Also, have you ever noticed that you can tell a lot about someone by the way the outside of their house looks? You can. Try it for yourself the next time you pull up to the front of someone's house before you go inside. This is why I like for my porch to look cute. And by that, all I mean is that I have a fern and I turn the porch lights on every single afternoon at dusk. There are nose prints on my front door, for goodness' sake, so I'm obviously not THAT serious about it. I don't take myself too seriously, and I don't strive for perfection.
I'll start this off by saying this: some people are just made to be like this. Other people are not. I am thinking of myself right now. My mom is this way, so it was a pretty sure bet that I would be just like her. When I was growing up, she expected me to clean my room every once in a while and to pick up after myself. Even though by the time I was in my teenage years, my sisters were all grown and out of the house, she did not wait on me hand and foot, nor did she clean up my messes. I'm glad she didn't, because that is part of what shaped me into being me today. I was a slob, though. My room might have been clean, but I had this huge closet that was a great place to stuff things into, and most of the time that was what I would do. I would clean it out every other week, though, because I never would have found anything if I hadn't.
My love of cleanliness and keeping up with things didn't come until I was married and taking care of our own home. I cleaned up my stuff, but I don't remember helping her around the house. (Sorry, Mom!)
If you are not naturally this way on your own and you desire to be this way, ask the Lord for His help. He knows the desires of your heart, so you might as well ask Him and tell it to Him. Especially if this is something you think about all the time, or if it is something that keeps you awake at night. I have one friend I am thinking of when I write that. I won't name names, though.
Also, I love this verse, because it reminds me of this subject.
(Thanks, Google, for your images.)
To me chaos and disorder equals confusion. I cannot live in disarray. My brain won't let me. It's like cooking dinner when your kitchen is already dirty. I don't know how anyone could do that...first, the kitchen needs to be cleaned and the sink emptied, then the cooking can start and you can make your mess. I pray this verse all the time. I might pray something like this: "Lord, I know You are not the author of confusion, but of peace. Help me to have peace and order within the walls of our house." You might think that sounds hokey, but I promise, it's not. The bible tells us that the Lord cares for us, that we are to cast all our cares upon Him. If we care about something, He cares about something, because He cares about us.
My main statement for this blog post: start small and start slow. Pick one area in your house that you are in all the time, and start in there. It might be a table, a closet, or a cabinet. Take one little area at a time and make goals for yourself to reach. I do this all the time, saying that I'm going to clean out one room per week until it's done. I did this back in December and January upstairs at our house, because we were redoing rooms and moving people around.
My problem areas are all near or in my kitchen. My dryer is a catch all, and I am always having to clean off the surface. The spot on my counter in the kitchen where mail goes is another area that I am always fighting. I hate paper clutter on the kitchen counters, and it gets junky really quickly. I have a cabinet in my kitchen that is also a problem area, and when August gets here and school starts back, I am going to get rid of most of what's in that cabinet to make it more useful. (It's huge, and that's part of the problem.)
Once you start with one spot, it is very easy to keep going. Doing a little motivates me to do a lot more. I always pick a day when I'm needing to stay home to help me with this. I like staying home on Mondays, because all the laundry needs to be done and the house needs to be put back in order. The weekends are fun, but I let everything go on Saturday and Sunday.
Picking a day and time helps. If you're too busy, then maybe you need to get out of some of your commitments. I used to say yes to too many things, and now I have such freedom in telling people no. :)
Cleaning the house a couple of times a week also helps. When things are cluttered, you can't get to surfaces to clean them. I always clean on Monday and Friday. I like to start the week and the weekend with a clean house. I wipe the counters down in the kitchen every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. I do the same in the bathrooms. I'm in there and I'm washing my hands, so before I wash, I put a little water in my hands and wipe everything down, then I wash my hands, then I use the towel to dry the counter and my hands. Easy schmeasy. I have boys, so the bathroom gets done pretty regularly. I don't do well at cleaning the bathtub, though and make the boys do that. They help clean the whole house, actually. Sometimes I'll get them to do it all, sometimes just their rooms and the bathrooms they use. I always do the kitchen and downstairs bathroom myself.
Having dogs helps, believe it or not. I don't want my house to look and smell like dogs live here, so I vacuum everyday and that always makes me want to do more. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. I use room sprays and fabric sprays like Febreeze to help things smell fresh, and I love to have candles lit.
Another huge helpful tip is not to buy more than you can use. My mom in love and I were talking about this on Tuesday, and while I love the thought of buying things I use while they're on sale and in bulk, to do that, I need the room to do that, and if it's going to take up too much room, I won't do that. I use every bit of storage space I have in my house, so I don't need forty-eight bottles of barbecue sauce when Todd gets them for free. (AHEM.) (That actually happens quite frequently.)
I buy what we need, when we need it. I always wish I could live totally minimally. I sort of use that concept now, but not really. I use what I buy and I only buy what I use right away. I don't have tons of gadgets and tools in the kitchen. If something I'm tempted to buy can't easily be stored in a cabinet, I won't buy it. This same thing applies to my kitchen pantry. I don't like to buy too much food at one time, because I need and want it to stay organized. If it's not neat and organized, we never know what we have in there.
Even with toys, to you moms with little ones, you can use this same type system. I would never bring toys into the house without getting rid of something. We had a place for everything, and I tried to make it easy on my kids to clean up after themselves. We would sing that silly little "clean up" song by Barney to do that, and I would try to make it fun for them, even sometimes turning it into a competition to see who could put things away the fastest. Because boys love them some competition.
It seems like we are always cleaning out closets and drawers, too, whether in the bedrooms or in the bathrooms. Ultimately, I keep things from getting cluttered, and while I may let things go for a short while, I'll get serious about it again, and start over.
Those are just a few small things I do around here to keep things neat and orderly. None of it takes a ton of time, and it's very simple to do and to get started with. My brain works in weird ways, basically, and one small thing (like vacuuming) will spur me on to do something more. I hope this helps you out some, and I hope it inspires you to start setting goals to get things organized.
Most importantly, pray about it, as simple as that seems. Ask the Lord to help you with this task, and then, give it your best. I love this verse from 1 Corinthians 10:31.
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
And then get to it.
Thanks for reading! Love to all.
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