by kathilipp | Aug 21, 2012 | Relationships, Uncategorized |
Are you willing to take The LOVE YOU Challenge?
You will be required to:
- Encourage Your Husband
- Get a Little Creative
- Show Off Your Mad Money Saving Skills
If so, I would love for you to take the Love You Challenge.
All you have to do is do something, anything to let your husband know you love him, however, it needs to 100%, completely free.
That’s right. No money may exchange hands in the loving of your husband.
Here are a few, totally debt-free things you could do to love your man:
- Make him a cup of coffee and bring it to him when he gets out of the shower.
- Leave a post-it in his boxers with a racy message.
- Text him something flirty.
- Take him out to dinner with that gift card that has been in your wallet since 2009.
- Do a chore that he normally does.
- Bake him cookies.
- Brag on him on Facebook.
- Call his mom.
- Give him a massage.
- Spell out “Love You” with Scrabble tiles.
Tell me what you did (or will do!) for your man here in the comments on the blog, and you will be entered to win one of my six books (I will give away one a day over the next six days.) I’ll be picking one winner each day from August 23-28th.
I’m off to make some No=Pudge Brownies for my man.
by kathilipp | Aug 19, 2012 | God |
Are You Satisfied?
Are you satisfied?
We are a family who loves broken animals. Zorro, the black and white cat I brought into our marriage, is what you might call “Socially Maladjusted”. In other words, he lives to beat up other cats. Ashley, the kitten we found out behind our neighborhood church, had to be nursed back to health with an eye dropper. She is now about eight weeks old and is still on medication, twice a day, because her breathing sounds like someone is letting the air out of a bicycle tire.
And then there’s Jake. And Jake? He’s got issues.
Jake is our six year old rescue puggle (pug/beagle mix) and we may have some clues as to why he was dropped off at the shelter.
He can’t stand any man with a hat or jingling keys. He can’t be in a room by himself. (I’m just like all those MOPS moms who haven’t been to the bathroom by myself in YEARS…) He won’t go into our back patio unaccompanied. But the weirdest thing is his food. He will only eat his wet food downstairs, and his dry food upstairs.
I told you it was weird.
But there is something else he does with food that is really strange. We feed all the animals at the same time, and Jake, even with food that has been served to him, that is sitting right in front of him, will be way more interested in what we are serving the cats.
He can’t take his eyes off of the cat food. He whines and complains that they are getting food, even though his food is sitting right in front of him. He is way more interested in what someone else has, than what he has.
And when I think about it, it’s not so weird after all. ‘Cause I do the exact same thing (not with cat food, of course.)
I see what other women are getting to do, (go on missions trips, write best-sellers, travel the world,wear a size eight,) and I can spend so much time focusing on what they have, that I miss the great stuff that is sitting right in front of me.
Usually the dissatisfaction starts subtlety. Maybe it’s a magazine pic of a kitchen that I would love to have, or my neighbor gets a new car and parks it near my 13 year-old beater. There are so many little things can trigger that dissatisfaction.
God has blessed me with a life that, when I really look at it, is pretty awesome. I have a relationship with God that is filled with grace, every single day. I have four kids that I love. They are not perfect kids, but they were raised by a not-so-perfect mom and dad, so that’s to be expected. I have a ministry that while not huge, is what I love and is a huge blessing to me (and some other people and their marriages.) I’m married to a great man, who I adore and who loves me back. All in all, not a bad life.
But it is so easy to get into that place of not being satisfied when I start to look at my sister’s plate.
Practicing Gratitude
One of the projects I’m working on this week is a Gratitude Board. Pictures of the things in my life I’m grateful for. It sounds simple and I’ve done the reverse (a Dream Board), but I really want to have a visual reminder of all that God has trusted me with and done for me.
I went to a site called www.photovisi.com that can help you create a photo collage. I’ve just taken picture off of my computer of gifts – my kids, Roger and I on trips, my mom recovering in the hospital after her cancer surgery – and have put them on one board. When I’m reminded of what God has given me, it’s a lot easier to not sit in that place of discontentment.
Putting My Heart in the Right Place
Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be.
