Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Making Your Home a Haven Challenge - Week 2


This week's challenge:
Play soft music in everyday in your home and Focus on using peaceful words and maintaining peaceful releationships.

I love this!  Hubby and I play music in the evenings sometimes while we are cooking dinner.  It is so relaxing to come home to music playing, it's a nice way to wash the day away.  I'm only home for about 3 hours each evening before we go to bed, so there is not a lot of time for me to really play music, but I'm going to try to do it on the weekends while I clean and stuff at least.  It makes chores more fun!  I cannot wait until Christmastime, then I have music playing constantly! 

I love Courtney's tips for peaceful words.  This is something that I work on each day, along with patience :)

1. When you feel tempted to raise your voice, us a child's name in a snarl, furrow your brow into a scowl or speak rapidly in anger...purposely lower your voice to just above a whisper.  Focus on gentle words, facial expressions, and touches.

2. Purpose to not let some else's anter make you angry.  Do not respond to other's emotions.

3. Yelling at a bud won't make it bloom.  Your home will not blossom into a haven if you are not controlling your temper.
My solution for this one is to walk away when I am starting to get mad at hubby.  I have the perfect example from last night. 
So, I got home around 6:15, because I stopped at the grocery store on the way home.  I hadn't been feeling very well that day, and I was so tired from a stressful 10 hour work day.  So, when I got home, he immediately said, "I am out of tea and hairspray."  What I wanted to say was, "That's nice, do you think you could have told me that before I went to the store, I called you on my way there for that very reason?  And, oh, do you KNOW how to get to the store?  You have been home for 4 hours watching TV!".  But I didn't.  Instead, I told him that I was sorry, I didn't realize he was out, and that I would go back to the store.  He told me not to worry about it, that he would "make due" for the evening and tomorrow until I made it home (ugh!).  And then, to top it all off he said, "You are going to the gym tonight anyway right?"  I told him I wasn't going to the gym because I was so tired and had a long day.  Then - he laughed at me!!  "I knew you would have an excuse not to go".  I was MAD.  So, I said nothing, put on my gym clothes, went and walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes, worked off some steam, and then I went and bought him his tea and hairspray.  By the time I got home it was closer to 8PM, and I was exhausted, but I wasn't mad anymore, just annoyed.  He had dinner made and was waiting on me to eat, and had done two loads of laundry.  So, I decided not to be annoyed anymore.
Walking away avoided an argument that could have lasted for much longer than a couple of hours, and nothing mean was said.  I need to practice this more often :) 

4. Continue to pray for peace in your home. 

I love this challenge, and I love the idea of our home being our haven away from the world.  Visit Courtney's Blog and link up!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Great job Michelle! We are working on the same thing in our house. It is hard sometimes, but I know it's for the better
BTW...I'm going to miss you at the reunion this weekend! :(