Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Best Dips for Your Super Bowl Party

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Here are the Best Dips for your Super Bowl Party.

I watch football exactly once each year. Scratch that. I eat dip and pretend to watch football exactly once each year.

At our house, we’re a little bit more into soccer (actual futbol, thank you and good night). But we all still love a good Super Bowl party because of the fun it offers with friends. As it turns out, a lot of people really like watching football. They scream a whoop at the TV just like I do when I’m on the sidelines watching a good soccer game.

Sometimes they’re veins bulge at their neck and their faces turn funny colors. Football games bring out a side of my friends I don’t see on a regular day. So perhaps I could say that I like to watch my friends watch football. While I’m eating dip…

Dip is the reason for the season. Super Bowl parties were invented so people could eat dip!! I’m just sure of it.

Football lovers and Chip Dip lovers – unite! This fun event provides a win-win for all of us! (Not that I can guarantee that your favorite team will win. But the dips – we all win with dip. Heh.)

Best Dips for Your Super Bowl PartyYum

  1. Easy White Queso – My Current Favorite!
  2. Simple Bean and Cheese Salsa Dip
  3. Creamy Chocolate Fruit Dip
  4. Creamy Italian Veggie Dip
  5. Cream Cheese Salsa Dip
  6. Bacon Ranch Chip Dip
  7. French Onion Dip
  8. Bacon Tomato Dip
  9. Black Bean Salsa
  10. Easy Veggie Dip
  11. Healthier Cheese Dip 
  12. Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip
  13. Nacho Cheese Pretzel Dip
  14. Easy Guacomole
  15. Easy Cheesy Bean Dip
  16. Hamburber Sauerkraut Dip
  17. Cream Cheese Fruit Dip

What are your favorite Super Bowl snacks? Who loves dip as much as I do?!

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HUGE NEWS! Become a Heavenly Homemaker’s Club Member!

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This secret has been kept long enough! Now that a new year has started, we are finally ready to invite all of you to become a Heavenly Homemaker’s Club Member!

What’s the Heavenly Homemaker’s Club?

Our club members get unlimited access to incredible Club Membership content! You won’t believe all that is included! As a club member, you’ll have hundreds of resources at your fingertips:

  • Access ALL of Heavenly Homemaker’s eBooks – anytime!
  • Access ALL of Heavenly Homemaker’s eCurriculum – anytime!
  • Access ALL of Heavenly Homemaker’s Printables – anytime!
  • Access 52 weeks of Simple Meals Planning Packets – anytime!
  • Access dozens of member-exclusive homemaking, kitchen, money-saving, family-life encouragement and tips – anytime!
  • Enjoy exclusive new eBooks, eCurriculum, printables, and content being added regularly.

We compiled well over $1,000 worth of our products, resources, and printables – created brand new resources too – and beautifully organized them into an exclusive membership site for ease and convenience for your use. Not only that, but we’re adding new content monthly!

Plus you’ll get to be a part of our Members-Only Private Facebook Group!

Our club members will get to be a part of a free private Facebook that offers even more fantastic resources – but more importantly – a beautiful community of a diverse variety of homemakers! Here, we’ll discuss meal planning, homemaking, family life, parenting, marriage, work, homeschooling, and of course, Jesus.

As a member of this group, you’ll get to weigh in on your desires for what you’d like to see and read about at Heavenly Homemakers. This is going to be one fun group!!

You’ll also be added to our exclusive Heavenly Homemaker’s Club Member email list which will be sent out once each week to be sure you’re not missing out on any of our awesome content!

Why a Membership Site?

Because we can’t believe all that you are missing out on!

After 12+ years of being live on the internet, there are thousands of archived posts on the Heavenly Homemaker’s blog. These posts are all still accessible and available – but most of us don’t even know what’s buried in there and what to search for!

There are so many helpful tips, ideas, recipes, printables, parenting information and encouragement posts – thousands of them! Plus we’ve created years’ worth of eBooks, eCurriculum, and Simple Meals Planning Packets.

So, we decided it’s time to make it ALL available in a brand new form: The Heavenly Homemaker’s Club Membership Site.

And we decided to continually create new content which will be bonus material just for our members!

What about the regular Heavenly Homemaker’s Blog?

It’s not going anywhere! It’ll be run just the same as always. You can access it for free at any time!