When I’m feeling unsatisfied, I can usually trace it back to busyness. When I’m busy, and not spending time with God, my focus is on my world, instead of God’s plan for my world.
It usually takes a couple of days, but when I realize that I’m in that stinking place, I know I need to be back in the God place and put my heart squarely where He is.
Q4U – When do you feel that discontentment rise? Is there something that you do to not look at your neighbor, but sit in your own place of godly satisfaction?
by kathilipp | Jul 25, 2012 | Home |
Exactly why I wrote The Get Yourself Organized Project…
by kathilipp | Jul 11, 2012 | Home |
- Take an Inventory Figure out what you already have, and then build your menu for the week around that. Every time veggies expires, Paula Deen dies a little inside.
- Go Online Before I make a meal plan or list, I see what I have, and then I see what’s on sale to decide what we’re going to eat.
- Make a Meal Plan If you go into the shopping trip knowing what you need for the week – and not guessing – you’re going to save a ton of money.
- Make a List Again – don’t guess. If you don’t make a list, you will forget things you need, and buy stuff you don’t.
- Buy in Bulk – But Only When It’s Really Cheap Just because it’s bulk, doesn’t mean it’s cheaper, However, each week I put aside a part of our budget to stock up on cheap bulk items. Eventually, this will reduce your overall bill because your shopping in your pantry and freezer and not in the grocery store.
- Shop Two Stores – or Three I check the weeklies (or websites) of a couple of different stores each week. Some people would think it’s a waste of time to go to two different stores, but most of us are doing it anyway, and different things are on sale at different stores.
- Do a Seasonal Stock Up The only time I can get canned pumpkin on sale is October and November. So I stock up for the year (I use it as a substitute to oil in muffins.)
- Sing up for the Store’s Loyalty Card
- Beware of Prepared Food Don’t buy those little packages of pre-cooked chicken – It’s much cheaper to throw a few frozen chicken breasts into the over and make your own.
- Try One Store Brand a Week
- Plan for Leftovers – and then Eat Them
- Use Your Food Processor I use it to grate cheese, and slice up veggies as soon as we get home from the store. Don’t ever, ever, buy precut veggies at the store.
- Double Your Batch When you find a sale on chicken breasts, double the recipe of whatever you’re cooking and freeze the second dinner for another night.
- Plan a YOYO Dinner Once a week, have a You’re On Your Own night where everyone can eat up leftovers.
- Buy Cleaners in Concentrate Mixing your won will save you tons. Just purchase (or repurpose) a spray bottle and label it properly.
- Make Stew Stew is a great way of stretching your ground beef or turkey into a satisfying meal.
- Make Your Own Salad Wash your greens in a salad spinner and store them in a Ziploc with a paper towel to absorb excess moisture.
- Challenge Yourself to reduce your food bill by 5% a month for six months. Just by paying attention, you could be spending 30% on my bill in less than half a year.
- Learn to Make Marinades They are super easy, and when you find meat on sale, stock up and throw it into a Ziploc with the marinade and you have a meal in minutes.
- Make Your Own Croutons Chop up leftover/dry bread into crouton sized pieces, and then toss about four cupfuls with ¼ cup melted butter, and some grated Parmesan cheese and bake for 12 minutes at 350.
- Plan One Meatless Meal a Week
What’s your favorite way to be a savvy shopper?
by kathilipp | Jul 8, 2012 | Home, The Get Organized Project |
I know it seems like a weird question, but hear me out.
There are a lot of stories I’ve told myself about being organized:
- Other women come by it so easily.
- My family actively works against me when it comes to getting organized.
- I could get so much more done if I could just get organized.
And to some extent, those are all true.
So let’s break them down. Today I want to tackle the first one.
Other women come by it so easily. Yes- I would say that most women are naturally more organized than I am. Their natural response is when they pull something out, they put it away. Not me. My natural response is to leave it out in case I need it later.
But just because something comes more easily for someone else doesn’t mean that I should give up on it – that it’s any less important for me to achieve it. When I use the excuse “It just comes easily for her.” what I’m saying is that the things in my life are not as important to accomplish as the stuff in her life.
You do a lot of things that don’t come naturally: I get being a mom didn’t come naturally at first. Or cooking dinner. Or figuring out Facebook. But you stuck with it – and now you can.
