Thursday, July 19, 2007

Object of My Attention

I think the condition of my home is directly correlated to my mindset in any given season. If I am operating in a "I Can" mentality, my house is looking pretty good. If I am in a season of defeat, my house begins a downward spiral of messiness. Right now when I look around my house I feel defeat. Not wanting to deal with it, I would much rather grab the backpack and hit the road to go geocaching. This summer we have spent so much time outside. It has been easy to live in the house enough to mess it up but not stick around to clean it up. Simply because life demands, I have kept up on the dishes and laundry. If we did not need clean dishes or clothes, I am quite certain these things would be left undone as well.
Today after breakfast I sat looking at my counter. Overwhelming. Stacked with bottles, trash, messy appliances, dishes and counters caked with crumbs and spills. I knew something had to be done. Part of me wanted to run away. Part of me wanted to do something about it.
Since Wal-Mart this week has their awesome school supplies sale, I picked up our year's worth of crayons, markers, folders, glue...and other misc schooling supplies. This morning I gave the kids their own art supply box complete with the essentials. With the kids occupied, I set my mind to cleaning the counter. Once everything was cleared, I sprayed it down and scrubbed away. Tough stains were visited my Bar Keeper's Friend...love this stuff! With the counter looking spiffy I tackled the cabinets, then the appliances. It looks really good and I feel good about accomplishing something.
So I think my mindset for the next couple weeks will be this: Object of My Attention. I will pick an object or small area that needs my attention. I will clean the object/area will excellence. Organize where it is needed. I noticed that once I started today I wanted to keep going and make everything around it look good too. Hopefully this will help me to get things done. Making the house look better. Without feeling overwhelmed. And still able to enjoy our summer.

4 comments:

Diane@Diane's Place said...

I tend to do the very same thing, S. I have several things that still need my attention even though I have accomplished quite a bit lately.

Hugs,

Diane

Mindy Richmond said...

I'm totally with you on this and I know you can do it! Baby steps and focusing on one area at a time are the way to go. I focused on decluttering our living room this week and next week will be the office. It feels good to get an area cleared and cleaned. Get rid of the stuff you don't need or won't use in the near future. Just remember, you can't clean clutter!

Anonymous said...

You can do it! You trained for a tri and did it!

You can do ALL things through Christ!

Just think of it like you did the training for the tri. You did some each day and over time it amounted to a great reward!

And I agree..once you see something cleaned you tend to want the rest of the house that way too. Great incentive.

Kellie said...

I totally agree with you. I tend to do better if I make a list. One, so that I don't forget anything and two, so that I can cross it off when it is done. I even put my daily stuff there just so that I can see the lines through what I got done that day. I get so overwhelmed when I have been working all day and I don't see any progress and the list really helps me to see the progress.

One bad thing the kids lost my list. Now I am freting that I have forgotten something. I just need to make another one. Sheesh!