All the new posts will continue to show up as normal and all the new eBooks and eCurriculum that we’ll be creating will still be sold and available in our Shop, just like always. Nothing will change at all!

But Club Members will GET ALL OF IT at their fingertips, any time, at no additional cost!! Every new eBook. Every new eCurriculum packet or book. Your small monthly membership fee will cover it ALL!!!

We can’t believe how exciting this is!

We have hundreds of dollars worth of eBooks and eCurriculum in our shop – and Club Members have access to ALL OF IT!!! And then some, because we’ve added several additional eBooks to the membership site that aren’t even available in our shop.

Not only that, Simple Meal subscribers are paying $52/year to receive our menu planning packets. But Club Members will receive an entire year’s worth of planning packets at no additional cost! After a year, we’ll add a new supply. And…

We’ve organized all of our recipes into a brand new easy-to-access format:

This is just the tip of the iceberg of all our Club Members will have access to! Check out all the eBooks you’ll have access to!

And these printables! You’ll have access to ALL of them, with more added regularly!

And truly – these resources barely scratch the surface of all that our members will be able to access!

So what is the cost?

You are going to love this!

You can easily become a Heavenly Homemaker’s Club Member and pay only $10/month – which gives you access to ALL OF THIS at all times!!!

Available now:

Plus you’ll have access to our Members-Only Private Facebook Group!

And the longer you are a member, the more you will benefit. Here’s what we have in the works for you…

Coming Soon:

We have never-ending ideas, so members can be sure that the available content will continue to expand. And it’s all organized in such a way that you’ll be able to easily see all that is available, then easily click to access everything you could possibly want and need.

Members will receive access to ALL content for:

Only $10/month

Really? Really!!

Register to enjoy all of these Heavenly Homemaker’s Club Member benefits!

We are beyond excited to offer so much content for such a small price! This membership community is about to become something big – I can feel it!

Ready to enjoy every eBook and eCurriculum, loads of printables, fantastic recipes, amazing resources, and exclusive content!? Join us now!

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Can You Live on Half Your Income to Pay Off Debt?

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Tasha’s back! This time she’s sharing the introduction to her story – how she decided to help get their family out of debt. But wait? Live on half your income? Is it possible on a teacher’s salary?

If you haven’t already, you should read the intro to the intro here. :)

Once Upon a Time When We Were Broke

by Tasha Hackett

Cue Fairytale Music: 

Narrator: Once upon a time in a kingdom near you there lived a little girl named Tasha. Literally, she’s only 5 foot and a hundred pounds. She was the mother of four children. She was married to her King, and she was Queen of her castle and bought herself a Blentec because she had money for it and she wanted it.

Cue Record Scratching

Tasha: Excuse me? Um, no. That’s not at all how it happened. Back up a few years. 

Take Two.

Cue Fairytale Music:

Narrator: Once upon a time in a kingdom near you lived a mother of one little prince. She was married to her King and she was the Queen of her castle… and she… had… a blender that worked well enough…

Cue Record Scratching

Tasha: Nope, just stop. I’ll take it from here. Thanks. 

Hi, it’s me, Tasha. Can I tell you a story? My working title is…. “The Story of How I Decided to Not be Broke Anymore” or we could paraphrase: “My Journey to the Blendtec” Haha. I kid. This story has nothing to do with blenders. Or does it!?

Seven years ago, Ben and I had one little baby boy. Ben worked afternoons and weekends and went to school full time (at a not-at-all-cheap private college). I worked full time in an office. Baby went from Daddy, to daycare, to me, and round and round.

We were broke. 

To be fair, we were broke long before that, we just didn’t understand how much until there was a baby involved and diapers and daycare and medical bills and carseats… 

A friend from school worked as a financial advisor. He asked if he could stop by and chat. Sure! Then he tried to educate us on the benefits of investing, and mutual funds, and retirement, and bla bla bla – I heard and understood nothing. He kept asking, “What do you want?” Expecting us to have these big dreams, and big things we wanted to buy or go or do. 

As I wasn’t hearing him, I’m not sure he was hearing me.

After a while, I jumped off the couch and rifled in the closet for a minute and brought back our money jar. I brought it in with a flourish. In it contained our savings. A few dollars of change and almost $50 in cash. 

