Freedom Is...

I've been at this tidying business a long time, since July 28, 2011, to be precise.
I want F R E E D O M. Freedom continues to call and I want to answer!

My friend Christi sent me a message after the move reminding me that true freedom is worth the effort of obedience to the Lord and to go all the way, cooperating with what He wants to do.

Truth is, since the move, I haven't been cooperating. Cooperating is a deliberate action. I've been "floating" along, allowing myself to be distracted by many things and not being serious about getting free. The very act of moving in March has given me a measure of freedom (thank You Lord!!!) but I'm not finished. I've been enjoying this new partial freedom, but He has more for me.

Today, I got out my "tidy house" notebook. Sometimes I need to "meet with paper and pen" and write down some things which often helps me pray and get clear on my next step.

As I was seeking Him this afternoon, the Lord led me to some particular steps. The first being to DEFINE FREEDOM (with regards to a tidy house) and then a few other steps for the afternoon. I'm going to spend time EVERY AFTERNOON in pursuit of freedom (just like with cooking).

Today's steps:
-define freedom (done)
-write it down (done)
-type it out (done)
-post it where I can see it (done)
-meet with the notebook every day like I did with cooking (ok)
-make map to keep in notebook and label with areas to clean (done)
-clean desk today (to do)

I'm realizing as I type, that the real substance of freedom in this area is "what's next"...I will be able to move on in my self-education (and life!) to the next thing that the Lord has waiting for me. Freedom also has a component of being more available to my children, being not held back by having to clean my house. Intrinsically, it also involves peace of mind and how sweet that is! So I'm going to deepen my definition...

there...

Freedom is:
-knowing what I have and where it is
-when this is true, daily maintenance will be simple with a pick-up and quick tidy
-embracing "what's next" for my own self-education
-being completely free to assist my kids with moving their education forward
-completing long term dangling projects

Now, to clean my desk with all of this in mind!

Unpacking Update

I'm really doing SO MUCH better!

I've been looking forward instead of back and we're making headway with our morning routine.

Each morning we tidy...I keep adding an area, until we get to the point where everything is getting a tidy once a day. Today...the bar, the dining room floor and table and the tv room.

I have several projects that have been hanging over my head...I think I'm going to put them here to help me remember. It also gives me a place to celebrate the victory of finishing them!

-sew remaining napkins for friend
-crochet afghan 1, afghan 2, bed scarf
-put up hooks 1, hooks 2
-taxes 1, taxes 2, taxes 3
-put up heart frame on wall
-apply magnetic paint, edit & put up photos for photo wall
-Sarah's room00
-room measurements map for landlords
-sofa cleaning
-quilted table runner for friend
-sew kids' unfinished pillowcases
-put up wall decorations

These photos are from Sunday. Gramma came over for Mother's Day (I'm entertaining!) and brought the most awesome bubbles!

Industrial Strength Bubbles:
6C water
1C corn syrup
2C regular Joy dishsoap
Disclaimer: I noticed a big yellow dead patch of grass near where the bucket was when we did bubbles!

Come On Over!

Something that started to happen after we gots the cats in December (because the house was tidier), was we started having people INSIDE our house again. This is nothing short of surprising and miraculous. We used to have friends and family over all the time (in other homes), we love to entertain...but since we moved into the purple/yellow house in 2007, we haven't had it tidy enough to have guests and just stopped having people over. 

In December, my sister and Mom visited to see the kitties, along with a few other friends.

Once we moved March 1st, we've had my sister, Mom, Gramma and many other friends over to our new house. One friend wanted to bring us dinner and stayed with her two boys, which qualified as dinner guests (even though I didn't have to cook)! My friend Christi has been able to stay the night TWICE (!) [when was the last time we had an overnight guest!?] and her family came for the day, which turned into a friend fest with two other families joining us for a campfire later. (Not to mention Christi's sister-in-law and her two teenage boys who stopped by for a slice of pizza and some playing with their cousins before the campfire)!

We had over 20 people over in the backyard! What?! At OUR house!?!?

I just had another family ask if they could drop by on Saturday on their way down south, YES! Another friend wants to come visit in July, my friend in a nearby state visited on her way home a couple weeks ago...I would have never wanted anyone to come to our other house!

