I was folding laundry. (You can see it on the table). As I looked around, I saw the mess and simply had to roll my eyes and smile. Beneath my feet I can feel lots of sand from two days in a row at the beach. Eventually it will be clean again, but not anymore this week.
On a good day, kid messes make me smile. I look at and see that I am blessed with children who are free to be children. I have children who love to create. I am reminded of the blessings that each one of them is in our lives. On a bad day, I see a mess. I am thankful the good days outweigh the bad days because this is my life, and it's real life.
I have the book Side-tracked Home Executives. It's funny! I even have my yellow file box with all the jobs written on cards. Sometimes I look at those cards and kind of laugh at my younger self. I really thought I could get all that stuff done. Now, it gets done MUCH less often. Oh, and some of the jobs NEVER got done, NEVER get done. But the kids were fed, read to, hugged and kissed, and they did have those piles of clean laundry in the corner of their bedroom, so they could get dressed!
ReplyDeleteDeborah,
ReplyDeleteI love your attitude! I have always had to work outside of our home to help out financially and there are just so many hours in a day. I have never been a very good housekeeper. And I certainly didn't do a good job of teaching my girls to do all the cleaning, etc. But what they remember is not that we had a messy house but that we spent time together, played dolls, went to the park, rode bikes, etc. Could I have been a bit more balanced? Sure.
I know your sweet children are so blessed to have you as a mom because you have a good balance.
I pray that you have a wonderful restful sabbath.
blessings
~a
there is a time for tidy and a time for messy in a family's home... when our home is often messy it is because we are busy making memories!! ~A season for everything...before we know it our children will be grown and our house will be tidy and we will be wishing for the little messes all over again ~Love Heather
ReplyDeleteThank you for the positive perspective. Sometimes I feel so taken over by the mess. But we really are blessed to have these little messy ones;O)
ReplyDeleteOK, Deborah...THAT is not messy. Far from it. Your clothes are neatly folded!!!! Just that makes you heads and tails above me! I still have clothes out that I haven't put away since...oh, I don't know since when.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link to my blog! I'm sure Lily would love the bead...but do they let you ship second hand beads to the United States from Canada??? LOL!
My house is crazy cluttered right now and it really reflects what is going on inside my head. When I am feeling overwhelmed with lots of projects to organize, that is when my environment somehow matches. On another note - what a cheery yellow your walls are. Very nice!
ReplyDeleteThat's such a good attitude! Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the mess... like I'm drowning in STUFF. Too much STUFF. But hallelujah for my family :D
ReplyDeleteThanks for the perspective,
Julie
That certainly is my life! It's never really tidy except when I just finish cleaning.
ReplyDeleteI tell myself it's their (the kids)house too and they are only young once.
I had a great piece of advice recently...just work on one room being clean (picked up). So I picked the kitchen and all the things that used to get piled up in other places. :) he he!
Hope you had a great weekend.
sometimes i look around at the smiles on my kids faces and then i know that things are fine. our house could be lots cleaner, but i would rather spend my time doing other stuff. :)
ReplyDeleterandi
http://ihavetosay.typepad.com/
I'm trying to get my bravery up enough to turn to the fly lady again.
ReplyDeleteI started her plan about a year ago, but her emails overtook me... :)
I think I'm going to start with her steps on my own. I went to bed with a clean sink last night :)
I'm going to shoot for that for a week & then go on to step 2.
I'm almost at a point that I'm convinced a clean house just isn't possible with 3 kiddos. Someone once told me they have a plaque that says "cleaning the house while raising kids is like shoveling snow while it's still snowing." lol.
I haven't completely lost hope though.
(ps- thank you for your sweet comments!)
yup - we're messy here, too. And today I'm smiling about it! I think our recent experience taught me to be glad I have healthy girls to make messes.
ReplyDeleteI think we'll wallow in it a bit today and clean up tomorrow!!!
Thank you for this post. It reminds me that I am not the only mom with a lived in home. My home is not a full blown mess, but it certainly is lived in. I don't mind kid messes either...especially rice all over the floor from a happy Filipino son. That is what the dog is for...to clean-up!
ReplyDeleteMy mom sends me FlyLady e-mails all the time! I am a clutter bug, but I am working on it.
ReplyDeleteIt was easier when they were younger actually. I followed them around picking up or when they went to bed I cleaned . Naptimes were catch up times.
ReplyDeletebut then, things changed and I just go with the flow mostly. I like clean, and I don't like clutter, but we live here. busy. and the girls are always cooking, their friends are over and they are baking, crafting, etc.
This summer I even let my girls decorate and revamp our basement and my son painted the outside windows. Maybe they saw it as doing life , not chores? I hope so.
thanks for stopping by and for your sweet comment I am behind in reading of course but will catch up.
love to you Deborah.
I know what you mean about smiling at the mess on a good day - but on a bad day, it's not so simple as only seeing a mess. I get a little Nazi in the cleanup, I'm afraid. Thankfully, I think I have more good days than bad days, and we certainly have a lot of messy fun. :)
ReplyDeleteIf this is what you consider a mess, you wouldn't want to see my house! I like to joke that everyone else messes it up as fast as I clean it up, but it's a fact, not a joke. I remind myself the mess is a sign my family actually "lives" in our home. Maybe when my kids are grown and gone I'll have a tidy home. LOL
ReplyDelete