I knew I was being dramatic. But I set the jar on the coffee table and told him, “What I want is to go to the grocery store and buy food for my family without my heart racing because everything is too expensive.” Our meeting ended shortly after, we said thanks anyway, parted as friends and went on our merry, happy, broke way. 

Fast forward a few years. I’m a stay-at-home mom to two kids. Ben is now a middle school teacher making $35,000. This was SO MUCH MONEY!!! So. much. (By the way, I’m going to bust through that awkward social norm and use real numbers with you.)

He started at $28,000 in Kansas. Now at $35K, we ordered pizza every Friday ($15) and went out for donuts every Saturday ($4). I bought the real whole food ingredients that I needed to make food for my family ($?). I was making some of Laura’s recipes that included the luxury of cream cheese and chocolate chips. We called back our friend and said, “We’re ready now!” We were finally ready and peaceful about investing for retirement.

AND YET!!! Somehow we were still broke. This was three years ago (after investing for a year), and I was now the mother of three children. I had a sad, “oh-poor-me,” moment and whined something like this to our financial guy, “I feel like we’re just barely keeping ahead! Are we going to be poor forever… ? I just… when are we going to be able to take our family on trips, are we ever going to be able to go places and do big things?” 

And he said something like this, “… it’s going to take a long time.” 

The Breakthrough

I don’t know what it was in those words, but SOMETHING CHANGED in me. The debater and controller and adventurer in my soul said, “Challenge Accepted.” I had found a motivator. I had found a WHY that spurred me. A silly thing in hindsight, of all the reasons, for me it wasn’t the big trips or the future RV or the new clothes from an actual store, but the challenge itself that I was NOT going to let it take a long time.

This was October 2016. I ran the numbers over and over. Scraps of paper littered our house with pencil marks and budget plans scribbled in the margins. I started keeping a detailed track of how much was I really spending on groceries every month. How far could a tank of gas get me? If I cut out this and that could I stretch it this far…? The question I was trying to answer:

Could we live on half our income? 

To be continued…

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That One Time I Had to Chase my Taco

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I figured you’d surely like to hear about that one time I had to chase my taco. Yes? Ok.

That One Time I Had to Chase My Taco

T’was the month of December, and every time I went to Walmart I inevitably filled my cart to the max. Sure, I was Christmas shopping, but also, there were nine of us living in our house at the time and the groceries required to feed nine people plus a frequent surge of college friends always results in a very full cart at Walmart.

(Asa has since moved away to enjoy his wonderful new job; Justus moved back to the dorm; so now there are “only” seven of us. Not to worry, my grocery cart still overflows.)

So there I was, alone at Walmart with a cart filled to the top. Mmmm, we shall pause a moment to reflect on the fact that I WAS ALONE. This is a miracle in and of itself because of the aforementioned nine people in our household. Ahh, Mama was shopping alone.

With my list almost fulfilled and then some, I decided that since I was alone I should consider what I needed for Brayden’s upcoming birthday party. We’d be feeding quite a crowd – tacos, one of Brayden’s favorite meals. And we needed some games and activities to keep the kids busy…aha. A pinata. That would be fun!

I muscled my very full cart to the back of the store to search for pre-made pinatas. While en route, I had a conversation with my frugal-minded self: Couldn’t I just make a pinata myself for very little money? Great idea! But no. Seeing as there were nine in our home and two of them are babies and one of them was a busy 5 almost 6 year old – pinata-making would not fit into my day. Just fork it out, Laura. Just buy the pinata.

I found many pinatas hanging in the party section. Ooh, a Minion pinata. Brayden would love it! Ouch – I took a look at the price tag. $19. Ugh. Keep looking, keep looking…aha! A taco! It was a pinata in the shape of a taco, and who wouldn’t want to take a swing at a taco after eating a taco? I shook my head at myself for finding this to be so clever. The price was lower, but still a cool $14 for a flimsy chunk of cardboard with tissue paper stuck to it.

Still, it was a pinata and it was completed and I would not have to make it. Plus it was a TACO {chuckles quietly to herself as she ignores the price tag and puts the golden taco on the bottom of the cart}.

Somehow I made it through the checkout with my incredible load of loot. God bless the cashiers who draw the short straw resulting in their turn at scanning and bagging my trillions of items.

My cart was heaping full of bags so after paying my bill, I slid the taco back into the bottom of the cart – the only place it would fit.

Bad idea.

I took only three steps outside with my heavy cart, which placed me smack in the middle of the main drive for ALL THE CARS. And that’s when it happened.

