So Far, So Good

Day 3 of my "Not Be A Crummy Housekeeper" plan and I have figured something out about myself--I work in crisis mode but not as much in calm mode.

Some of that is not surprising, I used to do emergency management stuff.  However, my house is clean, it only took me a few minutes this morning (because today's room was the living room and it was already tidy, just needed dusting).

Soooooo......now what do I do?

The thing is that I think I find things to do when I am under pressure to do something else.  Need to mop the floor?  Hey!  Let's write a book instead!  Clean laundry piled upon the couch?  Hey!  Let's play video games!  Kitchen in need of work?  Hey!  Let's cross stitch pretty hankies for everyone we know whilst we binge watch Pride and Prejudice!

Now that I am not trying to avoid anything, I have no idea what to do.  It is the classic "I only want it when I can't have it" nonsense that is the root and bane of human psychology.  I think the adrenaline plus dread of a chore hanging over our heads adds to the rush that distraction gives us.  Now I don't need to be distracted so there is no energy that I am diverting from a stressful task to pour into a fun one.

Gah.  Is this what organized feels like? ;) ;)

Today I tidied and swept, dusted the living room, wrote over 1900 words discussing the Syrian Refugee Situation, watered the plants, drove to Tennessee with TWS, came back and stopped at the feed and seed for scratch and flock raiser, drove to pick up a present, went to the pet store (they did not have the food we needed), drove to the vet to get the food and register MicroMew for his shot series, etc, went to the grocers to get our Thanksgiving meal supplies (OH!  and new cleaning supplies!....wait, did I just get excited over cleaning supplies?!?  Who am I and what have I done with me?), came home, put groceries away (including 4 tubs of ice cream, three boxes of ice cream bars, two boxes of chloraseptic, and one bottle of Robo--there is a cold in the house), then ate lunch.

I actually just volunteered to help The Boy clean his room.

Confessions of a Crummy Housewife

I am not a good housekeeper.  Let's just get that out into the open.  I am a ROTTEN housekeeper actually.  Oh there is not gross stuff, but there is not order or tidiness either.

Now, I am good at many things.  I can help you paint a house.  Help you write a book.  Can help diagnose your illness, help you train your kids and cats.  I can help you improve your relationship with your sweetie.

I can plant a garden.  Cook over a fire.  Help cure your panic attacks.  Discuss literature, the Lord, and theoretical physics.

I can bake bread.  Skin a moose.  Write a poem.  Deliver a baby.

I can even tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue.

But I have never kept a clean house for more than as long as it takes to have company come and go.  Actually there were two times I would clean:  if company was coming or if I was upset.  The kids could see if I was upset so in those "50 year flood" type of time when I cleaned the house spontaneously, they would ask "Who's coming over?".

There is just so many other things that seemed more important.  I spend my time in my head.  My environment just needed to be sterile, not tidy (you might could eat off the floor if you could find it).  I did not care where my shoes were (until I couldn't find them) or if my bed was made.  As long as nothing was on fire or a health hazard, I didn't need order.

I am a grown adult.  It is about time I learned how to keep a house.

I started small--making sure my bed was made every day.  I don't even remember why...one day I got tired of our room being messy and put away a ton of clothes, shut drawers, wiped surfaces.  Made. The. Bed.

And thus it began.....

And every day for the past month I have made my bed before leaving my room in the morning EXCEPT on laundry days when I was going to strip the sheets.  Then I made the bed when they were done.

TWS, with a gleam in his eye, asked if, perhaps, this would carry over into other rooms.  Oh that poor man.  That poor, type A, logistician-by-trade, completely organized man.  I imagine that it was hard to live with his own personal tornado, but he understood that it was not a deliberate thing.  For example, when I get out of the shower and start putting on clothing, my towel actually ceases to exist.  I do not see it.  I do not remember it.  I do not think about it.  It phases out of my existence until it is time for the next shower.  Not on purpose, it just happens.  So I have literally 3 seconds before dressing to remember to hang my towel.  It got to be a habit, so now I do it unconsciously.

WHICH leads me to both my new Word of the Year for 2016 and my game plan:  Diligence.

We, thankfully, just had wonderful company come by, which meant, of course, panic clean.  The rooms were straightened, the floors scrubbed, etc.

Now I just have to keep it that way....which is what I have said before for oh, about 30 years BUT now I have both guilt and a plan :D  TWS never complained about a messy house but he did, after 21 years of marriage, hint that it would be nice.  He is too fabulous for me to deny him, so wishing became guilt which became a desire for diligence for the gifts the Lord gave me which led to prayer which led to plan. (love how that works!)

