Need More Control in Your Life? -- Or-- Let's Get Practical

"A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls."   --- Proverbs 25:28

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So after a friend read that, at this rate, Tom and I will live at Hobbit Cottage, like, foreverrr, she wrote with my talent and motivation, I can do whatever I wish here. So go for it.

I nearly choked all over my computer screen.

Do whatever I want? If only! After 11 years my wish list for this house is still acres long--and impossible. Yes, I said that 'i word'. Me, the lady with all the talent and motivation.

Money's not the problem (mostly), but rather, my larger imagination (and wants) than our only 860 square feet, much of it beneath slanted (built that way) ceilings. 

After years of facing road blocks and impossibilities, you must change your dreams lest you become a great big, bummed-out whiner.

And you may quote me. シ

Anyway, some folks swear this is fact--

But not me. That's far too dark and not even true.

For one thing, if we're Christians, God has given us self-control. And hey, you should see Tom and me when tv characters say (usually regarding a wrong relationship), "We can't control the way we feel, you know." Both of us tell the tv screen, "Oh yes we can!"  ツ

Using self-control I can tell my feelings to knock it off if they are improper ones. I can choose to think a different, better way. I can seek more of God, move forward in obedience or even choose joy.

With Jesus, we are not helpless, you know.

Take my small kitchen (please! heh). Because I chose to keep Tom's most-used items on one side and mine on the other, peace reigns in there. 

And many years prior, when I collected tools of my own (and hid them), a bunch of "What did you do with my---" arguments flew out the window.

By purchasing lots of bookshelves for upstairs, I stopped most of my "this house has no storage" complaints.

When I chose to hang wallpaper both upstairs and down, my contentment with this tiny house increased (oh, how I love wallpapaper!).

We had no fireplace here--and Tom doesn't like real ones--so I bought a fake (gel) kind and it's one of my best-loved puchases, ever.

My backyard gardening felt too overwhelming, so this year I moved it to our front porch and the bed below. Everything felt experimental, but so much easier on me--and some items grew well.

I realized no longer can I remove the downstairs window air-conditioner, so we leave it over winter. I hired someone else to mow our lawn, and earlier, a company to remove our too-hard-to-handle 100 feet of hedges.

Unless you're reading this from a prison cell or a hospital bed, you still have more control than you believe. 

Yes, things like the weather and the way people these crazy days behave (and a too small house) may be beyond our control, but even there? Always we can pray, "Lord, your will be done," --

--and then proceed to choose and walk with His wisdom in all our ways.

Choices. Always we have choices. Yet sometimes they're not what we originally had in mind so we must remain pliable in our thinking.

"Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city."   ---Proverbs 16:32  (Yes, even anger is a choice and can be controlled.)

I realized this week why I prefer tiny house videos. They keep me from viewing larger, space-for-all-ideas houses I'll never own (till Heaven) and instead, they show people dealing creatively with constrictions in even tighter spaces than I have.

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Hooray! Finally we watched the Rose Marie documentary made shortly before her death. It's called Wait For Your Laugh and we viewed it 'free' via Prime. Greatly enjoyed by both Tom and myself.

For years I've been meaning to read Essays of E.B. White and finally yesterday I began it via Open Library. What a marvelous essayist he was just as everyone tried to tell me. 

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We'll have our house painted next year and after double checking with our realtor friend, Cher, I've decided on these colors. Can't wait! (I'd love to swing it this year if we can after having the basement water-proofed.)

"My teacher told me that in the future I wouldn’t have to worry about spelling because of autocorrect. And for that, I will be eternally grapefruit."

-- Alice Mills

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Please remember: My posts are always about more than they appear to be. 

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 "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15