Compassion Question

The Lord has been teaching our family a lot about how we are supposed to exercise compassion with our neighbors. Jesus said the most important thing was for us to love the Lord our God with all our heart soul mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. My question is: **when can you stop being compassionate and still be in Christ?** I am really feeling taken advantage of by a few of our neighbors that we are practicing compassion with.

I know I'm stressed about the actions of people who are going through A LOT. Consequently, they are not keeping their word, which is disappointing to say the least. I am also cognizant of my own failings and grace given me by the LORD. I know there have been times I haven't kept my word, and people have practiced compassion with me. I guess my real question is about boundaries with these relationships.

How can i exercise boundaries without seeming uncompassionate? Maybe this is the maternal instinct in me - just trying to take care of everyone. Maybe that is what has made me so willing to keep giving and giving until I've reached this point. My mom was sort of a martyr. She always gave of herself, even to the detriment of her health. I'd like to prevent the "to the detriment of my health" thing.

Advice appreciated.

Daily to-do list

I've never been a "list person", but have found this daily checklist to be super helpful to me. I keep it taped to my bathroom mirror.

Things to do after I pray:
Take vitamins/pills (AM)
Wash face (AM/PM)
Brush teeth (AM/PM)
Empty dishwasher (AM)
run clothes washer
Shop online (for grocery deals)
Arbonne*
MBA*
Cook
print/cut coupons
clean house
catagorize mail
empty dryer/fold clothes
exercise
call Mom
call Father-in-law
call friends
shop for groceries
fill dishwasher (PM)
move stuff to dryer, run dryer (PM)

Now, I do not get to all of these things before I go to bed each night - but it sure helps when I am sleep deprived, but have energy to do something around the house. I can't tell you how many days I've forgotten to take my vitamins or even wash my face. Taking care of twins is hard. See anything I missed?

Marie

Refrigerator/Freezer

Ok, now I am on the hunt for a refrigerator/freezer or standing freezer for our garage. We have one, but it is a small deep freezer and it usually overfull and hard to sort through. Since I am going back to school next month, I am trying to make sure we have meals prepared beforehand. It would be nice if I could stockpile in a way that saves us money and is easy to access. That way, we can also still eat healthy, even though I am not going to have enough time on a daily basis to cook.

Here's the catch. My goal is to get one for free. I have posted on Freecycle, and am asking people to keep their eyes open if they hear of anyone trying to get rid of one. I've been on the hunt for a couple of weeks now. We will see what happens. I'm not picky - and technically - it is not a NEED, so we aren't going to purchase one. We have other things we are budgeting for.

I'll keep you posted on my journey.

Old School Photo Storage Deal

So, I know, its been a while. I am still hunting for cool deals, and trying to hone my Home Management skills. This week we have been spring cleaning. This was my favorite deal so far - and it happens to fit in with my spring cleaning tasks. I was able to purchase 4 of these photo storage boxes at Michaels.
They are on sale 2 for $5, so if I figure out other uses for them, I will probably go back and purchase some more. If I do that, I will try to take some of those Michael's coupons from the Sunday paper so I can get an even better deal.

I ended up getting 2 solid brown, 1 solid white, and 1 solid black. There were a bunch of funky patterns, but I didn't feel that daring when I was out today.

The cashier said they will be on sale through Saturday.