Because everything is not exactly 100% organized when i am starting, I still have a little backlog to do.  But those will be done on the days of the plan.  I divided the house into specific chores and assigned them a day.  Now, I have done this before, but this time, a)I am starting out after a panic clean and b)I started getting practice by the daily bed making thing.  I have worked out a HABIT, which is what i was missing.  The "bed making" is the starting line for my cleaning for the day.  After that, since I am already "cleaning", it was no big thing to add another chore, for example, sweeping.

Today's chores were:  bathrooms, water plants, tidy, and sweep.  In the span of 2 1/2 hours, I have:  scrubbed both bathrooms (toilets, sinks, shower, walls, floor, counters), washed the dishes (dd's chore but she went to bed feeling poorly last night), baked brownies (for her finals week), swept the house, made the bed, did a light tidy through the house (instead of a deep clean which will happen on the assigned days, for example, today was the day for a deep clean of the bathrooms), took out some trash, read, posted on fb. 

Except for watering plants (which I have not done yet as I need to figure out when citrus need to be watered), I am done with my chores for the day.  I have even painted my nails!


My house is tidy enough for drop by company.  Maybe not "stay for a week company" but definitely drop by company, which frees me up to be hospitable.  Not only that, but the rest of my day is clear!!!  WOOHOOO!!!

I could work on the list for tomorrow, but I am choosing not to.  Today was good enough for today.  This needs to be a habit, which means I will need time for those days when I have appointments or tasks, so I need to get into the "little every day" not "binge clean" which is my usual :)


If anyone reads this and has a trouble area (cleaning, exercising, etc) let me know.  I could use an accountability buddy.  I really want this to be a "thing". :)



My little helper who actually is not as much of a help as he thinks he is ;)

Today's To-Do's

So far behind the power curve.

We do our grocery runs in few, but massive trips.  We bring a large cooler with ice and drive into Big Town.  I had slacked off in this, instead choosing to hit the local Publix (which I love) but the cost difference at Sams and other places is just too big to ignore, even taking into account gas for the truck.  However, this week we went back to our old ways but each evening I was too tired or needed to run somewhere, so I did not get everything put away.

There have also been three medical appointments in Big Town, plus extra things here and there so my house has completely fallen apart.  Can't even find the floor in the kitchen ;).

I also have  been needing to drastically reorganize the laundry room/pantry, the bread baking station, and the plant room which now has 6 or 7 large tropical plants/trees in residence.

I also  noticed that I am feeling a great deal better on antibiotics that I have been taking.  For two weeks I had felt much more run down and miserable than I should have been.  I was wondering if I was getting lazy, but a couple of days on the meds have brought back my old level of energy (though I am sleeping much later in the morning than normal).  I tried the "natural" way to cure an UTI, cranberry supplements, etc.  Twice now I have tried to do the natural bit with no results.  I am not saying that holistic medicine is useless, but I am saying it is not a panacea for everything that ails.  Sometimes the Lord has provided incredible medical breakthroughs, such as antibiotics, for things that oils and a pretty good immune system could not touch.

So, this is me, gearing up for a morning of seriously focused re-organizing :)

Is Home Where We Take Our Stand?

Creating a home (house, garden, etc) as sanctuary for our husbands and children and friends and neighbors and strangers in a dark and jaded world.....

Do we value the task of creating a safe, warm place as much as we should?  I often don't.  It is hard to pulled both to the garden and to the front lines, especially in today's world.

Is that why we love Andy Griffith and Little House on the Prairie and watching Pride and Prejudice, because we instinctively are drawn to the idea of home?  Why we long to get away to beautiful places of good food and soft music and warm greetings?

This isn't about working or not working.  This is more about mindset, about how we spend our time, about getting in touch with a part of us that years of outside pressures might have made us forget that we have, and made us forget what an amazing work creating a safe, warm place really is.

Could it be that this is our stand?  That this is our fight against evil and darkness--to create literal islands of light and joy and peace in each city or country block, to be ambassadors of that light and love when we travel to school and store and doctor's office and restaurant?

Are we talking this duty seriously?  Do we understand the necessity of it?  Are we willing to provide this for others?

The world is corrupted with the spirits of evil and greed and selfishness.  Could it be that our homes are our fortress against such, that we must be diligent to keep the walls of it strong and the insides of it peaceful and light?

