Once again I missed Monday, again!  Yesterday we took Joel to his therapy session, and we were late getting back home which threw everything off.  I must say Joel had a fantastic session.  It is always great to see him enjoying the session, as well as his therapists!

As for the Clean House Clean Heart Challenge I am still behind, and do not have any pictures or videos for you today.  Yet I am making steady progress.  I decided to keep a few things on top off the refrigerator but did removed many other things.  I had to laugh yesterday I walked by the refrigerator and where I had cleared a spot something new had been placed there!!

Oh dear, Tuesday has marched right past me and I am still working on this post.  It is official, I have a lousy immune system, for the second time in less than a month I have been hit hard by a nasty cold.  The first time it hit just before Christmas in a few of the kids and made its way through all 8 of us.  I think our home was healthy for a week before I started feeling sick again, praying it is just me this time.  Perhaps I sound like I am complaining and I don’t mean to, I am merely trying to provide an excuse for my horrible blogging habits of late.  Actually while I am sick and rather exhausted I do still have a smirk on my face, you see the whole time Joel was having radiation and chemo our family was incredible healthy, I think we had the odd mild cold and that was it!  When we really needed good health we had it!

Feel free to share your favorite immune system boosting remedies with me.

Okay getting back to the challenge I went to the dollar store and bought some matching blue plastic basket/bin type containers, I don’t think my kitchen cupboards have ever looked so organized I’m loving it!  I have also used some in my bathroom as I have started on the bathrooms.  I find my biggest challenge has been getting everyone on board.  I will clean a space and then my family is let loose in that room and certain family members are not sharing my vision for a cleaner more organized house.  Samuel is at the age that every basket must be emptied, every table cleared, of course the contents of theses tables and baskets are just left on the floor.  So it begins, not even 1-year-old and we have start singing the clean up song with him.

A couple of days ago I felt I was making some cleaning and organizing headway I was on a roll.  When I walked into the kitchen to see a guilty looking St. Bernard in the kitchen and garbage all over the floor.  I cannot blame her she is an animal and there was chicken skins and bones (I know really bad for dogs!) in the garbage.  The garbage pail which normally sits in the cupboard had been left on the floor in the kitchen after the bones had been scraped into the garbage.  The kitchen clean up crew had been momentarily distracted by something and that was all the time she needed.

It is small setbacks like this that make this process so much longer.  I know that I will most likely finish this challenge a week or two, (possible 3) behind anyone who started at the same time as me, yet I am committed to finishing this.  I am not looking forward to when I hit the children’s rooms.  With 6 children it is so easy to accumulate a lot of stuff.  Joel was given many things when in the hospital and he is (as many of my children are) a pack rat.  I am already beginning to pray about that part of the challenge.

In this weeks devotion, a scene that sadly I am all to familiar with,  ‘frantically looking through that massive laundry pile on Sunday morning for a lost baby sock,’ is described and compared to the needle in the haystack.   Can anyone else relate?  While she goes on to describe how sometimes we let the clutter of our daily live distract us from God, to the point that He seems lost.  The truth however is that He is always available, it is us that become distracted not God.  He simply tells us to knock and the door will be opened.  God is right there in the midst of our chaos waiting to be found.   Again the encouragement for today and each day is to stop, and seek out God before rushing on with our days.

Cheryl ~ desperately seeking and finding God as I clean out my heart and home!

(Not that I want to encourage gambling of any kind but do you think I can get the next post up on Monday??? Or will it be next Wednesday again????  No wagers.)