Quieting the Noise

Quieting The Noise: Quiet In The Chaos

I often reflect on my blog and the intentional name I gave it- Quiet in The Chaos- it was meant for a quiet place, where I could come to write and decompress while sharing with readers a quiet voice of learning, living life, and growing in Christ.

It can be overwhelming- the overwhelming number of blogs, the Pinterest posts and projects, the Facebook friends and politics. I enjoy all those things- but truly try to simplify each. I try to limit my time reading blogs because *holy cow* so. much. information. I don’t pin things that I don’t think I will actually try or use, and I keep my personal Facebook friends to a bare minimum, “cleaning house” often.

But it is still so easy to become sucked into the habit of jumping on Facebook or youtube for a quick glance or post when I grab a free minute. Have you ever tried just not opening those apps or websites? It can be really hard to realize how often we turn to them.

And you know what it all is?

NOISE.

All of it is a distraction, a noise. And, yes, I realize I am writing to you from a computer, where I will share my post on Facebook and hope that you pin it under your “inspirational posts” board on Pinterest. =P

But I don’t want to be noise for others- I don’t write content for the purpose of making money or to see how many post hits I can get.

I write because it is fun, and I know what it is like to be online searching for a simple homeschool day routine, dairy free cake recipe, or encouragement on natural, healthy choices for my family.

I know what it is like to sometimes look for resources to help me build my home, homeschool, homestead, and natural medicine cabinet.

I pray that this blog is peaceful to those that visit it; that it isn’t just noise.

Imagine if every time we turned to the noise we instead turned to Christ. Imagine if every time we open the FB app to take a quick peak, if instead we open our YouVersion app to read a Bible scripture or devotional, quickly write in our prayer journal, or stop and pray for someone or something we haven’t prayed for recently. Or maybe we just stop to thank Jesus for this day, and ask for a minute of quiet.

Christ brings peace.

Peace is the absence of noise and confusion.

I will say that again- Christ brings PEACE. Peace is the absence of noise and confusion  … Christ is the absence of distraction from the important things.

Noise isn’t just what we hear, it is the crazy distractions we are propelled towards in this world- T.V., commercials, our phones, apps, computers, commercialism. All these “things” have us distracted from the most important work of all- God’s work! Raising his children, helping his men, being fishers of men for Him.

I am challenging myself to take the next few weeks to break from daytime distractions. I want to spend my time fully present with the important things for my life- Christ, serving my family for Him, quality time with my children and husband, making my days more intentional by menu planning and preparing for the week better so I can have quality time with them, journaling, and also writing for my blog more.

Can you let go of your distractions and replace them with more meaningful moments? We will see if I can! =)

Disclaimer: Some links on this blog are affiliate links; when you use those links you help support my family, at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

All Around the Home and Homestead Linkup {Bi Weekly Blog Party!}

All Around the Home and Homestead Linkup

You may know, in the fall of last year we moved to our dream land – a 40 acre homestead. Whilst our friends were contacting the realtors Greensboro is home to looking for their perfect city house, we were looking for a house out in the country with some land so we could fulfill our dreams of owning a homestead. It has been such a blessing to our family in SO many ways. We didn’t really need to do many renovations either. We used majesticdesigns.co.uk to design some new windows and repainted but other than that, everything else was in pretty good shape. We are not a “fast paced, go-go-go” family; we continue to enjoy weekly activities, outings, and camping but running the roads and being gone all the time is not for us. Our land, woods, and pond are just perfect for our family’s personality.

This spring my husband and I sat down to discuss what direction we wanted to go with our farm- were we out to make money right away by producing vegetables and meat, or did we want to provide for our family first and go from there?

We decided that during this season we need to focus on feeding our family (and perhaps selling extra) while learning all we can by getting hands on experience. Once our children are older and can help more (and I am less busy with babies), we will work on producing food/products to sell.

So, the farm is officially working on being a homestead- raising and producing our own beef, chicken, eggs, and vegetables as much as possible to support our family. Among these things, we have fruit trees growing, and dreams of heifer cow, more baby cows, and a few dairy goats in the pastures. We’re also figuring out the off grid heating solutions and we’ve just found our fresh water supply.

We use our woods to hunt wild game, chop fire wood, and of course to play and learn for our homeschool!

Speaking of homeschool, homesteading and homeschool often go hand in hand, but certainly do not have to. Anyone can homeschool, and anyone can homestead! But both are extra fun when combined.

I am always trying new recipes (many, many fails lately…), tweaking recipes for our children’s dairy allergies, learning something new about the garden (my husband’s the expert there), embarking on a new animal adventure (my favorite part), or starting a home or sewing project. I try to stay focused on one thing at a time, but honestly it can be tough!

Homeschool will wrap up here in about 3-4 weeks, we are going to celebrate for a few days and then I will begin my pre-baby projects (she is due in July) for the next month or two.

If you love homemaking, whether you’re great at it or a bit clumsy with it as I am, or homesteading I encourage you to come here every 2 weeks and link up with us! Don’t blog? Then check out the links posted below from other homemakers and homesteaders!

We will meet back here to link up about every two weeks (that’s our goal) for another post, and to add link ups!

Faithful Homestead