Skip to content

Start here
Christmas
- Christmas
- Christmas decor finds
Shop
Printables
DIY
Organize
Kids
Money
Life
- Style
- Playlists
- Food
- Moving tips & lists
- Photography
- Travel
Faith
- Faith
- Marriage
Tour
Contact

Pinterest
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube

House Mix

Offbeat ideas on family, decor, and organizing for moms on a budget

Organize

How I simplified my whole house

I'm a moderate minimalist. Here are my shopping rules and how I eliminated things room ...

Kitchen organization

Sharing how I minimized and organized every cabinet and drawer. Check inside my kitchen and ...

office desk organization - small home office

Home office organization

Checklist included! We're purging paper, getting important documents safe, even clearing off your computer and ...

Bathroom organization

Time to pull out all those old products, clean the drawers and purge grungy towels. ...

1 week to a clean house in just one hour a day - with printable

1 week to an organized house

A printable schedule and checklist to get things clean and in order in one week. ...

How to clean a shower that will stay clean for months

5 best ways to clean a shower

I’ve found five powerful ways to get my tile shower clean and keep it ...

Girls travel activity binder with lots of fun games and things to do

Packing for kids on plane

I use an activity binder for each kid when we travel. Here is exactly what's ...

How to back up and organize your photos and videos

Organize & back up photos

How I organize and back up my photos and videos once a year.

Moving organization

Home staging, changing address & services to stop, problems to look for when buying a home, ...

Hosting is a snap with these tips and tricks

9 tricks to make hosting a snap

We have people over to our house two or three times a week. AND I ...

DIY citrus cleaner

All-natural vinegar cleaner infused with citrus oil.

mini command center with clipboards and bulletin board

Command center with printables

Printables included: calendar, menu and babysitter info

Brillo Pads also work wonders in the bathroom

The power of the Brillo pad

This classic scrubbing pad tackles more than just pots and pans!

Menu planning for the non-cook - menu chart and dinner idea list printables

Dinner list & menu planning

Printable dinner idea checklist + menu printable + favorite recipes binder = a plan

How to organize your house with kids - toy room, kids rooms, laundry, closets, school supplies

Organizing with kids

For awhile our house looked like a daycare blew up, but because we eat, sleep, ...

Minivan organization

Our minivan might be messy and appallingly dirty, but we do have a few rules.

Hurricane preparation checklist and tips

Evacuation organizing

What steps to take when preparing for disaster — checklists and food prep.

Enter your name and email and get the weekly newsletter... it's FREE!

Your information will never be shared or sold to a third party.

Hi! I’m Kate.

Hi! I’m Kate — child of God, wife, mother to three, creative type, who thinks too much. I blog to inspire and help with all things decorating, organizing, budgeting, family and faith. I keep things real and am not afraid to show you my mess and shortcomings.

ABOUT ME >>

Search the site

Search for:

Follow on Pinterest

Follow on Instagram

housemixblog

Instagram post 2192329195510454288_1582923537

Last week I shared a holiday home tour on IGTV. This week I’m sharing my reality with 5 kids (for a week) in the house! Enjoy 😂➡️ #realitycheck

Instagram post 2191636824921586020_1582923537

(As usual) I have a million thoughts running through my head about hosting children, the exhaustion all moms have with young kids and where we will go from here.
▫️
We are short-term hosting two little boys, ages 1 and 2, this week. We work with a local program called Better Together to prevent children from going into the foster care system who don’t need to be there. It gives parents time to get affairs in order and receive mentoring so the family can be reunited as soon as possible.
▫️
This is the second time we’ve done this and, again, I feel like I traveled back in time to when my kids were little and each day seemed like a week. How is it only 9:30 am?! Someone always needs something. The dishes are piling up. You REALLY need a shower. PLEASE leave the tree alone! And last night’s sleep torture routine is catching up with you. ▫️
For young moms worried they’ll miss the good ol’ baby and toddler days, I’d like to say: It gets better!! SO much better. Conversations and inside jokes. Everyone getting in the car and buckling THEMSELVES! Can I get an amen?! That moment when kids start wanting to help others on their own. That moment when big brother helps little sis with her homework. Babyhood is sweet and precious and most important for bonding later in life, but it gets even better as they get older. You get to keep building onto of that beautiful foundation of love and trust. ▫️
My kids actually act better when we are hosting young kids! I haven’t quite figured that one out yet. (Right now we are only taking in kids younger than our youngest.) My 8 year old has lots of questions about their family, where they will live and observing they’ve probably never been in a car or seen a pool before. I told him something that I’ve just recently learned for myself: You don’t have to feel guilty about what you have, you just have to share it.

Instagram post 2188775120651141715_1582923537

✨{ DAY 30 } ✨THOUGHT LIFE CHALLENGE: You did it! Congratulations on making it to the end of this wild journey inside of your mind! What have you learned about yourself? There are things to rejoice in: God would rather show us mercy than judge us. We are promised that we are never alone and will never be forsaken. Jesus is still on the throne, reigning. And we’re promised that one day He’s coming back to take us to be with Him forever. For these things I will rejoice. For these things I choose joy.
.
.
Admire a cotton candy sunset. Smile at the light of the sun warming your skin. Treasure the laughter of children. Enjoy each bite of savory dinner that you have been given to eat. This earth is a shadow of what it was intended to be, but there are still shimmers from Heaven poking through.
.
.
BUT just in case you want to dive in deep, I can’t help myself. While you’re looking at God’s handiwork, consider these things:
The cosmological constant (the rate at which space expands) is 1 part in 100 million billion billion billion billion billion.  1:100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 — perfectly fine tuned so we are not crushed by gravity (Lee Strobel, The Case For A Creator).
.
.
The chances of all the necessary factors to sustain life appearing at the same time on the same planet are 1:1,000,000,000,000,000.
.
.
The chance of a simple 200-component organism developing by mutation and natural selection, just once, is less than  1:10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (Henry M. Morris, For Time and Forever).
.
.
Each human cell holds a copy of the entire 3 billion letter human genome. That coding would take a fast typist, working 8 hours a day, 50 years to type it out. It would fill 5,000 books stacked 200 feet high. And it all fits inside a microscopic cell nucleus too small for the human eye to see (Desmond S.T. Nicholl, Genetic Engineering).
.
.
God’s design, the golden ratio (2:3), can be found in the human body, shells, sunflower, pine cones, a hurricane eye, an unfurling leaf, petals, ocean waves, music, even the stars! .
.
Look at all that is under His control. If He can do all this, he can care for you, His child, whom he loves.

