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As I was getting ready for the next book in our series, One Bite at a Time, I realized a number of things regarding my homemaking skills and habits.
- I work better when it is quiet in the house.
- I get more done in my day if I wake up early.
- I feel more organized when I get more done.
- I can lose momentum in my home in a matter of one or two days.
It was the last of these things which really got me thinking about how to fix it to where I don’t lose momentum at each of life’s little shifts.
- If I wake up too late…
- If kids refuse to nap…
- If there is not a quiet moment in my day
- If a family member gets sick and requires some extra attention…
- If I get a case of the “I-don’t-want-tos”
Recently, my dad had surgery and I took the day to go up and sit with my mom at the hospital that is about an hour away. I had my mother-in-law watch the girls and I spent the day doing almost nothing but waiting (and driving), and waiting. When I got home life was not completely thrown off, but dinner was not as scheduled and I just didn’t feel like doing much around the house after I got home. Then some things came up that I HAD to give my full attention. Then I woke up not feeling very well one morning. Then my dad was taken to the ER and I went back up to the hospital two times in one day. And then…
My house was a wreck and I needed to get things done, but the mountain looked so high, I couldn’t see the top, and so I just sat at the bottom of the mountain, without momentum, for an entire weekend (maybe more). And the worst part was I felt like a failure. A failure that just didn’t know how to fix the problem. I kind of lost my hope (regarding my home) and I got a case of the “I-don’t-want-tos.” A bad case.
But all the while I just kept thinking about all the projects I needed to get done that just weren’t getting done and thinking about what I needed. What would be the solution to the problems facing me?
I lost and needed back my momentum.
But, I was reminded of the way to get back your first love:
Remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first” (Revelation 2:5a)
I needed to get back to the basics. Thankfully, because of our last book in the Hope for Homemakers series, I was sure of what the basics were. I remembered what my house looked like and more importantly how I felt when I woke up to a mostly clean house. I remembered just how easy it was to do the everyday habits we learned in 28 Days to Hope for your Home. I just needed to change my mindset back to that way of living and go back and do them.
And what I discovered is that what we did through that book is both the starting point to hope for my home and the backstop keeping me from despair when the going gets rough. If I completely fall off, feel unmotivated, or otherwise lose hope in my home, I know what to do to get it back: the dishes, the floors, the bathrooms, and a five-minute pick up.
So, that is me re-learning the lessons we were supposed to have learned through our 28 Days to Hope Challenge. And what I am hoping I will learn in this next series on organization is how to keep the momentum moving in the right direction one project, one task, One Bite at a Time.
And the first task we are going to work through from One Bite at a Time is: Getting Up Early
“Wait…what?…I thought we were working on organization!”
WE ARE!
Read what Tsh has to say about getting up early and her method for making it happen and come back here and let me know what you think you could accomplish with an extra thirty minutes, an hour, two hours {uninterrupted) in your day. Um…I am thinking organization projects, but we will get to that.