It was the same for me. Putting things away. Not natural – but now I do it. Keeping my living room picked up. Not natural, but I’ve set myself up that I do it for 15 minutes a day, and it stays mostly picked up.
Is there someone in your life that you compare yourself to when it comes to organization? What do you tell yourself about why you are not as organized as you want to be? I want to deal with the issues that keep us from being all that God wants us to be.
by kathilipp | Jul 1, 2012 | Home |
Quick Clean Your Living Room 15 Minutes
I said that I was going to help you get organized every Monday, and my intentions were good. But then this happened:
Looks harmless enough, doesn’t she.
This is Ash. And Ash is 9 oz. of cute high maintenance.
I will be doing a full blog post on Ash in the near future, but let’s just say she did not come to us looking like that. She was a hot mess and we’ve spent the last week nursing her back to health. And last Saturday, when I was supposed to write the blog post, was a day of having her on me for about 20 out of 24 hours.
But now I’m back. And we are going to get your Living Room organized.
Get Ready
Get Your 3 Boxes and 2 Bags together (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go read this post all about it.)
Get Set
Figure out what area of your living room you’re going to quick clean. Now is not the time start alphabetizing your DVDs. I just want you to put 15 minutes on the clock and pull out only what you can put back in that amount of time. Maybe you need 15 minutes to clean off/out your coffee table. Maybe 15 minutes to attack underneath the stairs. Awesome. Pick an area and work on it for 15 minutes.
Go
Spend 15 minutes a day for the rest of the week cleaning and putting stuff away in your living room. You will make a huge improvement in the next six days (yes, you get Sunday off!)
Win
Every day this week that you clean your living room for 15 minutes, lave a comment on this post and I will enter you to win my book THE 
WHAT’S FOR DINNER SOLUTION. (I will do anything to help you have more sanity in your life – including bribery…)
by kathilipp | Jun 17, 2012 | Home |
With the response of my book The Get Yourself Organized Project being so amazing (BTW – thank you!!!) I have heard from a load of you that you are just overwhelmed when it comes to getting things put away. It’s much easier to go lay down and watch an episode of Hoarders. (“At least I’m not as bad as her…”) So for the foreseeable future, I will be spending Mondays helping you get your stuff put away, one room at a time. And below, are the basics of the system: 3 Boxes and 2 Bags.
Gather up these materials and then go to a room that is causing you stress and pick one tiny area: maybe it’s a drawer, a shelf, or some small contained area that you can make a dent in.Or, if you want to just quick clean a room, this is a great system for a quick pick-it-up. This week, it’s pick your own room. Next week, we will all be working on our living rooms.
Do this at least once this week, but I warn you – it’s addictive. Once you see how clean one area will be, you’ll want to do it all over your house. RESIST THE URGE. Just do 15 minutes at least once a week – or up to once a day. You’ll love the feeling you’ll get!!!
This is a system you will be using in almost every room in your house as we work week to week, so I want you to gather up everything that you’ll need right now:
1.Set up three boxes, a garbage bag and a recycle bag, your iPod, and a timer. (You can use the one on your cell phone or your oven.)
2.Mark one box as “Other Rooms” one as “Give Away” and one as “Put Back”.
3.Give yourself 15 minutes on your timer and pick a spot to clean out. (No more than you can pull out and put back in 15 minutes.)
4.Go through the area and use the three boxes to sort the contents.
Other Rooms Anything that doesn’t belong in the area you’re cleaning gets put in the “Other Rooms” box. This would include toys in the kitchen, dog brushes in the living room, report cards in the bathroom or dishes in the bedroom.
Give Away Outgrown kids clothes? Check. Videos your family will never watch again. Check. There is huge freedom in giving stuff away.
Here is a great set of criteria for keeping or giving away an item:
•Is it something you are currently using or wearing?
•Is it something that makes me happy when they see it?
•Is it something I will definitely use in the next six months?
If you can answer “Yes” to one or more, find a home for the item. If not, away it goes.
And a friendly reminder: don’t donate garbage. It costs charities time and money to get rid of stuff that you don’t want. Only donate those things that are in decent condition and are worthy of reselling. Don’t be that person.