Instagram post 2188020661369043535_1582923537

{ DAY 29 } THOUGHT LIFE CHALLENGE: What is troubling you right now? Are you having a hard time in your marriage? Are you having a difficult time with a child? Are you tired of being single? Are you battling an addiction? Are finances pressing down on you? Are you waiting on something? Maybe it’s not one thing, but a combination of things together that are overwhelming.
.
.
The Bible tells us we can still be joyful in the midst of suffering! In fact, it says that rejoicing is the will of God for us. It’s a command. And it’s a choice. .
.
I don’t know who had more reason to be joyless than Paul. He persecuted Christians with all his might and zeal only to find out he was on the wrong side. He called himself the worst of sinners, knowing that he had sent many innocent to their deaths. On top of that, once he changed sides and lived his life for Jesus, he himself was persecuted. In his own words: “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.” — 2 Corinthians 11:23
.
.
Yet he rejoiced! Paul wrote his secret to joy while under house arrest and awaiting trial. Even under the immense stress of his circumstance, he used the words “joy” and “rejoice” a dozen times in his letter to the Philippians.
.
.
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 4:4-7
.
.
Did you catch the secret? Rejoice in the Lord. That’s it! The only source of joy is the Lord. Without Him, there is nothing good. He didn’t create evil; evil is the absence of the Lord and His goodness. So if you are looking for peace and joy to mark your life, you have to look to Him for it.
.
.
▪️SEE MY STORIES for today’s thought exercise.
▪️See link in bio @housemixblog to get your copy of Thought Life Challenge devotional and workbook. #thoughtlifechallenge

Instagram post 2187410333992089214_1582923537

{ DAY 28 } THOUGHT LIFE CHALLENGE: A grateful heart is a happy heart. You cannot think of something bad and something good at the same time. When you are giving thanks to the Lord, you redirect the focus from the negative to the positive. That physiologically releases hormones that make you happy!
.
.
A grateful soul can guard your heart against lies, jealousy and deception.
Maybe you don’t feel blessed though, so it’s hard to be grateful. What does that word we frequently throw around even mean?
The definition of a blessing has many layers, most of which I don’t understand yet, but here are two layers of the cake:
.
.
1. A blessing is something that brings you closer to God.
Does this blow your mind like it does mine? For me, it completely changes what I view as a blessing. In these terms for my own life, the hurricane was a blessing. Infertility was a blessing. Waiting years in separate countries to be married was a blessing. Financial hardships were a blessing. Difficult relationships and even losing loved ones were a blessing. Why? Because they all drew me near to God, dropped me to my knees in prayer, forced me to depend on Him when I wouldn’t have otherwise. These are the places of tremendous spiritual growth and maturity.
.
.
2. A blessing is not meant to stop with you; it is meant to pour through you onto others.
This concept adds another layer to the definition. What have you been blessed with? It could be money, it could be spiritual wisdom, it could be a skill. How are you using that to bless others?
We can’t hoard all our blessings and keep them for ourselves. God has chosen for us to live in community and often tends to work in our lives through each other. When you freely give what has been given to you, it will bring infinitely more happiness than keeping it all for yourself!
.
.
▪️SEE MY STORIES for today’s thought exercise.
▪️See link in bio @housemixblog to get your copy of Thought Life Challenge devotional and workbook. #thoughtlifechallenge
▪️Leave a comment here and tell me how you’re doing with the challenges!

FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM

Disclosure

This site contains ads and affiliate links. 20 percent of proceeds earned from my blog are donated to charities for children and clean water. See all policies here.

If you would like to support me, you can do your regular shopping on Amazon after clicking HERE. It costs nothing extra to you and I earn a small percentage. Thank you!

Copyright

Would you like to feature an idea or photo from House Mix? Great! Please use only one image, do not crop the credit on the bottom and provide a link back to the original post. You may not share a post in its entirety. Thanks!

I’m so excited to share my best-selling Ultimate Clean House Planner with you! It’s a 12-page printable with my favorite DIY cleaner recipes, the best cleaning hacks, a deep clean calendar and home maintenance checklist.

GET IT HERE >>

Lightroom Preset

My Tropical Sunkiss preset makes it so you can edit photos right on your phone with a click of a button! This preset elevates phone shots to look professionally edited, with crisp, sharpened details. Even gives you a little suntan!

GET IT ($5) HERE >>

Thought Life Challenge

I’ve created a 30-day Thought Life Challenge, one exercise a day — first working to identify negativity and weed it out, and secondly to find joy through gratitude. Included: challenge calendar, daily devotional and verse, thought and gratitude journal

GET IT ON AMAZON OR ETSY ($2.99)>>

Enter your name and email and get the weekly newsletter... it's FREE!

Your information will never be shared or sold to a third party.