Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved,
a worker who has no need to be ashamed…
~ 2 Timothy 2:15
This sounds like a silly question, but if God looked at your home right now, would he see you “a worker who has no need to be ashamed“? Or would he find clutter, like my own, in the small corners where we think no one can see it? Guess what – God sees it. He knows we have our weak areas in home-keeping just like the rest of life. But I want to make a concerted effort to get rid of the clutter that makes me cranky, makes me waste time looking for things, takes my mind off of Him, and put my house in order for a bigger cause: so God Himself will see me a “a worker who has no need to be ashamed“. I plan to recite that verse as I go through each area that needs improvement.
As we enter the New Year, I have decided that 2010 will be the year I FINALLY get all my clutter areas in order. If you walked into my home this moment, you’d think I was a pretty decent housekeeper. There aren’t clothes in the floors, the beds are made, the bathroom & kitchen are clean. But I have dirty little secrets – the junk drawer, the closets, the laundry room/pantry that have become unmanagable in 2009. And the bane of my dinner-time existence — my recipe collection.
My first project is getting all of my recipes into some organized format so that throughout the year I won’t be scrounging through torn out magazine pages and smudged scribbles to find something to prepare for my family. My plan is to clip out all of the recipes in the HUGE pile of magazines I’ve been saving and attach each to an index card. I’ll print all the ones I’ve saved on my computer for making “one day…” and put them on cards, as well. I’ll finally go through the drawer that contains the previously ripped out, scribbled down, ingredient smudged collection and yes – put them all on cards. Then I’ll file them all in a nice, neat, preferably very cute recipe box (or binder – haven’t quite decided yet) and find a convenient home for it in my kitchen (which is a really interesting place to keep recipes, don’t you think? I’m sure it’ll work better than keeping most on my computer in the home office where, by the way, I do exactly NO cooking).
- Want to join me??
- What’s your method of organizing your recipes?
- What are other areas we need to tackle and get in order? Closets? Pantries? Office areas?
Let’s work together and hold one another accountable for becoming workers that our Lord can be truly and completely proud of in managing what He has given us!
Just last night my husband was asking about a chili recipe that I had previously made, guess what?It was no where to be found because,there are in no kind of order, only thrown into a drawer.So this is definitely something I NEED to do!
Thanks for including that verse. I just wrote it down on a post-it and stuck it next to my desk. I needed that reminder.
As for recipes, I organized mine a while back, putting them in a binder. But it’s been a few years, so it’s falling apart and messy now. I need to get a new binder, I think. I actually used a three-ring photo album, because at the time, most my recipes were on cards. Now, though, I have tons of full printed pages that I’d have to fold up and stick in the photo slots, so I think a different kind will work better for me now.
I am going to take this verse and post it in every room of my house. Thank you so much, Melinda. Christmas is finally put away and now I feel the need to climb the next hurdle. Honestly, I think that hubby and I have agreed…it is the garage. Yikes!
As far as recipes, I have a notebook here and a box there. This is a great idea. I definitely need to clean it up.
What a great idea! Even though I have been in our small house for just 8 months, I have collected recipes and thrown them into an envelope. At least they are in one place. And the only cookbook I have is my church one. But it would be nice to have them in a better, organized place. So I’ve been challenged. And my next project is my bedroom, specifically my ‘craft’ area. We only have one bedroom and I’m wanting to make my side of the bed my craft area. Most of my stuff is in storage. Eventually we may move to a bigger place, but right now this is home. Thanks for the jumpstart.
I LOVE this idea. If you walked into my home right now, you would be SO impressed with how it looks – but that’s only because we had a house showing four hours ago. It’s terrible how long it took me to get it to this point. I NEED to keep up this stuff – AND the “hidden” stuff – which, of course, is MUCH worse. And what a motivating verse!
Oh this is SO great! I was JUST working on this today. I’ve had recipes in a recipe book, 2 3×5 recipe boxes, and a 3 ring binder, along with my cookbooks YUK! It’s been insane trying to find recipes. I’d call my mom for a recipe and then I end up with 3 copies of the same recipe… And the clutter in my kitchen is one thing I have to eliminate, too.
Today – I printed 8.5×11 dividers and put them into tabbed page protectors for a 3 ring binder. It’s probably a 3″ D-ring binder. I organized all of my 3 ring binder recipes and added recipes from my personal recipe book, eliminating that one. The next step is to clean out my 3×5 file. I have printable 4×6 or 6×5 recipe cards (printing 2 to a page) and am copying recipes into that format, so I’ll fit 4 recipes into each page protector saving space. I’m keeping recipe cards that my grandmother wrote out and fitting them into 4×6 photo page protectors so they last longer. Basically, all of my recipes are going into the 3 ring binder and I’m eliminating unused cookbooks, too.
I’m also using my menu planners at the front of this book so I have ONE binder to work all my menu plans, grocery lists, and recipes. Whew! I AM praying to be a better kitchen steward – God’s been speaking to me in that, so I appreciate this post!!!
I like to use a regular three ring binder and then get the plastic see through slip cover pages and put them in the folder. Then I just slip the whole page in the slip cover. The slip cover prevents all those nasty food stains from getting on your recipe. This works great for recipes found on the internet or magazines!
Please be sure and check out my New Year’s resolutions at my new blog…
http://www.resolutions10.wordpress.com
Wow! I’m so glad you have found this post motivating! I am liking the idea of the binder for my magazine recipes (and longer ones that I print from the Net). The plastic covering would definitely help with spills and splatters. I plan to laminate the ones on cards. Maybe a sports-card holder-type binder sleeve would work for those? I also have some that my grandmother wrote, and I want to keep those as they are, so definitely laminating them. Thanks ladies!!