The Clean Heart Clean Home Challenge Wrap Up

Well I am wrapping this one up and if all goes well it will still be Monday when this post goes up… I know, I know, will little wonders never cease.  Just after I posted about how I would post this wrap up, our house was hit with illness once again.  I came down with a sinus thing and Samuel started with a stomach bug.  Just as he was finishing up with it 4 others started with it all with in a few hours of each other.  It was not a pretty sight.  All I could think of was when will I have time to write this up.  I am pleased to say we are all in good health again.

Well all the humans are in good health but it is apparent that my computer is on deaths door so I am going to have to use our old desk top for a few weeks.  He is old and slow and I suppose when my laptop is back from surgery I will appreciate it all the more.

I did manage to make it through each room with the exception of our summer kitchen as it is still below freezing back there.  I have made my way through the house cleaning and purging as I went.  I have been bitten by the ‘reduce bug’ and I am still looking to scale down some more.  We have seen a lot of stuff go out of the house and I am very pleased with the progress.

Some of the children have caught on others are still a bit clingy to their stuff.  I explained to them that they had more than they needed and that they were having a hard time keeping it all clean, so we came up with a compromise that the children could live with.  I removed 6 large Rubbermaid style bins from their rooms and play area.  We have put these toys and things away and will revisit them in a few months if no one has said I really miss my____, then it is gone.

There are more changes I want to make that are going to require spending a bit of money and as we run a fairly tight budget around here I can’t just run out and pick this or that up, but I do have some ideas to make some storage and cleaning  thing run a bit more efficiently, so in time I will implement those changes.

One thing I have put in process is trying to have a place for everything and everything in it’s place.  Again I am wanting to add shelving in various rooms and that will come in time, but one thing I was able to do was using small plastic bins to contain things.  Here are some pictures from our bathroom.

               Before                                                          After

I made little labels that I laminated for each basket. I discovered I had a crazy amount of started containers of hand cream. Things would get pushed to the back and I would buy more, now everything is labeled and has a home.

There is still work to be done to improve things but we are well on the way to a much more organized home. This week was a great test usually when the stomach flu hits it sets us way back, things are mostly recovered and if you walked through my door tomorrow I would not be totally embarrassed.

This challenge also challenged me in my faith walk, it was a great reminder to keep my heart clean before the Lord. I won’t say I have arrived in this area, just today when I was reading in the Word my eyes were opened to an area where I was being a bit judgmental, and I could not even see it until then. When I realized it I was humbled and felt awful that I was behaving like that, yet at the same time glad that it had been brought to my attention so I could deal with it with God.

Just like we need to daily sweep the floor, daily we need to examine our hearts to be sure there are not little bits of dirt and trash settling in there.

As much as I love blogging, this challenge, challenged me to look at my responsibilities here at home. Meeting the needs of my family meals on the table, clothes washed, bedtime stories, bath-times, teeth brushed, school work…. and on and on it goes. I felt if I was not accomplishing those things then I was robbing my family when I hopped on the computer. It was hard because I’ll be honest I like seeing my blog grow, I like seeing comments etc. but if you don’t blog regularly then people drift away etc. Choosing not to blog when I had lots of ideas of things I wanted to write about was hard. Some days I would carve out some time and think when I have the children all in bed then I’ll write and I’d say good night to the last one and think I’m too tired.

My blog may have been hurt a little by this choice but my family has not. The good news for my blog is that as things begin to be more organised and efficient I am finding I do have some extra time so I am hoping to get back into a more regular blogging pattern… well that is the hope!!

I am holding on to my copy of  The Clean Heart Clean Home Challenge but I am hoping that I never need to do it again. It was a great experience, and it is not that I would dread going through it again, but rather after all this work I want to maintain and improve. I do not want to go back to what it was like before, always trying to stay ahead of the mess.

If you have the spring cleaning itch why don’t you download your free copy you won’t regret it 🙂 The Clean Heart Clean Home Challenge.

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