Put Back This is the box that you put things that go in that area, but need to be put back into the right place. Clean clothes on the floor of your bedroom that you’re organizing. Shoes under your bed. Scarves hanging over a bedroom chair. These all go in the PUT BACK box so once you’ve got your bedroom in order, you just put those items back where they belong.
Garbage Bag Anything that you don’t want, isn’t worthy of being donated, and can’t be recycled goes in here.
Recycle Bag Recycling regulations vary from city to city, so check with your local municipality if you have any question as to what should be recycled and what shouldn’t.
Once you have cleaned out your area, take the OTHER ROOMS box around the house and put away all the stuff in the box. Take the GIVE AWAY box to where you gather stuff to take to donate, (or, directly to your car to be donated the next time you run errands.) And now, since your area is clean and organized, put back anything in the PUT BACK box into the spot it’s supposed to go.
Doesn’t that feel better? For accountability sake, tell me what area your going to quick clean. If you tell me in the comments, I promise you that you are at least three times more likely to actually do it. (Peer pressure rocks!)
Just a warning: Make sure you take care of your boxes quickly and then put them away. Otherwise, a husband, disgruntled over some fresh claw marks in his new chair, might get some bright ideas about what needs to be donated.
To Get Yourself Organized in any area of your life, check out my book in my store.
by kathilipp | Jun 16, 2012 | God |
This is Kathi. I often get asked to speak for Mother’s Day at churches, and I thought that for Father’s Day, it was only fitting to have a real live father blog for us. Meet Rob Tiegen; he is a dad who not only works at my publisher, Revell, but is a real, live author on the topic of fatherhood. He is sharing some keen insight today into where your husband really needs your prayers.
When Kathi invited me to share some thoughts on how wives can pray for their husbands in their fathering I was excited but a bit overwhelmed. There are countless ways each man needs prayer as a father, so in ten seconds I had thought of ten different things that I would love to know my wife was praying for me about.
As I continued to think it through, I decided to focus on just one thing–time. This is something that God has been burdening my heart with in my own life lately. I would be encouraged to know that my wife was standing in the gap and holding me up in prayer as I face the challenge of making ample time to spend with our kids.
I’ve been reading a great book titled Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids by Dr. Kara E. Powell and Dr. Chap Clark. The authors include disheartening statistics about the 40 to 50 percent of “church kids” who leave their faith behind in the college years. As a father who is trying to raise my kids in the Lord that is a hard statistic to hear. I desperately need prayer to make time with my kids, because time leads to relationship, and relationship opens the door to sharing my faith with my children through each stage, age, and challenge that comes their way.
As important as it is to work hard to provide for our families, to set an example of service to our churches and communities, to stay physically fit, and to connect with our wives, kids desperately need their dad’s time so they can receive love, spiritual guidance, and training. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (ESV) The passage is assuming the father is sitting, walking, and ending and beginning his day with his kids. The deep truths of our faith are passed on during intentional time together.
Wives, your husband will benefit so much from your prayers and encouragement with this. Pray for your husband to have a heart to spend time with your kids. Since you probably organize the family calendar, make room for him to take each child out for some one-on-one time. When you see him making a positive connection with your son or daughter, point it out and be his cheerleader. We need to know that our wives are in our corner praying for us and encouraging us to keep pressing on with our kids, even when it’s hard. Ask God to create opportunities for us to pass on our faith, and for opportunities for you to be an encouragement to him as well. Your love and support mean more to us than you can know. Thanks for praying!
Friends -this is Kathi. I want to take the verse that Rob shared with us above and pray it for the men in our lives this Father’s Day:
Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (ESV)
Heavenly Father, I pray that your words, your love, your direction would flow through my husband’s heart. I pray that my husband would find time in each day to pass on your wisdom to our kids. Lord, let every moment they spend together be something to grow both my husband’s heart and my child’s heart toward you. And Father, show me ways every single day to call out those things in my husband that are your way – your good and perfect way. Amen
One little bonus – as of the time this blog is going to press, the price for Rob’s great book 88 Great Daddy-Daughter Dates is only $4.99 for the Kindle download.
