Birthday celebrations

This month we will be celebrating my husband's birthday and a
monumental one at that! Several of my friends (and myself) will also
be reaching this milestone sooner than we might like to admit. This
has sparked many discussions on how we would like to celebrate this
occasion. I heard one of my friends comment that 'it's just another
day'. While this is in a sense true and I am sure this mentality might help lessen the blow of the number of years if you just don't focus much attention on it.

However, I LOVE birthdays...they hold a special meaning to me. This is the day that God
breathed life into you! It is certainly not just another day.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully  and  wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works, And  that  my soul knows very well. (Psalm
139:14 NKJV)

So in trying to come up with something special for my sweet husband, I
went through a long list of his favorite things. What I kept coming
back to was his love language.
What speaks to him most is acts of service!
So I decided starting May 1st that I would do 40 days of service
geared towards things that I knew HE (not me) would appreciate. I
started this venture with cleaning the garage- since this is his
domain. The next day I cleaned out our 'mail drop' and junk drawer.
This is the area where we land all this bills, mail, kids papers from
school, etc.  This area becomes cluttered quickly and tends to be an
eyesore for him. Today, I am serving his comfort- I am off to find a
firm pillow!
I will add to the list as the month goes on... But I can tell you that
in doing this just for the past few days, it has opened my eyes to be
focused more on his needs (and the needs of others) rather than my own.

Helpful tips

Okay, let me start by saying, this is not my normal blog post.  But, maybe it should be!  I love to get helpful hints from other moms, so I thought I would share mine today!
As a commitment to be a good steward of our money, I have decided to veto the dry cleaners and take on the duty myself.  I know, I know- you think that is crazy, let someone else do it but hear me out. 
My husband's love language is acts of service, so this also allows me to feel a sense of servitude to him. Kill two birds with one stone- I am speaking my husband's love language AND saving us money. 
So, I wash the first load of dress shirts and his favorite shirt comes out with a big stain on the collar! I am not sure what it was but it looked like grease.  So, I am thinking, "great, first load and his favorite shirt is ruined", maybe this isn't such a good decision.  Lucky for me, I have 'TIDE to go' stain remover pen and Shout.  I try both of these in two additional washes with NO luck.  UGH!! Now what? Should I just take them to the cleaners and let them deal with it?  No, that is not my nature to just give up so easily.  So, I do a little digging and find a recommended solution....SUNSCREEN!  Yes, you read that correctly!  I had no idea that sunscreen could be used to removed stains and frankly was a little hesitant to glob it on my husband's shirt.  But guess what? IT WORKED!!!  So, I thought it worthy of passing on this unconventional stain remover tip in case you too want to take on the dry cleaning task OR if you just need to get a stain out of the kid's clothes!