The Clean Heart Clean Home Challenge Week 1 Done!

Updated to include Basement After Video!

How did the first week go? Did you join in? Well I jumped in with both feet and am loving the challenge. The first weeks devotional was a call to look at our hearts, as well as, our homes. I love the verse she shared, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” ~ 1 Corinthians 14:40 It is so easy to look at housework and apply that verse but what about the rest of life? It says let ALL things, that means the way I correct my children, my blog posts etc. I spent a lot of time thinking about how Iwas to apply that to my life not just my home what does it look like to have a life that can be described as decent and orderly? It got me thinking about how I behave and what my priorities should be.

Of course, there was also the house component. Now she suggested that you start with the vehicle and the front yard. It was too cold and snowy for me to have any desire to venture outside to do some cleaning. Perhaps in the spring! I decided to start with my living room and my basement. I decided to go with 100% disclosure and I made some videos of both rooms before and after. Now keep in mind we have just come through the holidays, we were away, and sick so things might seem pretty bad. I love a clean and orderly home and I am always looking for ways to improve my system.

The living room looks like any living room might look after a busy holiday with time away and dealing with a sick Momma and kiddos. The basement however is beyond pathetic. It was once fairly organized, I even had a friend say they had never seen such a clean basement before, I would hate for her to see it now. Well, over the last year and 3/4 since Joel’s diagnoses no one cleaned the basement. Things were put in the basement to get them out of sight.

“Mom where should I put x y and z?”

“I don’t know, just put it in the basement.”

“Momma, I’m sorry I knocked over the fan and it broke.”

“Oh just put it in the basement.”

Anything that did not have a home ended up in the basement. It wasn’t just me, it was all of us. Seasons would change and snowsuits did not get properly put away. It was deplorable!!! Why would anyone in their right mind make a video of their disastrous basement and then post it on YouTube for the world to see? I’ll tell you why, because my dear supportive loving readers, will say things like;

I don’t know how you do it?

You are supermom?

You are amazing!!

You have 6 kids, a child with cancer and you homeschool is there anything you can’t do? (I no longer have a child WITH cancer, I have a healing SURVIVOR!)

The truth is I can’t do it all, I fail more times than I can count. While I know that you guys love me and offer those words as encouragement sometimes I cringe a little because I am so very aware of my shortcomings. (That and I am not the greatest at receiving praise.) So I wanted to show the side that I would normally want to hide. I am excited to work through this process because whether my failings are in my organization skills or in my heart, my loving heavenly Father is there ready to dust me off and nudge me along in the right direction.

Now, I had some technical difficulties, #1 some of the video is poor quality and # 2 one video did not work out so I will have to post my after video of the basement tomorrow. So promise me you’ll come back tomorrow and see we did make SOME improvements in the basement (the poor basement needs more than just a few days.)

Living room before;