Plus, as always, let me know you prayed for your man and I will enter you into the drawingfor Rob’s book (a real live physical one!)
You can follow Rob on twitter at @strongdads
by kathilipp | Jun 14, 2012 | Uncategorized |
Friends – meet my friend Dineen. Here is her story about praying for her husband and the plans God has for his life.
My husband doesn’t know God. He’s a great guy, but he just doesn’t believe God exists. Yet there I stand in this marriage with this man I adore, and I see God’s plan for his life all around him.
And I love that I’m part of that plan just as I know my husband is part of God’s plan for me. My husband’s work, his challenges and trials—I see them all coming from God’s loving hand to bring him into a relationship with Christ.
Several years ago God impressed upon me to pray for my husband as if he were already a believer. As I started this journey I began to 
see that, aside from his greatest need to know Jesus, his day-to-day needs were much the same as a believing husband.
Each January I set a time aside to seek God for specific needs and Scriptures to pray for my family, and each year God is faithful to give me a specific verse or verses to pray for my husband and daughters. Each time reveals a piece of God’s plan for my husband, like pieces of a puzzle, and with each piece, I learn to trust God’s plan more and more.
This is the verse God spoke to my heart to pray for my husband in 2012:
and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. — Ephesians 3:1
What a powerful truth from God’s Word! Because no matter where we are in our faith journey, it’s all about God’s unfailing and life-changing love.
Lord, help my husband to fully understand Your amazing and passionate love for us. Fill him with this fullness and revelation of You and help him to firmly establish his identity in You. I pray that Your love will be the guiding force in his life, whether he sees it or not. In Your name, Jesus, amen!
Dineen (who blogs with Lynn Donovan over at SpirituallyUnequalMarriage.com) would like to give away her newest book, The Soul Saver, to one of my commenters. Jus tell me that you prayed for your man, and you will be entered to win.
In addition to writing for Spiritually Unequal Marriage, Dineen Miller has won several prestigious awards for her fiction. She’s also a C.L.A.S.S. Communicator and has been featured on the Moody Radio Network, Family Life and Focus on the Family Radio.Married for 24 years to a guy who keeps her young, she lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two adult daughters, who surprise her daily with their own creativity.
by kathilipp | Jun 13, 2012 | God, Uncategorized |
“Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own. To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.” John Calvin
When things are going well, there is nothing better than being in love with the man you have committed your life to. When you agree on finances, plans, and what to have for dinner, there is almost nothing better than the safety and security of going through life with someone you love.
But when life is stressful, there is no place the stress shows up faster than in your marriage. And that is just plain painful. I know when I get overwhelmed, stressed out, or scared, Roger is the one I naturally take those feelings out on. I don’t mean to—really! But he is usually the one standing closest to me when things explode, and he takes the brunt of the hit. One of the things I need to remember in that situation is that God did not intend for my husband to become my emotional dumping ground. God wants us to bring every worry, every anxiety, every problem, every sin to him.
I want you to be encouraged. I want you to know that you are already doing more for your marriage by committing to pray for him than most wives will ever do for their husbands Just the simple act of praying for your husband and asking for God’s direction is a huge step in having a better relationship with your man.
When I dropped the agenda I had in praying for Roger (though not without a lot of conviction and soul wrestling), I had a new freedom in my prayer life. It wasn’t up to me to change Roger into the kind of husband I wanted. God started to show both of us that we needed to stop looking to each other to meet all of our needs and start looking to our Creator to meet them. It took a lot of the pressure off Roger, and off me.
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. (Heb. 12:14–15)
Dear God, Sanctify our relationship with your holy presence, that we might be for each other a blessed oasis in a dry and desert land. Help us to resolve disagreements and hurts gently, with love, patience, and abiding respect, so that neither bitterness nor resentment will ever take root in our hearts. Let the divine light of your love so shine through our marriage that we present a holy example to others and lead them to your truth.
I would like to help one of you keep the prayer going by giving you my latest book, Praying God’s Word for Your Husband. Just let 
me know in the comments below that you prayed for your man and we will choose one winner at random.
Are you willing to take The LOVE YOU Challenge?
