31 Days to Clean: My Struggle

So here I am, working on getting my house in order so I can honor God and serve my family better. The difficulty? There are so many other things that I would rather do. You know how that is? Not only are there things that I would rather do, I just have a lot on my plate right now.

I am NOT complaining – I like to be active, and I choose my activities carefully. We are so thankful right now that Randy has a new job that allows him to be home with us in the evenings, every evening – and we work to protect that family time. That leaves me the day time to get the house in order, make meals, wash laundry, go to doctor's appointments – and work. Yep, I'm working now – only a few hours a week and I love what I am doing, but all of those things together take time.

Please don't think I'm making excuses for having a “messy” house. I hate feeling like things are a mess, and we're working through our mess and this fantastic book – but we are going a little slower than 31 Days. Maybe this is silly, but I'm hoping that taking things a little more slowly, will benefit all of us in the long run, by helping us build in habits that we need.

The habits we're working on:

• Getting dishes done after every meal. That's an easy one, right? Well – not always.
• Doing laundry first thing in the morning. I've discovered that if I start my day's laundry when I first wake up, I can have it drying before we take Mr. Crum to work. This makes the rest of the day feel much cleaner.
• Putting shoes where they belong. Again, this seems simple – but as I look around my living room at this very moment, I can see 3 pair of shoes that are out of place – yep – it's so much easier to take them off where I want to and let them sit.
• Making the bed. I have never liked doing this – it seems like a silly task sometimes, since I plan to sleep in it later.
• Getting rid of junk. Maybe this is a habit that won't last forever – but right now we have a lot of “stuff” that we just don't need. I like to think “I'll save this for our next garage sale”... or “Someone wants this for their birthday”... or “I'll make something out of this”. I end up with a lot of stuff that clutters my house and my life. I'm not saying that it's ALL going away – because I will use some things again, but I am trying very hard to be objective as I clean. We live about half a mile from the nearest Salvation Army donation bin – and I am learning to use it regularly.
• Putting junk mail directly into the recycle bin. Oh the papers that I find lying around our house! It's so easy to glance through the mail and toss it onto the table. What a waist of energy that is though! Not to mention the clutter I'm adding to my headaches! We have a bin by the door, for now, that collects junk mail as soon as it's been sorted so it can go to the recycle bin.

What habits are you working on? What cheap storage solutions have you used?