The Truth About Housework

The cat put herself in the box; she’s not for sale!

I’m not a good housekeeper, and I don’t really enjoy it.  I’d much rather be doing pretty much anything else, and one of my favorite poems is Dust If You Must.  My next three weeks is going to be devoted to houseworky type things, and I’d anticipated not being pleased about it.

I turned on my Jambox and started blasting an iTunes playlist.  I had my dogs underfoot, and it was a nice sunny day.  As I sang alone at the top of my lungs (the dogs don’t complain), I realized that it wasn’t horrible.  I actually kind of, sort of, maybe had… fun.  I surprised myself.  I’m in the process of getting ready for my yard sale, purging items I haven’t used in a long time, things that were boxed up to come here and hadn’t seen the light of day again.  And it felt good.  It felt really good to organize and get ready to get rid of things.

I actually like to organize and dispose of items.  Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy it.  Music, sunshine, and dogs… a pretty good recipe for a successful Sunday!

Day 5 of 30 Days of Gratitude

 

This is my before picture. Scary, huh?

1. I’m grateful for this very weird burst of organizing gusto I’ve gotten. I’ve wanted to re-organize my office for a long time, and put in my lovely, wonderful, long awaited desk… and that’s as far as I’ve gotten, until today.

2. I’m grateful for whatever force it is that’s allowing me to get rid of things. I don’t throw things away, mostly ever. But I am freecycling, ebaying, and Goodwill-ing.

3. I’m grateful for my book club, which has been exposing me to books I would have otherwise NEVER picked up.

Goals

I’m a great goal-setter.  I’m not such a great goal-reacher.  My problem is that I get all excited about something and intend to go full speed ahead with it.  Then, real life intervenes, and I decide to start tomorrow, or I tell myself that I don’t have time or something came up.

The fact is that when something is a priority, it gets done.  Priorities take precedence over everything else.  Case in point: I go to work every day I’m scheduled.  It doesn’t matter if I’m feeling poorly or if I don’t want to or if I have other things on my to-do list.  I go every day.  So what happens to self-care?  What happens to writing?  How are the things that feed me spiritually and emotionally NOT priorities?

It’s hard making time for myself.  It’s easier to mope and complain that I don’t have time.  I have time if I really want to.  If a man without legs can climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, I can find time for the things that I say are important to me.  There is no such thing as can’t.

Part of goal-reaching, in my opinion, is cleaning out the clutter.  Back to the work example.  If I had 10 different jobs going on at once, I might not make it to all of them or I might not do a good job.  I’d sure be exhausted.  I think it’s the same thing with everything.  If I have too many writing projects going on or too much to do, I get distracted and do nothing at all.  I like having a simple life, but I’m as guilty as the next person of bringing more clutter into my life, physically (more stuff), emotionally, and spiritually.

Today, I’m working on cleaning out my office.  I’m trying to rearrange so I can find the things I need and get rid of much of the stuff I don’t, that I’ve been hanging onto for no reason.  After all, a clean office is easier to work in.  I still love chaos, and I’m not cleaning that out, but clutter and chaos are two very different things.

I read an article that I’m going to try to emulate.  It said to only keep things that you use or that bring happiness or beauty to your life.  Several candles bring beauty.  24?  I can probably put some away.  If I wouldn’t notice if someone threw it away, then it’s probably time to send it to charity.  I’m starting with my office, but I plan to work my way through the rest of the house and mentally clear out some clutter as well.

Where’s the major clutter in your life?