My taco. It got caught by the wind, got whipped right out of the bottom of the cart, and began tumbling across the parking lot to the north. The wind in Nebraska is something to brag about, and somehow at Walmart it’s always worse. I know this, and yet I still failed to protect my taco. {hangs head}

Within the course of only three seconds, my taco had tumbled many yards away from me. I didn’t give my loaded cart a second thought, but abandoned it and began chasing my taco. I had just paid $14 for it so you better believe I wasn’t going to let it get away.

As typically happens when one is trying to chase something that is blowing away, each time I almost reached my taco, the wind whipped it farther from me. This happened at least four times, carrying it almost all the way to the wide-open field beyond the parking lot. “I WILL NOT LOSE MY TACO! I WILL NOT LOSE MY TACO!” is all I could think of as I ran after the flyaway pinata.

Finally, it bumped into a curb which slowed it down just long enough for me to pounce. I grabbed that taco and hugged it close – you know – so it wouldn’t blow away again.

Relieved and significantly winded, my mind snapped back to the reality that my loaded cart still sat far away from me in the middle of the main Walmart driving area. Clutching my taco, I ran (or did whatever verb fits the description of a woman in boots hurrying toward a cart while hugging a large taco). Wishing for an inhaler, I made it back to my cart and began looking around to see how many car accidents I had caused or at the very least who might have found the entire lady chasing taco show extremely entertaining.

No one. Nothing. Nada.

This, on a busy Saturday at Walmart during the month of December. Not one person had noticed, moved my cart out of the way, or cheered for me as I chased my taco toward the cornfield. Apparently people were too wrapped up in their own holiday preparations.

Or perhaps it’s more common than I realize that women chase their tacos through the Walmart parking lot. Hmm, I had no idea.

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Instant Pot Taco Pasta (Stovetop or Crock Pot Options)

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I’ve already shared my Taco Pasta recipe in both Crock Pot and Stovetop varieties. Recently I created an Instant Pot Taco Pasta variety that is a must-have!

If you don’t have an Instant Pot, I do highly recommend them for the time and energy you’ll save in the kitchen! I love mine!! I have this one…do consider investing!

As you know, I love having hamburger meat cooked ahead of time to pull out and use as needed for super quick meals. You can read here about how I cook 5-7 pounds of frozen hamburger meat in 30-minutes in my Instant Pot.

So, if I have hamburger meat already prepped ahead, it is super easy to throw this Taco Pasta into my Instant Pot and have our meal ready in 10-15 minutes! I usually serve it with a salad (that everyone makes themselves directly from the container of mixed greens).

Fun fact: one of our babies wants to eat everything we eat, so naturally, he recently also wanted bites of salad we were eating. Matt gave him little bites (plain) and he gobbled it up and kept asking for more. This, with 7 teeth. Not sure how long this will last, but as long as the child eats greens, we shall feed him greens!

But back to this simple recipe:

Instant Pot Taco PastaYum

Instant Pot Taco Pasta (Stovetop or Crock Pot Options)
 
Save Print
Author:
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 1 pound ground taco meat (cooked)
  • 16-ounces whole grain pasta (uncooked)
  • 32-ounces salsa
  • 2 cups water
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 cups shredded cheese
Instructions
  1. Stir cooked taco meat, uncooked pasta, salsa, water, and salt into an Instant Pot.
  2. Seal and cook on manual, hi pressure for 4 minutes.
  3. Quick release the pressure.
  4. Stir mixture.
  5. Stir in cheese and serve.

 

Don’t have an Instant Pot? No problem! Here are other options for you!

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Want more Simple Real Food Recipes? We’ve got a beautiful cookbook full of them!

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Why I Shop Azure Standard

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It’s been a while since I’ve talked about why I shop from Azure Standard. Maybe you were wondering if I still did? What is Azure Standard anyway?

Azure Standard is a food co-op that has been one of our main food sources for years! They are based in Oregon, but ship to hundreds of drop points all over the U.S. every month.

If you aren’t already a member of Azure Standard, I highly recommend giving it a try if a drop point is available in your area. (If there isn’t one currently, you can look into starting one. That’s what I did many years ago, and now they deliver right to our town!)

See, I don’t live near to a Whole Foods or any of the fun natural food markets. Nor do I live close to Costco or Aldi. But even if I did:

I would still shop Azure Standard.

