The Year of The Home: Getting my act together.

The Lord has been convicting me for sometime about a certain area of my life. That area is homemaking. If any of you know me "in real life" (IRL), you probably know this is a serious area that I consistently fail in. At least I'm consistent, right? ;)

Anyway, I am working on this. As Christians, we are called to be hospitable & I know I am not. I never feel like my home is clean enough (& it really isn't) for guests & I don't feel that my cooking skills are where they should be to offer meals to people who need them.

A couple of weekends ago, I finally told God, "Fine, let's do this." & really allowed Him to convict me fully on the subject. That Saturday, when I went to church, what do you think the pastor preached on? That's right...hospitality. "Ok, God, I get the picture."

So how does one go from pig to princess? From clutter & chaos to comfort & peace? From "get me out of here" to "I wish I could stay longer?"

Well, I don't know about others, but I'm a nerd & I research things to death. I ordered several books on homemaking, organization, clutter, etc... I have become obsessed with several blogs regarding homemaking, organization, cooking, frugality, cleaning, anything to do with running a home.

I know it sounds a little like feeding a problem to order more books for a person who already has a serious issue with clutter & way too many books to begin with, but I'm working on a plan. A couple of weeks ago, the weekend I finally had gotten the message, I cleaned out a cabinet in my bathroom hallway that had been bugging me for weeks. I threw out boxes of stuff. I felt guilty about throwing some of those things out but I've had them in that cabinet for almost 5 years now & still haven't used them, I doubt I ever will...I usually just end up buying another what ever it is when I need it anyway. For example, I found 5 large bottles of Tums in that cabinet. I can't even remember the last time I had indigestion. By the way, I kept one bottle & took the rest home to my mom & dad.

That same weekend, I also cleaned my closet & got things a bit more organized in there.

My next project, I hope to go through my book cases in my living room. Like I said, I have a serious issue with too many books. I'm going to be very selective & only keep the ones I am extreemly serious about reading. I have several that I have had for years & haven't even attempted to read them. Even though I always say, "I'll read it eventually," I never do, so those suckers are out. I have a friend who reads books like crazy so I'll offer some of them to her & the rest I'll take to Half Price Books & see what I can get for them, if there are any they refuse to take (which I highly doubt), I'll take them to my hospital (they have roving book shelves for the waiting rooms & patients). To be honest, I have gotten away from fiction lately. I use to say I would never read non-fiction..."it doesn't require any creativity, no imagination, it's boring"...but that's not really true. I love non-fiction now. I glean so much from it & I find it quite interesting. Like I said, I'm a nerd, I love to research & learn.

Most of the research (blogs, books, & websites) I have been making is by Christian homemakers, aka, stay-at-home wives/mothers/homeschoolers. I mean, they are the experts of homemaking, right? That's their job. I'm not sure if I'll ever marry or become a mother or a stay-at-home wife/mother but that doesn't really matter. If I do, I'll have learned a lot of great advice on how to run a home & if I never marry, I'll still have my own home to run. Practical life wisdom rarely goes wasted. I have already learned quite a bit &, hopefully, having real life friends that are homemakers & reading these other ladies blogs will continue to inspire me get my life on the homefront in order.

Last year, I guess, was the year of my physical life. God convicted me about my health & helped me to get in better shape, learn to eat healthier & like it, and loose approximately 70 lbs. While I still have at least 30 lbs to go, I guess God thinks it is time to move to another area of my life. I came to the realization that, like loosing weight, I can not get my house clean & in order in a day, a weekend, or even a whole month, it is going to take a long time to get it where I want it, even then, like struggling with weight, it will be a daily battle to keep undercontrol. When I realized that, I seemed to relax a little. I've been looking at this mess for so long thinking, "There is so much to do, I don't know where to start." & then I would find something much less productive to do. But knowing it will take months to sort & thinking in small goals, like my cabinet in the hallway or one book self at a time, seems much more manageable & much less stressful. The entire living room in one day, forget it...I'll just play Rock Band for a while. But, one shelf for today...I think I can handle that.

So, a couple of years ago, it was The Year (or Two) of Spirituality; last year, it was The Year of Health; & I guess, this year, will be The Year of The Home.