3 week anniversary

Today, March 15th, 2010, marks the 3 week anniversary of my house being clean. This is a monumental occasion. This is a once-in-my-lifetime achievement. This is something I was starting to fear I would never see the day it happened. THIS, is extraordinary. It takes 3 weeks to create a habit, right? Then I'm hooked on cleaning!

How did this happen? I have no clue. Quitting facebook, perhaps? I do have some idea of how it began, and that was with a realtor visit. I cleaned my house top to bottom, including closets (aka: where I usually stuff things when people come over). I'm a perfectionist, so I even organized my pantry when I'm sure my realtor could care less about it. After all that work (and oh man was it EVER a lot) I had an epiphany... wouldn't it be great if I could keep my house this way?

I'm telling you, I have tried this before. I have tried consistency w/ my kids and picking up their toys. I have worked all day on one room to discover by the time I'm finished the kids have destroyed another. I always was a clean freak, but with poor time management skills. I never thought my kids did well w/ consistency and was starting to think they would never clean up on their own. After about a week of me constantly picking up everything and keeping this place spotless, the kids caught on! I don't mean they automatically pick up their messes before they begin another, but now when I ask them to pick up their toys they just do. Before it was a big chore; now it's somewhat normal. I love it!

Now that my house isn't a cluttered mess, I feel much more organized in other areas of my life! My kids and I have been hanging out and doing more activities together b/c I actually know where the paint is when they want to paint, or where a specific puzzle is that they want to put together! Before I got so overwhelmed b/c when anything stressful happened, my problem would seem so much bigger than it was b/c my house was a mess. Maybe this isn't true for everyone. But my mental health seems to be greatly affected by the state of my house!

I still have lots of organizing to do. But that's the best part! Now when I want to tackle some type of organizational job, I CAN. I don't have to do a trillion other things before I can start whatever task it is. And I'm surprised by just how easy it is to keep everything in order. I'm saving so much time! I might have looked for a pair of socks for 15 minutes before. Now, I know they're in my sock drawer. Imagine that.

I think my favorite part of all is not getting stressed and trying to clean like crazy when someone says they are on their way over! Try me. Invite yourself over. Shoot, don't even call me. Just come over. Ok, call me b/c if you just come over I might not be here. :-)

No, you can't eat off my floors or anything like that (why would you want to do that) BUT I am comfortable w/ the appearance of my home and will not feel like I need to apologize profusely for the first 10 minutes of your visit. I am accomplishing more on a daily basis- just finished painting Isaiah's room, which before might have taken me a month to get to- and most of all, I'm loving life! God is so good, He even makes it possible for me to keep my house clean. :-) A small task for some, but a big achievement for me.

So... when are you coming over?? :-)