Home Thoughts and Stuff

First off -- here are the Bowtie Blocks I found (well, rediscovered) in the closet purge. There are 60 of them, and material for all the remaining 83 necessary for a queen cover, according to the note pinned with them. Seems her plan was to alternate the green check with an orange check.

These were my bonus blessing yesterday. My main blessing was a closet that, while still rather filled-to-the-brim, can be opened and something located without fear of dislodging a mountain on top of yourself. Not that it can effectively be used as a closet, but it is more calm to think of entering now.

Sara made a note about changing her focus and direction with the Home Challenge. (Sure, right after she tells the world that blog pictures are clickable and you can enlarge them!!! ARGHHH!). Like the rest of us who have allowed things to slide to the point of true disarray and clutter, she realized her "eyes were bigger than her stomach" so to speak.

Trying to regain some control and order when things have gone so far the other way is hard. As I told her, under normal circumstances I'd have told her to put on the big girl bloomers and stop whinning.
By bemoaning the chaos and disorder in your home, wringing your hands over the sheer amount of work ahead of you, you are simply giving too much headway to satan. He is the king of disorder and he takes his job seriously. He allows you a good start, lofty motivations, even some deep inspirations and revelations. Then, shortly thereafter, he starts whispering in your ear.

There's so much stuff.
What are you going to do with it all?
How will you keep it all neat and tidy later?
Is it really going to make a difference?

Well, IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE. The clutter that surrounds your daily activities absorbs your joy, your calm, your sense of peacefulness. By just being there, it walks you into a depression over time. You stop seeing the light at the other side of that tunnel.

Wouldn't surprise me if it didn't displace all the fresh oxygen in the house :o)

Doing a purge is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But truth be told, it isn't really a solution to the problem of clutter. It clears your house sure enough, but watch ov er a short time and you'll see it all come back. Usually worse than it was the first time.

We've been here 4 years as of April. On this homestead 4 yrs this September. We purged A LOT of stuff to pack up and move in just 8 days without an ounce of notice or forethought. I came down with a ton of stuff still, though. Hindsight, I left some necessary things and drug along junk for the most part, but either way, we purged a lot of things.

We moved here with really no practical furniture. No bed matresses, just frames; no couches or even chairs. I brought my china cabinets, my brass and pewter baker's rack, the piano, the buffet, my large dining table (2 of them really), the treadle machine...but nothing of normal daily furniture. We bought the mattresses when we arrived, and Dewey and I slept on an air mattress on the floor.

This 24x60 mobile home was virtually empty, save for the big furniture I brought along. We really had nothing. Look at those couple home pictures now. Hardly a lack of stuff, heh?

Sara mentioned she was refocusing -- from purge cleaning to routine/maintenance.

Truthfully, I know from my own experience that it works. It's probably the ONLY thing that does work. Obviously I don't practice that, given the state of my rooms here, but I know it works absolutely and definitely.

Everything has (or should have) a place of belonging in your home. Books on shelves, papers and bills in a file, kitchen items in a kitchen, laundry in a basket, etc. There might be a lot of stuff, but it isn't nearly as cluttered if it has a home base, as opposed to being left out wherever. Laundry in a basket isn't as messy as laundry scattered on the floors and furniture. Bills and papers in a file aren't as disarrayed as tossed in a heap on the desk or countertops.

Killing your spirit and motivation with the purging isn't going to help in the long run if you aren't setting up daily routines to maintain it all. Your footing will be lost in no time without a carved in stone routine in place.

I can't do FlyLady as it's presented. Drives me insane. However, I have all the lists printed in my notebook and it was a foundation for building my own routines (yeah, yeah...the ones I don't always follow...). I have the Zones listed and when we do some of this attack cleaning, I use them. It's really a great program, and I strongly suggest using it, as it is shared, at least until the habits of maintenance are firmly engrained in your daily life.

Ever watch a swimmer in those small pools where the water flows forcefully against them? There's a name for it, but I don't have a clue. It's for them to get their swimming practice in without a full pool.
What happens when they stop swimming? They are moved backwards by that flow against them.

That's house cleaning, I think. Daily living is a flow (ok here it's really more of a wave than a flow...) And your routine and schedule is what keeps you moving in the pool. When you don't have a routine, the flow/waves of everyday life can drag you backwards pretty quickly.

So, now that I've babbled along enough here, I'm going to head back to my own routine and get my schedule back in order. Today's area is my bedroom. I won't even share a 'before' photo...you saw more than enough of it with the closet cleaning yesterday :o)

Oh -- Dewey is home tomorrow!!!! No word on jobs yet, so keep that in prayer, but it doesn't matter as long as he's finally HOME.