Tales of a Messy Mom: The Day I Learned to Love Cleaning My Kitchen

You have heard the phrase "having to learn the hard way" to characterize people.  I have never really thought of myself as that kind of a person.  I always envisioned a reckless person who thrashes around just moving through life without thinking.  But today, standing in the small kitchen of a condo in a small Arkansas town, I suddenly realized that I had just learned a lesson a very hard way and there really could not have been any other way.

I hate cleaning.  I hate dishes and cleaning counters.  I hate laundry.  I despise making beds.  My back aches at the thought of mopping floors.  Things that have to be done over and over and over with little to show for it just seem to weaken my soul and bring out the worst, most indignant teenager, version of myself.  Since recovering from the race car's addition, I've really been trying harder to stay on top of household chores.  I even mopped last month long before we were due to have company! I've been trying because I know I'm supposed to and that it makes everyone feel better.  It is important and I'm committed to being a good homemaker sooner or later!   So, as I stood in this miniature version of our kitchen at home that we had cooked in for 4 days in an attempt to save money, I was overcome with this feeling of completion and motivation.  I knew keeping this kitchen clean was easier because it was smaller and we hadn't lived here very long, but the mental clarity that came from the order we were maintaining was suddenly very intoxicating.

And that's when I realized it!  I had been told this little nugget of wisdom since I was a child, but it absolutely didn't matter.  It wasn't until I needed the blessing of a maintained space that I could really buy into the importance.  And the truth is, there is large part of me that doesn't need it to exist myself.  Messes are a part of life and creativity trumps all sometimes.  But now that I'm in charge of 3 little souls and all the things that go into keeping those plates balanced and spinning in the air, after all of the crashes and failures I've had over the last 8 years, now I need sanity, clarity, and order.  That, ugh, starts with a clean kitchen.  So, in that way, I'm really looking forward to getting home from vacation and figuring out new ways to keeping that kitchen clean.  I'm so proud of and annoyed with myself all at the same time. 

Getting Your Hair Caught in the Vacuum

My hair is long enough that it reaches past my waistline.  It's more convenient to put it up in a bun when I'm exercising or doing housework, but sometimes I just forget to.  Yesterday, I forgot to.  Vacuuming is best done when J is awake, but that means he wants to be involved, which I love but can get complicated.  So, the faster I finish the task the better.  As I entered J's room, the vacuum started to sound different and like the careful household item owner that I am (or Mr. Butler has trained me to be) I stopped to make sure everything was okay.  In one quick motion of concern, I leaned down to look underneath and suddenly my hair fell in the same direction.  Before I knew what was happening my head was jerked toward the ground and my hair was being sucked into oblivion!

I recovered without a problem, but it was ridiculous and alarming all at the same time.  And life application came pouring into my brain.   Of course, there is the don't let your hair near the bottom of a vacuum lesson. Beyond that, perhaps this is how some people wind up in the proverbial ditch on the side of the road.  No bad intentions, no ill will.  Just low attention to detail, low caution and suddenly they are getting sucked up into something they never dreamed of.

How to keep your vacuum from sucking you up:

1) Remember the power it holds.  Because something is common to us, it's easy to forget the power it has to affect our lives.  Anything that we allow ourselves to get dependent on or familiar with can and will influence us.  Technology, friendships, even habits like diet and exercise.  Make sure we treat it with the respect it deserves.  It will change your life, just make sure that's a good thing.

2) For intended use only.  When we don't have what we want (companionship, confidence, motivation, etc.), it's easy to pretend to get it from somewhere else (food, spending $$, facebook, etc.).  Food is for health and sustainment.  Money allows the purchase of goods, not happiness! Make sure you are utilizing elements of your life for what they were intended.

3) It can happen to you! No one is immune to being careless and getting sucked up into a whirlwind of some kind.  Know your weakness and put in fences.  If you know you are a time waster and just got a new iPad, set time limits for yourself.  Do you eat when you get bored? Every time that tummy growls, drink a glass of water and do something on your to-do list first before taking a bite.

Nobody (that I know of or would claim to know) plans on getting their hair sucked up a vacuum.  Nobody plans to lose precious time and relationships over foolish choices.  But it happens to us all, all the time.  Take a little inventory today.  "Only YOU can prevent forest fires!" That pretty much applies to most everything else.

The Maintenance Crew

As I was feeding J this afternoon, I started thinking about how much time I will have spent sitting at his high chair, mimicking a baby bird's open beak, stuffing pureed something down his throat.  And then for a split-second I wished it wasn't so.  Some days things like showering, eating and making the bed just seem redundant.  You're going to do it again tomorrow so why worry about it today? :) The more I thought about it though, I have a bad habit of wishing everything was a 'do it once and be done with it' kind of thing.  Don't you?

But let's consider this a bit more.  What aspect of our lives as beings on the earth do NOT require maintenance?  Sure, some require more than others, but everything requires a little bit.  The cactus needs water at some point.  Our spiritual disciplines don't do us any good when they are applied once and then abandoned.  Relationships will not survive without some attention and many require it daily.  And though I sincerely despise housework and the fact that toilets get dirty over and over again, I'm learning to be thankful for the maintenance crew.

When I put on my maintenance cap willingly (in my marriage, in housework, my prayer life, etc.), I always feel better afterwards.  I learn things, I strengthen things and the world is just better.  I used to spend 90% of my energy getting away from things that required lots of maintenance because I wanted to be free to 'do whatever I wanted to.' I'm slowly learning that everything I wanted to do wasn't worth all the traffic jams I caused in all the other parts of my life.

So, today, what can the maintenance crew teach me?  Nourishment and growth takes time.  Lots of time.  Good things rarely spring up over night without a lot of work behind the scenes.  Let's all be thankful for the people in our life that put so much effort into maintenance work, both physically and spiritually.

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

To Compromise or Not To Compromise

I am not an expert housekeeper, an accomplished mother or a master organizer.  I have to work at not being a 'messy' and deep in my heart would much rather run off to a forest or meadow and just think than to clean every nook and cranny of anything.

And yet...

I am what you might call a discouraged perfectionist.  There's a side of me that wants a perfect house, with perfectly made beds, perfectly planned meals and perfect time management so that I even have leisure time to play the piano or read a book.  But when I quickly realize I can't possibly have even half of that, I'd just as soon do none of it.  All or nothing.  My way or not at all.  I have all kinds of projects waiting on me to have the time or mindset to do it the way I want it to be done.  But when things get busy, those things or really anything that takes extra thought or effort, gets cast aside mostly because I can't do it all/perfectly/to my standards.

I think big projects are understandable, but today I've started to wrestle with myself because its a big problem with little jobs too.  I have a basket on my kitchen counter (a present from my sister-in-law, Rashelle, that is super cute!) that is for collecting mail and such things, but sometimes things get left around it, instead of inside it.  Since we arrived home from TN, it has been out of control and gotten worse.  All it needs is a couple of things mailed, and general sorting, but because I have felt pulled by other urgent things and my mind wasn't 'ready' to tackle it, I'd avoided this little task that was junking up entire counter, which in turn makes the kitchen never look clean and my husband to be a bit more crabby because the clutter stresses him out.

So, today, I compromised.  I didn't take the time to sort and act, instead I just shoved EVERYTHING around the basket, INTO the basket.  And guess what? The kitchen looks so nice.  My heart tried to explode a little because I knew that I wasn't fully addressing the problem, but at the same time, it made me feel good to see a clutter-free kitchen.

Moral of the story:
Sometimes its better to do a little (put a band-aid on a problem) than to neglect it fully.