Freedom

(Hey Company Girls! Our virtual coffee time these last few weeks has been taken over by info about the Help Haiti Live concert. I hope that didn't offend you, but I couldn't think of a better way to get the info out to a lot of people than to bring you, my Company Girls along! Now that the concert's over, I'll remind you of the auctions that are still on-going here and mention the group of bloggers that are in Kenya with Compassion right now, but for the most part, we'll be getting back to our "regularly-scheduled programming" now.)

So, I wouldn't say necessarily that I've had a "homemaking epiphany" lately, because it's something I've heard from lots of sources for a long time now, but I guess I recently just started actually implementing it in my life. That non-epiphany is that I don't have to do everything absolutely to completion, nor do I have to do it perfectly. And it's been amazing how freeing that's been for me.

To implement this non-epiphany, each day, I make a list of things that need to be done. Some of them have to be done today (meals, any planned outings for the day, any errands that need to be run, daily cleaning regimens, etc.), some of them need to be done soon (laundry, tasks that have upcoming due dates, etc.), and some of them just need to be done sometime (deep cleaning something, getting something ready to be put away for a long time, etc.). By spelling out the necessaries like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I get lots of things to cross off my list (and I also have a better understanding myself of what I actually do all day)! And by simply rejoicing that I got _some_ stuff crossed off the list each day (and not beating myself up because I didn't get _EVERYTHING_ crossed off), it ends up being simply a reminder of my successes rather than an onerous list of onerous tasks that have to get done.

Sometimes things get copied from yesterday's list to today's list for weeks. And that's ok. Eventually I get tired of rewriting them and actually _do_ them. Sometimes I break up a task into sub-tasks just so that I can cross more stuff off the list! (Sometimes I do it because _part_ of the job got done, but not ALL of it and I want to celebrate that too!) Frequently I add things to the list after-the-fact, just so I can cross them off (and celebrate at the end of the day how much I actually did)!

The most amazing thing I've seen happen through it is that the cleaning load has started to get easier each day. Since I write down each room in my (small) house each day and mostly manage to spend a few minutes in each (some would call this "minimum maintenance," but by writing down each room individually rather than grouping it all together, I can cross stuff off the list without feeling guilty that I didn't get to them all), it takes less and less each day to _keep_ them clean.

Now, I'm definitely _NOT_ a "schedule" person (i.e., laundry on Monday, scrub floors on Tuesday, etc.), and I definitely _AM_ someone who gets a great deal of joy from recognizing my accomplishments by marking them off a list, so this works great for me. Maybe you'll do better with something else. But this has worked so far for me in my current life stage. And it's been wildly freeing for me, not to mention good for our house. It's still not "magazine clean" or even "company clean" most of the time, but it's better (and certainly easier and quicker to get to "company clean"). And that makes me happy too.

Creating a Memory

It's been one of those mornings where I _know_ I got stuff done, and I _know_ it was important, but somehow I still _feel_ like nothing got accomplished. My kids ate a relatively-healthy breakfast, I got all of the laundry folded and put away (every last bit - nothing's sitting waiting for a hanger or socks to be matched), I put away some of the dishes (some still needed some more drying time), the kids and I all got dressed and I even got a shower.

I also managed to pull out our cat carrier for a friend who needed to borrow it. "No problem," I said. "It's just in the top of the kids' closet," I said. "I'll pull it out and have it for you, no problem," I said. Little did I realize how well the top of the closet was packed. Inside the collapsed carrier were all of our small photo albums, a few other random things, and all of VNB's old Bibles - i.e., the sucker was HEAVY). In front of the cat carrier were all of our Christmas ornaments and random Christmas dancing and singing things (Santa who plays the sax, snowman who sings something, polar bear, and a couple of random "Christmas" stuffed animals). I hoped that I'd be able to pull the carrier out without having to move anything, but the geometry of the situation told me otherwise. Then I hoped that just by pulling the other stuff off of that shelf (i.e., the Christmas stuff), I'd be able to pull it out (at that point at least it would be in front of the closet door), but no dice there. So then I had to start moving the stuff that was stacked up (very neatly) _next_ to the shelf - VNB's collection of Christmas village, all in its original packaging for safe storage (plus my Christmas Veggie Tales snow globe). So I pulled all of _that_ down, managed to pull the 500-lb cat carrier across the shelf (over occasional bumps from shelf supports) and far enough into the opening to be able to get it down.

The whole time I was doing this, and becoming increasingly frustrated, AJ was finishing up on the potty. After finishing his business, he came in, pants still around his ankles to investigate what Momma was doing. After telling him calmly to go back into the bathroom and pull up his pants a couple of times (the idea being that he doesn't _leave_ the bathroom without pulling them up), he managed to get his underwear up, but not the pants (which are a smidge too long, so he was stepping on cuffs). About the time I got the cat carrier to the point where I could attempt to bring it down, he was crowding my space - with his pants still around his ankles. So not only was he not obeying by getting his pants pulled up, he also wasn't obeying as I was telling him repeatedly to back up (just in case I lost control of some or all of the cat carrier and/or its contents). And in my defense ("why didn't you just go help him?"), I was up on a chair with all the contents of the closet packed around me, trying to remember where it all went so that I could get it all to fit back in there.

So with only a few photo albums dive bombing me, I managed to get the cat carrier down and into Joanna's crib. Then I managed to get everything else back up into the closet. During which time AJ was still struggling with his pants and probably crying because I was yelling at him to pull up his pants and back up (is it bad that I don't even remember if he was or not?).

On the plus side, I found some pictures I'd promised to show some friends a long time ago! And I got the cat carrier down. And eventually we got AJ's pants pulled back up.

But that was my morning. And even though it just took me like fifteen pages to explain what I did this morning, it still feels like I didn't accomplish anything. (And now I'm at work and blogging instead of getting stuff done here...)

But my "Sanctuary's In the Small Things" task for the day is to create a memory. This morning isn't something I want to remember, but last night was. So _technically_, I didn't perform the _task_ on the right day, but I'm recording it for posterity so that I actually _remember_ it today, so I think I should still get my 40 points. :)

So last night I sent AJ to bed instead of going in with him, singing to him, and "saying Amen" (i.e., praying). An hour later when VNB and I were going to bed, he was still awake, so I went in and did our usual routine. Except that I told him to sing with me. We have a repertoire of all of three songs for bedtime (all three of which we usually sing at least once each night), so he's heard them all a "few" times now. It was the most adorable thing (and I know that it's true because VNB took like five trips to and from the bathroom during that song just so he'd have the excuse to walk past the door and listen). He wasn't on pitch, and usually he'd sing an intelligible word a phrase or two after I'd already sung it...but he was singing _with_ me. All the way down to the "yeah" at the end of "God is Bigger than the Boogy Man" (a recent addition to our repertoire, due to our first "I'm scared of the monsters" pre-bedtime event). Probably the best part about it too is that he really seemed to enjoy it and was definitely focusing on singing. You could see the wheels turning as he thought about what words came "next."

I did better in my description of the cat carrier incident, but this memory is one of the sweetest yet since I've been a mommy. My boy, singing. Knowing by heart that "God is bigger than the boogy man," that "there is nothing I can't do when God is at my side," and that "a thankful heart is a happy heart!" Sweet.

So even if I accomplish nothing else today (which would be bad since the kids and I are flying to Nashville tomorrow and haven't even started packing yet!), I've recorded a memory that I want to cherish forever. It's a good day.