Keeping peace in your home revisited

Dear Friends,

Our membership is world wide and every religion! We are the keepers of our homes. It is up to us to set the tone for our families. This may be hard, but we can do it! We can do anything for 15 minutes.

Watch your words to yourself and to your babies. We cannot stereotype a people or a religion because of a few bad men. Fear is their goal! When we let go of this fear we have succeeded at allowing peace to enter our homes.

All any of us can do is take care of our little corner of the world; our homes! You can do this by turning off the TV and Facebook. I fell victim to television many years ago. It literally made me sick from watching the negativity of the news all the time.  I am not saying to put on blinders or not to be concerned for your family members who are in the middle of the news, but what I want you to do is keep the home fires burning. Limit the influx of the media. Their goal is to make it sound as bad a possible and I don’t want their one-sided exaggerations to hurt you or your family!

Focus your fears and sadness by doing something to bless your family! Go shine your sink! Fold laundry! Clean out that craft room! Work on your control journal! Pay your bills! Do not spend all your time in front of boob tube having your brains sucked out by fear! Or checking Facebook every 5 minutes. Unfriend people who spew nastiness and hate. Only friend or like pages that lift you up. 

Your children and your pets are very intuitive. You can’t hide your feelings from them. So you have to insulate yourself from those by limiting your exposure. What you think about your bring about! It is up to us to think good thoughts instead of expending energy on worry; use that power to bless your tiny little corner of the world.  Now is the time for us to do what we can, with what we have, where we are! So what can we do?

Feed our families. Get food in the house. Plan your meals so you feel secure. Pull out your family’s favorite recipes and fix their comfort food. Do it together! Set the good dishes and light candles!  Entertain yourselves with your favorite movies. Make a list of your family’s all time favorites. Look for them at yard sales and clearance racks. Gather up some of your favorite books to read aloud.

Play classical music, gospel music, or your favorite music! Let your spirits be lifted in song your special way! Sing together! Play music on the piano, keyboards, or other instruments. Have a sing along! Sing your favorite holiday songs! Go Caroling! Learn how to sing in harmony! What fun! Drag out the karaoke machines!  (if you haven’t flung them LOL)

Pull out the family board games or a jigsaw puzzle. Sit around your dinner table and play games and talk.  You are not going to be able to isolate your children from all of this, but you can edit what they hear and have it come from you! Worry never made any situation better! If you catch yourself doing this, it is time to take care of you!

Remember what the flight attendant always says when you board a plane: You have to put your oxygen mask on first, before you start to help your child. This means keep up with your simple morning and evening routines, continue to declutter for 15 minutes a day and do the missions for your zone.

Your routines will give you structure and comfort! Do Them!! This means getting dressed to lace-up shoes, fixing your hair and face too! When you start to feel yourself get stressed, then change gears and take care of you! This means give yourself a hug! If you don’t know what to do, then go to our homepage and read the Pamper Section, get in the tub, take a walk, or just sit and listen to the birds sing, light candles, turn on all the lights in the house, open up the curtains and let the sun shine in!

Winter is tough on all of us. We can dream about spring, plan our gardens, and plant seedlings. Dream big! Let’s be ready for any emergency. They keep saying we are going to have a long hard winter.

We can do this. We don’t have to let the bad news disrupt OUR peace in OUR homes.  Are you ready to FLY with peace as your guide? by Marla Cilley aka FlyLady

So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom.  Psalm 90:12