Azure Standard prices are much, much lower than most grocery store prices. Yet they still carry almost everything a natural food store would carry. I love it and consider myself very blessed to have Azure deliver directly to our town once each month!

In addition:

  • Azure has great customer service.
  • Their truck drivers are always super nice and helpful.
  • Any time I call Azure for any reason, they work out my issues (which are rare and infrequent) without problem.
  • They carry a huge variety of groceries from fresh to frozen to boxed to canned.
  • The quality of their food is top notch!

How Azure Standard works:

  1. Become a member. (It is completely free.)
  2. Join a local drop point (or start one).
  3. Order online each month according to your needs. (There is no obligation to order if you don’t need or want anything. Just shop any or all months of the year as needed.)
  4. The drop coordinator for your group will be informed of the truck delivery time each month. He/she will send information to let you know when/where to meet.
  5. Meet at the designated pick-up time and location to help unload the truck and take home your order! This unloading and sorting process usually only takes 15 minutes. Easy peasy!

I’m working on a new post to share what items I frequently buy from Azure Standard. Be watching for that in the next few weeks!

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Is it Really Possible to Pay off Big Debt with Little Income?

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Do you have big debt and little income, leaving you to wonder how you can ever get ahead? Tasha’s written for us before (here, here, and here). (Hey! Did you set your goals yet?!) Now here she is again with big wisdom and encouragement. (Spoiler: The debt? It IS possible to pay it off!)

Is it Really Possible to Pay off Big Debt with Little Income?

By Tasha Hackett

Doubt is seeping in. I browsed other personal finance blogs and thought, “Why would anyone read what I have to say when there are plenty of others saying it?” But the more I read, the more I found I do have something to say.

I have something to say to the mom who gives and gives and gives and then when she says, “Not right now,” her son complains. And it totally stinks because what you really heard him say was, “You’re not enough, Mom!” and it’s totally true. You’re not enough!! (But Jesus is enough. Laura and I can tell you all about that.)

You’ve been awake since 4:45 a.m. with the baby. You fed all of them, provided clean clothes for all of them, played (a little) with them, texted your sisters who live hours and hours away, nursed the baby a hundred gazillian times, and did all the things. 

I’m writing for you. 

While wiping the children’s toothpaste out of the sink at 10 p.m. the baby starts to cry again and you can’t even tag out because the husband is still out working in the garage trying to finish the project that has to be done before the weather happens.

I’m writing for you. 

When you went to the grocery store today you only had $95 left in your checking account and payday isn’t for another 12 days and milk is $3.75 a gallon and the prices are so overwhelming and you walk out of the store with a carton of eggs and a head of cabbage because you can’t handle it.

I’m writing for you. 

You have a glass jar in the closet that you’ve been putting extra dollars in for a vacation or a date or something. You counted and there is only $50 in the whole jar, and you wanted to cry, but you didn’t because you can do hard things and you put all the cash back into the jar and shoved it back in the closet. 

I’m writing for you. 

You worked eight days in a row at three different part-time jobs and this weekend you watched two full seasons of that show on Netflix and you don’t even know what investing means, you’re just happy you have a car that runs and a little extra for gas. 

I’m writing for you. 

To the me 13 years ago that wishes she knew what I know now. I wish I could reach back there and give her and hug and say, “You’re doing a wonderful job! And here are some tips to help you enjoy life more.” 

So what am I writing? 

I’m writing you some hope. Some humor. Some gut-wrenching truth. Some down-to-earth practical tips that just might save your sanity. And some thank-goodness-for-Jesus reminders. All wrapped around the theme of Personal Finance. 

To introduce my team: There’s me, Tasha, and the husband, Ben. We have four kids currently aged 7, 5, 3, and 8 months. And a pet rat, Tippy. Because aint-nobody-got-time-for-that – he is in the sole care of First Born. We live in a tiny Midwest town, 50 miles from malls and bulk food stores. And we are debt-free except for the house. Because of that last sentence, we are planning our very first take-the-whole-family-in-an-airplane not-to-see-family but-to-spend a-bunch-of-money-having-fun trip for this summer.

Hi, My name is Tasha. And I’m addicted to paying off debt. On a teacher’s salary of less than $50,000 a year, Ben and I paid off $40,000 in 24 months while cash flowing part of his MA, investing for retirement, and still enjoying birthdays, holidays, and traveling to see family who live hours and hours away. 