Being free of my stuff has opened a whole big, huge new life to us and I'm so grateful for all the Lord has been doing for us in this area! I'm soooo excited to get even more streamlined, just think what great things might happen when I do!

Revelation!

I've been really having a difficult time "getting back to our lives" since the move March 1st.

I feel like we've lived here forever, it so feels like HOME. And in the past, my HOME has been UNtidy! Here, we've been doing SO MUCH BETTER!

I have unpacked ALL my boxes. The remaining boxes are my husband's book/dvd/music collection. I have several areas which need some attention, but it is just fine tuning. Very exciting, but still much to do (pantry isn't quite right, need to hang coat hooks, need to move a table outside).

The Lord spoke to me (thank You Lord for this)...that I am not to be trying to "get back to my life or routine" because that life is "over". It is time to establish a new life/routine, instead of looking back to the old one. This now positions me to be listening, rather than trying to figure it all out (because I had it "figured out" before we moved). I've just switched tracks...

HOW FREEING!

This is just such a relief for some reason. I feel released to move FORWARD instead of looking BACKWARD. Life is NOT the same, our rhythms are much different and it is just a different lifestyle, but with a lot of the same things we need to do.

This weekend, we cleaned for our Mothers to come for the day to celebrate Mother's Day. I didn't realize how messy the house had gotten over the past few weeks!

We've been busy getting the garden prepared, tasks take so much longer than I really think they will.

Tomorrow...FORWARD!

The Past Ten Days

The past ten days I've just fallen apart and slept a lot. I think I crashed from the intensity of packing so fast and moving. I've been unmotivated toward the last of the stuff...kinda like in the packing process, that last of the packing seems to last forever.

My husband has been unpacking his book and dvd collection, which brought many boxes back out into the playroom area. This has been discouraging for my unpacking process (since the playroom was really getting quite tidy!)

So...

today I want to do ONE GOOD THING towards unpacking. Just one thing today on top of keeping life moving forward.

I've also been putting a lot of focus towards the outside. This weekend we're planting blueberries and raspberries, what fun it will be this summer to have fruit to pick. The raspberries we're getting from a local garden, so they will fruit and the gallon size blueberries I bought last weekend seem at least three years old, but we'll see this summer if they produce berries!

UPDATE Friday night: I got our bedroom really cleaned up! There's only two small boxes that aren't unpacked yet! Hooray!

Unpacking Process

 

 

Several shelves in the pantry are super tidy! I LOVE all the space in the pantry!

We no longer have a linen closet, so it has been "fun" to try to find places to tuck the sheets, towels and blankets.

Yesterday we worked on getting "the studio" unpacked of my husband's books and dvds. We removed about a quarter of the boxes so he could actually get IN the room and to work he went emptying boxes! Now he has some books on the shelves and we SEE THE FLOOR! But, alas,  the playroom area is now full of boxes again!  But these are the LAST of the boxes! I think he has more books than space...hmmmm.

I'm really pleased with my desk and love all the open floor in the tiled area.

TV Room and Desk

The TV room has looked this tidy for about two weeks. Since it is the only room truly all set up, we do our pick-up every morning. We are just getting used to picking up now, it isn't really a struggle anymore AT ALL. We never let things get out of hand like we did before and since we have less stuff (in general), it is way easier. I LOVE living like this, so light and free!

I thought today would be a good day to deal with my desk, but now it seems like I've made more of a mess! I did decide to move my desk from the front window to the backside of the laundry room and I love it here! I am getting rid of many things that I used to keep on my desk and it is soooo TIDY! I'm just putting stuff in the giveaway box that I don't really want-freedom! There's a lot of open FLOOR SPACE in this area which we call the "flop room" because we thought at first we'd put a big rug and the kids could "flop around", but it hasn't worked out that way. I now call it "the room between rooms"!

I am so surprised at how nicely the TV room has come together. We don't use it very often, except when we have friends and family over (a couple times so far!) and for weekend movie nights. It works great as a pass-through room instead of being wasted as a whole big room we never go into (like previously).

Unpacking is nearly done (I've been saying that for awhile). I keep moving things around trying to find the right fit. Today was a huge step forward.