Daily Done 2Nov15

-Wrote in this blog and spent time with the Lord.  I don't want to sound pious!  It REALLY is just one of my favorrrite times of the day to curl up in the quiet with coffee and pray and read.  It is not "I am a good Christian, so I am pretending this is fun because I should" but actually is so enjoyable....I think because I am starting to let the love of God actually soak in.  I find I put so many barriers up to His love because I feel guilty or like I am in trouble, but I am learning that is not how God sees me.  He sees me perfectly through the blood of Christ.  Yes, He gently corrects me when I am wrong, but He LOVES the me that is me.  So yeah, it is fun to be with Someone who loves you :)

-Baked peach pie (I had made and frozen it in the summer, took it out to bake today.  Love looking like I have been industrious when I just popped something frozen in the oven ;))

-Made my gift list (jigsaw puzzles and biosilk if anyone is interested :) )

-Cleaned kitchen, including bread baking station.

-Did laundry

-Reassemble bed kits.  I reuse those big plastic bags that you get with comforter sets to make complete bed kits of pillows, a whole sheet set, a blanket, and possibly a mattress pad.  This makes it really easy to get ready for guests.  I will store these in Maisy, our pull behind trailer, in case we have to evacuate due to weather or whatever (plus I am running out of room in our house to store things).  I have two queen kits, two twin kits plus another two that would be more for little kids (smaller blankets), and several towel kits.

-Dinner:  baked breaded pork chops, baby carrots, cheese Texas Toast.

-Supper:  "fend fer"

Vignettes

Good morning darling!

I love vignettes!  I love little scenes in houses and shops that tickle the imagination into thinking "Oooh!  I could be sitting right there!  I would be drinking jasmine tea from the tea cup with the rose on it.  I would be eating lemon cookies, and the temperature would be 78 degrees and it would be about 2:30 in the afternoon and...and...and....!".

I want to make my house have as much of that feel to it as possible.  I never have been that into decorating, so I am trying to catch up :). I hope to photograph my efforts and post them for ideas throughout the blog.

For example, here is one little vignette in my house, made with items that I have gathered/been given through the years:

 

 

 

 

Appreciating the Homelife

Hello my sweet, dear friend!

So glad you are back!  

I have been thinking off an on about making a home.  I have never been that wonderful at it, to be honest.  I have always been a bit distracted by far horizons and personal ambitions.

Finally, I am settling in, at the Lord's feet, in our new house and am loving getting a chance to start over.  I am trying to learn to be diligent in my work, being a blessing to my family, friends, and strangers.

And I will tell you a secret....I kinda love it :D.

I had never felt very comfortable as a "Miss Suzie Homemaker".  I was not very good at it.  Truthfully, I think I could have been excellent at it, but I was doubleminded, trying to be both a homemaker and a world famous scientist :D.  Truly I was not diligent my home because I was reaching for far horizons.  Almost as if I was afraid that if I focused on home, I would be giving up on dreams, instead of understanding that the Lord directs our every step.  Know what I mean?

So, when we moved here, I looked for jobs and did not find any.  The Lord settled us in our house with so much work on the land and in the house, and when I finally decided to throw my hat over the homemaking/farming fence, suddenly I found that that which I always had was what I had always wanted--a flexible environment filled with great people and many, many projects that I can work on.

It is amazing, really, what happens when we DECIDE to do something, not just sort of half-patooty it :).  I just needed to realize that where the Lord put me is where He FULLY INTENDED me to be.  When that finally sunk into my hard head, the peace just started flowing like crazy!

That is one reason why I love love LOVE this blog.  It lets me write and stay connected with you, but also sort of makes me look at my life and appreciate it.  I take photos of my house and yard and when I show it to you, I show it again to me.

Perhaps that is an excellent idea for appreciating what you have!  Take photos of it!  Take photos especially when you do not appreciate it, or if it is something that might easily get unappreciated.  For example, I have a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy bathroom.  After being in the trailer with only one bathroom, having the second is a heady treasure.  However, I can see that, perhaps sometime, I might get weary of the tinyness of it.  At that time, it would be a good idea for me to stage it with pretties and such, and wait for a good light coming through the window to take a photo of, say, a vase of flowers on the sink. :)

Or write about it, if you prefer to write.  I would love to read your little bits of poetry or descriptions!

Anyway, I have tried home life, I have tried work life, I have tried both-life, and am thankful the Lord put me here and made me settle down.  This is what I REALLY want, what my desire was deep in my heart that I did not even know.  I am a farmer, growing catfish and tomatoes and babies and relationships.  I am a healer, when the Lord lets me, of sorrowed spirits and weary minds.  I am a teacher, a scientist, a researcher.  I am everything I ever wanted to be right here, right now. :)

However, if He decides to put me out of the house to work, then I will set my mind on settling down in the work He has laid before me there, too. It is for His glory, not mine :)