Clutter Busting Challenge Day 7

For the month of May I'll be spring cleaning 

through the ebook 31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae and joining 

Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom for her Clutter Busting 

Challenge! 

Join me on this journey! 

Good Morning all! This is Day 7 of the 31DtC/CBC!

Today the reading spoke about the curse and it's role in what we're dealing with in our striving for a clean home.

I know there are times when I feel like I can't make any progress on the house, and I get so overwhelmed by it, by how much I see needs to be done. I don't know about you, but I feel so frustrated sometimes when it just doesn't seem to go the way I intend for it, or when it takes twice as long to get done. All of this is because of the Curse.

I don't want to go into too much detail and take away from the book, but I will say I'm not sure I agree with the reason the author gives for the Curse. Regardless of that point, the Curse is something we all deal with daily. Sometimes we realize it, sometimes we don't. But either way, turning things around in our home is that much more backbreaking, now that I realize what we're up against. The Curse of all things! No wonder I haven't been able to do this cleaning thing on my own. I now realize just how much I NEED Jesus with me while I tackle this. Amazing I would even try to do this on my own. Wow.

What do you think of what we're facing during this challenge? Do you feel it's something else entirely?

Clutter Busting Challenge Day 6 Update

Hi all! This is Day 6 update.

 Sorry I didn't post it last night. D-baby was not wanting me to go anywhere and wanted to cuddle with mama to go to sleep.

So yesterday I had to make a "Six List" for the day and start checking things off. Here's how my list ended up:

Not bad for the first try!

I also had to clean out my cabinets, reorganize an purge some stuff if it didn't belong anymore. Here's what I got rid of. I'm going to make this stone count for two birds and use this for my Clutter Busting Challenge.

~ Four coffee mugs
~ Two sippy cups
~ Three lids with no cups
~ One flip top cup that I've never really liked.

10 things for the day. I only got through 3 cabinets, and I have 6 left. We'll see how today goes. I'm hoping to get through most of them today.

Clutter Busting Challenge Day 6

For the month of May I'll be spring cleaning 

through the ebook 31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae and joining 

Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom for her Clutter Busting 

Challenge! 

Join me on this journey! 

Good morning all!

I hope everyone's weekend went well! We've been battling more sickness here, so sorry for the lack of posts on time. I'm praying and taking action to make sure this week will be much better.

Today was day 6 in the 31DtC/CBC and the book reviewed "The Six List". You can see the original story here, but it's basically getting into the habit of writing down the six most important things for the day and then tackling them one by one.

I've seen this in Mary Kay before, but I never really took it to heart then. Now, I do something like that to keep the two most important chores going every day. I go through my morning routines and then start on the dishes and laundry. I figure these are the most important things to tackle here because if we're too busy for anything else, we'll at least have clean clothes and diapers for D-baby and we'll have clean dishes. Then I'll tackle the rest of the chores/projects the rest of the day. 

I've tried to do it more like this before, but never really made it habit. I don't know if I'll stick with it like this, but I'll try for the challenge. I know there are a couple things I've been putting off for awhile, so maybe doing it this way will help me remember them much better than my current method, which can be a bit scattered at times.

So, how do you organize your day's tasks? Have you tried "The Six List" or something similar? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Clutter Busting Challenge Day 4 and 5 Update

For the month of May I'll be spring cleaning 

through the ebook 31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae and joining 

Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom for her Clutter Busting 

Challenge! 

Join me on this journey! 

Hi all!

Usually I don't update 2 days at once, but it had to be done. 

Anyways, so here's the results of my day 4. I didn't get anyone invited over, but I did call a few people that day which resulted in me sitting down for a while instead of multitasking and cleaning while on the phone. It was so nice to be able to just sit for awhile and intentionally not worry about what mess was lurking behind the corner. 

For day 4 I was also to clean the oven and microwave.

BLECH! I am so glad that's gone now!

 

Here's the oven. I've got it all sprayed down with oven cleaner. It's been sitting overnight, so I'll clean it up later on today.

 

 

For day 5, I thought about the way my priorities seem to be lined out right now. I still haven't come to a conclusion for how to best realign them to what I think they should be. Is it just that I need to spend more time on those that are important to me or do I just need to make it a heart adjustment? I'll really need to think on this more. For now, I think I'll use what was written in the book as a springboard for crafting my own set of priorities. 

Today, I also cleaned up the glass door and the window in the kitchen. It was ugly, ya'll.

