are now coupon geniuses. Please don’t worry—this is still a good thing! Everything in that ... read more
Balance is For The Weak
I’d like to think that I am one of those people who can just go and go and go, one who can just keep pushing and adding more and getting it all done without ever really having to slow down, to rest, to recharge. My body, it seems, is telling me differently. Last week Wednesday, just hours before I was supposed to be heading off for a busy conference weekend at Blissdom, I felt it coming on. You know the feeling, don’t you? The telltale raw twinge in the back of your throat that says a bad cold is coming on and there is nothing you can do to stop ... read more
Always In Pursuit {7 Ways to Be More Content}
A few months ago I shared that our family’s theme word for the year is contentment. After an entire lifetime of wanting to trying to fill my life with beautiful things in the hope that it would bring fulfillment, learning to simply be content with what I have is a huge shift in paradigm. I backslide sometimes–too often, really–and I find myself getting caught up in the pursuit of wanting something new, in the trap of thinking that there is better than here, of telling myself the reason I’m not satisfied is because I don’t have X or because I haven’t achieved Y. They are the familiar lies that keep ... read more
Legoland {Homeschool Field Trip}
I know in many parts of the country Spring Break doesn’t happen for a few more weeks, but since all the schools in our area are off this week (meaning no dance or other activities) AND since my awesome, adorable, & crazy talented niece Coryn decided to spend her college spring break with us instead of all the other fun college things she could have been doing (granted, we were her 3rd choice, but we’ll take it!), we decided to take a little break from homeschooling this week as well. It has been a great time to get caught up on some work and do lots of craft projects and ... read more
How I Get My Kids to Clean Their Room
I haven’t talked about it much but for the past year or so an epic struggle has been waging in the Soukup household. It is Mommy versus Kids in the War of the Tidy Room, and while there are still small battles being fought now and then, I can finally say with confidence that I am winning. I am not exaggerating when I tell you it has been a long and arduous and, at times, downright painful campaign. It has involved tears, threats, bribes, rewards, games, countless trips to the naughty stool, and more reorganizing, reevaluating, relabeling, and retraining than I would care to admit. At one point it even ... read more
This is Love
Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. {1 Corinthians 13: 4-7} Our homeschool memory verse this month is this passage from 1 Corinthians 13. Teaching my kids always seems to make me see things in a whole new light, so even though I have heard this verse countless times in my life, it has impacted me differently ... read more
Sometimes The Flu is Just The Flu
The flu struck our house with a vengeance this week, and let me tell you, it has been rough. The girls both started feeling sick last Thursday, just as I was getting ready to head out of town to go to the BEECH Retreat. My dad and stepmom had flown down from Seattle for a visit, and after spending a few days with all of us, they had been planning to take the girls to the beach in Sarasota for a few special days while I was gone. They don’t visit very often, so this was a Very Big Deal, and we had all been looking forward to it. When ... read more