Within the series I am about to write and share, you will find how we keep plugging away at it, what we eat, how we play, and how we keep finding joy through it all. I have more to share in the coming weeks!

Drop a note here with questions, suggestions, or comments. 

Yours Truly, 

Tasha

Note from Laura: In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing several posts from Tasha letting us know how she and Ben have knocked out so much debt so quickly! You are going to love reading these!! :) :)

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Declutter with Purpose! Join our Clean Out with Love Challenge!

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Feeling inspired to clean out your house? Great! But we’re here to encourage you to declutter with purpose. Instead of simply getting rid of “stuff” from our homes, we’re going to focus on ways we can bless others. Let’s Clean Out with Love! Join our brand new 30-day challenge!

There are declutter challenges and printables all over the internet right now. After all, most of us have had a marvelous holiday season are we’re ready to settle down and get our homes organized!

I’m right there with you – and it was my search for helpful decluttering lists that inspired this Clean Out with Love Challenge.

I would imagine that most of us have in mind to donate the unused items we’re clearing out of our homes. But I want to encourage us to take it a step further. There are two main things to focus on as we clean out our homes:

  1. Ask God to help us know who should be the recipients of our donated items.
  2. Let God help us focus our hearts on generosity instead of allowing ourselves to struggle over what we should part with.

It’s too easy to slip into the wrong mindset. Instead of cleaning out our homes with love, we can struggle to hold on to stuff that doesn’t really matter, unsure if we’re ready to part with it. Or on the flip side, we can grab broken games with missing pieces and put them into our donation boxes.

Instead, we want to start getting very excited about how many items we can pull from our homes that will truly be a blessing to those who have a need!

Declutter with Purpose!

Sorry to contradict Marie Kondo just a tad bit – but I’m going to venture to say that as you’re cleaning out your home – even if the item DOES bring you joy, it still may be something you should choose to part with. Why? Because it can bring someone else joy instead! Someone who has less than you and a bigger need for useful household items.

This challenged is wrapped in prayer.

As we clean and declutter, we’re going to pray over our homes and pray for the recipients of our donations. We’re going to ask God to help us know what stays and what goes. And we’re going to ask Him to show us people or organizations who need all of our donated items. (I shared within the packet who our family plans to donate to. I’m pretty excited!)

Pray, pray, pray! This is so much bigger than simply cleaning out clutter. This is about letting God’s light and love flow into our homes and out of our donation boxes and beyond. The power of prayer is amazing!

Let’s do this!

While we’ve put this together as a 30-day challenge, the Clean Out with Love packet can be used in whatever ways God leads you. You’re likely to get on a roll and complete the entire challenge in just a week. Or maybe you and your family can spend a few days here and a few days there this month decluttering and getting organized.

Get your Clean Out With Love eBook here:

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    Clean Out With Love

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    Feeling inspired to clean out your house? Great! But we’re here to encourage you to declutter with purpose. Instead of simply getting rid of “stuff” from our homes, we’re going to focus on ways we can bless others. Let’s Clean Out with Love! Join our 30-day challenge with a purpose!

    Let this simple and practical eBook walk you through cleaning out every extra item in your home with the purpose of both giving you breathing space and providing for others who have needs for their homes and families. Pray as you work, get your family involved, focus on scripture (gorgeous printables included!), and be intentional about letting your excess become someone else's treasure as they are provided with needed items for their families!
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    Clean Out With Love

    Clean Out With Love

    $6.00
    Feeling inspired to clean out your house? Great! But we’re here to encourage you to declutter with purpose. Instead of simply getting rid of “stuff” from our homes, we’re going to focus on ways we can bless others. Let’s Clean Out with Love! Join our 30-day challenge with a purpose!

    Let this simple and practical eBook walk you through cleaning out every extra item in your home with the purpose of both giving you breathing space and providing for others who have needs for their homes and families. Pray as you work, get your family involved, focus on scripture (gorgeous printables included!), and be intentional about letting your excess become someone else's treasure as they are provided with needed items for their families!
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Quick and Easy New Year’s Snacks and Treats

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Need some quick and easy New Year’s snacks and treats? We’ve got a great list of fun recipe ideas for you!

