I think most all of us have the best of intention, don’t you? We all want someone to love and be loved by. We all want to be financially secure and we want our families all healthy and happy and wise. Most of us want a nice car and a nice home. And NONE of us want to go from being a good homemaker to being a hoarder. We just must SLOW DOWN!
Moms and Homemakers of Another Era
They make it look so easy on the sitcoms on television – you know it? But anything that’s worth having is worth working for.
That’s what my mom used to always say and she was so right.
Mom was a super housekeeper. You never saw anything out of place and it was a rare thing to actually ‘see’ her cleaning. Because mom invented insomnia and she did her work in the middle of the night.
It was nothing to get up for a potty run and find mom ironing at 2am – or painting the kitchen. She was such a fanatic about constantly painting the kitchen ‘that’ became a long running family joke.
There’s no Magic Bullet to Keeping a Clean House
We absolutely can have pretty much anything we set our minds to have. But Samantha Stevens isn’t going to come along and twitch her little nose and make it happen. WE have to make our plan and then just roll up our sleeves and get it done!
Yup! Homemaker to Hoarder, It’s The Little Things! It’s really very easy to go from being a good homemaker to a hoarder and getting overwhelmed with housework starts out so absolutely innocent. You finally have a home of your own, maybe even a family and you’re thinking you’re finally “on top of the world looking down on creation” And you feel so blessed to have such a cute little home of your very own.
Then things get a little hectic and you put a book down here and throw a sweater over there and you put in a load of laundry and crash to watch prime time television in the evening with a big bowl of pop corn and a coca cola and you just set that bowl on the end table beside your coke glass fully intending to take it to the kitchen in a minute … but next thing you know, you’re sleepy and off to bed you go.
The next morning you’re rushed too – so you don’t take time to fool with the book out of place or the sweater and you’ll get that bowl and glass when you come in tonight – but you remember the laundry in the washer so you dry it while you get ready for work and just leave it in the dryer – only to be moved ONLY to the TOP of the dryer when you need to put the next load in – because the first one hasn’t been put away yet and you just don’t have time right now … but you’ll get it put away ‘a little later’.
You head for work and put in a full day, come in exhausted and get supper and you’ve had a bad day so you put the dishes in the sink and leave them there. You get your shower – lay out your clothes for the next day and toss the dirty ones on a chair in the bedroom. You fix a tv snack and head to the tv. You now have 2 days of liter, slowly mounting up here and there … and the beat goes on.
Next thing you know … it’s 6 weeks later and you can’t see the furniture for the litter. The kitchen looks like it should be condemned and you can’t find a clean/wrinkle free thing to wear. You feel overwhelmed and pouty and you’re thinking …”Oh poor me” when it was “Oh poor YOU” who got you IN that situation in the first place.
You finally realize that the horrific realization of real life IS – that it isn’t like on television. There is no magic genie that comes in while you’re sleeping and tidy’s up your home and does your laundry and washes your dishes and puts them away. YOU ARE your own maid/housekeeper and the condition of your home on a daily basis is going to be determined by how determined you are to keep it tidy. You are not going to be able to do a lot of sitting around when you’re not at work – BECAUSE – it takes daily work – and what I call my dailies – to keep your home organized.
Geezer has a rule …”Don’t put it down … put it away” And he always told the kids “If you don’t have time to do it right the first time … when are you EVER going to have time to do it OVER?”
So this is how it starts! See the pics above? When looking at pic number 1 your feel peace and calm. Now this bedroom doesn’t have the right things in it to make it what “I” would call “warm and fuzzy” but it’s very neat and tidy and it would be very easy to go into this room and sit down and do your homework with a clear mind and just knock it out of the ball park in no time – or write a love letter or a blog or whatever it is you’re needing peace and quiet to write –
But then, see how just a little bit of litter makes such a big difference and as the days drag on. The litter that isn’t being seen to or taken care of day by day just gets worse and worse until you just need a bull dozer to get the job done. I can’t imagine living in a room like even #2 … much less any of the others, goodness gracious. WE ARE WHAT WE SURROUND OURSELVES WITH. And if we surround ourselves with clutter we are NOT going to be able to think clearly EITHER. We’ve going to feel the weight of the world on our shoulders and life just isn’t going to BE … even nearly … as good as it should BE.
Watching Hoarders on Television REALLY Inspires Me
During my slumber party for 1 … night before last … I caught a segment of Hoarders Buried Alive and it’s been on my mind ever since. It took one whole month to get that woman’s home back to near normal. IT WAS PILED TO THE CEILING all through it. But goodness, at the end they showed her and her mentally challenged daughter sitting in the living room after it was all cleaned up and it was just super grand.
Since the doctor said I can hobble around at my own pace now … I did some work yesterday and it seemed SO good. I replaced some of my little light bulbs that had burned out during this 3 months of me being down. And I got out my Liquid Gold and did some shining. And just the little bit I did yesterday made such a big difference. I put some of my shabby chic things out that geezer said was too hard to keep straight while HE was doing the house work. My throws and tablecloths and Shabby Chic pillows and this and that came back out. He’d put my throw rugs in the attic of the work shop because I was on the walker for 10 weeks and then crutches … so I got THEM back out. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE everything neat and tidy … warm and fuzzy. I want OUR home to say …”LOVE lives here … give me a hug”
I found the pic to the above when I did the blog on getting organize a week or so ago … and I am bound and determined to find those doors and do some foo fooing in the living room just as soon as I’m totally back on my feet. I’m going to be watching Friends and Company for these doors …
Peace and love from the canyon – I love you all gobs and thanks so much, for stopping by!