When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other (Ecclesiastes 7:14).

Before Roger and I got married, we had long conversations about what we wanted our marriage to look like. We both had plenty of examples in our lives of other couples’ marriages—some of them we wanted to emulate; some we wanted to avoid.

With both of us heading into our second marriage, it was exciting to dream about what this marriage was going to look like. “This time,” we told ourselves, “it’s going to be different.”

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What makes a man feel loved hasn’t changed much. What has changed is the role women play. We are no longer solely caretakers of the home—we work outside the home (or inside, as many of us work or run businesses from our kitchen table). We have dozens of responsibilities in addition to keeping our man satisfied and happy. 

So how does a real, true-to-life wife actually get it done?

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Are you constantly fighting the influx of things coming in, and then having to deal with getting things out of your house? Are you tired of talking about living simply and want to really feel lighter as the year goes on? Do you want to be able to close your closet and not be afraid the door is going to pop open and attack the next person walking by? Do you want to be able to park a car in your garage?

It doesn’t have to be that way. Come… live the dream with us.

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Whether you are filled with magical wonder or dread, one thing is for certain: 

Ready or not, Christmas is going to happen.

So it’s time to dig through your basement, garage, spare closet, or under the bed and gather together:

Get all this stuff in one place so that when you have to go into elf mode, you’re not running all over the house.

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At its heart, clutter is a lack of peace. Clutter keeps talking to us, weighing us down, and keeping us from living the life we were designed to live. Decluttering our homes is thus a step toward freedom.

But where should we begin? Sometimes the first step to decluttering is actually taking a step. So I came up with this list of things you can get rid of right now. Today.

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Everything I learned about organizing, I learned in kindergarten. 

The most organized rooms most of us will ever experience are at either a school or a hospital. Since I frown on having to go through minor surgery in order to gain home organization ideas, I choose instead to draw my inspiration from the classroom. 

I have an inside track. My stepdaughter, Amanda Lipp, is an associate teacher at a childcare facility. While she and I were discussing how she wants her room to be set up for her students, I couldn’t help but see the similarities between a well-set-up classroom and a well-set-up home.

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