Yum

This time, we’re going to focus on finger foods. After all, on the final day of the year, who wants to use a fork? We’ve done that for 364 days already this year. At this point, we just.can’t.handle.picking.up.a.fork.

And also? Finger foods are more fun on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Right?

My personal preference is to make several fun snacks and treats, then pull them out onto a buffet so we can all munch and graze while we play games, hang out, and visit. Here are some of the ideas I’m working on for this year:

Quick and Easy New Year’s Snacks and Treats

And for some added fun, may I suggest that you brew some coffee and have bowls of these set out for people to add to their mugs?

For the record, I will be making an enjoying these finger foods, but I will not be staying up until midnight. You?

Happy New Year!

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Make Goals for 2020 – With Printable Worksheets!

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A new year is coming, and we’re encouraging you to make goals! Better than resolutions? SO MUCH BETTER. My friend Tasha is writing with some super practical encouragement and tips! Plus grab the printable worksheets she put together for us too. It’s like she thought of everything!!

Make Goals for 2020

By Tasha Hackett

Are you a New Year’s resolution maker?

I was! I loved making them. And just like the rest of you, I was not good at keeping them. By the end of January I had not kept up any of them, and by the end of February I didn’t even remember what they were. So… I gave up and decided life was too short to waste it feeling that kind of guilt. 

But then I discovered GOALS. 

Resolutions are so resolute. Get me? Like, you have to or it’s broken. Forever. No going back. A resolution is something you do when you want an immediate change. A goal is the end result of a change. A goal is something you have complete control over–and I do so love to be in control. Ask anyone who knows me. Being in control is my jam. I used to think I was a go-with-the-flow kind of girl. Turns out I am not. I’m usually like, “I am the flow, get in.” This attitude served me well growing up and through college. Being married and navigating the merging of his family with the way I was raised and then having four children–who are actually tiny humans with their own thoughts and dreams, rudely awakened me to some personality flaws in myself. Why do I tell you all this? No reason. 

So… GOAL = the object of a person’s ambition, an aim or desired result. (Thank you, Webster.) In other words: Something you control.

Do not confuse a goal with a desire or a resolution. Example: I will exercise everyday. That is a resolution. And what happens when I miss a day? Or two or seven. YEAR RUINED!! Example of a desire: My family will exercise with me. I do not have the power to dictate what my family does. Change that to a goal: To be able to jog 3 miles without feeling like I’m going to die. Then I work backwards and set up mini-goals to help me reach my main goal. This will include my family exercising with me, and this will most definitely include me attempting to exercise everyday, but my goal would not be derailed if those additions were to falter.

New Year’s Goals are Super Fun!

Maybe I’m a lot more Type A than I should be. But seriously, if you think about the point of goals is to make your life better then why would you not!?! Let’s do it! Not to completely overwhelm you, but did you know there are oh so many goal categories? Would you like to improve your life in any of these areas? Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Career, Homemaking, Social, Financial… 

Your assignment is a simple and easy two-step process:

1. Print out the nifty Goal Setting Worksheet I’ve created for myself you and fill it out.

Personally, I am going to re-evaluate how I prepare meals. I’ve been reading Heavenlyhomemaker posts for years, and yet I still spend unnecessary hours in the kitchen. Apparently, there is a better way. With a 7, 5, 3 year old and a baby at home. Look at this cutie, he makes writing not easy or simple at all. 

I gotta get this figured out. So one of my goals will be to set up a new meal planning, shopping, cooking system. One that is Easy and Simple. Perhaps a book like this will help me. {Laura interjects a nod, a wink, and a smile!}

2. Print out the nifty Goal Achieving Worksheet (page 2) for each of your goals and fill it out. 

As for me, I will be looking into actually following the Simple Meals subscription, shopping with the list, scheduling weekly shopping trips, and planning meals in advance. I use so many of these recipes, and have implemented many time-saving strategies–such as freezing muffin batter, and making double or quadruple of a recipe. But I have been dragging my feet against actual meal planning. Time to grow up, Tasha! 

Would you like to grow up with me? Print your goal worksheets here. Have you been a resolution or goal setter in past years? Do they excite or frighten you? Drop a note and let us know!

Now excuse me while I go play peek-a-boo and nod to Laura because my Tex-Mex Chicken dinner is already in the crock-pot.  

Cheers!

Tasha

Grab the Goal Setting and Goal Achieving Worksheets here!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!