31 Days to Clean

Been reading a recommended ebook... "31 Days to Clean: Having a Martha House the Mary Way".  It's a 73 page book that guides you along the way to spring clean your house in 31 days, but that's actually the smallest (and weakest) part.  The main thrust is why to clean and organize, and how to give life to your home.  So far the most helpful part to me personally was learning why it's so difficult to keep up with housework and to stay on task.  The reason is because of the curse in Genesis 3:17-18:

"...cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;  Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee;..."  

However, the author explains how our work ultimately has eternal value, and how important it is how we respond to God through the work we do.  This is a truth that is very helpful to me.

I'm only on Day 8, so I can't give a full review or definite recommendation yet.  I'll write more another time!

With Suzette and Tim coming home from college in 10 days, you see why I'm busy cleaning and looking for inspiration.  I need all the help I can get! :)

Springtime Cleaning

Did April fly by, or what?  Well, it's springtime and with that comes the desire to clean.  Just the other day I realized how messy our home library is, and so I started working to dejunk it yesterday.  What a job it is moving books!  It's an aerobic workout!  I even hurt my wrist from lifting or pushing too many.  I have filled 2 huge boxes with homeschool books I plan to sit down and sell online once my girls are both off to work this summer.  Now, where to put those two huge boxes in the meantime??

I never enjoy the process of dejunking and cleaning, but I sure do love the product!  I get so angry at myself sometimes when I sit and sort through the piles of papers that collect, and I see that I've had sitting around our home, papers and catalogs from months ago, just taking up space.  I always plan on reading them later, but never do.  Anyone else do that?  Ugh.  But, it's gone now, thankfully!  Isn't it something, how we think we'll be happier holding onto various things we might need?  But we deceive ourselves, because there is always a peace of mind that comes when it is gone.  Clutter affects us, whether we realize it or not.

Hopefully today I'll finish the library.  It was so messy, I wouldn't dare post a before picture, but maybe I'll post an after one when it's done.  Have a great weekend, everyone!

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5/4/11 Update:  Here's the finished library!

Our Backyard Project

The deck is gone, and our backyard project has begun!  We've talked about what we would like to accomplish, and will be working hard this spring and summer to get it done.  My wonderful hubby recently lost his job due to cutbacks, so we have very little income right now, and therefore cannot spend.  We'll have to get creative with what we already have!  (Carl is diligently searching the internet job listings, networking with business contacts, sending out resumes, and trying to get odd jobs -- while we pray and wait on God.  Please pray for us, if the Lord places it on your heart to do so.  Thank you.)

I'm excited about having the garden in the side yard, rather than outside the back door.  We can now landscape the cleared out deck area and make it a nice place to sit, with the fire pit nearby and possibly a water fountain feature we're talking about building.  We also want to eventually build a pergola, but that won't be this year.  The area of yard where the new garden will go is one of the few grassy areas we have, so we're manually moving sod squares to the area where the deck used to be.  Hurray, we'll have grass where it's now bare, instead of in the new garden!  Carrying shovelfuls of sod is heavy work, but I do love the results.  Whitney and I are helping, and I know Carl appreciates it.  He told us so. :)

Here's a picture, to show what we started out with.  We've done some work since then, but only a small amount compared to what we need to do!  I'll post our progress every now and then.  Do you have any yard project plans this summer?  Now's the time to start preparing!

The bottom right third of the picture is where the deck used to be.  The raised dirt around that area is our old garden.  The new garden will be in front of the shed and to the left of the bench you see on the left side of the picture.

My "New" Front Doors

My wonderful hubby can fix almost anything.  When we can afford it and he has time, he loves to do projects to improve our 41 year old house.  I recently told him I would like the front doors to be a bisque color rather than blue like the shutters.  Since painting is one of the least expensive home improvements we can accomplish right now, he went by Lowes, brought home some paint color booklets, and we picked the color that best matched the trim on the house.  The brass kick plates on the doors looked so dull and dirty, as did the knockers and door knobs, so as part of the project he cleaned them up, and now they look beautiful!  Carl always does the job right.  Look at what he did!

The faded blue doors

Painting the primer

Caulking

The new bisque color!

The brass before & after

Kick plates and other hardware back on, and...





The finished doors!  He did a great job, don't you think?  :)

Summer Cleaning

It' summertime, and we have lots of dejunking, organizing, and cleaning to do!  Yesterday was Suzette's day off, so the girls worked together to clean out and organize the china cabinet, and also what Whitney calls the "museum"... a huge old handmade cabinet we inherited from family that holds some of our small antiques and other things.  I worked on the pantry.  The jobs didn't look too daunting, until we pulled everything out and realized what we had to deal with!  I told Suzette, "I just want my china cabinet to look like a china cabinet and not a JUNK cabinet!"  Well, she did it!  She cleaned it up and only put back in what looks pretty through the glass.

Whitney worked to transfer "museum" items to the other cabinet, as well as pack away things I don't use -- things the girls might want in the future.  She did a great job packing glass items wrapped up safely in paper.

 It was a lot of work, and very tiring, but worth it!  The downside is we had to get fast food for our lunch so we wouldn't lose our cleaning momentum! :)

We have much more that I hope we can accomplish this summer, and will tackle another area soon!