Here's the before of the door:

and the after:

I forgot I had needed to get 14 things for the Clutter Busting Challenge and ended up only getting 7 instead. I'll try to remember again today. Here's what I'm getting rid of:

~5 old, expired medications. I emptied out the bottles, but our recycling program doesn't take prescription bottles, so I just took off the old labels, washed them out and will re-purpose them to hold seeds from the garden. I am so glad these are out of my house!

~A bag of cheerios I found in my purse

~A plastic container 

Hope to be back with a Day 6 post in a bit!

Clutter Busting Challenge Day 5

For the month of May I'll be spring cleaning 

through the ebook 31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae and joining 

Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom for her Clutter Busting 

Challenge! 

Join me on this journey!

 

Good morning all! This is day 5 of the 31DtC/CBC!

I haven't gotten to post my Day 4 update yet, mostly because I haven't done it yet, so I'll be doing Days 4 and 5 together and posting them together tonight, including getting rid of 14 things total, since I didn't get to that yesterday either.

Today's passage is about the priorities in our lives. Most of us would say we have our priorities in line. But do our lives reflect what we say our priorities are? Probably not as much as we would like them to. I know this is true for me most every single day. I say certain things are at the forefront of my day, but are they really? Right now, my focus is getting to a more personal relationship with God through prayer at the start of my day. I know that if I don't do it first, it won't get done. And there have been many days I didn't put the effort into it.

 

I want my priorities to be God, Hubby/Marriage, Kids/Parenting, Home, Personal. But usually it ends up more like this: God, Home, Kids, Personal, Kids (again), Home (again), Personal (again) Hubby. This obviously isn't how I say I want my priorities to be lined up. God does get the first little bit of my time, but that's the only time He gets. Don't you think he deserves so much more. The house and kids are the next big areas, but mostly because I spend most of my waking moments with both of them in some capacity. I do get a little bit of personal time during naptime and sometimes when the kids are in bed. Hubby ends up dead last, mostly because he and I don't see each other much unless the kids are sleeping. We also rarely make an effort to spend time together apart from the kids during the times he is with us. Something's gotta change. 

Today I'll be praying and focusing on what my priorities are as they stand, and how to get them where I want them to be. I'd like to hear your point of view too!

What are your priorities, and how do you get them back in line when things get off track?

Clutter Busting Challenge: Day 4

For the month of May I'll be spring cleaning 

through the ebook 31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae and joining 

Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom for her Clutter Busting 

Challenge! 

Join me on this journey!

 

Good morning all! This is day 4 of my 31DtC/CBC!

I'm feeling pretty good about things, so this is exciting for me!

Today we talked about how to make sure you have a house others feel welcomed in and not that is "untouchable". I've been in houses like that before. Not only is it untouchable, but to me it generally feels cold and unloving. That's not what we're aiming for here.

I've discussed with my husband a few times before about this kind of thing. He's always laughed and joked with me that I dream of a huge, fancy house that looks perfect and belongs in a magazine. Secretly my type A self would love that, but I don't want something that looks perfect for that reason alone. I want a house, any size house, that looks lived in and most of all, allows whomever walks in to feel loved or to see that "those who live here love here". Sterile and cold is just not my thing. 

So, what do you do to fill your home with love?

Clutter Busting Challenge Day 3 Update

For the month of May I'll be spring cleaning 

through the ebook 31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae and joining 

Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom for her Clutter Busting 

Challenge! 

Join me on this journey!

 

I'm so bad at getting things done on time....sorry all!

But I did get everything done on my list! I'm excited, especially since today my Graves was acting up pretty bad most of the time. 

31DTC Challenge

For the first part of the challenge I was to find out what makes my family feel the most loved when I care for our home.  These are the responses I got:

 

~Keeping the bedroom clean, making it feel more relaxed and less cluttered.

~When we go to the store to get more food.

~When I can be a helper.

 

For the second part I cleaned off the top of the refrigerator, and cleaned off the outsides of the cabinets, including the oven door. 

 

Yikes....um, seriously needed to do this today. I had no clue it was this bad!

SO much better! Now I don't feel gross about it anymore.

Um, so I just noticed how awful the dishwasher door looks. I don't know why I didn't do that along with the rest of the cabinets.

Clutter Busting Challenge

Here's what I'm getting rid of today:

~ A movie
~ A book
~ A cute "Yard Sale Money" jar
~ A candle
~ 6 jarred baby foods
~ A can of formula

I love getting rid of all this stuff! Tomorrow I'll show you where it's all going and why I haven't gotten rid of it just yet!