I'm working through a new cleaning book that I'm really enjoying. It's part devotional/part cleaning guide. It's called "31 Days to Clean: Having a Martha House the Mary Way" and you can find it here. It's only available as an eBook, as far as I know, so you can look at it on your computer or you can order the Kindle version and look on a Kindle or on your iPod touch/iPhone/iPad.

I'm on day four and enjoying it so far. It's challenged me to address the attitude of my heart when it comes to cleaning, and one of the "Mary Challenges" was to ask my family what aspects of housecleaning/homemaking made them feel most loved. The little boys, predictably, answered "da da da da?" which means anything from Adam to food to "HI THERE!!!!!"

Adam's answers gave me some insight into what's important to him in the course of a week and helped me shift my focus from what I thought I should have as a priority to what actually blessed him if I made it a priority.

Today, the task is to clean my stove and microwave (I'll be cleaning my toaster oven since we are sans microwave). I'll go do that in a moment...

On another front, Adam and I are very much enjoying our brand-spankin' new Spotify account. The service launched in the U.S. yesterday and is a bit like Netflix for music. You can listen to anything they have on the service (and it's a LOT!) streaming, for free. It's ad-supported. Or, you can pay $5 a month and go ad-free. Or you can pay $10 a month and go ad-free, stream to an iPod, have wireless iPod syncing, and off-line listening. We went with that last option and are cancelling our $12/month eMusic account. eMusic has consistently grown from an amazing site to something really disappointing. They actually removed the option to re-download previously purchased tracks and albums, as other services are moving toward that option, and that just baffles me. But anyway, Spotify! We can listen to almost anything, even new albums, in their entirety, and don't have to pay per album. It's pretty awesome. I'm listening to Anberlin's Blueprints for the Black Market right now, which is an album I loved in high school.

Finally, to wrap up this post, I wanted to share pictures of my most recent project. I'm not really a very crafts-oriented person. I love the idea of crafts and DIY projects, but I'm not very good at following through on them. I don't sew, knit, crochet, woodwork, scrapbook, etc.., and I hardly even paint. That said, I occasionally get in the mood to do something like this and this week I had the chance!

I recently received an antique mirror from my mom; it had belonged to her mother and then ended up in my sister's cabin (a playhouse cabin she's since outgrown). It was nearing the point where it would be beyond salvaging. Even now, the wood is a teeny bit warped on one side. But the trim was falling off, the paint was all chipped, and so on. I had some white paint (I was trying to avoid spending any extra money for supplies) and a brush, so I tackled it the other night. I forgot to take a real "before" picture, but here's mid-way and finished (sorry about the picture quality):


Here's the mirror finished and on the wall. I wanted it to still look like an antique, so I didn't do a second coat of white paint. I wanted some of the older stuff to come through, especially in cracks and crevices.


Oh, and I know I already said "finally," but I'd nearly forgotten that I wanted to show off my other recent project. I put together my recipe binder! I had an envelope stuffed full of loose-leaf recipes and they needed a real home. Despite what I said about not being very crafty, I could put binders together or play around in Photoshop all day.



That's all. :) See my boys with their raspberry popsicles? Aren't they the sweetest?